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What may well be the most important power of a President, in the long run, is one that is neither defined nor even hinted at in the Constitution. "Presidential power," says Political Scientist Richard Neustadt, Director of the Kennedy Institute for Politics at Harvard, "is the power to persuade." Or, as Stanford Historian Thomas A. Bailey writes: "The Commander-in-Chief is also the Teacher-in-Chief. If he is to get the wheels to move and 'make things happen,' in Woodrow Wilson's phrase, he must educate the people."
Stirring Vision. In his application of naked power, Johnson is an acknowledged virtuoso as his Viet Nam critics ruefully concede. Despite thunderous criticism of his intervention in the Dominican Republic, the President's swift application of military strength followed by an intense diplomatic campaign proved, in the end, a successful maneuver. He has also applied indirect pressure with superb efficacy. Twice he used it to avert a war over Cyprus. His historic hot-line exchange with Kosygin during the Arab-Israeli War contained that conflict on terms acceptable to both the U.S. and Russia. Johnson's artful cajolery ended the rail crisis in 1964, and his masterful manipulation of Congress in the early days of his presidency helped him to clean up a log jam of domestic programs that had been forming since the days of the New Deal. He has also proved himself capable of remarkable restraint, particularly in the face of Charles de Gaulle's persistent provocations.
"It is when Johnson must educate the doubters to the wisdom of his course that he runs into trouble," observes TIME White House Correspondent Hugh Sidey. "Persuasion, education, inspiration these form an area of power that may be in this age almost more important than the constitutional authority. Johnson is essentially a manager and a manipulator. He knows where all the levers are and he knows how to use them. But when he must, by the sheer force of his intellect and his personality, develop that broad base of support essential to moving the country, he often fails dismally."
Even in this sphere he has succeeded magnificently on occasion. His Great Society speech at Ann Arbor in 1964 offered Americans a stirring vision. The moment in 1965 when he stood before Congress and, in a televised appeal for passage of his voting-rights bill, cast his lot for the Negro's demand for equality by declaring "We shall overcome," was the emotional high point of his presidency to date. His speech at Howard University in June 1965, calling on Americans "to shatter forever not only the barriers of law and public practice, but the walls which bound the condition of many by the color of his skin," was a rousing call to action.