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He spent the last two weeks at Travis Air Force Base, Ga., on his first summer stint with the 133rd Nation al Guard Tactical Fighter Squadron, where his regular assignment was to work in a clerical section under a Negro master sergeant. His superiors and buddies alike were unanimous in pronouncing him a regular guy and a hard worker. He handled requests for interviews by not giving any. He was photographed on KP duty, and pictures of Nugent tromping down garbage and washing dishes got wide circulation.
Crypto-Republican? Pat's discretion with the press obviously pleases the White House. "It's Luci's wedding," he maintains. When pressed, he has insisted: "This is my private life and I will not discuss it." Once, venturing a little further than usual when asked what it was like to be betrothed to a President's daughter, Pat replied succinctly: "I've never been engaged before." Nor, for that matter, has he ever previously been identified with the Democrats. No one will say whether Pat inherited his parents' Republican sympathies or how he voted in 1964—although Tillie Nugent offers the diplomatic guess that her son plumped for his future father-in-law. The suspicion remains that a crypto-Republican is marrying into the Johnson family. As Cartoonist Fischetti had a friend telling the President: "You're not losing a daughter, you're gaining a vote."
Try as he may to remain an ordinary citizen, the mantle of First Son-in-Law will inevitably shape his life. He is already, for example, chary of a career in the capital, where almost any job that he might take would leave him and the White House open to charges of influence. In Austin, at least, the newlyweds can take their place comfortably in the provincial squirearchy.
For Luci, the transition from White House Venus to Heritage Way housewife may not be as wrenching as it sounds. Despite her well-cushioned upbringing, life with Father has not always been easy, and she seems genuinely eager for a more relaxed and simple life. "I know there will be times of trouble," she says, "as there have been before, and I can't go running home to Mother and Daddy. But I feel we'll be able to solve the problems. We can take the bad with the good." Lady Bird's "philosopher" adds with hill-country fatalism: "You must learn to live the very day you've got; you're only going to have it once." Facing the veriest day of her young life this week, Luci was clearly determined to savor every precious moment of it, public and private.