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Mitchell's Beethoven, Stern's Mozart and Cliburn's Liszt were impeccable, and a Duncan-Coleman medley from Gershwin's Porgy and Bess got rousing cheers, despite complaints next day from critics over the absence of works by living American composers. There were plenty of living celebrities at the reception that followed: Marian Anderson, Samuel Barber, Aaron Copland, Paul Horgan, Peter Kurd, Jasper Johns, Erich Leinsdorf, Robert Lowell, Gian Carlo Menotti, Anna Moffo, Mark Rothko, W. D. Snodgrass, Edward Steichen, Richard Wilbur, Herman Wouk and Minoru Yamasaki.
They mingled and they ate and they drank. When things loosened up, the crowd made room for indefatigable Luci Baines, who, with her father looking proudly on, gyrated through a vigorous Watusi, an arduous Frug, to such notable compositions as Monkey Climb and Walk Right In.
We're in the money, we're in the money . . .
On Inauguration Day, along Pennsylvania Avenue, the hawkers with buttons and banners and balloons, the concessionaires with hot dogs and soda pop and hot coffee, shuffled into position. Scores of loudspeakers crackled with numbers like We're in the Money and Hello Lyndon. Reporters, photographers and the umbilical-twined television crews crept into their high blinds. Security guards, more than 5,000 of them, roamed through the area. Agents eyed windows to make sure they were shut in accordance with instructions is sued days before. From rooftops, from dark corners, behind Corinthian columns, Secret Service men with guns and electronic gadgetry and TV scanners gazed at the growing throngs. They guarded the speaker's stand in the east plaza of the Capitol, where armor plate braced the floor and 1½-in.-thick bullet proof glass formed a waist-high railing.
O beautiful for spacious skies . . .
The Johnsons arrived at the Capitol riding in the same limousine in which Kennedy had been shot, now covered with a new roof of steel and bulletproof glass. In the car with Lyndon and Lady Bird was North Carolina's Democratic Senator Everett Jordan, an old friend. Lyndon was whisked to a private office off the Rotunda, where he inserted his contact lenses. Then he walked to the platform. The temperature was 38°,* but neither Johnson nor Humphrey wore an overcoat.
The marches were played, the prayers were made, and Soprano Leontyne Price sang America, the Beautiful. Humphrey, visibly nervous, was sworn in by House Speaker John McCormack, who now, after 14 months, was relieved of his interim role as presidential successor. At 12:03, Lyndon Johnson took his place before Chief Justice Earl Warren. Across the Potomac, cannon boomed a 21-gun salute. Lady Bird, gazing steadily into Lyndon's eyes, stood between the two men, holding the Johnson family Bible. After repeating the first phrase of his oath, Lyndon realized that he had forgotten to put one hand on the Bible and raise the other; he corrected that, and continued the recitation slowly and so softly that he could scarcely be heard when he concluded, "So help me God." Finishing, he looked at Lady Bird; she squeezed his arm. The President turned to the crowd and be gan: "My fellow countrymen . . ."