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"Mah Preacher." Ambition helps, of course—and so does a degree of ruthlessness. Though Moyers is a natural loner with the sort of drive that would probably propel him to the top in any milieu, even his closest rivals for the President's favor have never accused him of using his influence unfairly. One official, who admitted recently to having "goofed one," said that Moyers went in to tell the President about it—without a word about who had actually made the blunder. "Johnson gave him a terrific chewing out," he recalls. "Moyers just stood there and took it and never passed it on to me."
Others have noted Moyers' capacity for absorbing a blistering rebuke from Johnson with the clinical detachment of a volcanologist measuring an eruption. He can do so because he is uncommonly sure of himself. There is an easy communion between the two men. Johnson kiddingly refers to Moyers as "mah Baptist preacher." Moyers, who was ordained to become a teacher, not a preacher, kids Lyndon right back. As the President tells the story, Moyers one day was saying grace before a White House dinner in such a low voice that he could hardly be heard. "Speak up, Bill!" bellowed Lyndon. "Speak up!" Murmured Moyers: "I wasn't addressing you, Mr. President."
On another occasion, when one of Lyndon's secretaries started a zealous campaign to save the great man's artifacts for posterity, Moyers stolidly refused to cooperate, throwing away all L.B.J.-initialed memos, scrawled notes and other Johnsoniana. Finally, after the lady had become persistent, Moyers ceremoniously handed her a bulging brown envelope. Inside was a gooey mess of chicken bones. Deadpanned Moyers: "That's what he had for lunch."
Nap Time. Johnson has had bad luck with some of his closest advisers. Bobby Baker turned out to be a money-hungry charlatan. Walter Jenkins, Moyers' overworked predecessor as top staff man, was arrested in a Washington Y.M.C.A. men's room and booked on a morals charge. Moyers is honest, resilient and, above all, shrewd enough to insist on getting away from his man-killing job whenever possible. He insists on spending all the time he can with his family. Invited to Camp David for a weekend with Lyndon and his entourage on one occasion, he said: "I'm sorry, Mr. President, but my wife and I have longstanding plans."
Important as it is, Moyers' role is often exasperated. He is no éminence grise, for Johnson is loath to delegate power; and when he does, it is never on a full-authority basis, as was the case with Dwight Eisenhower and Sherman Adams, or, to a lesser degree, with John F. Kennedy and Brother Bobby. The most Moyers can do is nudge the President, but he does so with less trepidation than anyone whose initials are not L.B.J. When the President got to talking at a recent luncheon, it looked as if he would ramble on until dusk. Moyers edged out of his chair, hovered pointedly at the President's elbow, thumbing through a sheaf of top-secret State Department papers. Finally he announced: "We are cutting into the President's nap time. It is really time to go." End of lunch.