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Yet Goodwin, who helped name and fashion so much of the policy of that era (John Kennedy's Alliance for Progress, L.B.J.'s Great Society, Eugene McCarthy's crusade of dissent, Bobby Kennedy's glowing visions so tragically destroyed), cannot be dismissed. His controversial assessment of Johnson is embedded in the longer narrative of Goodwin's journey into power and out again. The book is a velvety recitation of being at the center but never of it, the brilliant crafter of ideas and words, too arrogant and defiant to last in any job very long but always sought by those scaling the heights. A lawyer by training, Goodwin read books on psychiatry and recounted the episodes of his diary to friends who were psychiatrists. Goodwin claims that another Johnson aide, Bill Moyers, had the same misgivings and also consulted practicing psychiatrists. "In all cases," writes Goodwin, "the diagnosis was the same: we were describing a textbook case of paranoid disintegration, the eruption of long-suppressed irrationalities." Moyers has refused comment on Goodwin's account.
Goodwin's case is built on Johnson's obsession that the world was being swept by Communists. L.B.J.'s enemies of all stripes included not only guerrilla leaders in distant countries but "those Kennedys" or "those Harvards." According to Goodwin, Johnson once told him, " 'You know, Dick, the Communists are taking over the country. Look here,' and he lifted a manila folder from his desk. 'It's Teddy White's FBI file. He's a Communist sympathizer.' " At another time: "The Communists already control the three major networks and the 40 major outlets of communication." Thus, by Goodwin's account, did L.B.J.'s fantasies propel the country into Viet Nam.
Walt Rostow, Johnson's National Security Adviser, last week scoffed at the assertions. Former Secretary of State Dean Rusk called the account "utter nonsense." Jack Valenti, a loyal friend who served Johnson in the White House for three years, suggested that almost anything written about Johnson, including Goodwin's story, was true at one time or another. "He was the same as Lincoln, Napoleon, Churchill and other notable leaders," Valenti retorted. "He was an elemental force. He was eccentric. He used words and body language as weapons. He kept people off guard. But he knew what he was doing all the time."
George Reedy, Johnson's onetime press secretary and a wise counselor for years, said L.B.J. did have paranoid tendencies at times. "Goodwin is reporting accurately," said Reedy. "But I don't think Dick really knew Johnson." Horace Busby, another of Johnson's old-timers, declared, "If you did not know Johnson, you would think he was nuts."
Goodwin's postpublication rebuttal is that the Johnson loyalists were too close. They became hardened to his dangerous behavior, denying the reality of what was happening to the man. "Johnson's excessive secrecy and lying, his suspicion, fit into a pattern that made it hard for him to make proper decisions," said Goodwin last week. "The final irony is that the only guy who saw how disastrous the Viet Nam War could be was Johnson himself." In the book, Goodwin quotes a gloomy Johnson proclaiming, "I'm going to be known as the President who lost Southeast Asia." Paranoid or not, Johnson was painfully aware of the tragedy unfolding at his hands.