LBJ, Kissinger, Nixon, Gordon Brown, Cameron

Perhaps surprisingly, Kissinger wrote rather touchingly in his book White House Years about LBJ as the Democrat's time in the White House came to a close.  Kissinger was soon to be Nixon's National Security Advisor and was generously allowed access to White House information ahead of time by LBJ and Walt Rostow, so as to be ready to take up office when the time came.  He met with LBJ in the Oval Office and described the frustration palpably present in the very bones of this man who had so much to offer but had been confronted with issues and times he simply couldn't master.

LBJ supposedly ended the meeting with this (I write from memory, but the thrust is right): "May I offer you some advice, Professor?" (Kissinger leans forward to absorb the accumulated wisdom of a lifetime of public service) - "read the columnists carefully.  Whichever of your staff is described therein as dedicated, or able, or anything like that, then fire them: that's the person leaking against you."

Kissinger records that he left the meeting and the White House determined - sadly ironically, given the ultimate destination of the Nixon presidency - to avoid the isolation and fortress mentality of the Johnson administration, which was so destructive and unproductive.

I bring this up now because, to me at least, it seems an interesting parallel with Gordon Brown's No. 10.  There is, I gather, more than a hint of the suspicion and hostility towards the media / his own followers / his wider party / the other that characterised both LBJ's and Nixon's administrations in the Brown camp. 

Both Blair's and Cameron's relations with their respective parties / the media / political class / interested advisory bodies etcetera were and are (generally) better than that.  This, Kissinger would say, is not just ephemoral distraction from the real work of politics, or self-serving publicity-seeking, or attempts to protect one's own position.  The lesson Kissinger would have us draw is that the instinctively suspicious attitude to the media class and to the political world more widely isn't just a character flaw - the inability to reach out and to reassure and to co-opt is destructive, as it neglects to grease many of the wheels that government needs to turn in order to do the business of governing.

Admittedly, the LBJ/Brown parallel falls down when considering the causes of that terminal decline.  Kissinger viewed LBJ as the consummate domestic issues politician, whose abilities were fundamentally unsuited to the most important issue of his time (Vietnam).  Brown, who was supposedly an economic expert, has run aground on the most important issue of his time - the economy - so he has no such excuse.

Comments

[Chips of Brookfield]

I think you are a bit hard on old Lyndon. LBJ played the media as much as they plagued him. Johnson's advice about the columnists was quite right - the old Kennedy men were leaking against Johnson, often blaming him for advice they had given (or supported) in the first place.

Also, let's not forget that Kissenger was (is) no saint and we must treat much of what he writes with great care. He was the biggest leaker in the Nixon White House and was lucky not to end up in a cell in the Hague.

[Alex Deane]

Oh, I entirely accept that LBJ wasn't above some spinning himself! The excellent Caro biographies make that pretty clear... and you're right, too, about the Kennedy leaking - though LBJ tried covertly to tape a meeting with RFK - they were equally at it...

As for HAK, I accept that he was/is a media beast himself and that part of the purpose of his monolithic white house volumes was self-justification/glorification. There's still a world of insight in them though.

Finally, unsure about the Hague point. I know that lots of people SAY it. On the hard facts, though...?

Anyway, good to pick up a response on a perhaps more esoteric post than CR generally sees - so thanks Chips!

[Ewan Watt]

"Kissinger was soon to be Nixon's National Security Advisor and was generously allowed access to White House information ahead of time by LBJ and Walt Rostow, so as to be ready to take up office when the time came."

Would you not say that this "generous" offer was more down to Johnson's attempts to obtain information about Nixon's strategy in Vietnam? The only reason Nixon was allowed to use AF1 was because it was tapped and LBJ had deep suspicions that Nixon was undermining his attempts to establish some form of settlement.

I think it was also so that Nixon was more clued up on what was going on in Vietnam because LBJ wanted Humphrey to lose, although conceded that as a Democrat he'd never vote for Nixon.

However, I think your point is spot on and you've raised a point that I've never thought about. It's interesting to see how several members of 'Team Brown' have been described in the media. During the Mayoral election campaign and the current by-election, we have seen the press wax lyrically about Stephen Carter and how he has pleaded with Number 10 not to make class an issue in election races.

Makes you wonder who's giving the information!

[Alex Deane]

It's definitely right that lots of people were bugging lots of other people during this period, but I nevertheless think that it was "generous" (the term is Kissinger's) of the Johnson White House to allow HAK access to sensitive NSC materials: information being power etcetera, one normally expects to see it jealously guarded and withheld from political enemies.

I didn't know about the Air Force One bugging - or if I did, I'd forgotten it - thanks for filling in a lacuna in this US political obsessive's knowledge!

[Ewan Watt]

Re Caro books. I'm on 'The Means of Ascent' - I believe William Hague said it was one of his top 5 books. Cracking read.

[Alex Deane]

Master of the Senate - though it has a 250 page diversion onto the history of the Senate per se, rather than sticking to LBJ - is amazing.

One does hope, though, that Caro can see the project through - I mean, three ENORMOUS volumes and he hasn't got to the Presidency yet!

[Ewan Watt]

I think it's probably part of Caro's style. He does the same with 'Means'. He devotes a lot of the book to the politics and culture of Texas rather than Johnson himself. I think it does a lot for context, especially his campaigns against Papy O'Daniel and Coke Stevenson.