The White House, if you see it from a distance, looks like an ordinary mansion. But inside, it is in every way colossal. That was my perception when I was twenty-five years old, beginning my 1966–1967 service as a White House Fellow. There were seventeen of us—sixteen young men and one young woman—all serving in different capacities. We came from all over the country. Some of us were married, some not. When we arrived, all of us were hopeful, all eager—and not a one of us was cynical. It was a sacred place: the White House. You may call it the “old-boy network” or the inner circle or whatever, but one is indeed an insider when one works there. One is witness to how decisions are being made—the most important decisions, I would venture to say, anywhere.
Not only was the White House itself colossal, but I, and everyone else there, was working for a colossus. Except that he was the leader of the free world, President Lyndon B. Johnson reminded me of my father Carl—the rough exterior did not reflect the quality of the man inside.
President Johnson had thick arms and hands. But when you shook his hand, you discovered that there was nothing behind it. With all the handshaking they have to do, politicians apparently learn to save their grip. We shook hands with President Johnson many times, my wife and I.
A reception in the White House was arranged for us new Fellows. We were introduced to the president’s cabinet officers. We met the First Lady, a warm and gracious woman. I felt right at home but, at the same time, off the planet. I also felt a great deal of ecstasy mixed with a tiny bit of dread. The parquet floors were gleaming. Servers stood around in crisp white uniforms. We could have whatever we wanted. The chandeliers were like diamonds, sparkling in the summer night. Sue wore a white dress. The red carpeting in the rear of the reception room was like a river. We introduced ourselves, trying to be humble and at the same time trying to make clear we were worthy.
We laughed. Oh, how hard we laughed at the jokes President Johnson told. Not that he was particularly funny, but we were young and awestruck. And power will make you do things you might not ordinarily do.
One day the president’s secretary called me in my office. The president wanted to see me. I thought I was done for. I tried to think about what I might have said or done wrong. When I went in to see him, he took me by the shoulders and brought me close. He had a way of doing this, like an uncle. He said he was very proud of me. I had been voted something or other, one of the best something, and he had heard about it. He was pleased that I was serving on his staff. To be touched by him, to please him—it was better than pleasing your father.
Sue thought I was becoming unhinged. I told her, no, no, this sort of thing happens all the time. The White House was a strange, haunting, magical place.
We Fellows wanted to stay neck deep in all this—to arrange ourselves near the president. More than that, we also wanted him to like to have us near him, to be listened to by him. Access to the president was the point, the purpose. Was the development of our own power part of it? I would be lying if I said it was not. It has been said about people like us Fellows that the common ingredients are pluck and purpose. To which might be added ambition.
I was a Kennedy man walking into a Johnson house—and as was widely known then, there was no love lost between President Johnson and President Kennedy’s brother Bobby, then a United States senator from New York. But working for President Johnson was a very big deal. This was the man who created an enduring legacy in civil rights and in Medicare and Medicaid. And yet…there was the war in Vietnam. During my time in the Johnson White House, my head was spinning, but my stomach was churning. It was a dreadful personal conflict for me.
In the White House, I worked with the Departments of Defense, State, Commerce, and others; with NASA; with information systems and biomedical research. I called leaders in various fields and set up meetings with them and then wrote up reports that might prove useful to the White House. I went on trips to Belgium, Luxembourg, Holland, France, Germany, England, and Italy.
I had to muster all the knowledge I had ever acquired. I discussed physics, especially the physics of sound; hospital technology; proprietary technological processes; the Belgian fair-trade agreements; a national software network. I drove with the head of a major American computer interest down the Amalfi Coast at reckless speeds, feeling the sea air on my face. I stayed at the Hotel des Indes, the Hôtel de Crillon, Hotel Königshof, Hotel Europa, and other hotels in which I could not have imagined I would ever find myself.
We Fellows attended formal dinners, informal dinners, and parties. At one party, a man did a burlesque dance; he went on to become Secretary of the Army. Everyone danced bawdily that night. The woman with the wig that flew off while dancing was my wife. She laughed, and everyone thought she was simply the greatest. (She
