Lady Bird, GOLDWATER, & J. Edgar HOOVER had compassion for Walter JENKINS. Finally, LBJ did, too

[UTUSN]

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http://home.nyc.rr.com/alweisel/outwalterjenkins.htm

LBJ's Gay Sex Scandal

By Al Weisel
Out, December 1999, pp. 76-131

.... ...The president, who was attending the annual Al Smith dinner in New York that night, immediately asked Fortas to seek the resignation of his closest aide, despite pleas to wait from friends and advisers. Jenkins, groggy from the drugs he had been given, tendered his resignation without protest. Then Johnson summoned his pollster to determine the incident's effect on his re-election campaign. .... Lady Bird Johnson, however, knew exactly what to say. Against her husband's wishes, she issued her own statement of compassion and support for Jenkins. It was the only time she publicly defied her husband in their 39 years of marriage. ....

... Her emotional statement, which began, "My heart is aching today for someone who has reached the end point of exhaustion in dedicated service to his country," transformed the climate surrounding the scandal. In its wake, a host of newspaper editorials recommended compassion for Jenkins.

... the Jenkins scandal must have seemed like the trump card he'd been waiting for. But despite the advice of many in his campaign, Goldwater would not make an issue of Jenkins' arrest. The split in his camp�between the libertarian Goldwater, who would many years later come out in favor of gay rights, and the conservative moralists, who would evolve into today's Christian Right�was the genesis of a rupture that haunts the Republican Party to this day. ....

Califano says, "I heard Johnson say often that when he left the White House there were two things he was going to do: He was going to start smoking again, and he was going to throw his arms around Walter Jenkins and hug him. And he did it. He started smoking on the plane on the way back, and he met Walter Jenkins at the airport in Texas." Until his death in 1973, just days before the Paris peace accords ended America's involvement in the Vietnam War, Johnson never again turned his back on his old friend. Jenkins was a frequent guest at the LBJ ranch, where the former president spent the last years of his life, presiding over meetings of ranch hands instead of cabinet officers.

One day at the ranch, Carpenter recalls, the retired president was relaxing with a group of friends, including Jenkins. Oddly, he had begun to look like the hippies whose protests against the war had driven him out of office, letting his white hair grow long until it curled down to his shoulders. The burdens of office lifted, he seemed momentarily at peace. "It's worth being out of office," Johnson remarked, "to have Walter back with us."■

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[JohnnyLib2]

1. Ah, Barry Goldwater

I actually used to respect some Republicans. Thanks for reminding me of one reason why. It's been a long, long time.

LBJ, was a powerful, dominating politician who actually learned and grew in some areas. Boy, has that been lacking for 6 1/2 years.

:(

[UTUSN]

2. Yes, I should have provided my context. I thought of "CRAIG, you're no Walter JENKINS"

for the subject title. JENKINS had a truly consensual contact, not with a cop--in fact, it is a mystery why they just didn't get a room. CRAIG continues to be arrogant without acknowledging his own responsibility.

But my first pause was at Lady Bird's grand humanity, which doesn't get enough attention. I was O.K. with GOLDWATER's old fashioned decency, but nothing can make me have approving thoughts about J.Edgar.

In the second, slower reading, I was moved by JENKINS' story as a whole, and then by LBJ's fulfilling of his overall Democratic soul (with the exception of Vietnam).

So I've probably now lost the points I gained before my explanation.