Word: goodwin
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Workers for Goodwin's Music Systems yesterday continued cleaning up from Wednesday morning's fire at 16-18 Eliot...
Memoirs out of Washington lately all seem to have an explosive revelation, the better to have a crack at the best-seller list. Lyndon Johnson's aide Richard Goodwin writes that the former President, near the end of his term, had become paranoid. Former White House Chief of Staff Donald Regan gave us Government- by-astrology; former Reagan Spokesman Larry Speakes told of making up quotes for the President. In addition, recent news stories have reminded the nation of Richard Nixon's ugly displays of anti-Semitism. Now comes Landslide: The Unmaking of the President: 1984-1988 by Reporters Jane...
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...
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...