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-I MY UNCLe? X THOUGHT
He Wa& diMMY’S UNcie. 1
Saying ‘shut up’
results in job loss
by Art Buchwald
I was sitting in Lafayette Park facing
the White House when an unshaven man
in a rumpled suit, and no shoe laces, sat
down next to me, and looked hungrily at
my lunch.
“Would you care for a bite?” I asked.
“If it isn’t too much trouble,” he said,
“I’m unemployed, as you can probably
gather.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said sincere
ly. “Where did you work?”
He pointed to the White House. “Over
there.”
“I didn’t know the White House was
laying off people,” 1 said.
“Ordinarily they aren’t. But they
made an exception in my case. 1 was the
guy who invited Gary Arnold to attend
the President’s pep rally in the East Room
for congressional candidates.”
“Gary Arnold? You mean the fellow
who started haranguing Ronald Reagan
about his tax program, until the Presi
dent lost his temper and told him to ‘Shut
up.’”
“1 hat’s the one. I sent out the invita
tion to him in San Jose, Calif.”
“Here have another sandwich,” I said.
“Didn’t you have any idea he would make
trouble when you invited him?”
“What did I know about Gary Arnold?
He was just another pretty face on a com
puter. My orders were to invite all the
Republican faithful to the White House,
so Reagan could give them a pep talk for
their congressional campaigns. I figured
anyone from California was a team
player.”
“You would think that,” I said. “It
wasn’t your fault he became a household
word.”
“That’s yvhat I told Meese, Deaver and
Baker. But they said I should have smel
led he was an off-the-wall conservative. I
believe the thing that really got to them
was when Arnold started shouting ‘We
have a Tylenol taxing situation here, and
we have Reagan-mortis setting into the
nation’s body politic.’”
“He shouldn’t have said that in the
I handed him my salt shaker. “So just
because a hothead congressional candi
date dumped all over the White House
Republican party in the East Room in
front of the TV cameras and press, you
were given your walking papers. Didn’t
you at least try to take your case to the
President?”
“I did as soon as the meeting was over.”
“What did he say?”
“He told me to shut up.”
The Battalion
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Let’s leave Andy and Koo alone]
by Maxwell Glen
and Cody Shearer
It’s truly like something out of “Mas
terpiece Lheatre.” But, unlike another
whirlwind royal romance, it won’t pro
voke any forthcoming television specials.
Yes, we’re talking about the affair of
Andrew and “Koo.” And, no, we are not
amused. A free-spirited American
woman steals the heart of a sailor-prince
and, together, the couple earns the im
mediate condemnation of a voyeuristic
world.
The affair began naturally enough
eight months ago when Kathleen Norris
Stark, a 25-year-old actress, scolded Eng
land’s Most Eligible Bachelor in a chic
London disco, known as Tramps, for
talking loudly. Bells rang. Somewhere,
strings could be heard. For the moment,
love had conquered again. Then, as Alis
tair Gooke might have had it, Andrew
was called off to war.
When the prince returned (victorious
ly, and, some said, a hero) he revived the
dormant relationship, spending every
available moment w ith Koo at the theater
and the like. Soon, as most any other
self-respecting 22-year-old would have
done, Andrew planned a getaway, ex
penses permitting.
With his parents’ knowledge, Andrew
secured the use of Aunt Margaret’s Geor-
gian-style house on a remote Caribbean
island, where he was to fly via British
Airways with his beloved, under the
name of “Mr. and Mrs. Cambridge.”
Within days of the couple’s departure,
however, London’s Daily Express col
umnist, William Hickey, began to reveal
all of the benchmarks in Koo’s short life.
It wasn’t long before the worldwide press
was running color photos f rom the blue
movie “Emily,” in which Koo engages in
some energetic shower scenes with
another woman.
By the time reporters finished their
“investigations” three days later, it was
clear that Koo was a woman with both a
history and a past. Everyone from
Brighton to Brisbane could detail the
poor girl’s films, flings and features. I
seemed as if a kind of instant indignation
would surely see the prince publicly
scolded — perhaps even grounded — bv
his mum at Buckingham Palace, right af
ter the changing of the guard.
Andy ’n’ Koo are a good story if only
because some percentage of English-
speaking people probably wouldn’t pass
up the chance to maroon themselves on a
tropical island with either a prince or a
soft-porn princess. And, if past experi
ence is any measurement, the tabloid
scribblers on Fleet Street should have no
trouble stretching this scandal well into
November.
from the rules. When theytripiii
if they’ve deliberately shattered!
artifact.
The blame for generation,ilcot
course, is shared. From day une,||
strive to steer their kids intot
clot lies, schools and circles—a
encouraging that which makes!!
piest. Sinc e happiness is inevita
cated on parental conditions,I
these courses aren't always]
But if there’s a tendencytoo
youthful freedom to makei
many young folks also let theirt
the best of them. Even if And
ably was among the lasttolearnd
friend’s background, he oughti
been the only one todecidet
his affairs.
But at the risk of sounding like apolog
ists, we think Andrew and Koo deserve a
break. First, they’re only doing what
comes naturally. Moreover, few ever trot
as gracefully from adolescence into
maturity as their parents would have
liked. Most of us have stumbled, and re
peatedly.
Except in extreme cases, most young
people try to honor their parents’ best
wishes, even as they knowingly stray
Indeed, it seems as if therov;
may already understand that
stately I louse of Windsor doesnl
missteps and false starts (thefrt
in fact, helps explain whyCharle
were such a smash hit lastyeat:
Princess Margaret’s almost nigtt
pades alongside rock and filmse
daughter Anne’s continuing‘e!
merit” from her husband, Marki!
ly seems likely that the Crownisj
blush for long over the sun
prince.
So, as we watch the magicof.fi
Koo unfold, we’ll take itforwhaii
to be — two healthy young pet
joying each other’s company-
than two irresponsible sex-cra
Those who suggest the latter
der than they can see.
President’s house.”
“Look, you can keep the left-wing
kooks out of the White House, but where
do you draw the line on the right-wing
fringe?”
“You should have been tipped off
when you saw the guy had a heard. A
conservative with a beard is much more
dangerous than a liberal with one.”
“We know that now, but we didn’t
then. In fairness to me, he was wearing a
suit and a tie.”
“That should have been your clue. A
right-wing guy with a beard wearing a
suit and tie is bound to cause trouble in
the White House. You want an apple?”
“I’d rather have your banana. I haven’t
told you the whole story. After I invited
all the congressional candidates for the
pep rally I got a brainstorm. I suggested
the President make it a media event and
invite in all the j^ress and television
cameras to cover it. I said the President
wouldn’t have a more loyal audience in
the East Room during his entire term,
and they would pitch him nothing but
sof tballs so he could articulate his prog
ram. The guys around the Oval Office
thought I was a political genius, until
Gary Arnold said the Emperor had no
clothes on.”
“I have a hard-boiled egg,” I said.
“The way 1 see it, you did everything
right, and they’rejust making you the fall
guy because the Republicans can’t keeji
their right-wing fanatics under control.”
“That’s nice of you to say. You don’t
have any salt for the hard-boiled egg do
you?”
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LBJ - a paradox, says Ree
by Helen Thomas
United Press International
WASHINGTON — Former White House
press secretary George Reedy, to get a lot off
his chest, has written a book about Lyndon B.
Johnson.
Reedy calls it a “memoir” and many of
those memories obviously were very painful
for him. It could have been called “Feelings.”
Johnson would have hated the Reedy liter
ary catharsis. Nor will other members of the
Johnson family like it.
LBJ comes off as a towering political figure
on the landscape of American history, but the
accent is on the negative in terms of his per
sonality and conduct.
He sees Johnson as a paradox, as most close
observers did — a mass of contradictions. He
speaks of the tall Texan as paranoidal with a
deep inferiority complex.
The book is “Lyndon B. Johnson — a
Memoir” by George Reedy, Nieman profes
sor of journalism at Marquette University.
Of Johnson, he writes, there is “no doubt
about his nastiness in dealing with individual
human beings. But neither can there be any
real doubt about his sincerity in trying to do
something for the masses. His feelings for
blacks, Ghicanos, dirt farmers were not
feigned. He felt their plight and suffered with
them — as long as they did not get too close.”
He pulls no verbal punches on the nation’s
36th president, describing him as “a bully,
sadist, lout and egotist” whose ambition and
personality was formed under the domina
tion of a strong stern mother Reedy called an
“unrelenting snob.” “I, myself, am glad to get
him out of my life at last,” Reedy wrote.
“I do not believe anyone could be happy
around him for any length of time. But I
would be very happy to see him back in gov
ernment — in a position where he could pick
uja the loose ends as he did in 1952 and in
1963 (years when he became Senate majority
leader and president), and weld them into a
unified whole.”
He said that Johnson was abusive and
“cruel even to people who had virtually
walked the last mile for him.” Many times
Reedy did that.
Without naming names, he refers to John
son’s womanizing patterns and speaks of his
“boudoir” activity and heavy drinking at
times.
“Of all of LBJ weaknesses, perhaps the
most important was his inability to under
stand the press,” Reedy said.
He said that journalists “totally baffled”
Johnson and that in the White House tensions
mounted between the president and the
press. Johnson had five press secretaries but
barely tolerated any. He thought that public
discussion was dangerous government, and
that ways should be found to divert reporters’
attention.
“Our relationship became more and more
tenuous, especially when I told him privately I
thought Vietnam was going to be a disaster,”
Reedy wrote.
Reedy left the Johnson White House but
remained on fairly good terms. Later, howev
er, he wrote “The Twilight of the Presidency,”
a book he insisted was not about Johnson. In
the book he wrote that “even someone who is
absolutely bananas could be elected
Apparently, that did it. Johnsonti
sonally, and never spoke to Ree.
although a reconciliation seemed (*
when LBJ died in 1973.
Whenever Reedy feels too
his former boss, he says, “I can always
to the era of McCarthy and the
rights debate and decide that work!
was worthwhile.
“On both occasions, oursocietym
desperately and on both occasions
through.”
■kins!
etc
In an interview, Reedy summed
ambivalent emotions about Johnson:
think he was the greatest leader
greatest heel.”
Berry’s World by Jim Berr
) 1982 by NEA. Inc.
“Sure, I’m for a ‘flat tax.’ Why not! I’m just
about FLA T as it is now. ”
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