Lyndon Baines Johnson, the President Of the United, States, was sitting on a small couch in the Oval Office. Following the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy twenty days before, Johnson had acceded to the presidency. This was enough time for Johnson to grow to like what he was doing. The President was holding a squat glass dark withKentucky sour mash bourbon whiskey. He had removed his jacket, revealing that he held up his trousers with suspenders. And he had draped his arm on the back of the couch and his right leg on the cushion.
Walter Cronkite, reporting the “Evening news,” spoke of events that caused the President of theUnited States to shake his head and mutter an obscenity. And then the CBS Broadcasting System paused for the delivery of a commercial message.
As the President raised his bourbon to his mouth, the door to the Oval Office opened.
“Colonel Felter, ‘Sir,'” the President’s secretary announced”
She had been watching the CBS news on a small television in her office, not so much in order to pay attention to the news but to watch for a commercial. The president would prefer not to be interrupted while the news was on the screen. The President looked over his shoulder at the open door.
