THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 11, 1994 TAG: 9409110048
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ALEC KLEIN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: AUSTIN, TEXAS LENGTH: Long : 142 lines
A quarter-century ago, he was the dashing young Marine captain who stole the heart of the daughter of the most powerful politician on the planet.
Today, this spit-shined White House honor guard is locked in time, staring out of a photograph on display in the recreated Oval Office at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library in Austin.
It is one of the few traces of Charles Spittal Robb in Texas, far from the battleground of the most closely watched election in the land, Virginia's four-way U.S. Senate race.
But the long arm of former President Johnson, extending across time and terrain, has reached out to give a Texas-sized boost to his son-in-law, Chuck Robb, the Democratic senator from Virginia fighting for re-election.
Johnson loyalists have whipped out their wallets, slapping down thousands in campaign contributions. Lady Bird Johnson, the former first lady who whistle-stopped forher late husband, came to Virginia this week to do the same for her daughter's husband. And the Johnson inner circle is planning an October shindig for their partner Robb at the LBJ ranch outside of Austin.
``If he loses the race, it's not going to be because his family didn't help him!'' roared George Christian, Johnson's former press secretary, who chipped in $1,000 to the campaign. ``People associated with Johnson like to see people associated with Johnson succeed, whether it's politics or something else - it's like a clan.''
More than 20 years after his death, Johnson still keeps watch in pictures hanging from the walls of his gallery of friends. ``To George Christian, who got me in this mood,'' the president inscribed on a black and white photo of himself leaning forward intensely, his left hand on his knee, a vexed expression on his face.
``Texas is famous for a lot of things, and one of those things is loyalty,'' Christian said. ``We play politics hard and we believe in it.''
The Johnsonites, however, are only one set of players in this national spectacle unfolding on the Virginia political stage. More than 70 percent of Robb's individual contributions to date - in excess of $1 million - come from out of state, reports show. Republican nominee Oliver L. North has an even higher percentage of support beyond the state's borders - 85 percent, according to records of itemized contributions.
It is almost as if Virginia just happens to be the site of a nationwide ideological tug-of-war between Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, set against the backdrop of a cult of personality. And the people of Texas have responded - to both sides - more than most.
``North strikes a chord with me,'' said Martin L. Allday, a World War II Bronze Star recipient, friend of former President Bush and lifelong Republican from Austin.
``North is a patriotic American,'' Allday said in defense of his $250 campaign contribution. ``His testimony before a mean-spirited Congress, and his activities since, make me proud to be an American. He tells it like it is with a passion for this country.''
North and Robb have each netted more than $100,000 in individual contributions from the Lone Star state.
Austin citizens alone have tallied $22,150 for Robb, reports show, topping his contributions in Virginia cities like Roanoke, Chesapeake, Newport News and Vienna.
Robb owes a special debt to Austin because the LBJ legacy has touched so many lives in the Texas capital: friends from the president's college days as well as sorority sisters and fellow campers of Lynda, Robb's wife and Johnson's eldest daughter.
The Austin link to LBJ is like something out of ``Forrest Gump'': Everyone, it seems, has rubbed elbows with the president, captured in living room photographs, handwritten notes and even a wall trophy:
``This deer killed by Leslie Carpenter in the presence of Senator Lyndon B. Johnson . . . in the hill country near Johnson City at a distance of 287 paces at 9:04 a.m. November 23, 1955.''
``You pay your dues to the man who introduced you to the political world you believe in,'' said Liz Carpenter, the wife of the man who shot that deer but better known as Johnson's former executive assistant and the first lady's former press secretary. ``We would support Chuck if he was running in Alaska.''
At 74, Carpenter is among the graying Johnsonites who worked for the man and remain intimately wired in politics - from the heights of high-rise office suites and dramatic hillside homes. The ties that bind them are still deeply partisan:
``PARKING FOR DEMOCRATS ONLY ALL OTHERS WILL BE TOWED,'' declares a mock street sign in Carpenter's study. ``Pass the president's health security plan,'' reads the bumper sticker on the back of her motorized wheel chair.
North, the GOP nominee, is naturally not welcome in Carpenter's Democratic habitat: ``I certainly think it would be disgraceful to find him representing Virginia in the Senate,'' she remarked, thus giving more cause for her $250 contribution to Robb's campaign.
And yet Carpenter and other Johnson adherents acknowledge Robb would not be in their political orbit had it not been for his marriage into the Johnson family. Even more, they recognize the vast differences between Johnson and Robb in temperament and style.
``Chuck Robb's very friendly but contained,'' said Shannon H. Ratliff, an Austin attorney who contributed $500 to the Virginia senator's campaign. ``There was nothing contained about President Johnson.''
Ratliff speaks from experience. As a teenager working as a gofer to then-Sen. Johnson, he got a good Texas mouthful for pausing one day to watch his boss from the gallery. ``He sent an aide to ask what I was doing up there. The senator just asked whether I had enough to do, and he wanted to know why I was lollygagging around.''
Such was the brash Texas charm that endeared Johnson to his friends. But, they say, he had a secret weapon in Lady Bird, his soft-spoken counterpart who continues to do what she can, only now for her Virginia kin.
Despite a stroke and impaired vision, at 81, ``she is the center of activity,'' said Harry J. Middleton, a former Johnson speech writer who now directs the LBJ library. ``She is the matriarch of the extended family.''
Lady Bird Johnson can no longer give speeches, but she still insists on at least making campaign appearances for the Robbs.
``She calls it a call of the heart when Lynda asks her to do something for them'' on the campaign, said her longtime assistant, Betty L. Tilson. ``This year, she says it's going to be the fight of their lives.''
Indeed, Lady Bird has kept up with the pace of the campaign enough to fear ``the other two candidates might pull away votes for Chuck,'' Tilson said. The unnamed candidates are independents L. Douglas Wilder, a former Democratic governor, and J. Marshall Coleman, a former GOP state attorney general.
But there is at least one intangible which only Robb can claim - his familial tie to the magic of the White House, sealed in his Oval Office photograph and chronicled in an archival film of his courtship with and marriage to LBJ's daughter.
``Chuck and I played bridge together . . . That's really how we met, over a bridge table,'' says a vibrant, young Lynda in the film. The camera follows the young lovers strolling arm-in-arm under a tree for a kiss . . . strapping Chuck playing quarterback in touch football . . . shaking hands with well-wishers and diplomats . . . at a costume party. . . . And then there is President Johnson, in a tuxedo, toasting the groom at a party before the wedding:
``I suppose that all fathers worry a little bit about the men who go out with their daughter, and I'm no exception,'' the president said. ``But the job that I hold does have some advantages. Temporary, I realize.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
From left, Charles S. Robb, his wife, Lynda Bird, Lady Bird and
Lyndon B. Johnson, Luci Johnson and her husband, Patrick Nugent, in
the 1960s.
KEYWORDS: U.S. SENATE RACE VIRGINIA CANDIDATES CAMPAIGN
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