Johnson Says He Won't Run

Johnson Says He Won't Run
Surprise Decision President Steps Aside in Unity Bid- Says 'House' Is Divided
By Tom Wicker
Special to The New York Times

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Washington, March 31 _ Lyndon Baines Johnson announced tonight: "I shall not seek and I will not accept the nomination of my party as your President."

Later, at a White House news conference, he said his decision was "completely irrevocable."

The President told his nationwide television audience.

"What we have won when all our people were united must not be lost in partisanship. I have concluded that I should not permit the Presidency to become involved in partisan decisions."

Mr. Johnson, acknowledging that there was "division in the American house," withdrew in the name of national unity, which he said was "the ultimate strength of our country."

"With American sons in the field far away," he said, "with the American future under challenge right here at home, with our hopes and the worlds' hopes for peace in the balance every day, I do not believe that I should devote an hour or a day of my time to any personal partisan causes or to any duties other than the awesome duties of this office, the Presidency of your country."

Humphrey Race Possible

Mr. Johnson left Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York and Senator Eugene J. McCarthy of Minnesota as the only two declared candidates for the Democratic Presidential nomination.

Vice President Humphrey, however, will be widely expected to seek the nomination now that his friend and political benefactor, Mr. Johnson, is out of the field. Mr. Humphrey indicated that he would have a statement on his plans tomorrow.

The President informed Mr. Humphrey of his decision during a conference at the latter's apartment in southwest Washington today before the Vice President flew to Mexico City. There, he will represent the United States at the signing of a treaty for a Latin-American nuclear-free zone.

Surprise to Aides

If Mr. Humphrey should become a candidate, he would find most of the primaries foreclosed to him. Only those in the District of Columbia, New Jersey and South Dakota remain open.

Therefore, he would have to rely on collecting delegates in states without primaries and on White House support if he were to head off Mr. Kennedy and Mr. McCarthy.

Former Vice President Richard M. Nixon is the only announced major candidate for the Republican nomination, although Governor Rockefeller has said that he would accept the nomination if drafted.

Mr. Johnson's announcement tonight came as a stunning surprise even to close associates. His main political strategists spent much of today conferring on campaign plans.

They were informed of what was coming just before Mr. Johnson went on national television at 9 P.M., with a prepared speech on the war in Vietnam.

As the speech unfolded, it appeared to be a strong political challenge to Mr. Kennedy and Mr. McCarthy, announcing measures that they had been advocating.

The President thus seemed to be acting in the political tradition of his office- demonstrating that his was the power to act while his critics had only the power to propose.

But Mr. Johnson was really getting ready to place himself in a more obscure tradition- that Vice Presidents who succeed to the Presidency seek only one term of their own. Before him in this century, Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge and Harry S. Truman followed that pattern.

'Willing to Pay Any Price'

Mr. Johnson ended his prepared speech and then launched into a peroration that had not been included in the printed text and that White House sources said he had written himself.

He began by quoting Franklin D. Roosevelt: "Of those to whom much is given- much is asked."

He could not say that no more would be asked of Americans, he continued, but he believed that "now, no less than when the decade began, this generation of Americans is willing to pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty."

This quotation from a celebrated passage of John F. Kennedy's inaugural address of Jan. 10, 1961, appeared to be a jab at Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who now is campaigning against the war in Vietnam.

The ultimate strength of America, Mr. Johnson continued, in the rather funereal voice and with the solemn expression that he had maintained throughout his 40-minute speech, is not powerful weapons, great resources or boundless wealth but "the unity of our people."

He asserted again a political philosophy he has often expressed- that he was "a free man, an American, a public servant and a member of my party- in that order- always and only."

In his 37 years of public service, he said, he had put national unity ahead of everything because it was as true now as it had ever been that "a house divided against itself by the spirit of faction, of party, of region, of religion, of race, is a house that cannot stand."

Mr. Johnson spoke proudly of what he had accomplished in the "52 months and 10 days" since he took over the presidency, after the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Tex., on Nov. 22, 1963.

"Through all time to come," he said. "I think America will be a stronger nation, a more just society, a land of greater opportunity and fulfillment because of what we have all done together in these years of unparalleled achievement."

"Our reward," he said, "will come in a life of freedom and peace and hope that our children will enjoy through ages ahead."

But these gains, Mr. Johnson said, "must not now be lost in suspicion and distrust and selfishness and politics_.I have concluded that I should not permit the Presidency to become involved in the partisan divisions that are developing."

And so it was that the man who won the biggest political landslide in American history, when he defeated Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona in the Presidential election of 1964, renounced the idea of a second term.

In American politics, a "draft" could override even words as strong as Mr. Johnson's, and he did stop short of the ultimate denial- the assertion that he would not run if nominated nor serve if elected.

But the first reaction of close associates and of other political observers here was that he meant what he said. Moreover, the candidacies of Senator Kennedy and Senator McCarthy would make a draft even of an incumbent President virtually impossible.

Roosevelt Move Recalled

Still, if Vice-President Humphrey does not enter the race, suspicion will undoubtedly be voiced that Mr. Johnson is only trying to stimulate a draft.

Some observers with long memories recall that in 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had Senator Alben W. Barkley of Kentucky read the Democratic National Convention a message in which Mr. Roosevelt said that he had "never had and has not today, any desire or purpose to continue in the office of President, to be a candidate for that office, or to be nominated by the convention for that office."

The convention nevertheless nominated Mr. Roosevelt for a third term, and he won.

Mr. Roosevelt was not opposed for nomination by any candidate considered as powerful as Senator Robert Kennedy, however. In addition Senator McCarthy appears likely to win the Wisconsin primary on Tuesday, after having made a strong showing in New Hampshire.

The low point to which Mr. Johnson's political fortunes have fallen was dramatized in a Gallup Poll published today. It showed that his conduct of his office had the approval of only 36 per cent of those polled, while his handling of the war in Vietnam was approved by only 26 per cent.

The war was unquestionably the major factor in Mr. Johnson's slump in public esteem. He began a major escalation in February, 1965, by ordering the bombing of North Vietnam, just a few months after waging a Presidential campaign in which he had convinced most voters that he would not expand what was then a conflict involving only about 16,000 noncombatant American troops.

Over the years since then, the war has required a commitment of more than half a million combat troops, an expenditure of about $30-billion a year and heavy American casualties.

It limited Mr. Johnson's expenditures for domestic programs, alienated many of his supporters in Congress and provoked a widespread and sometimes violent dissent- including draft card burnings, a march of thousands on the Pentagon last year, and ultimately the candidacies of Senators Kennedy and McCarthy.

'A Nasty Fight' Seen

Nevertheless, a close political associate of the President said tonight that Mr. Johnson had by no means been "forced" out of the race by his opponents, nor was it yet clear that he would fail to win renomination.

"It was going to be a nasty fight but he had a good chance to win it," was his summation of the political situation. He said that one factor in Mr. Johnson's decision probably was that "this war's upset the hell out of him" and as a result he "really didn't have his mind on his politics."

There was some speculation tonight that Mr. Johnson might believe he could work more effectively for peace in Vietnam if he were not a partisan candidate for re-election- despite the "lame duck" status that would confer on him.

Senator Albert Gore, Democrat of Tennessee, an old antagonist of Mr. Johnson, said the withdrawal as "the greatest contribution toward unity and possible peace that President Johnson could have made."

To achieve peace, he said, will require "concessions and compromises which would subject a candidate for public office to the charge of appeasement, surrender and being soft on the Communists."

In support of this thesis, Mr. Johnson's speech on Vietnam- which came before his withdrawal announcement- was notably conciliatory, although Senator Gore pointed out that "the President did not reveal a change in war policy tonight. He discussed only tactics- a partial bombing halt."

In the wake of the President's announcement, some observers here were recalling signals that they had failed to recognize.

Theodore White the journalist interviewed Mr. Johnson earlier this week and is reported to have said later that the President's remarks had a "valedictory" tone.

Others who have talked with the president lately have detected a note of "they can't take this away from me" when he discussed his domestic and other achievements.

There was little insight here tonight on why Mr. Johnson chose to announce a withdrawal rather than to fight for renomination. One clue may have been in the theme of national unity on which he chose to base his announcement.

Almost since he took office, and at least until the political pressures generated by the war in Vietnam became intense, Mr. Johnson had sounded that same theme of unity.

Early in his Presidency, he seemed to have built a "consensus" of Americans that was reflected in the more than 60 per cent of the vote he won in 1964.

As a reflection of that vote, he could work in 1965 and 1966 with a heavily Democratic, remarkably liberal Congress that passed some of the most far-reaching social legislation of the post-war era- medical care for the aged, voting rights for Southern Negroes, Federal aid to education, and a sweeping civil rights package.

Unity Theme Recalled

Mr. Johnson campaigned on a unity theme in 1964 and as far back as when he was the Democratic leader in the Senate, from 1952 to 1960, he frequently appealed for "closing ranks" and for "working together."

In 1964, typically, he appealed to the voters to gather in "one great tent" to work together for progress and prosperity and peace.

Thus he was eminently qualified to say, as he did tonight, that "as President of all the people, I cannot disregard the peril to, the progress of the American people and the hope and the prospect of peace for all people. So I would ask all Americans whatever their personal interest or concern to guard against divisiveness and all of its ugly consequences."

On that note, Mr. Johnson took his own personal step to "guard against divisiveness."

He surprised everybody, the way he always likes to do, and it probably pleased him most that the news did not leak out before he announced it himself.

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