COUNTRY, TOO, NEEDS A VICE-PRESIDENT
Some Americans abroad, finding Little else to point to with pride in the monstrous Dallas affair, in which the assassination of a president was followed by a lynching of the alleged killer in police headquarters, for all of America and a good deal of the rest of the world to see live on TV, have stressed the advantages of the American Way of immediately swearing in a new president. . Some French politicians were polite enough ‘to applaud briefly and to say that it.should be considered for adoption as another possible - improvement in the constitution granted to France by de Gaulle.
It is doubtful, however, that this bit of the much boasted American Way of Life is like ly. to catch on. The accompanying publicity does not seem to have taken into account the tastes of the audience that exists outside the United States,
For example, Godfrey Hodgson, writing from Washington for France Observateur [November 28] describes the arrival of Kennedy's body at the windswept airport the night of the assassination, The removal of the coffin from the plane was "macabre," . -
"Adding to the horror, Mrs, Kennedy appeared in the light of the projectors, still wearing her pathetic small strawberry outfit stained with the blood of her husband, The powers of the kingdom, the senators, the high functionaries, and the reporters -- who are calied here the representatives of the fourth estate -- rushed forward to shake the hand of the new president,
He had arrived, of course, on the same plane,
Others were even quicker on the draw. Jimmy Breslin of the New York Herald Tribune, in a November 28 Washington dispatch, reported that within five minutes after the assassination was confirmed, a lobbyist for "an important industry!" called the public information of a Senate subcommittee.
"It's terrible, isn't it?" said the dazed Senate employee.
"Yes. it is," the lobbyist said, "Now tell me something. . We would like to know what effect Kennedy's death is going to have on this investi-~ gation of our industry that you've been planning. Itd like to discuss the implications of this death,"
The atmosphere peculiar to the American power structure was evident even inside the plane that brought the dead Kennedy and his successor back to Washington, Federal judge Sarah Hughes swore in Johnson on the plane as President, He happened to be the same politician who had done his
utmost to prevent her from being named to the bench, He simply didn't have enough power to block Kennedy.
"She was weeping when she swore him in, and people were wondering whether she was weeping because of Kennedy or because she was making Lyndon - Johnson President,” — . an
A White House staff member told Breslin: “"On Friday night, while the body was. being prepared for burial, there were people sniffing around asking wnat kind of furniture I have in the office here so they could get an. idea of what they'll have when they take my job."
Things went very fast, according to Breslin, "On Saturday night, while the body of John F. Kennedy was lying in the East Room of the White House, while candlelight flickered against the wood of his coffin, workmen sent by some nonthinker [nonthinker?] were in the Presidentts oval office, pemoving the books and paintings and models of old frigates which Kennedy kept there, _ "They, took them to a storage room in the Executive Office Building across the street, Kennedy's rocking chair went, too." [Johnson's noolcing chair came in. ]
Efficient as it was, none of it really caught Kennedy's intimates by surprise. They know the system. They were born and bred in it, For example: ~~ : , oe oe:
‘Evelyn Lincoln, Mr. Kennedy's private secretary, Imew enough to get into her office Saturday night and clean out her desks and files and have everything moved over to an office across the street. She was getting out of the way before the first of the hungry people started piling into her office. . a
STUDENTS AND TEACHERS STRIKE IN FRANCE
PARIS, Nov. 50 == The National Union of Students of France [Union Nationale des Etudiants de France] and the Trade Unions of the Personnel of Higher Education [Syndicats des Personnels de 1'tEnseignement Sepertourl organized a one-week, nation-wide strike to protest the government's policies toward education which have led to both a lack of teachers and. School buildings, There is never enough money, it seems, while billions are being spent for the "force de frappe ‘Latomic striking force].
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