Timeline 102762 USA 05 The American Dream by James Philip

Author:James Philip [Philip, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-08-11T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

Thursday 18th December 1964

The White House, Pennsylvania

President Lyndon Johnson was feeling a little the worse for wear, jet-lagged after his return from a flying forty-eight hour visit to the West Coast. The purpose of the visit had been to visit the base of SUBRON 15 – Submarine Squadron 15 – at Alameda, in San Francisco Bay; and to attend the re-commissioning of the giant aircraft carrier USS Saratoga (CV-60) at San Diego.

As his wife, Lady Bird had been unwell she had detailed his eldest daughter, Lynda, to ride ‘shot gun’ on him and to ensure that he did not slip back into any of his ‘bad old ways’ while he was out of her sight.

Johnson guffawed to himself about that.

What his wife had failed to take into account was the fact that their daughter had - not entirely unpredictably because she was a clever, fine looking unattached young woman - instantly became the centre of attention wherever she went with her craggy, crusty old has-been father, wholly negating the object of her accompanying him in the first place.

Not that Johnson had taken advantage; apart from a couple of cigarettes and ‘social’ drinks in several Navy Messes. Ironically, all things considered he would have let himself go more if he had not been so preoccupied keeping an eye on his daughter. Like any father he worried that so much attention from so many young, virile, unreasonably presentable young men might turn his eldest child’s head. Lynda was a sensible girl but what father ever relied on a thing like that?

The visit to Alameda had included a tour of the USS Theodore Roosevelt (SSBN-600) one of the boats that had played a key part in the October War. It had been chilling walking down ‘Sherwood Forest’ the passage between the missile tubes.

Lynda had not dressed for a tour involving clambering up and down vertical ladders but everybody seemed to have averted their eyes at the appropriate moment; that was the Navy for you!

The ceremony on the vast empty – well, apart from a couple of thousand crewmen – flight deck of the Saratoga had been a more straightforward affair. Ted Sorensen had written him a couple of short valedictory addresses to choose from and he had adopted for the more anodyne of the pair.

The Saratoga was the first of the super carriers to re-commission, even thought she was still three to six months away from ‘operational’ and would – due to crewing and aircraft availability schedules - actually probably re-join the fleet shortly behind her sister ship, the Ranger (CV-61) in the spring.

The Ranger had decommissioned but not completed de-activation when the ‘Peace Dividend’ had been consigned to the dustbin of history, whereas the Saratoga had actually been fully mothballed at Bremerton by the time the turnaround arrived.

The Midway, Oriskany and the Bon Homme Richard would have to hold the line in the meantime, although the last of these was reportedly about to head back to Kobe for a spell in dry dock.

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