President Johnson Visits Malaysia

On October 30, 1966, President Johnson, following stopovers in Vietnam and Thailand, became the first U.S. President to visit Malaysia. He stayed for 21 hours, and left an indelible impression on its citizenry.  Let me explain.

Some weeks before his arrival, an advance team of officials showed up in Kuala Lumpur, wearing dark suits and dark glasses, communicating with walkie-talkies, presumably checking the route for his visit.  I was teaching at Victoria Institution at the time, and its teachers and students could talk of nothing else.  Were these guys CIA agents?  Were they spies?  What were they looking for?  Speculation was rife, and wild.

And so he arrived, in the majestic blue and white Air Force One, with Air Force Two right behind, full of reporters and luggage.  We Kuala Lumpur Peace Corps Volunteers met the planes as they landed.  We had been chosen to help with the logistics of getting everybody from the airport to the hotel.  My assignment was to ride locked inside one of the vans delivering luggage from the planes to the hotel (only an American could be trusted with this security detail).  In turn, I was permitted to join the line greeting President Johnson.  A photo was taken of me shaking President Johnson's hand.  I used this photo in a Seasons Greeting card.  I sent one to my very right wing Aunt Patty; she was not amused.

Then the trouble began. Ten minutes after I returned to my room, two more volunteers came hustling in, and reported seeing the start of an anti-American riot in town, which eventually involved over 500 demonstrators, and which ended in about 100 arrests, a dozen injuries, and one death. Elsewhere, American flags were torn down and trampled, the City Bank of New York was stoned, and considerable damage was inflicted on the government buildings along Batu Road in the center of town. We decided to sit the afternoon out at home. I later learned that demonstrations were simultaneous staged in Ipoh, Penang, Port Swettenham, Seremban, and Klang. These Chinese were organized! Yesterday's was about the fifth demonstration in Kuala Lumpur since I arrived, and surely the most serious. It is a real shame that the only death connected with Johnson’s tour had to take place in Malaysia, perhaps the most pro-West, pro-American country of them all.

Sunday evening, after a Thai lesson by a soft-spoken Bangkok beauty at the YWCA, we volunteers on the baggage detail were told to get to the penthouse of the Merlin hotel for a Sunday night treat. The treat turned out to be an extremely candid, informal hour-and-a-half discussion with Bill Moyers. Yadda yaada. I’ll send you the pictures of him and me in a few weeks. I cannot tell you how impressed I and the other volunteers were with Bill Moyers. Johnson picked a winner for his right-hand man. For your interest, here are some of his comments:

When the President's short stay was over, and he had flown on to South Korea, Bill Moyers, his press secretary, invited us PCV's up to his hotel room to thank us for our services, and to explain how the visit had turned out.  

He began by describing Johnson's faux pas of sitting cross-legged in front of the King of Malaysia with the bottom of his foot pointing at the King.  A photo of this no-no appeared on the front page of the Malay Mail, Malaysia's most read newspaper.

Faux pas #2 and #3 were related: Johnson's entourage gave out miniature busts of the President to Malaysian officials (Islam considers it a form of idolatry  - worship of physical objects - which is inconsistent with their monotheism); and bottles of bourbon (drinking alcohol is forbidden in Islam).

Johnson committed faux pas #4 at "Kampong LBJ": a nearby village renamed in his honor.  He was supposed to be invited into a couple's home to share a tea with the husband, served by his wife.  Instead Johnson, with one arm around the husband and another around his wife, steered them to a window, where he encouraged the press entourage to take some pictures.  Very bad.  You don't skip the tea offering.  And you definitely don't put your arm around another husband's wife.  The resulting picture, with Johnson between two tiny frightened Malays, of course made all the papers.

After Bill Moyers described the horror show of Johnson's visit, we volunteers expressed suitable dismay at our President's behavior, and assumed he had set back U.S. - Malaysian relations by years.  On the contrary, Bill explained.  The Malaysians assumed that petty social and religious restrictions did not apply to the most powerful person in the world.  Instead, they were impressed by his disdain for these restrictions, which obviously only applied to lesser mortals.  Their respect - even awe - at his behavior had in fact increased.  

After Bill's talk, he opened it up for questions: 

Q: Why the Malaysian stopover? 

A: (1) Johnson was invited by the king; (2) Malaysia was not at the Manila conference; (3) Malaysia has a stake in Vietnam. 

Q: What will be the effects of the south east Asian trip?

A: The mere fact that Johnson sat down with Asians in Manila and let them talk for over eight hours should impress the countries represented that (1) The US is willing to listen; and (2) the US wants Asia to take the initiative more often.

Q: Civil rights. What new directions?

A: Answer. (1) black power will pass. Johnson is not worried about it. (2) The housing bill will pass in '67; (3) The Movement must back up, "regain the supply lines", let the education of the public catch up with the legislation.

Q: civil rights. What is the big problem now? 

A: No middle ground, Negro leadership, or Negro organizations; SNCC, CORE, NAACP are fading into the sunset, and nothing new is filling the void. Predictions on the coming elections: Reagan will win, Romney is in, Rockefeller gaining tremendously; the Democrats will lose 25 seats (those who rolled in on the Johnson swell).

Future of the Peace Corps: (1) more emphasis on skilled technicians instead of the traditional grass shack image; (2) expansion into countries like Yugoslavia, Burma, Laos, Cambodia, Poland, and Czechoslovakia; (3) expansion into South Vietnam.

Well, I’m afraid these antiseptic summations do a little justice to Moyers command of English, his enthusiasm, and his sense of humor. It was an exciting evening for all of us. After reluctantly agreeing to let him have four hours of sleep, we headed for the bar, where we remained until 3 AM. Then it was load baggage into the panel trucks, drive to the airport, and load the planes again. We were finished and dead tired by seven, so all but a handful of us decided to hit the sack. I remained on the slim hope of seeing Johnson as he boarded at 8:30 AM. The other volunteers thought I was crazy if I expected to get through 200 Secret Service men and over 1000 local police. I also chatted with Lady Bird, and Dean Rusk and his wife. It’s that old Peace Corps drive that did it.