October 14, 1964, 60 years ago: Walter Jenkins, unofficially the White House Chief of Staff (officially, the office was vacant) to President Lyndon B. Johnson, resigns his post under pressure, following an arrest on what would once have been quaintly called a "morals charge."
He began working for Johnson, then a Congressman from Texas, in 1939, and remained with him through serving in the House of Representatives, the Senate (including LBJ's tenures as Minority Leader and Majority Leader), the Vice Presidency, and finally the Presidency.
He became a close friend to both Johnson and his wife, Claudia "Lady Bird" Johnson. Another LBJ aide, Bill Moyers, later a journalist, said, "If Lyndon Johnson owed everything to one human being other than Lady Bird, he owed it to Walter Jenkins."
But on October 7, Jenkins and another man are arrested in the men's room of a YMCA in Washington, for what was officially labeled "disorderly conduct." In spite of Jenkins being a married Catholic with 6 children, this was code for saying that he had been caught in a homosexual act.
It was difficult to keep the story quiet, especially when reporters found out he had previously been arrested on such a charge in 1959. That made it much harder to explain away as the result of overwork or, as one journalist wrote, "combat fatigue."
On October 14, The Washington Star called the White House for comment. His hand forced, LBJ told White House Press Secretary George Reedy to make a statement that the Administration was coming clean about the story -- 20 days before the Presidential election.
Jenkins had to resign, and the Republican Party wanted to make hay out of this. They knew LBJ was soundly beating their nominee for President, Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, at the polls. Goldwater refused to go along with it, and told them to back off. In his memoir, he said, "It was a sad time for Jenkins' wife and children, and I was not about to add to their private sorrow."
Jenkins had bad luck. But Johnson had good luck: The same day that Jenkins' resignation was announced, Nikita Khrushchev was ousted as Soviet leader. Apparently, he had become too liberalizing for the Supreme Soviet. They allowed him to live at his dacha, and he was able to get his memoir smuggled out of the country. But he died in 1971, officially disgraced by the country that, 10 years earlier, he had raised to its greatest height.
He once said, "If you feed the people with slogans, they will be with you today, and they will be with you tomorrow, and they may be with you the day after tomorrow. But the next day, they will say, 'To Hell with you.'"
The day after the Jenkins resignation and the Khrushchev ouster, Britain had a previously-scheduled national election. It changed the party of government: The Labour Party beat the Conservative Party, so Alec Douglas-Home was out as Prime Minister, and Harold Wilson was in. That same day, Game 7 of the World Series was played.
The next day, October 16, China announced it had The Bomb. Two days after that, Johnson gave a televised Oval Office speech, addressing the world situation; and comedian Jackie Mason appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, bombed, and was banned from the show by Sullivan, who accused Mason of giving him the middle finger onstage. That became a big story. And two days after that, on October 20, former President Herbert Hoover died, and both Johnson and Goldwater suspended their campaigns until after his funeral.
Between the media's reluctance to divulge details of a sex scandal, particularly what would later be called a gay sex scandal, and the preponderance of other news over the next few days, the Jenkins story couldn't gain any traction. On November 3, LBJ won 44 States.
Jenkins returned to his hometown of Austin, Texas, and worked as an accountant until his death in 1985. Moyers got Jenkins' job, but proved to be less skillful at it, and some historians believe that not having Jenkins to talk to may have hurt LBJ in his full term in office. Like many other former White House officials, Moyers later became a prominent journalist.
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October 14, 1964 was a Wednesday. Game 6 of the World Series was played at Busch Stadium (formerly Sportsman's Park) in St. Louis. Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle hit home runs on back-to-back pitches from Curt Simmons‚ and Joe Pepitone belted Gordie Richardson for a grand slam. The Yankees won, 8-3, and sent the World Series to a deciding Game 7. With all the home runs that Mickey and Roger hit, this is the only time they hit back-to-back homers in a postseason game.
That same day, a future Yankee catcher, manager and broadcaster, Joe Girardi, was born.
The Cardinals won that Game 7, 7-5, with Bob Gibson, on 2 days' rest, hanging on for the win, despite Mantle hitting another home run, his 18th in World Series play, which is still, far and away, a record.
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