LBJ Aide Walter Jenkins Resigns after Morals Charge

Oct. 14, 1964 - Walter Jenkins (pictured) resigned tonight as a special assistant to President Johnson after it became known that he had been arrested in Washington last week on a charge of disorderly conduct involving “indecent gestures.”

In the arrest report under the date of Oct. 7, the place of arrest was given as the Young Men’s Christian Association, which is two blocks from the White House. Jenkins was arrested in the YMCA restroom. The complainant in the arrest was listed as R.L. Graham and the arresting officer as L.P. Drouillard. Both are members of the Washington police force.

The White House press secretary, George Reedy, announced the resignation in New York, where President Johnson was spending the night.

The arrest of Jenkins, as well as a record of his arrest in January 1959 under similar circumstances, is in the records of the Morals Division of the Washington Metropolitan Police Department.

The charge against him in the 1959 arrest read “disorderly conduct (pervert).”

Jenkins, who has served Mr. Johnson for 25 years, has been a confidant and close associate of the President in the White House. He is thought to have had free access to much if not most of the information available at the White House, but it could not be determined this evening what degree of clearance he held for the handling of materials affecting the national security.

Jenkins’ arrest last Wednesday became known in Washington this evening in a manner that is not entirely clear. Local reporters were somehow advised of the police record after Dean Burch, chairman of the Republican National Committee, had called attention to “a report sweeping Washington that the White House is desperately trying to suppress a major news story affecting the national security.”

Within an hour, the White House staff in New York disclosed that Jenkins had been hospitalized in Washington to be treated for “extreme fatigue.”

A White House Source said President Johnson had known nothing about Jenkins’ hospitalization or arrest until his staff received questions from newsmen.

Jenkins, 46 years old, has been a personal aide to Mr. Johnson since 1939. In recent years, the relationship between the two men appears to have involved close professional, political, business, and personal associations. One of Jenkins’ six children is named Lyndon.

An aide to Senator Barry Goldwater, President Johnson’s opponent in the general election, said tonight he doubted that Goldwater would openly make the case a campaign issue or discuss it in speeches. He said it appeared to be the sort of issue that it would be difficult for Goldwater to discuss profitably.

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