THE MEN AROUND KENNEDY

...It was given to us to learn at the outset that life is a profound and passionate thing...

...The chief of public relations is Pierre Salinger, age thirty-five, who lends the only note of raffishness to the upper echelons of the Kennedy organization...

...His admirers relate that it is almost impossible to distinguish his speech-writing prose from that of the Senator...

...The titles are in odd juxtaposition...

...But the department heads cannot commit the top executive, as drill sergeants so often have seemed to commit the Commander-in-Chief in the Eisenhower years...

...This is not an organization built along military lines...

...But the sense of order and discipline should not deceive...

...In some ways Sorensen affords a fascinating contrast with the Senator...

...This is not to minimize the importance of years...

...But the newness of the Kennedy phenomenon is not quite of the same order, I believe, as has so often been reported...

...He is the official envoy to the campus, and his task is to corral both scholars and ideas into the Kennedy fold...

...Not only does the candidate himself look as if he strolled to the hustings straight from Harvard Yard, but his predominantly Ivy League staff contains enough former football players to assemble a respectable scrimmage...

...Something of the same hard realism extends to the organization's thinking on the ends of politics...

...But it is liberalism expressed without florid rhetoric—or for that matter, without noticeable passion...

...The specialist in labor and immigration problems has been Ralph Dungan, 37, who after a season in the fusty offices of the Bureau of the Budget became a Kennedy appointee on the Senate Labor Committee...

...In particular, commentators have leaped on the question of age as if the calendar were a Book of Revelations...

...Certainly they enjoy nothing like the status of such Roosevelt brain trusters as Berle, Tugwell, and Moley, and they have less influence than they had in the Stevenson campaigns...

...The Blowing Up of the Parthenon, by Salvador de Madariaga (with an author's inscription), leans uncomfortably against John F. Parker's 1001 Jokes, Stories, Gems of Wisdom by and about Politicians...

...The fact that the men around Kennedy are on the average well below forty reveals much about their basic orientation...

...Justice Holmes also once recalled, "Through our great good fortune, in our youth our hearts were touched with fire...

...Dungan has now been detailed to organizational work...

...Significantly, though Kennedy and Sorensen both came from an isolationist background, neither has any remote affinity with go-it-alone thinking...

...The whole apparatus of persuasion and manipulation—opinion polls, Trendex ratings, and market research —holds few secrets from the Senator's staff...

...8, 1960 The first thing you notice in Senator John F. Kennedy's office are the books...

...A veteran of the 1952 and 1958 Kennedy Senatorial campaigns, O'Brien manages everything from campaign buttons and tea parties to the larger problems of organizational policy...

...Although Kennedy's young pros had fully expected to win the nomination ("The only time we were a little worried," confided one aide, "was just before West Virginia"), the campaign fever has roused even the more blase spirits...

...What about the first hundred days...

...Good political staff work," wrote Rovere in The New Yorker, "is always a joy for politicians to behold, but in essence it is a virtue that has more in common with neat bookkeeping than it has with the more serious and interesting aspects of politics...

...In terms of conviction, the broad consensus is liberal in the Northern Democratic sense of the word...

...The answer is an emphatic and incontrovertible yes...

...Each department—sales, personnel, public relations—is headed by an alert official who handles his chores with a maximum of rationalism and a minimum of fuss...

...Much of the efficiency for which Bobby is admired is the product of neat bookkeeping and little else...

...One of the key advisers on civil rights questions is Harris L. Wofford, Jr., thirty-four, a widely-traveled law professor at Notre Dame who has been a legal assistant to the Civil Rights Commission...

...A onetime advertising man, Reardon handles the mail and is a stickler for keeping fences trim in Massachusetts...

...New" has replaced "Ike" as the favorite three-letter word of the political oracles, and a composite of news stories would suggest that Kennedy's new men, speaking for a new generation and leading a party with a new image, will hew out a new frontier— assuming, of course, that they beat the new Nixon...

...A venerable Harvard man once said that "to act with enthusiasm and faith is the condition of acting greatly...

...Timothy E. J. (Ted) Reardon, Jr., who has been with Kennedy since his days in the House, is administrative assistant...

...Nixon, in the Kennedy camp it is decidedly chess...

...In addition, a brief precis on every topic is available to serve as a guide when inquiries are made...

...has replaced the "Think...

...Like their contemporaries, Kennedy's men have grown up with—and not against —the twin political revolutions of internationalism and the welfare state...

...The nearest thing to a general manager in the campaign organization is the candidate's brother, Robert Kennedy...

...The first hundred days are already under systematic scrutiny...

...In both foreign and domestic policy, the Kennedy men lean more to the views of Adlai Stevenson than to those of either Dean Acheson or Senator Lyndon Johnson...

...As President Eisenhower has so well tutored the nation, the methods of the military mean that subordinates have formidable powers of discretion, and that the Chief is to be vexed only by the weightiest problems on which his adjutants cannot agree...

...On most points, Nixon emerged from the convention with a position not far from Kennedy's...

...The decisive, day in, day out influence is exercised by a group of junior executives with special expertise who are close to the center of power...

...The seriousness and high purpose of the Kennedy forces command respect...

...Significantly, "cool" is the ubiquitous adjective used to describe Kennedy and his staff...

...At forty-eight, Cox is another old-timer in the organization, a senior citizen who worked in both the Justice and Labor Departments under Franklin D. Roosevelt while some of his present bosses were wearing knickers...

...Mike is an issues man," explains an associate...

...But the combination, though it might jar a librarian, is wholly congruous in the office which serves as the nerve center for the Democratic Presidential nominee's campaign staff...

...He came to Washington two years ago from Harvard Law School to serve as law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter...

...He joined the Senator in 1957, after serving apprenticeship as a law professor, a Securities and Exchange Commission official, and as counsel for the Senate Banking and Currency Committee...

...Since he joined the Kennedy staff in 1953, Sorensen has acquired influence because he has an almost intuitive affinity with the thinking of the Senator...

...There is little of the amateur zest that enlivened (and plagued) Adlai Stevenson's two Presidential campaigns, and the smell of Kansas City cigar smoke which trailed the Truman camp is equally absent...

...At this moment, it is not dull...

...His roots are in the farmbelt state of Nebraska, his lineage is a melting-pot composite of Danish and Russian, his political heritage is the Republican progressivism of the late George Norris, and his religion is Unitarian...

...As in a corporation, problems are seen primarily in a technical rather than a moral light, and the response is distinctly in terms of the head, not the heart...

...As a much-traveled organizer in the field, and as the Senator's chief speech writer, he has made many friends, but his single-minded devotion to his chief has made some enemies who do not hesitate to call him tough and ruthless...

...The degree of his determination to elect his brother President has sometimes awed and sometimes dismayed bystanders...

...There is nobody that can commit the Senator," an aide stresses, "except the Senator himself...

...You will find little dissent among them with the Democratic platform drafted by Representative Chester Bowles...

...In his suite in the Old Senate Office Building (fondly known as the Old SOB), the clutter of books on desk-tops and shelves conveys the flavor of the seminar and school room...

...As author of the fourteen-page "Kennedy for President State Organization Procedure," O'Brien has won praise from discerning students of such matters...

...Salinger's offbeat quality is neatly balanced by Archibald Cox, a pipe-smoking, tweedy figure who looks every bit a Harvard professor, which he is...

...But prevailing attitudes have changed, and Kennedy has turned against the anti-intellectual tradition with a vengeance...

...Working closely with Feldman is Richard N. Goodwin, who is following a familiar New Deal itinerary...

...A touch of that flame might do wonders in increasing the appeal of young men already sober and wise beyond their years...

...It is not age that sets the Kennedy men apart...

...His would probably be a no-nonsense type of Administration," wrote Kennedy's biographer, James MacGregor Burns, "run by men young, dedicated, tough-minded, hardworking, informed, alert, and passionless...

...Ideologically speaking, Kennedy's New Frontier will probably be staked out well within the outer boundaries set by Americans for Democratic Action...

...This sampling of Kennedy associates—the list could go on ad tedium —is not intended as a who's who or as an inside dopester's key to Kennedy confidential...

...But with all his virtues as an organizer, Bobby has his limitations, and they have been concisely summed up by Richard Rovere...

...But it is a managerial approach...

...One Kennedy organizer, Byron "Whizzer" White, was an Ail-American at the University of Colorado—but, characteristically, "Whizzer" was also a Rhodes scholar...

...O'Brien, who at forty-five is practically the Methuselah of the group, is a onetime advertising and public relations man from Springfield, Massachusetts...

...A visitor to the Senator's office, a foreign correspondent, looked across the hall in the Old SOB, where by the whimsy of chance, Vice President Richard Nixon has his suite...

...Rather, it is meant to point to a question: Does the ascent of the Kennedy star herald something new in American politics...

...The men behind Kennedy, and the campaign they are waging, compose a study in the artful coexistence of scholarship and political savvy, of sweaty electioneering and intellectual detachment...

...It reflects a world that despairs of "final solutions" and confronts the future less with youthful ardor than with stoic resolve...

...Working in tandem with Bobby is the organization's chief policy and planning executive, Theodore Chai-kin Sorensen, who has been irreverently dubbed by some reporters as the Keeper of the Image...

...In the Kennedy organization, as in any efficiently run corporation, it is the hardheads and not the eggheads who are in charge...

...Rather it is that the Senator's young pros have taken the skills and attitudes found in sophisticated managerial circles and have applied them to the most backward of the social arts, politics...

...The approach is pragmatic and problem-solving, and there is a marked distrust for the doctrinaire enthusiast...

...His specialty is labor law, and during the Landrum-Griffin days, Cox was a familiar visitor in the cloakrooms, invariably at Kennedy's elbow...

...bearing of a seasoned civil servant (which he was), dismisses the possibility of defeat...

...While the Harvard Business School might disapprove, the working press has developed an affection for this onetime night editor of the San Francisco Chronicle who retains something of the rumpled tradition of the city room...

...The decisions, down to the smallest important detail, would ultimately be made by the man—not the men—in the White House...

...If Checkers is identified with Mr...

...If the Republican convention proved anything, it was that the party's foxiest politicians recognized that there was no mileage in the old time religion espoused by Senator Barry Goldwater, the roar of the faithful in Chicago notwithstanding...

...Goodwin, twenty-eight years old, joined Kennedy as a kind of utility infielder after working on the staff of the House Legislative Oversight Committee, where he did most of the legwork on the expose of the rigged television quiz shows...

...One reporter described him as a "rather frenetic figure surrounded by cigar stubs and notes on the backs of envelopes...

...It is he who presides over the field headquarters in the IBM building, where presumably "Elect...

...Those in Washington who have been reporting politics since the days of Coolidge can recall nothing quite like the cadre of intense and earnest young men who are advance agents for Kennedy's New Frontier...

...The crabbed domestic creeds of the radical right—states' rights, white supremacy, and repeal of the New Deal —are likewise recognized by the Kennedy men as stalactites in an ancient cave...

...Mike Feldman is typical of the group in background and temperament...

...There is less controversy about Lawrence F. O'Brien, the skilled professional who heads up the sales force...

...The thirty-two-year-old Sorensen, who is listed only as a "clerk" on the Senate payroll, shares with Kennedy a coolness of demeanor, a brisk efficiency, a detached liberalism, and a deep involvement in the game of politics...

...In a fine old tradition, Salinger works in an atmosphere of exuberant confusion...

...What is daring in the thinking of the Kennedy camp centers on the role of the President as a vigorous national spokesman, rather than in the programs that the President might advocate...

...Feldman, whose formal title is legislative assistant, and who has the manner and KARL E. MEYER, editorial writer for the Washington Post & Times-Herald, has written for The Nation, The New Republic, The Reporter, and Commentary...

...Yes, the Senator has a stand on virtually every important issue before Congress...

...To start with, there is the matter of education...

...But the similarities between Ted Sorensen and his chief are a measure of how the intellectual distance between Nebraska and Massachusetts has shrunk...

...As to methods, the young pros show an almost brutal realism about the techniques of mass communication...

...Unlike the hacks and ward-heelers of bygone days, Kennedy's men have brought to politics a zeal for professionalism, a respect for learning, and a capacity for mastering intricate legislative problems...

...placards...

...But there is an important added ingredient: In sharp contrast to other eggheads in politics, the Kennedy men also display an unnerving tough-mindedness concerning the means and ends of politics...

...In contrast, the Kennedy organization seems to be modeled on that of an efficient corporation in which the president is in full command of his junior executives (and of those relatives who confuse the business with a family firm...

...An impressive-looking roster of intellectuals works with and under Cox, but appearances can be misleading...

...Nonetheless, he is surprisingly unjaun-diced and is widely regarded as one of the ablest and best-natured of the Kennedy crew...

...Meyer Feldman is speaking...

...In many ways the approach is admirable and refreshing because of its flexibility and candor...

...How is it tabulated...

...Thus, if the campaign foreshadows the way in which Kennedy might run the Executive office, there will be no Harry Hopkins and assuredly no Sherman Adams...

...In his biography of Kennedy, Burns writes: "The men with dreams—but with no discernible plan—who could get in to see F.D.R., would not get past the White House door to see Kennedy, but those with an outline for a program would be welcome...

...Yet the same point could be made about the men around Nixon...

...There is an apt symbolism in the location of Kennedy's second campaign office in Washington's IBM building...

...Although Republican oratory is already dwelling on the diabolic powers of Professors John Kenneth Galbraith and Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., both of Harvard, there is litde evidence that either wields great influence at the summit...

...To be sure, Kennedy has extended a tactful welcome to these and other eminent academicians, but the power of the professors has been largely overstated...

...In the jargon of industrial personnel, Cox's role might be described as research and development, or perhaps as new product promotion...

...Although there is a healthy skepticism based on experience regarding the accuracy of polls, there is also a healthy respect for the power of television (in the language of the trade) "to project an image...

...Amid the clatter of typewriters, the jangle of telephones, and the parade of petitioners, a momentary disorder masks the inner discipline of what is probably this century's best organized Presidential campaign...

...The place would be quiet, taut, efficient — sometimes, perhaps, even dull...

...In times past, professional politicians looked with scorn or amused tolerance on the airs of the educated, and in campaigns professorial advisers might be hustled out of sight as if they were run-down relatives...

...Television has made the thirty-four-year-old Bobby familiar, and there is no need to belabor his mastery of hearing-room technique, his knowledge o? the arcana of the Teamsters Union, and his terrier-like relentlessness in pursuit of prey...

...Well, there are some 200 folders which assemble the pertinent facts and record the Senator's past votes...

...Assuming that Kennedy wins, is a program being drafted to take advantage of the first flush of victory...

...It's the technicians versus the fixers," said the marveling visitor...

...What troubles critics of Kennedy's organization is whether men—and young men, too—who take so bilious a view of dreams can provide a nation with a fighting faith for a new frontier...

...Instead, the advisers around Kennedy are very much like the candidate himself...