WAITING FOR KENNEDY

...What the President can do more effectively than any of his aides is to help create a national consensus by explaining in a full-dress presentation to the country what the fight is all about...

...If the chairman's tepid speeches are valid examples, partisan thunder no longer emanates from the place where James Farley and Paul Butler used to work...

...As a result, a kind of collective diplomacy has come to prevail...

...After eight years of Eisenhowerism, many of Mr...

...But the hope abides that the young man in the White House may yet fill his own measure of the Presidency...

...Still, when all allowances are made, it is only candid to say that President Kennedy's first several months have been a disappointment...

...It is quite frankly admitted that Soviet Premier Khrushchev's bluster on Berlin was perfectly timed, from the Administration's point of view, to soften up Congress on increased defense expenditures, the civil defense program, and foreign aid...

...The President has gained his main political experience in Congress, and he is wise to its ways...

...Bowles has his detractors as well as his admirers, but it ought to be noted that his performance in office has been wholly consistent with the views he expressed before President Kennedy appointed him to his State Department post...

...The Cuban invasion was the result of collective misjudgment...

...In standing firm for freedom in Berlin, will we also stand firm for freedom in Mississippi...

...The school bill is a special case in point...

...They function as trial balloons...

...The country is aware of the need for more regiments of troops—but is it also aware of the need to practice more fully at home the democratic ways we urge on others abroad...

...among those touring the hemisphere were Ambassador Stevenson, Food for Peace Administrator George McGovern, Secretary of the Treasury Douglas Dillon, Adolph A. Berle, Jr., and last but not least, young Theodore Kennedy...

...Kennedy has seemed to base his political strategy on an effort to conciliate contending factions, rather than to choose sides among them...

...All this is by way of prelude to an inquiry into the Kennedy style as it has manifested itself in the first formative months...

...Kennedy does not believe that politics should be an audience participation show...

...The tensions arising from the religious controversy furnish an additional reason for the President to use his White House forum to clarify and reassure...

...Kennedy was preparing to take over the tenancy of the White House...

...The President, seemingly unsure of his own judgment, has turned for advice to everyone from his younger brother to old soldiers like Generals Douglas MacArthur and Dwight D. Eisenhower...

...But as yet Mr...

...The task force represents a technique of managed politics in which the sounding-board for controversy comes in committee reports rather than in the pronouncements of strong-minded high officials...

...F.D.R...

...The hemisphere could no longer complain of neglect...

...Yet for the most part the campaign for the schools has been waged as if it could be settled in the cloakrooms without establishing a popular consensus first...

...James Reston of the New York Times, no dewy-eyed Utopian, has remarked that the President's "most obvious failure has been on [the] point of stirring and directing the national will...

...Yet John Bailey, the present Democratic chairman, almost seems non-partisan, and the National Committee has ceased to be an important source of party ammunition...

...In this instance, Bowles' scalp was spared when his many friends among the press raised a rumpus in print...

...At the same time, the Administration adopted a markedly more flexible stance on a whole range of problems, varying from neutralism to disarmament, from colonialism to economic aid...

...It had somewhat the sound of a committee report in which the patchwork is evident...

...The appeal for a shelter program may have had a chilling effect on those who feel that neither Moscow nor Washington has a monopoly on virtue...

...Kennedy a range of choice in framing new policy...

...Kennedy's leadership...

...Thus, the task force—an ad hoc group of qualified experts otherwise known as a "committee"—serves to fertilize the soil with new ideas...

...they want to take sides in a drama and not simply admire the technical efficiency of the White House legislative staff...

...It is precisely because men of good will have vested such high hopes in Kennedy's performance that his shortcomings have been the source of painful reflection...

...Of late, those who cover the White House have remarked on the creases of worry, the telltale signature of tension...

...Yet under Mr...

...The outcome of the invasion made him far more skeptical of the wisdom which supposedly emanates from high rank...

...At the time, the term carried an exhilarating suggestion of brisk executive leadership, and reporters watched with fascinated interest as the Presidentelect named task forces to consider reforms in everything from defense spending to policies for the American Indian...

...Kennedy has faced crises in Laos, Cuba, and Berlin—not to speak of such lesser yet agonizing incidents as the French-Tunisian vendetta...

...One of the bright aspects of the Kennedy record has been the better neighbor policy embodied in the Alliance for Progress...

...Reservations about the President's initial record, however, should not obscure the virtues of the New Frontier...

...More than anybody else, the President is in a position to shape the themes which dominate the times...

...As any politician might, Mr...

...The, cast of characters for a period included the crusty Adolph A. Berle, Jr., head of a task force...

...Those who recall his speech to the Protestant clergy in Houston, or his deeply-felt reaction to poverty in West Virginia, refuse to believe that the President is a passionless machine...

...Kennedy's own instincts were opposed to the Cuban adventure, but that he did not feel that he was equipped to second-guess the expert advice from the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Chiefs of Staff...

...There is the feeling that these first months have been crowded with so much bad luck that Mr...

...There can be only compassion for a President who has inherited such a grievous legacy of problems from an outgoing Administration that specialized in avoiding decision...

...With some exceptions, the President has backed away from those pledges in the Democratic platform which might warm the blood on Capitol Hill...

...Kennedy's first months in office are measured and found partly wanting, it is because the President himself has furnished an exacting yardstick...

...it has taken some of the sting out of the Cuban failure...

...The days when John Foster Dulles conducted our foreign affairs out of his traveling case seem far away...

...His inaugural address was a magnificent beginning, but surely more needs to be said about our country and culture, our frailties and strengths, our old traditions and new aspirations...

...Instead of task force reports, Roosevelt had an Ickes, a Morgenthau, a Wallace, a Hopkins, and a bumptious General Johnson...

...Some of Mr...

...K for what it was worth...

...Sometimes, the verdict that emerges from his advisers is mixed: In his response to the Berlin crisis, Mr...

...The extraordinary pressure of events helps to account for the lines of care...

...There is no doubt that the President feels the awesome nature of his responsibility...

...His anti-recession measures have been largely a continuation of the moderate approach taken by the Eisenhower Administration...

...was not over-concerned when members of his official family feuded in public, or stepped a degree beyond the contemporary consensus...

...The real test for the President in Congress may not be to rouse support for missiles and manpower...

...In quick and cruel succession, Mr...

...Yet, during the campaign, candidate Kennedy displayed qualities that seem to be missing since he rose to the top...

...Many would agree with James Reston's trial balance in the New York Times after the first six months—that the record has been "spotty but on the whole favorable...

...Washington has come to learn that task force reports do not imply an Administration commitment...

...Certainly the principle of the task force embodies one of the more admirable aspects of the new Administration—its opendoor policy toward men with ideas...

...and the White House, where two aides— Richard N. Goodwin and Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.—kept the bureaucracy hopping...

...Sometimes, a burst of creative vigor results...

...The White House, candidate Kennedy declared, "is not only the center of political leadership, it must be the center of moral leadership . . . It is not enough to represent the prevailing sentiment...

...he has been under attack in Congress for dallying heretically with the idea of recognizing Outer Mongolia in order to open another listening post to Western ears...

...He has often seemed aloof and remote, a mediator rather than a leader—the very political trait that he once so trenchantly criticized in his predecessor...

...But the mood of crisis cuts both ways...

...Yet few items have become so bogged down in political confusion...

...Pope John's encyclical, which strongly commended foreign aid, did Kennedy's program no harm either...

...There are few items on the Administration agenda which have so direct a bearing on the future of the country than the proposal to help the states ease the desperate classroom shortage and increase teacher salaries...

...When the attempt was made to ease Bowles into an ambassadorship to Chile, the inescapable interpretation was that a maverick was being punished for his views—there was even an uncomfortable parallel drawn with former Foreign Minister Molotov, who was shipped off by Nikita Khrushchev to Outer Mongolia...

...Still, despite the Administrative confusion, and in contradiction to the bad press notices, United States policy began to move in a more imaginative direction...

...The phrase "task force" was first heard last November when Mr...

...Despite—or perhaps because of—his rating in public opinion polls, the President has not used his personal prestige to marshal popular support for his program...

...If the President has fallen short of the shining expectations many entertained, he has shown himself to be neither the feckless nor the reckless fellow of Republican oratory...

...Kennedy will not rely on a task force...

...Since the advisers on the task forces often have a nebulous relationship to the seat of power, their reports can be discreetly disowned...

...Sometimes, the advice is lamentably bad...

...Kennedy has not yet hit his stride...

...When criticisms of the kind that have been made here are repeated to members of the Kennedy circle, a frequent response runs like this: People ought to accept the President as he is—it is simply not his style to become emotional, combative, or informally chatty...

...Since his eloquent inaugural address, that voice sometimes seems lost in the thicket of advisers...

...Kennedy has repeatedly stressed the urgency of a Federal aid program for our hard-pressed public school system...

...In the most explosive area—civil rights— the President requested no new legislation at all, despite the platform promises...

...It is well known that Bowles has long been critical of the pieties of United States policy toward China...

...They were Roman candles in comparison to the cool night-lights that now illumine the New Frontier...

...Perhaps because of his narrow election margin, or possibly because of the still touchy religious "issue," Mr...

...They have been frankly disappointed by the lack of pepper in Democratic politics...

...it was the most discursive, the most poorly organized speech the President has made—it even contained one digression on an increase in postal rates that seemed a rambling irrelevance in a discussion of a possible nuclear Gotterdammerung...

...During the last campaign, it was evident that the President was more at home in domestic politics than in foreign affairs—and yet before he had a chance to find his footing in the White House he was beset by crises in the very field where his competence was still untested...

...The problem of giving a sense of community to a country that sometimes seems an aggregate of private appetites is one which might occupy the President as much as the details of his legislative program...

...Most important, the diversity of recommendations is intended to give Mr...

...the State Department, which was functioning without an Assistant Secretary for Inter-American Affairs...

...to follow McKinley's practice, as described by Joe Cannon, of 'keeping his ear so close to the ground he got it full of grasshoppers.' " If Mr...

...In his speech at the National Press Club which opened his campaign in 1960, Kennedy insisted that this decade "will demand that the President place himself in the very thick of the fight, that he care passionately about the fate of the people he leads, that he be willing to serve them at the risk of incurring their momentary displeasure...

...Bailey, the National Committee has been reduced to a skeleton staff, and such projects as the Democratic Digest have been dropped...

...Some of the criticisms of the President heard today echo those made of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933, particularly the charge that the President is trying to appease those who are by definition his most implacable opponents...

...For example, the national party chairman by tradition is expected to upbraid, to exhort, to rally the troops to battle...

...The White House recommendations to Congress fell considerably short of the fundamental reforms Landis urged...

...A whole range of issues seems to cry out for exposition by the man who leads the nation...

...The shocks came quickly...

...In the Kennedy circle, the two men most strongly identified with independent positions of their own are Adlai Stevenson, the Ambassador to the United Nations, and Chester Bowles, the Undersecretary of State...

...Kennedy's most ardent supporters are spoiling for a purposeful fight on domestic issues...

...Kennedy's range of choice is limited...

...The country is prepared to sacrifice for more missiles, but is it ready yet to make greater sacrifices for education and for foreign aid...

...They hope that the turn of events will rekindle the flame in Mr...

...Kennedy has only played a few notes on the keyboard— and he has still not given an adequate answer to those who say they want to help the government but are not sure what the President wants...

...But if the details of the problems heaped on the President's desk are only cursorily examined, it is clear that Mr...

...But to some it seems as if Mr...

...One wishes that his own voice as a human being found more of an echo in his pronouncements of state...

...When the question of national purpose came up a few years ago, President Eisenhower appointed a committee—but in this area, one hopes that Mr...

...At the same time, there is a negative aspect...

...It is in these areas that there are the greatest doubts about the efficacy of the soft sell...

...Hammarskjold's help...

...his doubts about the Cuban invasion have also been publicized...

...It is a style that has its strengths and weaknesses, and can be clinically classified under three rubrics—government by task force, the politics of the soft sell, and the diplomacy of collective leadership...

...rather, it may be to sustain an equal sense of urgency about the pressing needs at home— Federal aid to education, civil rights, tax reform, health care for the aged, and measures aimed at stepping up the rate of economic growth...

...As Undersecretary he has brought some first-rate men into our foreign embassies and he has operated within channels...

...In no area has there been as much administrative confusion as in Latin American policy...

...From the outset, the President has been scrupulous in avoiding inflammatory language...

...his tone was calm, and the speech did contain an opening for negotiation...

...Roosevelt surrounded himself with high officials who were outspoken, obstreperous, willful...

...If the President himself chooses to stay aloof from the battle, this would seem to be all the more reason for the national chairman to provide the expected sauce...

...It was even seriously contemplated that Khrushchev would give the new team a six-months reprieve from crisis in which to formulate new policies...

...Commendably, the President did not bluster or threaten...

...Perhaps the reason is that Bailey has had his hands full preventing the warring factions in the New York Democratic Party from appealing to the United Nations for Mr...

...The same dread of flamboyance and excessive publicity characterizes the relationship of the Kennedy Administration to Congress, a relationship based on the tactics of the soft sell...

...After seven months in office, President Kennedy is not a notably relaxed man—and the anxiousness and occasional uncertainty on his face have also marked the appearance of his Administration...

...To compound the appearance of confusion, it seemed that not a jet plane headed South without a new mission from Washington...

...While it is true that Mr...

...Those Democrats on Capitol Hill who are familiar with political logistics complain that the Republicans have been able to get by with damaging and misleading assertions without effective rebuttal...

...In foreign affairs, President Kennedy has been facing cruel dilemmas with a coolness that commands respect...

...Indeed, the biggest boost President Kennedy received for his program came not from the White House but from the Kremlin...

...One of the most common complaints about Kennedy's foreign policy is the prevalence of cooks, each with a spoon in the soup...

...If, as in the case of James M. Landis' recommendations for overhauling regulatory agencies, there is a burst of shrapnel on Capitol Hill, the balloon can sink swiftly out of sight...

...It is instructive to compare the Kennedy technique with the more free-wheeling ways of F.D.R., so brilliantly described by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., in his book, The Age of Roosevelt...

...He has been content instead to speak softly and let his legislative aides use the big stick of patronage and Federal favors...

...The turn of events brought about a drastic change in the 1930's, and may well do so again...

...The recent strange episode involving Bowles has been read as a warning to those officials near the top who flirt with nonconformity...

...Opponents of any Federal a i d - ranging from Goldwater Republicans to the National Association of Manufacturers, the Chamber of Commerce, and other potent lobbies— have exploited the confusion to block the passage of an adequate aid bill for public schools...

...Perhaps the most suggestive report was in a Washing-) ton Post story which noted that although many White House aides shared Bowles' liberal convictions, "the President feels the more effective way of implementing these views is through men with less flamboyant reputation acting in a less publicized manner...

...When the New Frontiersmen came into office, they hoped that the Soviet Union would be more tractable in dealing with a liberal Administration...

...Considering that the 1960 elections reduced the Democratic majority, Kennedy has done well in getting some of his legislative requests approved by a cautious, conservative Congress...

...Kennedy's listeners regretted that the President did not dwell at greater length on the horrors of a nuclear war, and upon our determination to seek every honorable means of averting it...

...After the failure of the Cuban invasion, and the erosion of the Western position in Laos, Kennedy heard Khrushchev's harsh words in Vienna...

...Kennedy, using his executive powers, has extended the boundaries of human rights, the failure to seek further legislation was taken as symptomatic of the President's dread of a public scrap...

...It is easy for the narrow partisan or the unthinking enthusiast to make facile assertions about what should be done...

...Kennedy has relied on a diverse group of advisers, ranging from Secretary of State Rusk, General Maxwell Taylor, and former Secretary of State Dean Acheson, to his cadre of Harvard dons in the White House...

...As soon as the call for an arms build-up came, Congressional conservatives were quick to renew their war on the welfare state...

...It is said by those close to the President that Mr...

...Nevertheless, some listeners had the feeling that the speech was cold and impersonal, and that it was more persuasive to Americans who are already convinced of Russian perfidy than to millions elsewhere who do not want to become a cinder because of a quarrel between two giant powers with nuclear arms...

...One wonders what Harold Ickes might have said about that...

...Kennedy exploited the assist from the other Mr...

...In his address to the nation on Berlin, President Kennedy delivered a speech that seemed to be an amalgam of differing approaches...