The Unassuming American

Bent slightly forward on his aluminum crutches, lanky (6 ft. 4 1/2 in.) Secretary of State Christian Archibald Herter, 65, walked slowly down the aisle of the State Department auditorium one day last week for his ninth press conference. As he reached the lectern, the beetle-browed Secretary put aside his crutches (arthritis), leaned against the edge of a stool and faced 50 newsmen. In a precisely timed half-hour, they asked 39 questions ranging across U.S. policy from the Communist threat in Cuba (see HEMISPHERE) to highly technical details of East-West nuclear test-ban negotiations in Geneva, to the likely impact of U.S. weather satellite Tiros 1 on the legal status of outer space. To each question, Herter replied in measured, carefully framed sentences, without benefit of prepared statement.

Chris Herter's deft, competent performance produced no sensational headlines; yet it added to the image of strength created since he succeeded the late John Foster Dulles a year ago. Lacking the self-assertive flair of Dulles or of Harry Truman's Secretary Dean Acheson, Secretary Herter sometimes seemed to blend invisibly with the antiseptic corridors of the State Department. But despite his self-effacing manner, Herter's certainty of purpose has won growing respect from President Eisenhower, State Department aides and the capital's most critical press corps.

Great Asset. "Herter's taking over from Foster Dulles was a hard pill for the President to swallow," said a White House intimate. "It would have been a hard pill for the President for anyone to follow Foster, because there was a very close relationship there." Moreover, Herter's first year began somewhat awkwardly. Informed by Ike that he had been chosen to succeed Dulles, Herter quickly had the head-to-toe physical examination requested by the President, was embarrassed when the appointment was delayed while the results (satisfactory) were flown to vacationing Eisenhower in Augusta, Ga.

The self-consciously new Secretary made no attempt to emulate Dulles' personal diplomacy. Instead, he encouraged maximum use of a great foreign-policy asset--the worldwide respect and affection for Dwight Eisenhower. His relationship with the President grew from formality to confidence. Herter now meets weekly with Eisenhower by appointment, sees him before or after weekly meetings of the Cabinet and National Security Council, confers frequently by phone.

While advancing Ike's personal diplomacy, Herter, onetime (1953-57) Governor of Massachusetts, effectively administers a vast department staffed by 8,253 Foreign Service officers and 4,548 civil service employees. Though not a career diplomat, he behaves like one. He asks advice of subordinates, is a good listener. "Herter just doesn't see things in the black-and-white terms that Dulles did," says a department policy planner. Faced with Soviet bluster, Dulles was inclined to gather newsmen for an off-record session, gaze at the ceiling, click his tongue and colorfully rebuke Khrushchev. Herter replies with greater speed, and usually with a documented statement that catches the Russians by the specifics. Yet, far from abandoning Dulles' style entirely, Herter has actually stepped up the jet-flying diplomacy essential to Western alliances. In his first year Dulles traveled 78,027 miles at home and abroad; Herter's first year sent him winging 84,146 miles.

Frankenstein Peril. In a year of diplomatic junketing by all heads of state, Herter's travels have produced no dramatics--either soaring victories or crashing defeats. "The method of doing business has changed," says a ranking State Department official. "The element of immediate crisis has been held in abeyance. Whether it will recur after the summit, I don't know." Yet, in Herter's year, the U.S. has strengthened its position in the Middle East, in Communist-menaced Southeast Asia, in Japan, in Latin America, and has even lifted (by dint of presidential diplomacy) Khrushchev's Berlin ultimatum.

In the Administration's remaining nine months, Herter hopes to lessen "the dangers of the Frankenstein monsters we have created in the war machines of the world," with the first shackle on the nuclear monster possibly a test-ban treaty. But last week Chris Herter characteristically promised no international Utopia in his speech to the National Association of Broad casters in Chicago. "We can hardly move forward confidently in negotiating new arms-control agreements with the Soviet Union if our existing agreements with them about Berlin are meanwhile being violated," said he. "If anyone looks for dramatic achievements at the summit, he may be disappointed."

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