Operation Rooney

The day after cantankerous Congressman John Rooney got home to Brooklyn from an "inspection trip" of Latin American embassies, he got an important telephone call. "John," crooned Vice President-elect Lyndon Johnson to the chairman of a House subcommittee that handles State Department funds, "the President-elect would like to see you down in Palm Beach next week. Can you make it?" When Rooney allowed that he could indeed, Lyndon Johnson made his own plans to be there too. To muddy up the purpose of the trip, he brought along Oklahoma Senator Robert Kerr, Johnson's probable successor as chairman of the Senate Aeronautical & Space Sciences Committee. (Noted a Kennedy aide: "You can do a lot of things and say you talked about space.")

Vaguely aware that the trip had something to do with his perennial pruning of ambassadorial expense allowances (he calls them "booze allowances"), Rooney flew down on schedule, found himself hoteled (at Kennedy's expense) in a luxurious suite at the Palm Beach Towers. Next morning a comely Kennedy secretary drove him from the hotel, prattled through a guided tour of Joe Kennedy's cream-colored villa before depositing him in the library. There was a suitable moment's wait, then in strode Jack, followed shortly by Lyndon, Kerr and incoming Treasury Secretary Douglas Dillon. (Notably absent: future Secretary of State Dean Rusk.)

"A Helluva Baby." Kennedy got right down to his pitch: he wanted top men for the costly top embassy jobs, and did not want to settle simply for amateurs with private means. Without changing the law, he wanted assurances that his choices could get financial help if they needed it. Unmoved, Rooney pointed up his familiar examples of embassy waste, got agreement from Kennedy that there was room for tightening up.

After lunch Kennedy kept up his sales talk through the daily golf game (no player, Rooney penciled in the scores), later let his visitor sit in on private talks with Lyndon on overall congressional tactics. As a special treat, Rooney was even granted a peek at tiny John Fitzgerald Jr. (his impression: "I think he looked like a helluva baby").

By next morning it was clear that the Kennedy magic had worked again. Rooney, in terms that were (for him) almost enthusiastic, agreed to Kennedy's major point that "we want the best men possible for service abroad," added that he would not be opposed to some increase in representation allowances to help out Kennedy's needy envoys.

Glorious Fourth. In point of fact, Operation Rooney has been overdue for years. U.S. "representation allowances," i.e., entertaining funds, are embarrassingly skimpy. Paper Tycoon James Zellerbach says that he has spent $200,000 of his own money while serving as Ambassador

CAROLINE, KENNEDY & FULBRIGHT Magic slippers.

to Italy for the last four years. Foreign Service careermen find it hard enough to get by as Ambassadors to Austria (a $4,000 annual allowance) or Ireland ($2,300), absolutely impossible to take on such major posts as London ($8,500) or Paris ($5,000), where the allowance does not even pay for the traditional Fourth of July party, when as many as 5,000 Americans in town drop by. (The British ambassador in Washington gets an estimated $100,000 for expenses.) Result: the U.S. jobs go regularly to wealthy campaign contributors--some good, some poor --who can afford to foot the five-figure expense tab.

Congressman Rooney was not the only recipient of the soothing Kennedy magic last week. He was followed shortly by Arkansas' Senator J. William Fulbright, chairman of the powerful Foreign Relations Committee. A trifle touchy since he was turned down for Secretary of State in favor of Dean Rusk, Fulbright had publicly spoken out against one of the key items of the New Frontier legislative program--a proposal to boost the minimum wage from $1 to $1.25. Fulbright got a personal welcome at the West Palm Beach airport, spent long hours in the villa and on the golf course, was treated to an after-dark press conference in the patio. Midway in talk about the need for an ambassador-at-large, Caroline Kennedy toddled out, wearing a robe with a rabbit-eared hood and carrying a pair of her mother's black shoes. "Hi, Daddy," she said. "Aren't you going to come in?" Daddy blushed scarlet beneath his tan, murmured his answer ("In a few minutes") as he helped his daughter on with the outsize shoes, grinned at reporters: "I didn't plan this." As Caroline clip-clopped back into the house, somber Bill Fulbright was smiling as broadly as anyone there.

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