CAPITAL NOTES

K. to K. in April?

The State Department's top Russian experts are chewing over the merits of an early face-to-face meeting between President Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev. Ambassador Thompson, just in from Moscow, reported that Khrushchev sorely wants to appraise Kennedy's personality and politics firsthand, argued that the Soviets would be unwilling to make peace in Laos or the Congo until they have heard more from Kennedy himself about his long-range intentions. Shaping up: a K.-to-K. confrontation, probably in April at the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York.

Legman Up

Formula for good press relations passed along by Old Reporter John Kennedy to members of his Cabinet last week: a public official's best friend is the "legman" who covers the regular beat; there is more press mileage to be gained by slipping news nuggets to legmen than to columnists or editors.

Intelligence Footnote

The Eisenhower Administration learned in early December of Nikita Khrushchev's intention to release the captive RB-47 flyers when the Kennedy Administration took over. The intelligence was passed along to President-elect Kennedy, was Washington's best-kept top secret until the actual release of the airmen.

Long Secret

President Kennedy promised his news conference fortnight ago that the Russian-released RB-47 flyers, Air Force Captains Freeman Olmstead and John McKone, could tell their story publicly as soon as they were debriefed and back from leave. In their third week in the U.S., they were still on leave in Puerto Rico, still kept from the press by the Air Force.

Anti-Missile Muscle

The Army, a dozen-odd interested manufacturers, and certain members of Congress are beating the drums for immediate "limited" production of the Nike-Zeus anti-missile missile (now scraping along on a $302 million research and development allowance). Such big guns as Douglas Aircraft's Donald Douglas Jr. have been volleying around Washington, and recent issues of Army and Missiles and Rockets magazines are almost entirely given over to articles, editorials and ads praising Nike-Zeus and urging its production ("We could sleep better"). The Kennedy Administration shows no signs of being hurried into a decision before the basic Nike-Zeus tests scheduled for Kwajalein Atoll next year.

Mr. Meany Regrets

Headquarters representatives of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. were conspicuously absent when Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr., new chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, called a get-acquainted meeting for union representatives and lobbyists. Very much in evidence in a front-row seat was Sidney Zagri, top Washington mouthpiece for Jimmy Hoffa's Teamsters. A.F.L.-C.I.O. President George Meany's reasons for boycotting the meeting were twofold: 1) he refuses to let A.F.L.-C.I.O. officers fraternize with Teamsters, and 2) his opinion of Racist Powell's potentialities as guardian of labor's affairs in Congress: "Terrible."

Score & Miss

Interior Secretary Stu Udall scored a fine public-relations point at a professional basketball game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Cincinnati Royals. Learning that the mother of Elgin ("The Rabbit") Baylor, the Lakers' 6-ft. 5-in. Negro star, worked as an Interior Department Mimeograph operator, Udall picked up the Baylor family in his official Cadillac and took them to the game. During intermission, Udall, who was once a star basketballer himself, tried a trial shot and missed.

Fight Fiercely, Harvard

The swarm of Harvard professors who have joined the lemminglike migration to the Kennedy Administration happily noted a quid pro quo: Phillip E. Areeda, a White House legal adviser to Dwight D. Eisenhower, departed Washington to join the faculty of Harvard Law School.

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