Decisions of Magnitude

Wherever John Kennedy goes these days, a large, black, looseleaf notebook goes with him. The notebook is the President's "Berlin Book," consisting of 20 position papers on all possible phases of the persistent peace-or-war question that Kennedy must eventually answer. In the White House, and last weekend on another brief vacation in Hyannisport. John Kennedy spent hours over his homework. Never before, said his aides, had the President spent so much time and thought contemplating the implications of a single question. "He's imprisoned by Berlin." said one Cabinet member. "Ever since his Europe trip, Berlin has occupied him totally."

Toward Action. By last week, John Kennedy's total occupation was turning toward action. Off to Moscow this week, after last-minute revisions to satisfy NATO allies, will go the U.S. answer to Khrushchev's last-month memorandum on Berlin. The State Department will release a White Paper on Berlin to further justify the Western stand. The President this week will also summon congressional leaders to brief them on U.S. plans (his top aides have already visited Gettysburg to inform Dwight Eisenhower), issue a statement on Berlin at his midweek press conference, hold a planning session of the National Security Council.

Basically, the Administration's attitude is: "Go slow--and watch out for the unexpected." For the President well understands that the Communist challenge is worldwide, and that crisis is not limited to Berlin. South Viet Nam is threatened by a new Communist guerrilla buildup in bordering Laos. There is potential trouble ahead at the U.N., where the question of Red China's entrance is sure to be raised at the General Assembly this fall. For years the issue has been kept from resolution by an annual vote in favor of a moratorium on discussion of whether the mainland Communists or the Nationalists on Formosa represent the people of China. Each year the moratorium draws fewer votes, and U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson and Secretary of State Dean Rusk have helped make the situation less hopeful than usual by announcing that this time the battle may well be lost.

Into Loneliness. As he armed himself for a long season of crisis, John Kennedy had notably changed from the zesty Bostonian who took the oath of office last January. From the start, Kennedy knew well that his job, carrying with it sole responsibility for decisions of imponderable magnitude, had forced every President before him into an unwanted, unique loneliness. Yet it was still a surprise that he had retreated into the isolation of power so early. A gregarious man with uncommon social charm, Kennedy has become steadily less and less available to old college and political pals. Once the most accessible President the Washington press corps had ever known, he is now acutely sensitive to criticism. His vivid Irish wit flashes infrequently. One White House staffer who sees him daily says that even in the midst of briefings the President sometimes ceases to listen as he stares into space--apparently searching for the answer to some nagging problem.

Obviously, it was still too early to assess the effect of the President's inevitable isolation. Yet there was evidence that as he came to grips with Berlin, he was recovering the confidence that had been temporarily shattered by the Cuban disaster.

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