Name in the Game

As State Department men tell it, White House staffers play a game they call "Frontier." The first player starts off by naming a plausible shift in New Frontier personnel--like "Bundy for Rusk." The man whose turn is next must come up with a reasonable candidate for the displaced person's job--as in "Rusk for Stevenson." A player must drop out of the game if he comes up with a patently implausible shift--such as "Stevenson for McNamara." It is remarkable how often the game starts off with Secretary of State Dean Rusk as the first to be replaced.

This sort of thing is the cause of considerable resentment among Rusk's many admirers within the State Department. In the department cafeteria last week, two young Foreign Service officers engaged in an earnest lunchtime conversation. "How can he stand it?" asked one of them angrily. "Every time he turns around, it's Bundy or Bobby, Bobby or Bundy. Why doesn't he walk out and let those White House brain-trusters louse things up? That's what I would do." The other man nodded solemnly. "I would too," he said.

"No Plans." At that very moment, Rusk was lunching, eight floors above, with West Germany's Walter Hallstein, chief administrator of the Common Market. If he had any worries about his future, he did not show them. But the rumors about Rusk are rampant in Washington: the President has shunted him aside, Presidential Assistant McGeorge Bundy has displaced him as the No. 1 foreign policy adviser, Rusk is about to resign, his successor will be Bundy or maybe even Bobby Kennedy. "I shudder at this possibility," says a State Department official, "but I know too much to say it's out of the question."

So insistent are these rumors that at a Rusk press conference two weeks ago a newsman bluntly asked him whether, in view of reports that the President had already picked his successor, he intended to resign. Replied Rusk, outwardly unruffled: "A Cabinet officer serves at the pleasure of the President." He had. he added calmly, "no plans" to resign.

No Doubt. When asked about the rumors, deep-dyed New Frontiersmen deny that there is any substance to them. A White House aide protests that "there is no better man in this country" than Rusk. Bobby Kennedy recently called the reports that he was about to take over the State Department "completely ridiculous." In February President Kennedy told his press conference that he had the "highest confidence" in Rusk. Last week, speaking to a group of young Foreign Service men in the White House garden, the President assured them that "in spite of what you read, we love the State Department."

But appearances keep belying these protestations. There can be no doubt that Bundy, in the White House, runs a foreign-policy operation that is closer to the President, both spatially and personally, than the State Department. To State's professionals, Bundy's "Little State Department" is a grievous nuisance, burdening them with endless telephone calls. "I wish they would move them over to this building, just to get them off the phone," says one State Department man. "Then we would all be one big unhappy family." Last week came word that Under Secretary George McGhee will be sent abroad as Ambassador to West Germany. As it happens, McGhee is one of the very few top State Department officials picked by Rusk himself--and Rusk does not want McGhee to go. McGhee's replacement as No. 3 man at State is Assistant Secretary Averell Harriman--Kennedy's choice.

Beyond all that, the rumors about Rusk's imminent withdrawal from the Kennedy Cabinet mainly emanate from members of the President's staff and such favored newsmen as Columnist Joe Alsop and the Washington Post's ailing Publisher Phil Graham.

No image. The reality of the matter is that Rusk, as Secretary of State, brings splendid virtues to his job: dedication, integrity, discretion, and a vast knowledge of foreign relations in all their complexity and subtlety. But alas, he does not look or act like a New Frontiersman. He is 54, bald and a bit paunchy, in an Administration dominated by men who are slim-waisted and fuzzy-faced. Rusk is modest, unpushy, and not at all concerned with painting his "image" in headlines. In short, he does not fit the New Frontier pattern--and for that reason, one of those "Frontier" players may one day soon start off with a shift sequence that happens to prove out.

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