A Man for All Problems

While Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara was in Texas last week conferring with Lyndon Johnson on Viet Nam, Hubert Humphrey was laying a Veterans' Day wreath at Arlington Na tional Cemetery. While McNamara bat tled the aluminum industry in private, pleaded the Administration's case in public and announced the Government's "victory" (see U.S. BUSINESS), the Commerce and Treasury Secretaries -- the officials most directly concerned -- were little seen or heard.

No Czars. Though McNamara shows no distaste for such added responsibilities, they are plainly not of his choosing.

In his own absence from Washington, Johnson has increasingly relied on the Defense Secretary to act as unofficial brevet deputy President. McNamara fills the part so well that the pundits last week were speculating that Johnson might put McNamara in some other strategic post, perhaps the unfilled job as Secretary of the new Department of Housing and Urban Development as a base from which to organize and oversee the Great Society's vast new domestic programs.

Such a transfer seems highly unlikely --though not for want of presidential confidence in McNamara. Johnson dislikes the concept of Cabinet czars as much as he likes McNamara as Defense Secretary. Indeed, so long as his aide's enormous energy supply lasts, there is no reason why Johnson cannot keep tossing him additional chores as they come up. McNamara is already chairman of both the President's Advisory Committee on Supersonic Transport and the interagency committee of the Appalachian Regional Commission.

Enemies Aplenty. As Defense Secretary, McNamara wields immense powers, both overt and implicit. The Pentagon spends half the federal budget, employs more civilians (1,045,000) than any other federal agency. It is the biggest Government purchaser of goods and services from private industry. Moreover, in a period when U.S. diplomacy is more a matter of implementing existing policies than creating new ones, Defense has logically taken center stage from the State Department.

In addition, of course, McNamara is a brilliant executive. He cares nothing about making enemies. In the face of congressional outcries, he presented Johnson last week with plans to close still more obsolete military facilities. He also announced the immediate elimination of 751 Army Reserve units, in the face of strong opposition from the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Lyndon Johnson relies heavily on a number of men, notably Dean Rusk, Bill Moyers and McGeorge Bundy (who last week was offered the presidency of the Ford Foundation). But it is only McNamara whom the President describes--often--as "indispensable."

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