The Man from D.E.L.P.H.I.

The adage that a freshman legislator should be seen but not heard has in no wise dampened Senator Robert Francis Kennedy's Pericles-envy. Last week the New York Democrat started with a speech on Latin American policy that ran so long (60 pages) that it had to be delivered in two daily installments. Next came an oration on what he modestly called a "total program to reconstruct our urban society." Without breaking pace, Kennedy went on to demand that the U.S. somehow initiate nuclear arms-control negotiations with Peking. "Not only the fate of the United States," he assured the Senate, "but that of the whole world may be at stake."

Kennedy's eagerness to orate, on Capitol Hill or from any handy dais on his hinterland tours, has made him the Senate's Man from D.E.L.P.H.I. (declaiming eclectic liberalism possessively, hotly, instantaneously). Donate blood to North Viet Nam? Why, that would be truly in the American tradition. How to make the Viet Cong more tractable? "Admit them to a share of power and responsibility." How to prevent a renewal of the Watts riots? "There is no point in telling Negroes to obey the law," said the former U.S. Attorney General. "To many Negroes, the law is the enemy." Budget cuts to halt inflation? Maybe, but the Administration would thus be making economies at the expense of those "least able to afford them--the disadvantaged, particularly the disadvantaged children."

Tonguehold. And so it goes, a canon of omniscience unmatched since Mr. Dooley. Like most Grecian oracles, Kennedy occasionally needs interpretation. Some of his observations, such as the one on domestic spending, seem candidly critical of the Johnson regime. Most of his pronouncements, however, are carefully couched so as to imply dissent without specifically faulting the President. Kennedy's tome on Latin America--carefully packaged and distributed for the widest possible news impact--contained few if any departures from existing policy. In a couple of instances where he has overreached himself--notably in the blood-for-Hanoi and power-for-the-Viet Cong disquisitions--Kennedy has smoothly extricated himself by amending his damaging remarks.

His overall aim is clearly to establish his independence from the party leadership and seek a toehold--or tongue-hold--in the liberal camp. Unlike other Senate mavericks such as William Fulbright and Wayne Morse, Kennedy, at 40, is intent on keeping his name on the front pages in order to further his ambitions beyond the Senate. When his office recently persuaded an overenthusiastic Baltimore supporter to take down a Kennedy-for-President-in-1968 billboard, it was the timing and not the theme that was at issue.

On to LSD. Thanks to his name and a dearth of strong Democratic leaders in New York, he is the party's unchallenged No. 1 man there and can afford to roam far afield in search of a wider mandate. Indeed, his interests seem illimitable, his speechwriters indefatigable, his wanderlust insatiable. In his 17 months as a Senator, Kennedy has descended on South America, Tuscaloosa, Ala., Oxford, Miss., and other way stations in between; in June, he will tread thin diplomatic ice by making a visit to South Africa.

Last week, between grappling with disarmament and New York's gubernatorial race, he plunged into the campaign to save New York City's Metropolitan Opera House from destruction. And this week, as acting chairman of the Government Operations Committee's executive reorganization subcommittee, he will head a two-day inquiry into the use of hallucinogenic drugs.* Any connection between LSD and executive reorganization may itself be a hallucination. But it will make news.

*For once, Brother Edward of Massachusetts, the quiet Kennedy, beat Bobby to a headline. Last week Teddy's Senate subcommittee on juvenile delinquency had Mr. LSD himself, Dr. Timothy Leary, in the witness chair. "You definitely go out of your mind" when you take the drug, allowed Leary. "That is onerous to some people."

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