Living Up to His Middle Name

Five months after being named United Nations Ambassador, George Wild-man Ball resigned last week to become Hubert Humphrey's chief foreign-policy adviser. There was immediate speculation that at least part of the reason for his precipitate action was disenchantment with Lyndon Johnson's Viet Nam policies. Not so. As the President said, Ball's resignation "has nothing to do with public policy but does have something to do with domestic politics." Ball is plainly aghast at how badly Humphrey is faring in the presidential race, and if there is anything that can make him live up to his middle name, it is the prospect of Richard Nixon in the White House.

Castigating the Republican as a man "who lamentably lacks" the qualities to be President, Ball said that Nixon might try to escalate the Viet Nam war, has no real convictions, and showed his irresponsibility by the "cynicism" with which he picked his running mate. "The preposterous idea that a fourth-rate hack politician like Agnew might stand within a heartbeat of the presidency," said Ball, "is fantastic and shocking." He added: "I think it is important that people not forget the 'Tricky Dick' that we used to talk about, because there was significance in that phrase."

Ball, 58, has long been rumored to be Humphrey's first choice for Secretary of State. Once before, in 1966, he resigned from the Johnson Administration. As Under Secretary of State, the department's No. 2 man, he had tired of his losing role as principal opponent to the bombing of North Viet Nam. Eighteen months later, after the President ordered a substantial reduction of the bombing, Ball agreed to return as U.N. ambassador. The high point of his brief tenure--shortest of any U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.--was tongue-lashing the Russians for their Czechoslovakian invasion.

To succeed Ball, the President immediately named Washington Post Editor James Russell Wiggins, 64, thus rewarding a loyal supporter and astounding even those Lyndon watchers inured to his most bizarre moves. A widely known journalist, Wiggins has no legal or diplomatic experience. When he was tapped, he was preparing to retire from the Post (see PRESS) to his 80-acre Maine farm and a weekly newspaper. Wiggins came to Washington in 1933 as correspondent for the St. Paul Dispatch-Pioneer Press, rose to editor before becoming assistant to the publisher of the New York Times. In 1947 he joined the Post, was named editor in 1961. A staunch defender of freedom of information, Wiggins noted just a few months ago that the ideal newsman should be "a witness, not the principal, in events." With what promises to be an acrimonious U.N. session ahead of him, the new U.S. ambassador is likely to find himself serving more often as a principal than as a witness.

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