The Value of Proximity

By Hugh Sidey

It all began in 1953 on the third floor of the Executive Office Building across the street from the White House and for the most part out of sight and sound of the President. The first National Security Adviser was a kind of aide-de-camp to Ike, more clerk than policy planner. But the next thing we knew, he had moved across the street and was in the White House basement, close to the President's communications center, a lope or two from John Kennedy's ear. When we woke up a few months after Nixon's Inaugural, the adviser, in the shape of Henry Kissinger, had claimed the best office in the West Wing at the President's own level. It was a measure of the enlarging role.

From almost every corner last week, Ed Muskie was warned about the problem that Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter's National Security Adviser, would create for him. If it wasn't Brzezinski himself, it was that damnable job that kept getting in the way of Secretaries of State. Unless, of course, like Kissinger, one controlled both jobs.

Kissinger himself sent private word that Muskie must establish and hold a very special relationship with the President or the Secretary would falter as an architect of U.S. foreign policy. That relationship, Kissinger suggested, might demand such a simple thing as making sure that Muskie saw the President every morning before Brzezinski was allowed into the office. The Secretary of State, not the NSC aide, should set the direction and tone of the day's doings in the world. "That means Muskie had better arrange an appointment at 5:32 a.m. when Carter is in his shower," suggested one wag familiar with the energy and ambition of Brzezinski.

Dean Rusk, Secretary of State from 1961 to '69, wrote to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in March, suggesting that the NSC adviser should not have the power to negotiate, nor should he have a press secretary running around town promoting the fellow's personality and position. "The Assistant for National Security Affairs should not attempt to organize his office as a mini-foreign office," Rusk wrote.

No real rules can be written for the relationship among President, Secretary and the NSC adviser in this era of power by personality. The central figure, as always, is the President. For instance, McGeorge Bundy, National Security Adviser from 1961 to '66, was a forceful intellect, but he never shouldered Rusk aside. The reason was John Kennedy, a man who studied world events and the shifts of power and had seasoned views of America's role. Lyndon Johnson, the domestic impresario, was less certain. He needed help and turned to Rusk, Robert McNamara, his Defense Secretary, and Walt Rostow, his NSC adviser. The value of being physically close to the President was fully realized in those years. L.B.J. was profoundly influenced by the fact that Rostow was always close by. Visitors being harangued by Johnson in the dead of night were often astounded when L.B.J. would mash one of his numerous signal buttons and Rostow would materialize out of the darkened corridors.

Nixon and Kissinger fitted like hand in glove. Nixon held the power but detested the details. Kissinger knew that a collection of details makes power of its own. He was an avid collector. Nixon set the compass for American policy. Distrusting the State Department, he made Kissinger his field commander, a job Kissinger eagerly filled before moving on to become Secretary of State himself.

Carter's ignorance, inexperience and uncertainty about foreign affairs created the atmosphere for the Vance tragedy, the Muskie ascendancy and the new doubts about Brzezinski and his job. Not only was Carter unknowing about what to do in the world, but his contacts were so limited in the field of national security that he was uncertain where to turn. The man down the hall was the one who saw Carter first in the morning, before lunch and often at night. Brzezinski was an articulate and knowledgeable force, and he gave the White House a tilt that frustrated and thwarted Cy Vance. Ed Muskie's operational problem in the end will lie with Jimmy Carter, not with Brzezinski or his job.

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