JFK'S MCGEORGE BUNDY-COOL HEAD FOR ANY CRISIS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP65B00383R000300040002-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 5, 2014
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: March 4, 1963
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

N, Declassified and Approved For Release @ 50-Yr 2014/02/05: CIA-RDP65B00383R000360640602-8
conducting for months into Maryland's
scandal-racked savings-and-loan indus-
try. With striking frequency, the pursuit
has wound from the- thickets of finance
to the brambles of politics. Late last
year, for example, indictments were
handed down against two Democratic
congressmen, Frani( Boykin of Alabama
and Thomas Johnson of Maryland,
charging them with conflict of interest
and conspiracy in involved dealings with
Maryland savings-and-loan firms.
The Charge: Democratic Speaker
Boone and five codefendants were
charged with helping set up the Secu-
rity Financial Insurance Corp. of Balti-
more in a scheme to defraud investors
in S&L firms insured by the company.
A grand jury said Security Financial
used the mails to Palm off demonstrably
shaky S&L institutions as solid enter-
prises. Security Financial is now defunct
?and so are twelve of the 27 associa-
tions it purported to insure.
The indictment alarmed many of
Boone's fellow delegates. Insiders esti-
mate that roughly a quarter of the 142
House members have interests, of one
sort or another, in savings-and-loan
operations. In fact, both the S&L in-
dustry?and the scandals?proliferated in
Maryland primarily because the ever-
sympathetic legislature enacted no
meaningful rules in the field until 1961.
Given this history, the reaction of the
Maryland House to Boone's indictment
was not surprising. Announcing a-leave
of absence" from the speakership, Boone
ceremoniously turned over the gavel to
delegate Marvin Mandel, professed his
innocence to. the packed chamber ("I
will be vindicated"), then strode to his
regular Baltimore County seat on the
floor where he expects to continue to
serve pending the outcome of a trial.
. As he stepped down, fellow dele-
gates gave The Bear a standing ovation.
20
%Unite,. McCardell?Banlmore Sun
Boone: The Speaker steps down
7k,
?THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
ed-a
JFK's cGeorge Bundy
Cool Head for Any Crisis
The note was handed to President
Kennedy at 9:30 one night last week,
just as he settled down in the White
House projection room with Mrs. Ken-
nedy and some guests to watch a
screening of "The Ugly American." He
rose promptly to return the call. The
urgent caller was McGeorge Bundy, his
Special Assistant for National Security
Affairs, with first details of the week's
most dramatic turn: the Cuban MIG
attack on a U.S. shrimp boat.
How should the U.S. react? Should
the news be released immediately?
"It's more important to get the story
straight than to put it out at once," said
the President. From his home, where he
had received the "hot" message from
his duty officer at the White House
Situation Room, Bundy then gave the
news to Secretary of State Rusk, Defense
Secretary McNamara, and CIA Chief
McCone. With each, he explored the
implications; all were against making a
"midnight judgment." Bundy phoned
the President again, and the decision
was taken to wait until morning for the
"take all necessary action" order.
By habit forged in crisis after crisis,
the President looks to "Mac" Bundy,
boyish-looking at 43, for the first word
of the tough, sometimes awesome, ques-
tions posed by cold war in the nuclear
age?and a firm grip on all the possible
answers. With his pink cheeks, sandy
hair, springy step, and faintly quizzical
expression behind plain glasses, Bundy
could easily pass for a Washington
junior civil servant. Yet he is one
of the most influential men in the
U.S. Government.
Along with his role as the President's
adviser on crunching global problems,
Bundy is director of the National Se-
curity Council and boss of its high-
powered staff. From the White House,
he coordinates the many arms of gov-
ernment involved in "national security"
?State, Defense, Treasury, Atomic En-
ergy, Disarmament, Central Intelligence,
Foreign Aid, even Agriculture?slashing
.across bureaucratic lines to deal with
Cabinet members and agency heads.
As a speechmaker (and a persuasive
interpretive source for the press), he
helps to transmit as well as shape U.S.
policy, as in Copenhagen last year when
he expressed U.S. disapproval of "small,
separate, national deterrents" and sup-
port for a unified, multilateral European
nuclear force.
Sigilinabinl: Above all, Bundy's
growing prestige and power flow directly
from the source of all executive power
?the President of the U.S. Mr. Kennedy
has come to respect him, trust him,
and communicate?almost subliminally?
with him. "They think alike," explains an
NSC staff member. "Bundy knows the
President's mind. He knows what the
President wants. The President's inten-
sity is perfectly complemented by
Bundy's ability to move things."
Although uniquely a product of his
own relationship with the President,
Bundy's role stems from an old political
tradition?the "kitchen cabinet" dating
back to Andrew Jackson's backstairs
cronies?and the latter-day need to cope
with the complex, crushing burden of
the U.S. Presidency.
John F. Kennedy has no Colonel
House, Harry Hopkins, or Sherman
Adams. In the Kennedy inner circle,
Bundy shares a place with a handful of
advisers, all of whom?like the man they
advise?are tough, brainy, and energetic.
They are Robert .Kennedy, Defense
Secretary McNamara, and Presidential
aides Theodore Sorensen 'and Kenneth
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O'Donnell. Of the White House trium-
virate, one aide says: "If it's foreign, it's
Mac; if it's domestic, it's Ted; and if
it's political, be damn sure Kenny knows
about it."
The modern phenomenon of U.S.
global commitments has, given the Amer-
ican President so tangled and arduous a
task that it defies the traditional or-
ganization of the executive branch, and
severely taxes the capacity of any one
mon. Today's problems of national
security are seldom single-agency prob-
lems; decision-making is pushed cen-
tripetally toward the White House,
where , departmental lines of decision
and action converge. Someone is needed
to sort out all the strands and to help
weave a meaningful fabric of policy.
In the Kennedy Administration, that
someone is McGeorge Bundy.
Too Much Power? The assignment
raises questions. Does Bundy pre-empt
the traditional function of Secretary
of State?especially a Secretary not no- ,
table for force and decisiveness? Does
Bundy have too much power? The ques-
tions grow more pointed as U.S. policy
comes under more critical scrutiny for
the disarray of the Atlantic alliance and
the festering Cuban situation. By the
very nature of Bundy's duties?their se-
crecy and delicacy?it is hard to get
much solid basis for answers.
On such rare occasions when Bundy
surfaces long enough for the public to
catch a glint of him in action, the sight
is impressive indeed. In the chronicles
that detailed how the White House
handled the Cuban crisis last October,
he emerged with high marks for his per-
fonnance in a complex, nerve-shaking
operation. More recently?and more
startlingly?it developed that it was
Bundy who authorized the dispatch of
the State Department statement on
U.S.-Canadian nuclear defense that
toppled the Diefenbaker government.
Bundy edited the final version, and
neither Mr. Kennedy nor his Secretary
of State saw it before it hit the wires.
Another Bundy initiative had major
historical impact. Though he and his
immediate associates will not discuss the
matter, there is firm basis to credit him
with breaking a deadlock in a dispute
between the CIA and the Strategic Air
Command as to which agency would
conduct U-2 flights over Cuba. Accord-
ing to this account, it was that dispute?
not bad weather?that left a gap of some
two weeks in the U.S. overflights and
that almost enabled Nikita Khrushchev
to complete his missile installations be-
fore they were ? spotted. The CIA
warned against making the flights a
military operation, insisted on carrying
them out with civilian pilots. Over its
protest, Bundy arranged for SAC to send
out its U-2 planes?and the very first
flight thereafter produced the evidence
March 4, 1963
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NATIONAL AFFAIRS
that triggered the facedown crisis.
Such freewheeling style leads many
Washington observers to call Bundy "the
real Secretary of State"; and most in-
formed diplomats, rightly or wrongly,
believe that McGeorge Bundy and not
Dean Rusk is President Kennedy's clos-
est adviser on foreign affairs. It is his
responsibility each morning to decide
exactly which ,rnatters touching the na-
tional security to lay before the Presi.
dent. Sample items one day last week:
the exchanges with the Russians over
possible talks on Berlin, the role of the
U.S. in the India-Pakistan talks over
Kashmir, the situation in Venezuela
(President Betancourt was arriving).
"We try to figure out what is contained
in a problem and frame up the decision
to be passed on by the President," ,
says Bundy.
The job demands extraordinary judg-
ment, coolness, stamina, powers of
analysis, breadth of knowledge, admin-
istrative talent, and sheer brains?but
Mac Bundy is an extraordinary man.
Brahmin Wunderkind: "Bundy has
tried his mind out on some of the best
in the world," says a friend, "and he
knows that he is good." Adds a pro-
fessor who has known him for years:
"He is unblanching in his confidence in
himself, in his inner security. And it's
not just because he was a wunderkind?
it was also because he was a Lowell,
from the lightest city, the lightest
money, and the rightest schools."
In his own words, McGeorge Bundy
was born of a "cold roast Boston" family,
the third son of five children and raised
in a red brick house on Beacon Street,
His father is Harvey Hollister Bundy,
successful State Street lawyer, Assistant
Secretary of State to Henry Stimson in
the Hoover Administration, and later
Stimson's assistant when he was Secre-
tary of War in World War II. His
mother is the former Katharine Putnam,
Moen of Hnevord.Prohidont A, 1,41ml-1143u
Lowell and of cigar-smoking poetess
Amy Lowell. ("McGeorge" was his
paternal grandfather's first name.)
Like another Boston family, the Ken-
nedys, the Bundys fostered brilliance
and competitiveness in their children,
and, early on, young "Mackie" was keen
at sports, word games, and conversation.
The Bundy table crackled with serious,
spirited discussion. "Diplomacy and
world affairs were part of the household
conversation," recalls I3undy's older
brother, William, 45, now Deputy As-
sistant Secretary of Defense. "Stimson
and Dean Acheson came by. We felt
close to what was going on."
Along with the Kennedys, the young
Bundys attended Dexter School in
Brookline, though Mac and Jack were a
class apart. Bundy took top honors in
sports and scholastics, went on to Groton
where he was first in his class, and en-
tered Yale. "When we arrived at New
Haven," recalls a classmate, "the dean
announced there were two distinguish-
ing features about our class. There, were
850 students, the desired number, and
Bundy and Rusk: Where to draw the line between their jobs?
Jaeoueo Lowe
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NATIONAL AFFAIRS
one of us was the first Yale student to
get three perfect scores on his college
entrance exams. That was Bundy."
(On one question in the English exam,
. Bundy pulled a bold ploy. He wrote:
"This question is silly. If I were giving
the test, this is the question I would ask,
and this is my answer ..." It worked.)
Believe ...: At Yale, Bundy ma-
jored in mathematics, wore a raccoon
coat, wrote for the newspaper, made
Vhf ucto Kappa In junior year, and was
tapped for secret, elite Skull and Bones.
In one essay Bundy stated his creed:
"I believe in the dignity of the individ-
ual, in government by law, in respect for
the truth, and in a good God; these
beliefs are worth my life, and more ..."
At Yale's Political Union, Bundy was
a fierce debater. By antecedent and
later by choice, he was a Republican.
Yet during his college years, he was
philosophically "a New Dealer." He. got
a chance to express himself after a cam-
pus visitor, Sen.. Robert A. Taft (Yale
'10), spoke on the subject: "Resolved:
That the welfare .of the United States
requires the return to power of the Re-
publican Party in 1940." Bundy argued
against the proposition (his opponents
included William W. Scranton, '39, now
Governor of Pennsylvania), and won
handily, 53-44. At commencement, class
orator Bundy reminded his classmates:
"We who graduate in June of 1940
need not be troubled by the absence
of wrongs for us to set right ..."
.eWorsl, Campaign': After gradua-
tion, Bundy ran in 1941 as a Republican
for the Boston city council in a heavily
GOP district, and was ? defeated by an
unknown Democrat in what he calls "the
worst-conducted campaign in history."
.He had set his sights on public service?
but first it was military, beginning as a
U.S. Army private after the country en-
tered World War II. He went .through
Bundy at Dexter: Honors
22
Officers Candidate School, and Adm.
Alan G. Kirk, a family friend, asked him
to become his military aide in the in-
vasion of Sicily. Moving to London
with Kirk, he dropped into famous so-
cialist Harold Laski's week-night lec-
tures, spent weekends at Lady Astor's
. Cliveden salons, "Ping Ponging," says his
brother, "from left to right." Bundy was
on the flag bfidge of the U.S.S. Augusta
at Normandy and served with Admiral
Kirk to the Mine,
Back home, Bundy collaborated with
his father's distinguished old friend,.
Henry Stimson, on his memoirs, "On Ac
tive Service in Peace and War." Friends
say Bundy was profoundly influenced
by the strong character of Stimson, a
Republican who served Presidents of
both parties. The book gave Bundy
other pointers. In a postscript that had
special impact on Bundy, Stimson wrote:
-"The man who tries to work for the
At Yale: Coon-clad orator
good, believing in its eventual victory,
while he may suffer setback and even
disaster, will never know defeat. The
only deadly sin I know is cynicism."
"Watching General de Gaulle move in
and out of Colonel Stimson's diaries," he
says, "you learn that nobody ever
gained by getting sore at de Gaulle."
Bundy worked briefly for the Marshall
plan before joining Thomas E. Dewey's
staff of foreign-policy advisers during
the 1948 campaign. There he was a very
junior colleague of John Foster Dulles,
Allen W. Dulles, Christian Herter, C.
Douglas Dillon Of their sublime over-
confidence, Bundy remembers ruefully: ?
"We didn't demean ourselves writing
speeches.. We were busy deciding on
applications for ambassadorships."
In 1949, at 30, Bundy joined the Har-
vard faculty as a lecturer in government.
His course, "The United States in World
Politics," was tremendously popular.
In the Army: Ping Ponging
l'He glitters, positively glitters on the
lecture platform," says one colleague.
About that time, Dean Acheson?
whose daughter married Bill Bundy
?came under Sen. Joseph McCarthy's
scattergun. Mac Bundy thereupon ed-
ited Acheson's papers?"The Pattern of.
Responsibility." "He had great loyalty to
people with whom he identified," says
a fellow professor. "It must have hurt
him politically." There are many who
believe the Acheson book was the rea-
son Bundy, who supported Eisenhower
in 1952 and 1956, was never offered a
post in Ike's Administration.
Sparkle: But his academic career
advanced spectacularly. After four years
at Harvard (and three years after
marrying Mary Buckminster Lothrop,
the witty, brunette associate director of
admissions at Radcliffe), Bundy was
named Dean of the Faculty of Arts
and Sciences, a post second only to the
presidency of the University.* He took
charge of 1,000 teachers, 5,500 under-
graduates, 1,800 graduate students, and
?had broad responsibility for determining
educational policy. (Among his duties:
greeting barnstorming revolutionaries,
like Fidel Castro?photo, page 24.) By
most accounts, he was no prig. As dean,
says Prof. John H. Finley, "Bundy had
a combination of very great personal
charm and decency to his friends. His
impact?his contribution?was an intel-
lectual sparkle. He brought young men
a feeling of participation, and involve-
ment. He cut through bogus formality
and stuffiness."
At Harvard functions Bundy renewed
his acquaintance (from debutante party
days) with Sen. John F. Kennedy, a
4Th1s led to a limerick by a former colleague: .
A proper young Prig, McGeorge Bundy.
Graduated from Yale on a Monday.
But he shortly was seen
As Establishment Dean ?
? Up at Harvard the following Sunday.-
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University Overseer. During Commence-
ment early in the 1960 campaign,
chance seated them next to one an-
other. "He asked me about beating
the Republicans," says Bundy, "a sub-
ject on which I surely had no exper-
tise but one in which he had a certain
amount of interest." But after. the GOP
nominated Nixon, Bundy shared enough
of that interest to come out publicly
for John F. Kennedy.
Bundy and Kennedy evidently sensed
a kinship that others have observed?
favorably and unfavorably. Prof. Charles
R. Cherington, who taught government
at Harvard under Bundy, says: "I have
great admiration for Mac Bundy. But I
don't like him personally. He pays no
attention to what the other fellow may
think. He's as cold as ice and :snippy
about everything. He and Jack Kennedy
are two of a kind."
A Bundy admirer puts it this way:
"Mac Bundy and Jack Kennedy were
destined., for each other. The
things that these two men have
in common are superior to the
things that divide them. .Each
has charm, education, good
looks, background. Each of their
fathers worked hard to get
where he is and is very am-
bitious for his son."
After the election, Mr. Ken-
nedy's first choice for Secretary
of State was McGeorge Bundy,
but he discarded the idea in
the belief, as he put it at the
time, that "two baby faces like
mine and his are just too much."
Instead, he turned him loose
on the formidable job he now
holds. His first assignment was
overhauling the machinery of
the National Security Council!'
to cut down what has been
called "the foul-up factor" im-
posed by excessive checks and
balances within the executive
branch of the government. Un-
der President Eisenhower, the
National Security Council staff
had been augmented by a
Planning Board?which turned
out formal advance position pa-
pers that usually .proved too rigid to
apply to real crises?and an Operations
Coordinating Board.
Borrowed Talents Bundy abolished
the two boards ("It is better not to
keep planning separate from operating")
and dovetailed the two functions in a
staff that he reduced from 74 to 49. In
putting together a new team, he bor-
rowed talent from the Eisenhower Ad-
ministration as well as the Pentagon
and the New Frontier. The staff, now
known as "The Bundy Group," is among
the youngest (average age: 43) and
best-paid (average salary: nearly
$17,000) in Washington. The top three
members: Deputy Carl Kaysen, 42, Har-
vard economist who specializes in
African affairs; Executive Secretary
Bromley K. Smith, 51, ex-foreign service
officer, director of the old OCB; and
senior staff meinber and Far Eastern
specialist Michael V. Forrestal, 35, Har-
vard Law School graduate whose father,
the late James V. Forrestal, conceived
the NSC while serving as the first Sec-
retary of Defense.
Basically the job of Bundy's area
specialists?who are sometimes called "a
miniature State Department"?is to ride
herd on the problems in their bailiwicks
by frequent checks with the responsible
officers in State, Defense, or "The
Agency" (CIA). Bundy would like to
see increasingly fast 'and close liaison
man Adams' stayed empty.") It had
served well enough for his predecessor,
Gordon Gray, who saw President Eisen-
hower only about twice a week. But
Bundy found himself seeing Mr. Ken-
nedy several times a day and decided
he was spending too much time running
across West Executive Avenue. He
wangled -space in the basement of the
executive mansion, with only wallboard
partitions. At Mr. Kennedy's suggestion,
this toehold was soon expanded into four
beige-carpeted' offices, plus a top-secret
"Situation Room."
? Nerve Centers Bundy's Situation
Room, with putty-colored walls and
draped windows, is on the ground
floor of the West Wing, about half, a
block from the World War II Map Room
(now ?a storage place for Mrs. Kennedy's
objets d'art). There, on a battery . of
Teletype machines, information feeds in
via State, Defense, and the CIA from
around the world. Several ."scramble"
phones link the Situation Room.
*The Council was created by Congress in 1947
"to advise the President with respect to the integra-
tion of domestic, foreign, and military policies
relating to the national security." Its statutory mem-
bers: the President, Vice President, Secretary of
State, Secretary of Defense and the then Director
of the Offico of Emergency inanning.
March 4, 1963
The Bundys and the troops:
'Don't talk while I'm interrupting'
between his staff people and the "as-
sistant secretary" level in other execu-
tive departments.
"Organizationally, we are flexible as
hell," says one member of the Bundy
Group. And Bundy explains: "Their job
is to help the President, not to super-
sede or supplant any of the officials
who hold responsibilities in the execu-
tive departments and agencies."
When Bundy freshly arrived in Wash-
ington .he found his new office was in
the dreary old Executive Office Building
across the street from the White House.
("Everybody took the office of his pred-
ecessor," says Bundy. "That's why Sher-
to the "war room" at the Penta-
gon and the "flap house" at the
State Department. When "hot"
messages chatter in, watch offi-
cers signal Bundy or a deputy,
who are on 24-hour call. Bundy.
carries (or phones) , the mes-
sages directly to the President,
enabling the White House to
begin reacting at the same time
that machinery is cranking up
at State or the Pentagon.' ?
Bundy is at his desk (con-
temporary, walnut) each morn-
ing about 8:30. It is cluttered.
with cables and reports stamped
"secret" and "urgent," and it
holds, along with the usual In
and Out boxes, one marked
"President's box," and another
simply "Cuba." "If you get away
from this desk for a day you
have to dig your way back onto
it," he says.?
He pores over messages from
the Situation Room before hold-
ing a 9 a.m. staff meeting in
his wood-paneled office .to de-
cide just what to put on the
President's ? desk. Afterward,
Bundy strides up the stairs to the Presi-
dent's office for the first of several daily
conferences there.
After briefing the President, Bundy
tears into a round of meetings which
one day last week ranged from the Cu-
ban problems to the instructions Ambas-
sador Livingston Merchant should carry
to the talks, in Europe on a NATO
multilateral nuclear deterrent.
eirallont's After each meeting, Bundy
returns to his desk to handle the "fall-
out"?memos to the staff and other gov-
ernment officials on decisions made.
Most of the topics are classified. What
positions special adviser Bundy takes are
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known only to the officials present.
"He is an extraordinarily skillful ad-
ministrator and he can take on enormous
volumes of work," says a man who has
worked closely with him. "He handles
desk work very, very quickly. He pre-
sents his facts in a quick, orderly, and
convincing fashion."
In working conversations., Bundy
smiles readily, but it is a quick-fading
smile. Consciously or not, he is a wizard
at one upmanship, anticipating questions'
or cutting them off in mid-sentence with
reasoned answers. Though tolerant of
conflicting views if forcefully presented,
he makes little effort to conceal im-
patience with those who lack a firm
grasp of the subject.
Bundy ends his twelve-hour office
day about 8:15 p.m. He leaves (as he
sic, theater, art, tennis, and reading.
"He reads everything but the cereal,
boxes," says Mrs. Bundy. (Bundy's read-
ing tastes are not as encompassing as
the President's. "I am not an Ian Flem-
ing fan," he says firmly.) Because of the
work load, they entertain infrequently;
but as dinner guests, they are in high
demand. Friends find Bundy witty and
gregarious, free-spoken and candid, . a
man who eiljoys the thrust and parry
of good conversation.
Sometimes his talk divulges a striking
insight. Asked recently about the back-
ground of the decision to invade the
Bay of Pigs (his description of his own
role: "not very constructive"), Bundy
said: "The great trouble was that we
were a bunch of people who just hadn't
thought through their various roles. And
Bundy with Castro: From early disaster to critical success
arrived) in a chauffeured government
Mercury for his roomy, white-brick
house in the Spring Valley section of
Washington. There he relaxes with a
bourbon-on-the-rocks or .a Martini, and
chats with his sons, Stephen, 11, An-
drew, 9, William, 7, and James, 3, whom
he calls "my troops." "Mac gets very
little time with the boys," says Mrs.
Bundy. "But he's an affectionate father."
(A card stuck in a foyer bears the
Bundy family's gag motto: "Don't talk
while I'm interrupting.")
About twice a week, Bundy takes a
midday swim at "the athletic club," an
ancient YMCA two blocks from the
White House. Once, at the office, he
startled aides by walking in wearing
white tennis shorts?the President was
Out of town. Another time, summoned
to the office on a holiday, he kept a
picnic date with his family?in the White
House basement.
The Bundys share an interest in mu-
24
-we were awed by the Presidency. I re-
member how terribly hard it was to say
anything. We were just freshmen, and
as freshmen you don't go in and say,
`Dammit, Mr. President,. you're not get-
ting the right kind of information'."
eTrnific Cop': But Bundy is circum-
spect, and elaborately modest, in talking
about his own job; he has described it
as "a traffic cop's job?to see what gets
forwarded to the President" and what
should go elsewhere. "I have tried to
.avoid having a Bundy office trying to
do what's on Bundy's mind," he says.
"This job is a matter of carrying out
what the President wants done."
Yet there is no question that some top
bureaucrats are miffed because they
feel that Bundy is usurping the functions.
of other departments, particularly Dean
Rusk's State. Sparring . breaks out oc-
casionally between staffers at State and
the Bundy Group, some of whom are
inclined to be contemptuous of the State
Department machinery. "When we hay()
something important to show the Presi-
dent," says one NSC man, "we can get
it to him, zoom." And Bundy once said:
"Cumbersome State Department proce-
dures do not give us the quick and
precise answers we need, when we
need them." Privately, some officials at
State complain of corner-cutting. For
example, they . say that one White
House staffer "sabotaged" the Depart-
ment's efforts to reach an understanding
with .the new Peruvian Government be- ?
fore extending U.S. recognition. .
Tempo: Bundy And Rusk deal quite
cordially. But among Bundy's colleagues,
it is no secret that he has more respect
for what he calls the "executive opera-
tion" at Defense under .McNamara than
for State under Rusk. One NSC man
puts it this way: "The State Department
just hasn't yet got the tempo of the
White House. We haven't been able to
convey the sense of urgency." Out-
wardly, at least, Dean Rusk appears un-
perturbed by the backstairs backbiting.
From the Security Council staff view-
point, a certain modus vivendi has been
worked out. The NSC concerns itself
with getting urgent attention for urgent
national security matters. It has largely
left upstream planning to special "task
forces" created by the President.
In the last analysis, the system?and
Bundy's place in it?exist to meet the
needs and carry out the policies of the
President. It must bear the stamp of his
own style. By the same token, only
the President can finally judge how
Bundy and the system. perform. .
How does the President size up Mac
Bundy? He put it this way last week:
"First, you can't 'beat brains, and with
brains, judgment. Then, he gets the
work done. He does, a tremendous
amount of work. And he doesn't fold or
.get rattled when they're sniping at him."
For those who worry that McGeorge
Bundy, in his shadowy job, is perhaps
too powerful and too influential, it may
be worth- considering that he. works
closely under a man who is something
of an authority on power and its uses.
On that score, the President offers this
wry assurance: "I think I'll continue to
have residual functions."
CONGRESS:
It Started With Adam
By most accounts, especially that of
Sen. John Williams of Delaware, Rep.
Adam Clayton Powell was coming back
to Washington under a cloud. The cloud
burst last week, and both houses of Con-
gress got pretty wet.
' Powell stood :accused of more pec-
cadilloes than most politicians can
afford. Williams', rasp-voiced Republican,
had taken the Senate floor (NEwswEEx,
? ? Newsweek, March 4, 1963
Declassified and Approved For Release @ 50-Yr 2014/02/05: CIA-RDP65B00383R000300040002-8