Hard Look at a Hero

By last week the U.S. press, whose fondness for John Fitzgerald Kennedy is surpassed only by its capacity for advising Presidents, began to take a harder look at its new hero. What kind of man was the 35th President of the U.S.? What was he likely to do in his first months of office? More to the point, what counsel did he need from editorial writers and columnists? From coast to coast, helpful, if sometimes sententious, comment poured into print.

The machine precision of Kennedy's political strategy gave Columnist Doris Fleeson a sudden chill. "Efficiently, almost coldly," she wrote, "President-elect Kennedy and his new team of intellectuals, investment bankers, management experts and bright young men are taking over their Washington assignments. But it is already clear that a fascinating and power-laden quality is sadly lacking--and that is personal fervor, with all that it means in warmth, excitement and flair . . . The art or trick of leadership is not just rational action, but articulation of it in ways that reach the public's heart as well as mind. Kennedy seems almost to have set for himself the Talleyrand motto: 'Above all, no zeal.' "

Partly Cloudy. A paternal word of caution descended from the Olympian altitude where Columnist Walter Lippmann dispenses judgment. One of the more impatient pilgrims during the campaign,

Lippmann called for deceleration when the New Frontier hove into view. "The great task of quiet diplomacy," said he, "is to work out ways and means of keeping the critical questions from reaching the point of irreparable decision. It sounds brave and dashing to say that we must take the lead and act decisively to solve the problems of Laos and Cuba. But the fact is that these problems are, in the present state of the world, insoluble. By open diplomacy, which only too often means loud-mouthed diplomacy, we can do little to assuage, indeed much to exacerbate these crises."

New York Times Washington Bureau Chief James Reston saw the Presiden-elect as a man sobered by a closer look at reality: "Kennedy himself has had a shock. He has come to the conclusion that there was not only some truth in what he said in the campaign, but that the economy and the world situation are even worse than he thought. Accordingly, there is no longer any cavalier talk around Democratic headquarters about 'the first 100 days.' Nobody is promising a flood of legislation that will make Franklin Roosevelt's first 100 days look tame."

While most press observers felt that the New Frontier was in sight, there was wide speculation about its climate and the style of its economy, and about a Frontiersman's proper pace. The Kansas City Times studied the Kennedy task-force recession report and was reassured: "We have the impression that the New Frontier is to be approached warily." The Reporter magazine called for the spur: "The men in the new Administration perforce have to be men of action." Rowland Evans Jr. of the New York Herald Tribune's Washington bureau filed a weather forecast on Kennedy's relations with Congress: "Partly cloudy, with variable winds."

Cause for Apprehension. Deploring the boundless energy of Kennedy's task forces ("They have been burning the midnight oil thinking up things for the Kennedy Administration to do"), the Cleveland Plain Dealer suggested darkly: "It remains to be seen whether the gateway to the New Frontier will lead to a Paradise for Planners or the rocky road of hard work and self-sacrifice." In Chicago, the Tribune scanned the economic survey prepared for Kennedy by Paul Samuelson, Walter Heller and other economists, and concluded that the New Frontier might become a retreat to the wartime "regimented economy" of Franklin D. Roosevelt. "Man, do you glimpse that New Frontier?" cried the Tribune. "It seems to have barbed wire around it."

Each facet of the presidential responsibility was explored in detail. After the Senate vote last week upheld the present filibuster rule, the liberal New York Post not only threw up its hands in horror--"Is there still no semblance of honor among party leaders in their dealings with those who seek equality of citizenship?"--but held Kennedy partly to blame. "Was it essential that Mr. Kennedy surrender to the South on this issue to salvage the rest of his program?" asked the Post. "We doubt it."

The Washington Star hoped that the "long-neglected problem" of federal parking would not be "swept under the rug." The New York Daily News advised Kennedy to staff his State Department with reliable anti-Communists such as Victor (I Chose Freedom) Kravchenko and Princess Alexandra Kropotkin. "Of course, President Kennedy can buddy up to Castro and Khrushchev," said the News, "but if he does, he'll brand himself as a dishonest man, to say nothing of giving the criminal Communist conspiracy a powerful assist in its drive to enslave the human race. Somehow, we can't picture Kennedy being as dumb and deceitful as that." When President Eisenhower severed relations with Cuba, the Charleston (S.C.) News & Courier found Kennedy's silence "cause for apprehension," the Christian Science Monitor's William Stringer found it "traditional behavior," and the Boston Herald found it reprehensible: "An endorsement by him of the President's Cuban stand would have done him no harm and would have greatly strengthened the country's position."

Honeymoon's End. In this sudden burst of both hindsight and foresight, there was increasing evidence that the press's romance with Jack Kennedy, which began so handsomely during the campaign and waxed so warm after his November triumph, might not long survive the traditional postInaugural honeymoon. But that, too, was to be expected. Since George Washington's time, when the nation's first President complained, "The Government and the Officers of it are the constant theme for Newspaper abuse," the U.S. press has practiced with uninterrupted vigor its historical prerogative to find fault with Presidents. The 35th President of the U.S. can hardly expect to escape the same ordeal.

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