TWO FOR THE NEW SHOW

Of the half a dozen appointees President-elect Kennedy named last week, two are likely to have a decisive effect in shaping his Administration: Special Counsel Ted Sorensen and White House Liaison Man Clark Clifford.

Theodore Chaikin Sorensen, at 32, is one of the youngest of Jack Kennedy's youthful organization, but a weatherbeaten old veteran in point of service. A spare, bespectacled intellectual, he was born in Nebraska, the son of a fire-breathing Republican lawyer who, as a political follower of the late George Norris, became Nebraska's attorney general. After graduating from the University of Nebraska law school with top honors, Sorensen followed his political instincts to Washington as a young bureaucrat, worked for the Federal Security Agency, then for Illinois' Senator Paul Douglas before signing on with freshman Senator John Kennedy as a research assistant and speechwriter.

The two men were drawn together by their mutual bookishness and preoccupation with politics; Kennedy's near-fatal illness in 1955 sealed their bond. Sorensen compiled the research for Kennedy's book, Profiles in Courage, while Jack was convalescing in Florida, was wrongly credited by Drew Pearson with ghosting the book--a charge that was disproved by Sorensen's notes, Kennedy's handwritten drafts, and the assistance of Washington Lawyer Clark Clifford. Pearson later retracted his charges. Sorensen helped Kennedy plot his unsuccessful try for the vice-presidential nomination in 1956. Only weeks later they embarked on the long, arduous campaign for the presidency. For three years before Jack Kennedy announced his candidacy he and his assistant stumped the country together, taking notes, preparing strategy, and laying the groundwork for the country's most extraordinary political campaign.

When Bobby Kennedy took over the direction of his brother's campaign in mid-1959, Ted Sorensen retreated behind the scenes as Jack's administrative assistant, top speechwriter and strategist. (Unitarian Sorensen drafted Kennedy's principal speeches defending his Roman Catholic faith from Protestant attack.) "I want to keep Ted with me wherever I go in this campaign," said Kennedy. "You need somebody whom you can trust implicitly."

A sober, deadly earnest, self-effacing man with a blue steel brain, Ted Sorensen is an instinctive political stage manager. He assiduously avoids personal publicity and attributed quotations, is personally abstemious,* and reserves his quiet sense of humor for his rare off-duty hours. Ruffled politicians accuse him of ruthlessness; disgruntled underlings say he is a martinet; the press finds him invariably helpful. His fascination with politics is complete, and he is devoted to the Kennedy cause. As the special counsel to the new President, Ted Sorensen will be as close to the heart of the new Administration as any man.

At 53, Clark McAdams Clifford is an old man by the actuarial tables of "Operation Kennedy," but he was once a young lion of Democratic politics himself. The son of well-to-do parents and nephew of a crusading editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, he was a model boy with golden ringlets, went from law school into a prosperous St. Louis law firm, became a flashy and prosperous trial lawyer with a godlike blond profile that wowed the female jurors.

During the last year of World War II, Lieut. Commander Clifford was assigned to the White House as a junior naval aide, soon caught the eye of a fellow Missourian, President Harry Truman. In a twinkling he became the junior lead in the turbulent Truman Administration, the President's administrative assistant and Key West companion, organizational expert and confidant. After the Democratic debacle of 1952, Clifford lingered on in Washington as the head of his own flourishing law firm. In the Eisenhower years his friendship with another big man from Missouri, Senator Stuart Symington, also flourished. Last year, when Symington began taxiing for the Democratic presidential nomination in a campaign that never left the runway, Clifford was his copilot. When Jack Kennedy ran away with the nomination, Clifford simply switched candidates.

Since September, Clark Clifford has been working diligently on the blueprints of the Kennedy Administration, comparing past presidencies with future plans. With a full dossier of top-job categories and specifications ready for victory, Clifford was a natural liaison man between the Administrations. As a bridge between Kennedy Democrats and the older generation of Symington and Truman, he also had an indisputable usefulness, will undoubtedly be given a key job once the Kennedy Administration is in command.

* As a boy, Sorensen was offered a silver dollar by his father if he reached his 21st birthday without smoking or drinking. Jack Kennedy got a similar offer of $1,000 from his father. Sorensen collected, but Kennedy, who had sampled beer, did not.

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