Top to Bottom

One year in office, John F. Kennedy's Cabinet had shaken down in an interesting pattern. In performance and prestige, its members fell into three groups. From top to bottom:

Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara stands as the strong man of the Kennedy Cabinet. His presence is emphatically felt by the Pentagon braid; his computing-machine efficiency has won the President's high admiration.

Treasury Secretary C. Douglas Dillon scores impressively for no-nonsense administration of his department, for a clear-eyed approach to such sticky problems as the gold flow, foreign aid, and tariff reduction; the new balanced budget gives Dillon another boost. He and Kennedy both cherish his Republicanism.

Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy remains his big brother's closest confidant; an Administration troubleshooter in foreign policy and national intelligence, he has acted with skill and dash in anti-racketeering and civil rights enforcement.

Labor Secretary Arthur J. Goldberg rates among the top Cabinet members for his articulation of the Administration's labor-management policies and for his adroit mediation of labor disputes involving ferryboats and tugboats, airline flight engineers, and the Metropolitan Opera.

State Secretary Dean Rusk ranks at the top of the middle group; although he retains the confidence of the President as his chief adviser on foreign policy, Rusk has struck few sparks as an Administration spokesman, has not yet solved the problems of internal administration at State, which is due for another major shakeup.

HEW Secretary Abraham A. Ribicoff has worked hard at advancing the Administration's welfare plans but hasn't yet sold Congress on the key programs--medical care for the aged and aid to education. His considerable vanity has exposed him to some sniping, but he is rated as a solid administrator.

Commerce Secretary Luther H. Hodges has served quietly and colorlessly as an administrator and as the New Frontier's link with business; the Administration expects him to distinguish himself in the impending fight to liberalize foreign trade.

Agriculture Secretary Orville L. Freeman has not improved the farm situation. Perhaps nobody can.

Postmaster General J. Edward Day is the unknown man of the Cabinet; he has struggled manfully to reduce his department's annual billion-dollar deficit, this year will champion a postal rate bill designed to increase the Department's revenues by $650 million a year (but most of it will be absorbed by pay raises for Post Office employees).

Interior Secretary Stewart L. Udall has displayed symptoms of foot-in-mouth disease, been frustrated by the White House's lack of interest in his grand design for new national park and conservation programs.

HEW's Ribicoff, who plans to run this year for the Senate in Connecticut, will probably be the first member of Kennedy's Cabinet to depart. The first-year stability of the Kennedy Cabinet is not unusual. In Franklin Roosevelt's first year, only one Cabinet member left; he was Treasury Secretary William Woodin, who resigned because of illness. There was a wholesale turnover in Harry Truman's inherited first Cabinet, but in the year after that the only change in new members was the substitution of John Snyder for Treasury Secretary Fred Vinson, who was appointed Chief Justice. In Dwight Eisenhower's first year, only Labor Secretary Martin Durkin dropped out.

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