The Big Three

Dean Rusk's muscular attack on the opponents of escalation might have astonished those who have always thought of him as a flabby sort, but it came as no surprise at all to Lyndon Johnson.

In the past year, Rusk has emerged as one of the three men who serve as the President's most trusted advisers in national security matters--particularly Viet Nam. The others: Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara and Special Presidential Assistant McGeorge Bundy.

The three form a kind of compact Kitchen Cabinet, a distilled version of "ExComm," the outsize Executive Committee of the National Security Council that John F. Kennedy set up during 1962's Cuba crisis. Because they often meet with Johnson after dark and because they share his tough views on Viet Nam, they are referred to as the "night hawks" by some Washingtonians. Others simply call them "the Big Three." Said a White House aide of the group: "They are running the war in Viet Nam." Declared another: "They are running everything."

Top of the Iceberg. That is not quite right: Lyndon Johnson is still very much the chief and makes all the final decisions. But to a remarkable degree, he has come to rely on the Big Three to help focus his thinking not only on Viet Nam but also on a wide range of problems involving both military and diplomatic considerations.

For the last two months he has been meeting with them seven or eight times a week, usually in his oval office or his private quarters. Sometimes the setting is the presidential retreat at Camp David on Maryland's Catoctin Mountain, where he adjourned with all three last March after deciding to send U.S. marines to Danang. He often sees individual members of the group three or four times a day, is in touch with one or another of them almost hourly. Last week he had only two formal meetings with them, but the formal meetings are just the top of the iceberg.

This distilled ExComm began taking shape about a year ago. Irritated over a steady stream of news leaks from National Security Council meetings, the President asked an aide: "Do we have to have all of these people?" He began scratching names off the list, finally winnowed it down to Bundy, McNamara and Rusk. He still meets regularly with the NSC, but when he really wants to speak his mind--or hear others speak theirs--he summons the Big Three.

Sometimes he also calls in Under Secretary of State George Ball, or General Earle Wheeler, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, or the head of the Central Intelligence Agency. And he relies on Dwight Eisenhower for occasional military counsel, has recently been telephoning him once a week. Ike approves of Lyndon's course in Viet Nam, has told him: "There will come a time when everything will be just right--there will be an opening, and you can sit down and negotiate. It happened in Korea. I was lucky. But you must hang on until that time comes."

Softer Line. One reason for the President's heavy reliance on the Big Three is that he can rarely depend on top congressional Democrats for the kind of support on Viet Nam that Bundy, McNamara and Rusk give him. Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield, for example, treads a far softer line, and only last week Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman J. William Fulbright was calling for a halt to U.S. air strikes. It was Minority Leader Everett M. Dirksen, in fact, who took to the Senate floor to defend Johnson's policy against Fulbright by declaring:

"We have to hold their feet to the fire.

If we let up on them now, we will lose face, our prestige will drop, and that will make it more difficult to end the conflict."

Despite obvious dissimilarities, the Big Three have some important bonds in common. Each has a Phi Beta Kappa key and a striking record of success before joining the Government. Bundy, 46, was Skull and Bones at Yale, became dean of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences at 34. McNamara, 48, became the $400,000-plus-a-year president of Ford at 44. Rusk, 56, was a Rhodes scholar, became president of the Rockefeller Foundation at 43.

No Kibitzers Allowed. Of the three, Johnson remains most impressed--almost awed--by McNamara. Often the President phones him before 7 a.m. for a rundown on Viet Nam. Less decisive than McNamara, Rusk is nevertheless valuable to Johnson not only as a loyal conduit for his policies but also as a skillful operator on Capitol Hill and a man of quiet reason. Johnson repays Rusk's loyalty. When critics asked why he did not reach into the lower echelons of the State Department for advice as Jack Kennedy often did, Johnson replied, "Hell, I go to Dean Rusk. He's my Secretary of State." Bundy, a Bostonian whose occasionally astringent manner has chilled more than a few acquaintances, still unnerves his Texas-bred boss a bit--he's just so-o-o Eastern. But he remains Lyndon's key White House man on foreign developments.

Under Kennedy, according to a high official, "a lot of people kibitzed who didn't have operational responsibility." By comparison, Johnson prefers to deal almost exclusively with the men who carry the load.

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