KENNEDY'S SECRET ULTIMATUM

ROBERT Kennedy last week relayed to Lyndon Johnson a confidential set of terms whereby, if they were accepted by the President, the Senator would agree not to seek the Democratic nomination. Kennedy's message was, in effect, an ultimatum: If Johnson would publicly announce that he had decided to reevaluate the U.S. role in Viet Nam, Kennedy would stay out of the race.

The maneuver started the day before the New Hampshire vote. It occurred in the course of a twohour conversation between the Pres ident and Kennedy Aide Theodore Sorensen. Reviewing Kennedy's misgivings about the war, Sorensen allowed that the White House was paying too little heed to those who had rational alternatives to his present Viet Nam policy. Johnson replied that he had considered every proposal he knew of, and showed Sorensen a list of the people he had consulted. However, Johnson concluded, he would be glad to hear any new suggestions.

Three days later, after Kennedy had announced that he was reexamining his own inclination to run but before he proclaimed his candidacy, he and Sorensen visited Defense Secretary Clark Clifford. Kennedy named his price for political peace. Insisting that Johnson would have to declare his decision not merely to reevaluate but also to "redirect" the commitment to Viet Nam, he suggested that the President should then appoint a commission for the purpose of proposing a new policy. Kennedy's suggested members for the group included himself and such men as Yale President Kingman Brewster, former Ambassador Edwin O. Reischauer, former Deputy Secretary of Defense Roswell Gilpatric, Generals Lauris Norstad and Matthew Ridgway.

Clifford carried the proposition to Johnson, who immediately objected that 1) it was the kind of political deal that no President could or should enter into; 2) it would say, in effect, that he had been wrong, and Hanoi would thus receive an immeasurable lift; 3) the President would be surrendering his responsibilities to a committee; 4) the names Kennedy proposed constituted a "stacked deck"; and 5) in any event, he had already heard the views of some of those on Kennedy's list.

Within hours after putting the deal to Clifford, Kennedy had the President's answer--a refusal. After that, the only thing left for Kennedy to do was decide the time, place and wording of his announcement.

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