The Democrats' Mr. Fixit

The courtly Missourian has been helping Democrats out of jams for three decades. Last week elegant, silver-haired Clark Clifford, sometimes peering through a pince-nez, was at the side of pudgy, rumpled Bert Lance, carefully guiding him through the thicket of charges and questions. As Lance read his occasionally theatrical opening statement, Co-Author Clifford silently mouthed the words along with him. At one point the Senators paused in their rambling cross-examination to ask Clifford's expert help in interpreting a loan agreement that had been signed by his client. Clifford was the coolest and best-prepared person in the room.

Since taking the case at Lance's request on Labor Day weekend, Clifford had digested all of the treacherous details, brought discipline and organization to Lance's arguments, and counseled him to meet his accusers headon. Day and night the two worked in Clifford's dark-paneled office overlooking the White House, hammering out an artfully worded defense to each charge of impropriety.

Sound political sense and meticulous attention to detail are characteristic of Clifford and among the reasons that he has been the trusted confidant of four Presidents. His imposing demeanor (a Washington lawyer once said that listening to Clifford was like listening to God) contrasts with his relatively modest background. Son of a railroad auditor, he practiced law back home in St. Louis for 15 years before moving to Washington and becoming one of President Harry Truman's most intimate advisers--on law, politics and foreign policy. Clifford was a principal architect of the Point Four program, which provided economic aid to undeveloped countries, the Truman Doctrine, which helped keep Greece from falling to the Communists, and of the modern Defense Department and Central Intelligence Agency. He also advised John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson on foreign policy, but refused to join the Cabinet until 1968, when he reluctantly became Secretary of Defense. In that job, he helped persuade Johnson to limit bombing raids on North Viet Nam and begin negotiating with Hanoi's representatives in Paris.

A senior partner of the Washington law firm Clifford, Glass, McIlwain & Finney, Clifford, 70, still works full time and earns an estimated $1 million a year, mostly from his corporate clients. Tightly self-disciplined, Clifford never loses his temper, never drinks, and smokes no more than three cigarettes a day. He allows himself only 20 minutes for lunch at a Y.W.C.A. cafeteria near his office and a few hours each weekend for a round of golf at the Burning Tree Club.

Jimmy Carter has already called on Clifford for assistance at least three' times: to ease his transition to power, advise Ted Sorensen when his nomination as CIA director ran into implacable Senate opposition, and serve as the President's special envoy in an attempt--so far unsuccessful--to help negotiate a settlement between Greece and Turkey over Cyprus.

Clifford likes to keep souvenirs; he still has the envelope on which he accurately jotted down in advance the outcome of the 1948 election, in which he helped plot strategy for Truman's victory. The Lance affair should yield a few souvenirs too--especially that 49 page opening statement.

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