MEN AT THE FRONT

On the seething Middle East scene, entrusted with frontline authority to move quickly, boldly and, if necessary, aggressively, were these four key U.S. figures last week:

Vice Admiral James Lemuel Holloway Jr., 60, in command of all U.S. fighting forces in the Middle East. "Lord Jim" Holloway (so dubbed for his courtly ways during a tour as superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy) since February has paced a shore-based bridge in London as Commander in Chief, U.S. Naval Forces Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean, commuted to his Navy-owned mansion in Surrey in a black Imperial. His clipped accent, his malacca stick with mufti, and his penchant for quoting Dickens and Thackeray delighted Londoners. But in 40-odd years of Navy life, Annapolisman Holloway ('19) has carved a commendable seadog career. During World War II he steamed in with the first African invasion as a destroyer squadron commander, later commanded the battleship Iowa in strikes against the Japanese home islands. To send Lord Jim to Lebanon, the U.S. dusted off a sub-command that had not been used since the Suez crisis: CINCSPECOMME (Commander in Chief, Specified Command, Middle East).

Vice Admiral Charles Randall Brown, 58, commander of the Mediterranean-based Sixth Fleet. To Alabaman "Cat" Brown, bossing this 418,000-ton, 76-ship armada is "the best job in the whole Navy." An unruly plebe at Annapolis, he logged 300 demerits, squeezed out near the bottom of his class ('21). The exuberant Brown spirit chafed at a rash of peacetime desk jobs, boiled over in 1943. "I've got a carrier [the Kalinin Bay], and I'd like a job of work," he told Admiral Raymond A. Spruance. Snapped Spruance: "You've got one." For two years the Kalinin Bay escort carrier steamed through the thick of it, in the Marianas, the China Sea, the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Forty years in the Navy have rubbed the undisciplined edges off Scripture-quoting Cat Brown, but they have not blunted his claws. While he is perhaps the U.S.'s smoothest and most widely known diplomat in Mediterranean countries, he keeps the Sixth Fleet ready and able to serve as a massive instrument that can deliver atomic destruction--or the threat of it--anywhere, even to Moscow.

Robert Mills McClintock, 48, U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon. Seattle-born, Stanford educated ('31), Bob McClintock fell in love with the Foreign Service during a college trip to Europe, joined up in 1931, rose through the global ranks to the Policy-Planning Staff as specialist on Southeast Asia. Assigned by President Eisenhower last year to crowded, humid Beirut, spruce and able Ambassador McClintock ran a polished show, still found time to keep trim with push-ups and strolls at the far end of his black poodle's leash. As Lebanon drifted toward civil war, he was credited with recommending the U.S. policy of keeping President Camille Chamoun at polite arm's length until Chamoun put his own political house in order. Iraq changed all that.

Robert Daniel Murphy, 63, Deputy Under Secretary of State. In a distinguished diplomatic career, lean, leathery Bob Murphy has earned his reputation as the President's personal troubleshooter. Time and again, the unique Murphy blend of charm, secret-agentry, and consummate negotiating skill has unraveled Gordian kinks in U.S. international affairs: in Paris in 1940, where he dealt with the conquering Nazis; in enemy-held Algeria, where his skillful undercover work paved the way for the successful Allied invasion; at Trieste, in Korea and Suez. Most recently, he shuttled between preDe Gaulle France and Tunisia as the President's agent in a vain attempt to settle a dispute over French forces in Tunisia. In the usual rush last week, Troubleshooter Murphy was sped to Beirut as liaison between the U.S. military and Lebanese officials, as top watchdog on the internal Lebanese political situation and to serve as the President's and Secretary Dulles' chief adviser on what to do next.

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