The Spirit of Spring

To the Kennedy Administration, it seemed that spring 1963 might be balmy. There were the usual world tensions and domestic disputes. But there were no really burning crises. And the President, fresh from a triumphal visit to Central America, was at his jauntiest.

His mood was reflected at a post-Costa Rican press conference. Newsmen tossed him some pretty sticky questions--and he took them in easy stride.

A Family Example. Was he upset by the grilling that Defense Secretary Robert McNamara was getting from Congress over the TFX fighter-plane contract? McNamara, for one, seemed disturbed by the committee's intimations of favoritism. In a highly emotional state, he told the Senators that his son, reading newspaper accounts of the controversy, had asked: "When is my father going to be proved an honest man?"

But the President took a relatively relaxed view of the TFX fuss. He stuck up staunchly for McNamara: "My judgment is that the decision reached by Secretary McNamara was the right one. sound one, and any fair and objective hearing will bring that out. I have no objection to anyone looking at the contract as long as they feel a useful function is served."

Then, smilingly, the President alluded to his brother, Massachusetts' Senator Teddy Kennedy, in making the point that McNamara is above political influence. Said the President: "I know from personal experience that Senators and Congressmen who recently visited Secretary McNamara, asking to prevent plans from being turned down, who happen to be members of my own party, and indeed even more closely related, have been rejected by the Secretary of Defense."

Similarly, only a few weeks ago Kennedy had been issuing dire warnings of economic recession if his tax program was not accepted by Congress. Now. at his press conference, he said: "We don't believe that there will be a recession this year." What were the prospects for his program? Said he: "I plan to get the tax cut." Later, while in Chicago on a trip to dedicate the city's new O'Hare International Airport, he grimly insisted that action must be taken to reverse the nation's unemployment trend, but he ended on an optimistic note: "The growing pool of manpower continues to grow, a burden that should be a blessing, a liability that could be an asset. I have no doubt that these problems will some day be solved." A Strong Conviction. There did, of course, remain Cuba as a dark spot on the presidential horizon. But at his news conference, the President drew comfort from the fact that of some 17,000 Cuba-based troops, the Soviet Union has "withdrawn approximately 3,000 in these past weeks. We are waiting to see whether more will be withdrawn, as we would hope they would be." And he felt confident about Cuba's future: "I think the strong conviction is that the people of Latin America want to be free, they don't want to live under a tyranny, and that Cuba will be free."

Kennedy was even able to shrug off a press conference question about the possibility that Russia may soon "launch two spacecraft and perform a rendezvous and a docking and the men are supposed to change ships.'' Said Columnist Holmes Alexander: "I am told if this happens it puts them in a position of being able to mount a nuclear weapon in space, and if that happens, what would be the American response?" Replied Kennedy: "These are all presumptions. . . . We are expending an enormous sum of money to make sure that the Soviet Union does not dominate space. We will continue to do it."

A Year Ago. Behind President Kennedy's optimism lay an unmistakable fact: whether in Berlin, or Southeast Asia, or elsewhere, the Soviet Union is not stirring up as much trouble as usual. Administration officials recognize that an aging, less active Khrushchev has all sorts of problems within his own Communist world. Said one Kennedy foreign policy adviser last week: "We've taken another look at the whole international situation. And, by God, Russia is in trouble."

The classic political position has always been: look out for an enemy who has trouble at home, since he might launch diverting trouble abroad. But the New Frontier is reinterpreting that maxim. Administration leaders are convinced that the U.S. has Russia on the defensive, and that this means a period of calm. The evidence they marshal is considerable. Says a presidential aide: "We held in Berlin, engaged the enemy in Viet Nam, made Cuba a costly operation to the Kremlin, focused new attention on Latin America, and re-established the superiority of our weaponry."

There is just one thing to remember. Almost exactly a year ago there was a similar period of quiet, a similar spirit of confidence. Yet at that very time, Khrushchev was getting ready to sneak long-range, atom-armed missiles into Cuba.

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