Changing the Guard

The newly appointed U.S. Ambassador to Saigon rather resembles his predecessor--tall, spare, white-haired, with a patrician bearing that exudes authority. There the resemblance ends. While the retiring Ellsworth Bunker has a genial courtliness that enables him to get along with almost anyone, Graham Martin is aloof, tough and taciturn--so much so that he has alienated many people. Nonetheless, both friends and critics agree that Martin is well suited for the hard job ahead of him.

Martin's strongest assets are his acutely sensitive political antennae, which can detect and analyze the most byzantine political situations, and an iron determination to see Government policy carried out regardless of anyone's hurt feelings. Martin, now 60, first learned his political skills while working as a Washington columnist for a number of newspapers in his native South, and then as an official in Franklin Roosevelt's National Recovery Administration. Appointed to the Paris embassy after World War II, he became so adroit in finding and exploiting sources of power that he acquired a nickname that still follows him: "Cardinal Richelieu."

To his various staffs, however, Martin may often have appeared more like a Prussian general. As Ambassador to Thailand and later to Rome, he worked prodigious hours and expected his staff to do the same. He had a habit of waking up in the middle of the night, struck by a thought or insight, and drafting a cable by his bedside or calling up one of his assistants to discuss the matter. "He even dreams diplomacy and power plays," says one associate. For relaxation, he once tried golf but shortly gave it up; he tried swimming and dropped that too.

In his tireless dedication to his assignments, Martin has not hesitated to challenge other officials' views. A typical cable from Thailand would begin: "While Ambassador X may see the situation in his area in his own way, the realities indicate ..." Martin even took on Lyndon Johnson's Defense Secretary, Robert McNamara, attacking Mc-Namara's plan to slash military aid to Thailand and shift it to Viet Nam. Martin's persistent arguments eventually won Johnson over to his side. Martin subsequently negotiated the use of Thai bases by the U.S. Air Force, now the largest American military presence in Southeast Asia.

Martin's adopted son Glenn was killed in a helicopter crash in Viet Nam, and the ambassador has an intense interest in the area. He strongly favored resisting the Communists in Viet Nam but long opposed the use of U.S. ground forces there. During his recent tour in Rome, he was reported to be spending much of his time writing position papers on Viet Nam's future after the U.S. withdrawal, but he characteristically turned aside questions on these projects by saying, "You really wouldn't want to ask about that."

How Martin will carry out his own strategies remains to be seen, of course, but the Saigon government apparently welcomes him. "Oh, he's going to be great," said one confidant of President Nguyen Van Thieu. "Martin is a hawk, you know." Perhaps the aide forgot that Cardinal Richelieu is remembered not for open fighting but for his skill in maneuvering others to work his will.

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