The Administration: New Man at the U.N.

Within hours after Adlai Stevenson's death, President Johnson asked his advisers to begin compiling a list of candidates for the U.N. ambassador's post. Names were submitted by the dozen. But almost from the first, the President knew whom he wanted: Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg, 56, former Secretary of Labor, who is short on foreign-affairs experience but impressively long on practice in the rough-and-tumble diplomacy of labor negotiations.

"Very Troubled." Getting Goldberg to step down from the Supreme Court was easier said than done, and the President started with his softest sell. By coincidence, Goldberg already had a White House appointment to bid pre-vacation farewell to Johnson three days after Stevenson died. While they talked, the President probed gently, asked Goldberg for his recommendations for Adlai's replacement, spoke about the importance of the U.N. job. When Goldberg left the White House, he had no notion that he was under Presidential consideration.

Two days later, when Johnson flew to Bloomington, Ill., for Stevenson's burial, Goldberg was invited to ride along with the presidential party on Air Force One. Again, during the flight from Washington and back, the two talked at length about the U.N. job. Again, the President did not ask the obvious question, but Goldberg got the drift. "I was very troubled," he said later. That night Johnson phoned the Justice at George Washington University Hospital, where Goldberg was visiting his ailing mother-in-law, and finally made the offer. Goldberg hedged, told the President that he did not think he was the best man for the job; that he was not sure he should leave the court. Johnson asked him to consider it overnight, and the next morning the President phoned again.

Reluctantly, Goldberg said he would take the U.N. post if Johnson really wanted him. "I want you," snapped the President. "Bring Mrs. Goldberg right over to the office."

When they arrived, both Goldberg and his wife seemed disturbed by the turn of events, but the President told them: "When a Southerner can sit in the White House, when a Negro can aspire to the highest offices in the land, when a man of deep Jewish background can be the spokesman of this country to the world—that's what America is all about."

Then the President went into the Rose Garden for a routine ceremony. That done, he went back to the White House, shouting over his shoulder to reporters, "I'll be back in a moment." He returned with Goldberg, his wife and son, Robert, 24, in tow. The President briskly told reporters that Goldberg was his man for the U.N. Then, as his wife stood by, her eyes sad, Arthur Goldberg made a moving acceptance speech. "I shall not, Mr. President, conceal the pain with which I leave the court after three years of service. It has been the richest and most satisfying period of my career," he said. "Throughout my life I have been deeply committed to the rule of law. The law gives form and substance to the spirit of liberty and to mankind's sacred stir for justice. It now comes that the President has asked me to join in the greatest adventure of man's history—the effort to bring the rule of law to govern the relations between sovereign states. It is that or doom—and we all know it. I have accepted—as one simply must."