Nation: The Men Lyndon Likes

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The new President of the U.S. received his Washington rearing under the New and Fair Deals, not the New Frontier—and he counts among his most valued advisers some who have been considered rather old-hat during the past three years.

Among these are such elder statesmen as Dean Acheson, 70, to whose acerbic tongue Kennedy liked to listen —but whose advice he did not often accept. Then there are Benjamin Cohen, 69, Thomas ("Tommy the Cork") Corcoran, 62, legal-eagle wheeler-dealers of the early New Deal days, and James H. Rowe, 54, now a Washington law partner of Corcoran's and a longtime Johnson political adviser. Spanning the Truman and Kennedy administrations is Washington Lawyer Clark Clifford, 56, a peerless behind-the-scenes political troubleshooter who is as close to Johnson as he was to Truman and a bit closer than he was to Kennedy. And then there is Lawyer Abe Fortas, 53, a New Deal brain-truster who served as F.D.R.'s Under Secretary of the Interior, and more recently has been retained as an attorney for a Johnson protege, ousted Senate Majority Secretary Bobby Gene Baker.

President Johnson can certainly be expected to consult with these old associates—although not necessarily to appoint any of them to high office. Who are the men Lyndon may reasonably be expected to bring into his official family, at whatever level?

Close to the Top. Johnson has always been a Texan of Texas loyalties. And his closest political associate in Texas was certainly Governor John Connally, 46 (see following story).

Another Texan whom Johnson vastly admires is Robert Anderson, 53, who was one of the first men he saw after taking over (see U.S. BUSINESS). Still another high-caliber Johnson favorite is Army Secretary Cyrus Vance, 46, a West Virginian who worked between 1957 and 1960 as special counsel for up-and-coming Lyndon Johnson's Senate Preparedness Investigating Subcommittee. Vance is the odds-on choice to succeed Manhattan Lawyer Roswell Gilpatric as Deputy Secretary of Defense. Likely to follow Vance as Army Secretary is Assistant Navy Secretary Kenneth BeLieu, 49, a former staff director for that same subcommittee.

Top Staffer. Then there are the men, as yet little known to the public, who are likely to become known as members of the President's personal staff. As Congressman, as Senator, and as Vice President, Johnson always worked his staffers to the limit, often cussed them in front of outsiders. Yet in the demands he made on them, many found rewards that kept them at their jobs.

Foremost among these is Bill Moyers, only 29 but an on-again, off-again Johnson aide for nearly a decade. After two years at North Texas State College in Denton—where he was twice elected class president—Moyers joined Johnson's Washington staff as a vacation-time helper in 1954, turned in an impressive performance. At summer's end he went home, acquired a journalism degree at the University of Texas while working part time for Lady Bird's television station in Austin.