The Cold War: Chief of Staff

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Occasionally cupping a hand to an ear —he was deafened slightly by a demolition charge in the '30s—Taylor has also demonstrated that he can hold his own in high-powered debate with such White House word men as McGeorge Bundy, the former faculty dean of Harvard University, M.I.T.'s Walt Rostow, or Arthur Schlesinger, Harvard's Pulitzer prizewinning historian. A linguist of intimidating intensity, Taylor is fluent in Japanese, German, Spanish and French. "Taylor is an intellectual." says one White House staffer. "You give him a problem in the Middle East, and he wants to know how Xerxes handled it."

April Fiasco. Although he had never met Taylor, President Kennedy was so impressed by The Uncertain Trumpet and the man's general reputation that he began looking for a job for him right after taking office. In all Taylor was suggested for at least eight jobs on the New Frontier. Kennedy even considered him for Secretary of Defense but reluctantly decided against the idea because he did not want a military man in the job.

Then, in April, John Kennedy made the great blunder of his Administration: he sent the ill-prepared. anti-Castro rebels into the Bay of Pigs. What was more, Kennedy made the military mistake of withholding air support from the rebels. Publicly, Kennedy shouldered the responsibility for the Cuban fiasco, but in private he blamed the advice he got from the Central Intelligence Agency and the military guidance he received from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Mad and upset, Kennedy looked about for a man to find out what went wrong. A quick phone call, and Maxwell Taylor took the job.

For nearly two months. Taylor and Bobby Kennedy holed up in an office in the Pentagon and worked over CIA data with the help of CIA Chief Allen Dulles and Chief of Naval Operations Arleigh Burke. Last month, with the concurrence of his colleagues. Taylor made his main report orally to John Kennedy. Said he: the CIA should have no operational role in future major actions similar to the Cuban venture but should be allowed to continue small-scale, covert activities.

Bigger Problem. But Jack Kennedy was already beginning to realize that a far bigger problem remained at the heart of his Administration—a problem tailor-made for Taylor. Every foreign crisis facing the U.S.—from West Berlin to South Viet Nam—has its military implications. But the White House staffers, in whom the President has confidence, have no military experience, and Kennedy had lost faith in the military advice that he was getting from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Says one ranking Pentagon official of Army General Lyman Lemnitzer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs: "The President just doesn't find Lemnitzer responsive to his needs. He's just not the forceful, dynamic, persuasive person that this situation requires."