Press Secretaries: The New Man

For a few critical hours after President Kennedy's assassination, there was only one man at the White House who could presume to speak for Lyndon Johnson. He was George Reedy, 46, who for 13 years has been a Johnson intimate. By the next day, when Press Secretary Pierre Salinger and the new President had returned to Washington, Reedy had stepped back into the shadows. But not for long. Last week as Salinger announced his resignation to run for the Senate (see THE NATION), waiting at his elbow to take over was Johnson's man George Reedy.

An unflappable, unkempt hulk of a man, who looms 6 ft. 3 in. and is pushing 250 Ibs., Reedy has had the L.B.J. brand on him since the day in 1951 when he quit the United Press after nine years as congressional reporter. He was going to work for the junior Senator from Texas, Reedy told friends, "because Lyndon Johnson is going to be President some day and I'm hitching my wagon to that star."

Johnson put his assistant on the staffs of Senate committees, later named him a special aide, then posted Reedy to the National Aeronautics and Space Council, which Johnson headed when he was Vice President. "Do you think this is a promotion?" one reporter asked as Reedy took over his latest assignment. Reedy hesitated, smiled, then said, "It's like shoving a man into the front line in the trenches. If he makes it, he gets the victory medal."