Nation: Point Man Harold Brown

(3 of 3)

Acting as the Administration's political point man seems to be out of character for Arch-Technocrat Brown. The White House insists that it did not urge him to join the fray. Said a senior Carter adviser: "We didn't have to push him a bit. That doesn't mean that we're not delighted that he decided to jump in." Brown likes his job and wants to keep it; that means, of course, re-electing Carter. Brown also has his own record to defend. Declared the Secretary: "The President has said to me, 'Don't do anything that you think is incompatible with the nature of your office.' He has not told me to go out and defend my stewardship. But he didn't have to. My stewardship has been attacked, and I'm going to defend it."

But as Brown surely knows, there is a point beyond which a Secretary of Defense should not go, even in defending his own record. —By Edwin Warner. Reported by Don Sider/Washington