COUNSELOR TO THE MIGHTY"
Johnson's new secretary of defense, Clark Clifford, is not well known among the American people. He has never served as a governor, aS a senator, or even as a congressman. This does not mean that he is a neophyte in the affairs of government. Among certain very important and authoritative circles, he is a familiar and highly trusted figure. In fact, he is credited with having devised the strategy that enabled Truman to reverse a plunging popularity rating and win the election in 1948. He also helped Kennedy to win in 1960 and Johnson in 1964.
In an article in the February 3-4 St. Louis Globe Democrat, entitled "Counselor to the Mighty," Richard Harwood outlines Clifford's career since he left Harry Truman's White House team in 1950.
As a lawyer, practicing in Washington, Clifford had two goals. His immediate one, corresponding to the stan-
dards of the crowd he ran with, was to
reach an income of $100,000 within a
year. Beyond that, he hoped to hitch his
wagon to a star, as the saying goes, and
become "the pre-eminent political 'coun-
selor' to the American Business Estab-
lishment and, in that role, to ease the
tensions between the great private in-
terests in the United States and the
great bureaucracy in Washington."
He was eminently successful in
achieving both goals. "His law firm grossed
more than $2 million last year. Clifford's
share is said to have been as little as
$500,000 and as much as $1 million."
His private clients include "Time,
Inc., E.I.Dupont De Nemours, General
Electric, International Telephone and
Telegraph, American Broadcasting Company,
Hughes Tool, Standard Oil, Phillips Pe-
troleum, El Paso Natural Gas, Wall Street
Mutual Funds, drug manufacturers, sugar
companies and railroads."
The public figures whom he can list as clients, or as Richard Harwood puts it, “confidants," include "John F. Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy, Lyndon John~ son, Lady Bird Johnson, Stuart Symington, cabinet officers, congressmen, ambassadors, White House advisers and countless lesser government figures who troop in and out of his elegant suite for advice, comfort and reassurance."
Much of this advice, comfort and reassurance appears to be given free of charge, just out of friendliness and concern for the problems of fellow human beings. Thus one of his friends said, "Clark has given more free 'psychiatric' care to the people who run this government than any man in Washington." Some fifty to sixty percent of his time is spent at it.
Those who find solace and comfort in talking with Clifford naturally pay close attention to suggestions from him on the courses they should follow.
"It is said that Clifford persuaded Kennedy to take the hard line toward Cuba that ended in the disaster at the Bay of Pigs in 1961." This sounds plausible in view of Clifford's connections with the sugar barons, but Harwood is uncertain as to the accuracy of the report.
"Whether or not that is true," he continues, "it was Clifford to whom Kennedy turned for solace and advice the day after the invasion failed. It was Clifford whom Johnson called in on to help deal with the Walter Jenkins crisis in the fall of 1964. It was Clifford to whom Johnson twice offered the attorney generalship and to whom he has now given the management of the Department of Defense."
A "certain aura of mystery has grown up around Clifford and the impressive prosperity of his firm," says Harwood. It is not clear, for instance, what he does for his fees. He wields "influence" but his name has never appeared on the lobbying rolls in accordance with the legal requirements which lobbyists are supposed to meet. He and his principal associate, John Sharon, deny that they engage in lobbying. Sharon claims that no such thing as "influence" exists in Washington and thus "it is obviously not a commodity that can be bought and sold."
A bit of information suggesting why some of the top corporations in the U.S. feel it worthwhile to retain Clifford, even if no such thing as "influence" exists in Washington, is indicated by the following fact: "His first partner -- now dead -- had been chief of the Anti- Trust Division of the Justice Department, a fact helpful to those clients with antitrust problems."
A "classic case," showing how Clifford has operated, is provided by his services to the Dupont Corporation from 1960 until late 1964.
"Under his guidance, the company obtained legislation and treasury rulings that saved its stockholders (and members of the Dupont family) about $2 billion in taxes they otherwise would have had to pay in response to a court order that forced the company to sell off its controlling stock interest in the General Motors Corporation. (The $2 billion figure is Sharon's estimate and is enough money to run the poverty program for a year.
"As Clifford later described his role in this affair, he did no lobbying and brought no influence to bear. He merely ‘counseled' the company on how the tax concessions could be won -- who to see and what to say. He made some telephone calls, prepared some memoranda and worked up some legal briefs."
That's how he always works -- "as a planner, adviser and interpreter of the ways of government to his clients and of the ways of his clients to the government." He's not a fixer; he deals only in advice. "He anticipates the government's moods, its probable responses to private initiatives, its current wisdom and attitudes." :
"This requires, of course, accurate intelligence on what government policy-makers are thinking and why they are thinking that way. Clifford gets that kind of intelligence. Indeed, his whole law firm has been described as a kind of Central Intelligence Agency, collecting day after day the ‘unwritten knowledge' of Washington on which great policy decisions are based."
This is where Clifford's peculiar talents have paid off. An unnamed friend is quoted by Harwood: "They come to him -- and their wives and assistants, too -with every conceivable problem. Often the problems are personal. Often they involve national policies. Sometimes they just come to talk."
A good example is offered by Clifford's relationship with President Kennedy and his family. "He was Kennedy's personal lawyer before the presidential years. He took an intimate part in the campaign, helped arrange the transition from the Eisenhower government, helped pick the Kennedy cabinet, and after the inauguration spent weeks helping Mrs. Kennedy find a house in Virginia."
He has developed a similar rela-
CLARK CLIFFORD
tionship with Johnson. Here again "one of the great untold stories," according to a Clifford associate, "is how much Mrs. Johnson relies on him for advice and understanding talk."
President Kennedy was so impressed with Clifford that he made him a member of an inner White House strategy team. Harwood quotes a description of Clifford's performance by one of the members of this shadowy body that was actually running the United States and a good part of the world besides.
"He would come down very hard on all the problems and he totally sold hinself to President Kennedy. But sometimes when those meetings were over, we would wonder how Clifford had managed to mesmerize us all. I finally decided what it was. He talked in cliches and stereotypes, like some of the rest of us, but they were all delivered in a rolling, Shakespearean style. It was the style that did it."
According to Harwood, others who kmow Clifford well, say substantially the same thing, "that his originality is not impressive, that his depth is not great. It has also been suggested that he is a one-dimensional man in the sense that he lives in a very constructed world populated by corporation executives, presidents, and other members of the amorphous ‘power elite.' It is a world of affluence, ease, and leisurely afternoons on the golf course at Burning Tree."
A former official in the Kennedy administration narrows it down still further: "When you talk about the militaryindustrial complex, all you have to do is close your eyes and think of