The Administration: Get Off

In his eleven months in office, Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall has not proved himself the best, the worst, or even the most indifferent, member of the Kennedy Cabinet. But he is surely the damnedest.

Like an old-curmudgeon predecessor named Harold Ickes (1933-46), Interior's Udall has made lots of news—much of it unwelcome. As an Arizona Congressman, he earned John Kennedy's gratitude—and, presumably, his present Cabinet position—by his effective 1960 preconvention work for Kennedy in the Southwest. No sooner had he taken over his Cabinet office than he allowed as how Democratic Congressmen had better go along with the...