Nation: A Fox in a Chicken Coop

Few members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee followed its televised hearings on Viet Nam more closely than the junior Senator from New York, who is not even a member of William Fulbright's debating society. As the interrogation droned on, Robert F. Kennedy restlessly paced his Washington office, occasionally caught himself talking back to the screen. Bothering Bobby was his belief that Administration spokesmen were dodging a key question: What role should the Viet Cong play during a peace conference? And afterward?

Finally, Kennedy set a squad of speechwriters to work on that unmooted issue, stayed up to polish their prose until...

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