In Saigon last week, Pierre Salinger was chatting affably with South Vietnamese Premier Nguyen Khanh. Jack Kennedy's press secretary, now California's Democratic candidate for the Senate, was making an 18-nation world tour, courtesy of Look Magazine, and he was having a Look-see around Viet Nam. Suddenly an aide burst into the room to tell Pierre that Washington was calling. "It was the hot line from the White House," said Salinger afterward, telling him that California's Democratic Senator Clair Engle, 52, was dead of a cancerous brain tumor. Immediately Salinger broke off his visit and flew home.
The news itself was...