The Congress: He's Gone, Mr. Secretary

Defense Secretary Robert McNamara has always had pretty much his own way on Capitol Hill. This is partly because he has had strong presidential backing, partly because he overwhelms Congressmen with his ability to reel off facts and figures in almost unanswerable argument. Not the least of McNamara's accomplishments was to win the support of Georgia's Democratic Representative Carl Vinson, until his retirement last year the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and the sometime gadfly to previous Defense Secretaries.

Now, however, McNamara is having his troubles with Congress—mostly in the person of L. (for Lucius) Mendel Rivers, 59,...