In revitalizing the State Department's neglected bureaucracy, Cyrus Vance has delegated considerable authority to his top-ranking deputies. But he has also established around him a select circle of six, whose help he especially seeks, regardless of their official titles:
Marshall Shulman, 62. Sporting an old-fashioned green eyeshade and cultivating the air of an absent-minded professor baffled by governmental bureaucracy, the longtime director of Columbia University's Russian Institute has become Vance's closest adviser and a key influence on Soviet-American policy. He and Vance often lunch on sandwiches in the Secretary's private hideaway office. At...