It was just a few minutes before show time. In the new State Department Auditorium on Washington's 23rd Street waited 400 anxious reporters, cameramen, radio and TV technicians, as well as an assortment of high school students, foreign visitors and stenographers who had wangled accreditation for the occasion. Offstage, in a small anteroom, stood Secretary of State Dean Rusk, clutching a sheaf of intelligence cables, prepared to give the star a quick final briefing. Then the President of the United States arrived, trailing a funereal squad of black-suited aides; nine still photographers, as if on cue, frantically recorded the presidential progress...
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