"I wonder if there have been any discussions of a successor to Adlai Stevenson?" a newsman asked bluntly just 24 hours after Stevenson's sudden death. Had George Reedy still been White House Press Secretary, such a query would have probably drawn a curt "No comment"—plus a suggestion, perhaps, that it was indelicate in its timing. But Bill Moyers, only a week in the job, took a puff on a slim cigar and answered evenly that the President had already talked over possible replacements with his staff and would not fill the post until after the funeral services for Stevenson.
This calm and...