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But in emphasis, Herter may be more acutely concerned than Dulles with the currents of change in the uncommitted nations, and the importance of influencing those currents through foreign aid, cultural exchange and persuasion. "The more significant changes taking place below the surface level of events," he said in a speech last December, "are being effected not by violence and military means but by more subtle forms of indirect aggression and the force of ideas. [The U.S. must not] take for granted the uneasy stages of truce in which we find ourselves at present, for a truce is not a resting but a working period. It represents a margin of time in which we must try to win."
Too Nice a Guy? The only big reservation about Christian Herter voiced last week by men who know him was a lingering doubt whether he has enough of the toughness of mind and spirit that Dulles had in abundance, and that Dulles' successor will urgently need amid the risks and challenges of the cold war. The adjectives that people who know him apply to Christian Herter are words of praise—gentlemanly, kind, courteous—but they do not necessarily imply the essential qualities needed in a Secretary of State in 1959-60. Nor do Herter's own "watchwords," picked up long ago from a Chinese saying: gentleness, frugality, humility.
But over the years, as in his bareknuckle campaign against Paul Dever, Herter has shown that, when he needs it, he has a streak of stern resolution beneath the gentle surface. In politics he was, a Massachusetts Democratic politico admiringly recalls, "a real Yankee trader who'd give you an apple for an orchard and make you think you got a good deal." Adds another Bay Streeter, who has known Herter for decades: "There are some people who would say he's too nice a guy for the job. It's not true. Believe me, he can be tough and hard when he needs to be."
In his lofty post during the next two years, gentlemanly Christian Herter will need that capacity to be, now and then, tough and hard—and a touch of serendipity may be useful, too.
* The Herters have four children: Christian Jr., defeated candidate for Massachusetts attorney general in last fall's elections; Frederic, New York surgeon; Miles, Massachusetts business executive; Adele, amateur painter and wife of a New York pathologist. Number of grandchildren: 14.
*The original gerrymander was carried out in Essex County, Mass, in 1812 under Governor Elbridge Gerry.