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The President denies, both in public and in private, that he wants to pressure Stevenson out of the Administration. "It makes no sense for me to get rid of Stevenson," he says. "Where could I get anyone who could do half as good a job?" As for Stevenson, he believes that he is performing an important function at the United Nations. Says he: "The battle line is here, right here. But I would go in a minute if I thought the President wanted me to."
Although Stevenson's role on the battle line cannot have been helped by being undercut again by his own Administration, he remains an effective operator. The neutrals who greeted his appointment as a salvation have been somewhat disappointed; the Stevenson aloofness that prevents him from leaping into New Frontier society also prevents the kind of delegates' lounge chumminess that many expected of him. He has still been considered the pipeline from the smaller nations to the White House—and the line appears somewhat damaged.
The outlook is for Stevenson to stay at his post—at least for a while. But politics is not only a matter of principles, or of promises. More than anything else, politics is people—and there are few people on the political scene who seem less likely to form a smooth doubles team than Adlai Stevenson and John Kennedy. It was probably with that in mind that Adlai, when asked if he really believed that some New Frontiersmen were trying to force him out of office, replied: "No, this is the first time I've ever heard this mentioned. I'm not sure it will be the last time."
* Hove presumably rhymes with love. In a burlesque entitled "Last Drippings from the Great Certified Leak," the New York Times's senior columnist Arthur Krock, never wittier or more sardonic, suggests the word might first have been pronounced when McNamara predicted that a Soviet destroyer would "heave in sight." But ExComm's presiding officer, called "Himself," corrects him with "The word is hove." Otherwise, Krock turns ExComm into MadAv. "Let's melt this ball of wax and move the hardware from the shelf," suggests Krock's McNamara. "Suppose I start batting out the fungoes." Sorenson—or somebody identified as "T. S—"—says, "You mean toss it in the well and see the kind of splash it makes; follow it into the high grass and see if it eats; get down to where the rubber meets the road." The only possible mistake in the transcript that was leaked to him, admits Krock, is the section which reports Himself saying to the one dissenter, "I'll get back to you." Concludes Krock: "This last remark could have been 'I'll get back at you.' "