Coat of Clay
By RICHARD H. ROVERE New York SHERMAN ADAMS is a 'provincial politician with a flair for office management. He first met Dwight Eisenhower in 1952. He was Governor of New Hampshire then and General Eisenhower 'was in 1, \ that State, beginning his cam- paign for the Presidency. (New Hampshire holds its primary elections earlier than any other State, so Presidential campaigns often begin there.) Governor Adams made himself use- ful to General Eisenhower in many ways, and the General, who was not at the time widely ac- quainted among American politicians, asked him to help out in other States as well. One thing led to another, and in 1953.Adams found himself in the White House as assistant to the President—a job which is not provided for in the Constitution or any statute. Since the President has never had much zest for the day-to-day chores of his office, Adams has been a very busy fellow. He sorts and answers the mail; handles all callers who can't be turned away at the front door yet don't rate an audience with the President; settles argumentithat arise among administration officers; awards post- masterships and even better jobs to demanding and deserving Republicans; formulates adminis- tration policy On many domestic issues; and per- forms all manner of tasks, some delicate, some indelicate, assigned him by Mr. Eisenhower. Students of the Presidency say that no man not elected President has ever in the past exerted such influence as Sherman Adams. Every President has had his Adams somewhere in the White House, but no President had so much for an assistant to do.
The public has never been told much about Sherman Adams. His role ' has demanded privacy, and administration press agents have been instructed to keep him off stage. This has worked out well, for he is the sort of man the average American instinctively feels he can trust without watching. For one thing, Adams is a New Englander—better yet, a northern New Englander. This means he is honest, monogamous and frugal, yet not lacking in shrewdness and craftiness. Of course, some New Englanders have turned out to be larcenous, philandering and spendthrift, but not many who are named Adams and hardly any whose faces were quarried from New Hampshire granite. Adams has such a face. Looking at it, even in a newspaper picture, one would say that here is a man of infinite rectitude —and at the same time a man of great sophisti- cation when it comes to selling a barn or buying a cow. In other words—just the sort of man a President needs and ought to have.
Whenever Adams has appeared on stage it has been in the role one would expect : to speak in praise of honesty and thrift and to damn the loose ways of the Democrats. But now the image is cracked, if not shattered. Adams has been in trouble. It seems he had a friend named Bernard Goldfine, who manufactured woollens. A time came when Goldfine found himself at odds with the authorities. The Federal Trade Commission, evidently, took the position that there wasn't as much wool of a certain grade in Goldfine's wool as Goldfine's labels said there was. Court pro- ceedings were in the offing. At about this time, four years ago, Adams and Goldfine were seeing a good deal of each other. Goldfine, who had always been warmhearted and generous to Adams and several other public servants, invited the Adamses to stay in hotels in New York, Boston and Plymouth, Mass. The bills ran into hundreds of dollars each time. Goldfine paid them. Goldfine also felt that the rug in the Adams's living room in Washington was getting rather shabby. He replaced it: And then there was a coat—a wonderful, soft coat of vicuna, assuming the label was correct. Was this bribery? Was it the selling of influence? Of course not. All that Adams did for Goldfine was call a few authorities for information as to how the case before the Federal Trade Commission was going. Goldfine could probably have done most of this for himself. It has been said by some that a mere expression of interest by the assistant to the President constituted the exertion of pres- sure, but Adams has said that this was the farthest thing from his mind. It turned out that Federal Trade Commission regulations prohibited the granting of .certain types of information that came into Goldfine's possession, but Adams has said that he wasn't aware of these particular regulations. A large part of his job is to help people in their dealings with the Government, and that is what he was doing. Thinking it all over, he has confessed 'imprudent' behaviour, but has assured the Congress that his errors were 'not of intent but of judgment.'
The President has said he intends to keep Adams right where he is. 'Anyone,' he told a news conference this week, 'who knows Sherman Adams has never had any doubt of his personal integrity or honesty.' The President agreed that it may have been 'imprudent' of Adams to accept 'tangible expressions of friendship' from Gold- fine. The most touching thing he said of Adams was : 'I need him.'
The President does need him, and if he wishes to he may keep him. But it will not be easy. 'Clean as a hound's tooth' the President said he wished every member of his administration to be. In 1952 he was the anti-gratuity candidate, and there is not much doubt that a lot of Republican votes were made by reports of Democratic officials getting free coats, household appliances and the like. The pressure is on now from Republicans running* for office this year; they would like to be able to say that when there is even a sug- gestion of scandal in a Republican administr4 tion heads roll right away, and they are imploring Mr. Eisenhower to act on Sherman Adams. If he doesn't in time get rid of Adams, Adams's use- fulness will in any case decline. People who wish to ignore Adams will find it much easier to do so; there will be constant public questions as to whether the President approves of this or that that his assistant has done. The betting is that two or three months from now, when the heat isn't quite so great, Adams will find an excellent and well-paying job in private enterprise.
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