THE KENNEDY GOVERNMENT

A competent journalist, New York Post reporter, has done an informative and useful book. Perhaps it is too close to the event to serve as more than a basic guide for the moment, but it is a revealing picture of the way in which Kennedy set about bringing the right men for the right job into his government. The problems involved, the difficulties in persuading some men that they belonged in one spot rather than another, the hurdles to be taken when the right man did not find himself sufficiently interested in the job- and another had to be found- these are all here. (In some cases, one might almost assume that Opotowsky has merely guessed!) Then follows a series of pen portraits of members of the Cabinet and other key posts, the men who will make the decisions in the years ahead. While, in the main, Opotowsky does not reveal his own opinion, the general impression is of endorsement. One questions the taste -- at this point and in book form- of some of the rather snide remarks, gossipy comments, and barbed side swipes he takes. But on the whole, the book is thoroughly readable and revealing.