Mr. Special Adviser

There is only the scantiest evidence that Chester Bowles was politely sacked in President Kennedy's recent reshuffling of the State Department. Bowles himself, for what it's worth, protests that he is very happy with his new position as a special presidential adviser, and his supporters must keep their silence.

Still, the snatches of backstair gossip are flying--the same sort of rumors that credited Bowles with being one of the few White House advisers who was right about the Cuban invasion fiasco. Certainly the circumstances under which Bowles left are suspicious enough to arouse the concern of all who admire this gifted man. One would have expected, for example, his new position to be announced simultaneously with the news that he was quitting as Under Secretary of State. Instead, a day passed, and Bowles spent an hour with Kennedy before his new job was named. President Kennedy is not an absent-minded man, and his seems a curious way of dealing with an official of such rank, whose political inuence is by no means negligible.

Because the dust has not yet settled on the affair, it is still possible to hope that Bowles will continue to influence the policies of the Kennedy government, that his special reports will be read more intently than other special reports; and that the gentlemen of the New Frontier will continue to believe its faded slogans as much as Bowles does.

It would be hard to welcome the passing of one of the few Administration figures genuinely and disinterestedly concerned with the welfare of the world's hungry nations. And the Kennedy government is not so rich in liberals that it can afford to do without a man of mr. Bowles' stature.