a warning from the past

It was a glittering time. They literally swept into office, ready, moving , generating their style, their confidence. … It was an extraordinary confluence of time and men, and many people in the know quoted Lyndon Johnson’s reactionto them at the first Cabinet meeting. he, the outsider, like us, looked at them with a certain awe, which was no wonder, since they had forgotten to invite him to the meeting.

… They were all so glamorous and bright that it was hard to tell who was the most brilliant…

What was not so widely quoted in Washington (which was a shame because it was a far more prophetic comment) was the reaction of Lyndon’s great friend Sam Rayburn to Johnson’s enthusiasm about the new men.

Stunned by their glamour and intellect, he had rushed back to tell Rayburn, his great and crafty mentor, about them, about how brilliant each was, that fellow Bundy from Harvard, Rusk from Rockefeller, McNamara from Ford. On he went, naming them all. “Well, Lyndon, you may be right ant thye may be every bit as intelligent as you say,” said Rayburn, “but I’d feel a whole lot better about them if just one of them had run for sheriff once.

From The Best and the Brightest, chapter 4, by David Halberstam (1969)