ABSTRACT
We obtain an even clearer notion of what intellectuals had in mind when we also examine their responses to questions relating to who the "important people" were in making policy about Vietnam or the issue with which intellectuals were themselves most concerned. It seems that to intellectuals, men in political power meant members of the White House staff, sometimes the
President (five intellectuals referred to personal conversations on Vietnam with either Kennedy or Johnson, for example), frequently other high-level officials in cabinet departments and independent agencies. But members of both houses of Congress and their aides were also included. Infrequently, intellectuals meant by "men of power" anyone who might pull some weight on an issue of interest to an intellectual. If a respondent was concerned with foreign policy, then his targets tended to be high-level persons in the administration or in Congress. A respondent interested in the state of art in America, however, would naturally have a very different list of powerful persons. While intellectuals mentioned business leaders and the military in the context of "important people" in particular issues and especially in connection with Vietnam, almost none were referred to as men of political power with whom intellectuals might have relationships. In their views of men of power, intellectuals were curiously not much different from other American leaders who also tended to focus on Washington officials.
