To be the top man in the management of

To be the top man in the management of his presidential campaign, Senator Edmund S. Muskie of Maine has picked Berl Bern hard '51, Washington lawyer and former staff director of the U. S. Commission on Civil Rights. Berl has been named Staff Director of the Senator's Washington campaign office, with responsibility for "assuring effective coordination" of all phases of the national drive.

The two men have worked closely together for some time, and Bernhard traveled with Muskie during the 1968 vice-presidential campaign, helping with speeches and political liaison work. They became acquainted when the Senator was chairman and Bernhard counsel of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in 1967-68.

According to a Washington Post story, it was at a meeting of Democratic Party leaders at Berl Bernhard's house early last year that Senator Muskie decided to make a serious run for the 1972 presidential nomination.

To take on his new assignment, Berl is on leave of absence from the Washington law firm in which he and former White House counsel Harry McPherson are partners. He is a graduate of Yale Law School (1954) and after two years as law clerk to Judge Luther Youngdahl of the U. S. District Court he began the practice of law in Washington in 1956. Three years later he was named Deputy Director of the U. S. Commission on Civil Rights, then Acting Director, and finally Staff Director (1961-63).

Berl was appointed a member of the District of Columbia Board of Higher Education and a trustee of the new Federal City College in 1969. That same year, while continuing the private practice of law, he became special counsel to the Democratic National Committee. The friendship between Bernhard and Muskie is reported to be very close, and Berl is pictured as one member of the Senator's entourage who is not afraid to disagree with him and tell him how things should be done differently.