Command Decisions
Into the No. 2 job in the nation's No. 1,public business stepped an alumnus of the solidly schooled fraternityof bankers and lawyers that produced such topflight governmentalfigures as Dulles, McCloy and Dillon, Forrestal and Lovett. To succeedthe late Donald Quarles as Deputy Secretary of Defense, PresidentEisenhower last week named Navy Secretary Thomas Sovereign Gates Jr.,53, longtime Philadelphia investment banker . In a rare burst of nonpartisan confidence, the Senate ArmedServices Committee waived its usual lengthy questioning, unanimouslyapproved him. Gates, said Democratic Chairman Richard Russell, was"admirably qualified." What made Russell's words even more meaningfulwas the fact that Tom Gates was clearly slated to succeed DefenseSecretary Neil McElroy.
With a sense of urgency and an eye on Geneva and Berlin, the Pentagonmoved rapidly last week to repair other links in its administrativechain:
Defense Secretary McElroy, 54, who has long yearned to float back toProcter & Gamble to pick up theCheerful chairmanship and rescue his bobbing stock options,re-evaluated his stand in the light of Quarles's death, said: "I willcertainly be here in December." In fact, he will probably stay on thejob until around February 1960, help present the defense budget toCongress.
Arthur Radford, 63, four-star admiral , former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and one of the finest U.S. militaryminds, was recalled temporarily as a special Pentagon consultant tohelp pinch-hit for J.C.S. Chairman Nate Twining, who will be out atleast another five weeks while recovering from lung-cancer surgery.
William Birrell Franlce, 65, top-rung accountant and retired New Yorkbusinessman , moved up from Navy Under Secretaryto Secretary.
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