Fortune's Wheel

In the midst of the steel crisis, Harry Truman took time out to fill two big jobs in his official family. He nominated rich, handsome W. Stuart Symington to be Assistant Secretary of War for Air and rich, ambitious Edwin W. Pauley to be Under Secretary of the Navy.

Industrialist. "Stu" Symington, 44, was the socialite president of St. Louis' Emerson Electric Manufacturing Co. who, as a prominent Missourian, knew Truman. So he became Surplus Property Administrator. His hands tied by red tape and a bad law, he kicked and fumed about his job, finally resigned last week when Surplus Property was turned over to the RFC's War Assets Corp. for administration.

Although he knows little about war or flying, Yaleman Symington is one of the country's lively industrialists. He changed Emerson's balance sheet from red to black within two years after he took over, kept the company free of labor troubles all through the war. His father-in-law is New York's Republican Representative James W. Wadsworth, co-author of the Selective Service law and one of Army's staunchest friends in Congress.

Oilman. Ed Pauley* had made a career of mixing politics and business. Ever since Truman got in the White House his wife has wanted him to get a big-time job. Last week he got it. Ed was a "Truman-before-Chicago" man. As treasurer of the Democratic National Committee he wiped out a $750,000 deficit in 1942, raised funds so efficiently that the Committee actually had a small surplus in 1944. As politicians reckon, he was entitled to cash in.

Born in Indiana, Pauley spent his youth in Alabama, then moved to California. He earned his way through Occidental College and the University of California, got a Master's degree in business administration. A 1924 airplane crash left him bedridden for a year. Recovered, he plunged into oil operations. As head of tiny Petrol Corp. he first fought the major companies, but when Petrol Corp. had its back to the wall, he allowed a major (Signal Oil) to bail him out. At 38 he was a millionaire.

Some of his holdings are in the offshore tidelands fields, subject of a bitter Washington controversy over the question of Federal or State control. He lives with his young, handsome second wife and four children in a huge house (with swimming pool) in Beverly Hills.

Pauley has already done two odd jobs for Harry Truman as reparations chief in Germany and Japan. But they didn't put any real handle on the Pauley name. If confirmed by the Senate, Oilman Pauley will probably slide into the Navy Secretaryship when Secretary Forrestal resigns this spring.

Harry Truman had been warned that appointment of an oilman as civilian head of the Navy would raise eyebrows and oratory in the Senate. But the President had apparently decided to bull it through. (One reported deal to smooth the way: transfer all Navy oil reserves to the Interior Department.)

Cronies. Along with taking care of Stu and Ed, the President eased his croniest crony, George Allen, into the Board of Directors of RFC. Washington dopesters guessed that after a short time on RFC's Board of Directors, Mississippi-born George Allen, 49, might move in as boss of all Government lending agencies.

George Allen, who moved to Washington in 1929 to reorganize hotel properties (including the swank Wardman Park), has been one of the most powerful men in the Truman Administration. An affable, self-deprecating man, he is part court jester, part speech writer, part handy man. On the side, he is also vice president in charge of public relations for the Home Insurance Co. and a director of 22 corporations, some of them controlled by smooth, smart financier Victor Emanuel. He said he would probably have to give up most of these private jobs.

Another crony also got a cushy financial job. Brusque, grey Commodore James K. Vardaman Jr., the President's Naval Aide, was nominated for a 14-year term on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

Jake Vardaman was born in Mississippi, the son of the late rabble-rousing Senator James K. Vardaman. He studied law at the University of Mississippi and Millsaps College, finally moved to St. Louis. There he was banker, lawyer and head of a shoe company. An artillery captain in World War I (not in Harry Truman's battery), he joined the Naval Reserve in 1939, was on Okinawa when the President called him home to be naval aide. Since then he has been a constant White House adviser.

* Not to be confused with William Douglas Pawley, 49, aviation enthusiast, founder of Central Aircraft Mfg. Co. (China's first), godfather of the Flying Tigers, now U.S. Ambassador to Peru.

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