Mufti & Money

Stars fell on civil aviation. Two two-star Admirals and one five-star Admiral hauled down their flags and were piped ashore to big, roomy civilian jobs.

To Trans World Airlines as vice president in charge of public relations went the youngest Rear Admiral of World War II, 43-year-old Harold B. Miller. Fitted out with flag rank when he became the Navy's Director of Public Relations in 1945, Annapolisman Miller has behind him 20 years of naval flying, four books on aviation. No armchair officer until he became the Navy's pressagent, able, handsome "Min" Miller squeaked through both the Akron and Macon disasters in the '30s, was both flying and deck officer before the Navy discovered that he had a way with publicity.

To Curtiss-Wright as executive assistant to the president went square-jawed Rear Admiral Lawrence B. Richardson, 49, recently Deputy and Assistant Chief of the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics. Almost 30 years in the Navy, Admiral Richardson qualified to fly all types of naval aircraft in 1925, promptly made their design and manufacture his specialty.

Pan American World Airways got the biggest brass of all: Admiral of the Fleet William F. Halsey, who became Pan Am's vice president in charge of trans-Pacific service. To "Bull" Halsey, recently high-jinksing in South America, the Pacific is as familiar as the palm of his hand. He knows its logistics, its geopolitics, the length & breadth of its "unsinkable aircraft carriers." But mostly Pan Am will count on the publicity value of his name.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.