New Commander

In 1945, a few weeks after V-E day, Colonel Frank L. Howley, sometime member of the Philadelphia advertising firm of Frank L. Howley & Associates, was full of black vengeance and pink optimism. Said the new boss of Military Government in Berlin's U.S. Sector: "If we bring food into Berlin, the only reason is that we don't want their rotten [German] corpses to infect our troops . . . The Russians have played their cards right across the board and all suspicion is gone." But the colonel learned better.

As Russian pressure on Berlin grew, so did the stature of howling Frank Howley. The Germans found him fair and understanding, the Russians discovered that he could be neither bluffed nor bent. Under General Lucius D. Clay, Howley became one of the chief architects and symbols of victory at Berlin.

Last week, after nine years of military service, Howley (now a brigadier general) resigned to go home to his advertising business. To succeed Reservist Howley as commander in Berlin, U.S. High Commissioner John J. McCloy got a topflight U.S. professional--Major General Maxwell D. Taylor, wartime commander of the famed 101st Airborne Division, later Superintendent of West Point, more recently Chief of Staff of U.S. forces in Europe. Taylor's most spectacular wartime exploit came in 1943 when-he slipped through the German lines wearing his U.S. uniform, and under the Nazis' noses made his way to Rome for armistice talks with Premier Pietro Badoglio.

Unlike his predecessor, General Taylor will also command the 3,500 U.S. troops in Berlin (Howley was in charge only of military government). Taylor's double authority, said the Army, is intended "to unify the United States position in Berlin."

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