Diplomacy & Big Business

The gain that was Robert Lovett was offset, at least in part, by the loss of one of the nation's most effective diplomats. Tired out and in bad health, wearing a black patch over the eye he injured by the barb of a salmon fly while fishing in England, 56-year-old Lewis Douglas called at the White House last week and resigned his post as Ambassador to the Court of St. James's. After he finished winding up his affairs in England, Lew Douglas was going home for a long and well-deserved rest.

Arizona-born Lew Douglas had brought more than the usual diplomatic attributes to his job. When he took the post 3 1/2-years ago at the prayerful request of George Marshall, he already had behind him a solid and varied career. He had been a Congressman, an industrialist, Director of the Budget (he quit because he disagreed with Roosevelt's ideas of New Dealing spending), the head of McGill University, Lend-Lease expediter, war shipping administrator and the president of the Mutual Life Insurance Co. of New York. He arrived in London at a time when the British loan was fast running out and Britain was financially on her knees.

A Hand for Britain. Douglas held out a strong hand. He spent months studying Britain's problems, returned to the U.S. to testify eloquently for the Marshall Plan, then shrewdly helped guide Britain's EGA aid. He made his influence felt on the Continent as well. He was a key figure in the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty.

As a U.S. businessman, he was often inclined toward Britain's Conservatives; at times he was frankly critical of the Labor Party. But by his fair and plain-talking approach he soon gained the Labor Government's full confidence and friendship. Said the Manchester Guardian: "Few American ambassadors to Britain have earned as much respect and good will."

A Republican for Truman. To fill ailing Lew Douglas' shoes, Harry Truman last week picked an envoy of another sort. Quiet, retiring, 65-year-old Walter Sherman Gifford, a Yankee Republican, began his career as a $10-a-week clerk in Western Electric, by a knack for figures and a passion for efficiency, rose to the eminence of chairman of the board of American Telephone & Telegraph, from which he retired last December. His appointment underlined two facts: in some quarters, diplomacy is less politics than big business; Mr. Truman once again had rejected a political appointment for one that would add prestige to his Administration. Baltimore Banker James Bruce, ex-Ambassador to Argentina and an old Truman campaign fund raiser, wanted the job and, in fact, had been promised it. But high State Department officials did not want Bruce. The President bowed to their objections.

To fill another key vacancy last week, the President also appointed George J. Bott, 40, labor lawyer, to succeed strong-willed Robert N. Denham as general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board. Bott, born in Connecticut, graduate of Yale Law School, has been a legal light on NLRB since 1937, served as Denham's hand-picked associate general counsel while Denham carried on the feud with board members, which proved his undoing (TIME, Sept. 25). Said Bott: "I don't expect to have any trouble with the board."

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