Lock & Barrel

After the Senate confirmed Charles Erwin Wilson as Defense Secretary, a Pentagon wag quipped: "They okayed him lock and barrel." Last week the Senate's Armed Services Committee okayed Wilson's four top assistants on the same lock-and-barrel basis--minus stock in defense industries. Then the committee recalled Air Secretary-designate Harold E. Talbott for a third round of questioning. The Senate went ahead and confirmed the other three appointees by voice vote.

Talbott, Deputy Defense Secretary-designate Roger M. Kyes and Navy Secretary-designate Robert B. Anderson got through the second-round committee hearings with little trouble. Kyes and Talbott said they would divest themselves of stocks in companies doing business with the Defense Department. Anderson's holdings (oil, land) include no such stocks,

But Army Secretary-designate Robert Ten Broeck Stevens put up a two-hour fight. Willing to sell other holdings, he argued calmly but insistently that he ought to be allowed to keep his $1,440,000 worth of stock in the textile firm of J. P. Stevens & Co., Inc., which makes millions of dollars' worth of uniform cloth for the armed forces. "... I am steeped in sentiment and tradition with respect to the company that bears my father's name," he said. Requiring him to give up the stock, he contended, would establish "an important principle and precedent," which would "have a long and serious adverse effect on the willingness of ... successful business executives to serve." The committee was greatly impressed with Stevens, but not with his case. Erwin Wilson's ordeal had already established the basic "principle and precedent." In a closed session, the committee made it clear to Stevens that he would not get the post unless he agreed to sell. He gave in.

As his first official act last week, Secretary Wilson barred all officers and employees from taking part in departmental dealings with firms in which they have a financial stake. In case of possible conflict of interest, the decisions are to be made by "someone else of equal or higher rank" in the department.

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