THE NEW SECRETARY OF DEFENSE

"There is a deep sympathy for the underdog in this match of mere man v. monstrous job," wrote TIME'S armed forces reporter last week. The monstrous job: Secretary of Defense. The mere man: Neil Hosier McElroy.

Early Years

The second of three sons of Ohio schoolteachers, McElroy was born in Berea (pop. 15,000), grew up in a strict but comfortable Methodist household in Madisonville, a suburb of Cincinnati, early learned that "God will provide if you go out and scratch." By shoveling snow, wrapping laundry bundles, working in a cannery, he had saved $1,000 by the time he finished high school. A scholarship from Cincinnati's Harvard Club stretched the $1,000, allowed him to work part-time, have enough time left to become a big man on the Harvard campus--varsity basketball center, president of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, dance-band leader (his specialties: piccolo and piano). He graduated ('25) with an A.B. in economics, latched onto a temporary job to raise the money to go to Harvard Business School. The job: a $100-a-month mail clerk at Procter & Gamble's Cincinnati headquarters. Twenty-three years later, he was elected president (current salary: $285,000), helped make P. & G. the U.S.'s largest soapmaking firm (20 plants in seven countries, 30,000 employees, $1,038,290 net sales in 1956).

Public Service

Following a stern P. & G. code for company officers, he spent a third of his time in unpaid civic service, directed the framing of a master plan for improving Cincinnati, headed Red Cross and Community Chest drives, became trustee of the city's Institute of Fine Arts, a member of the executive committee of the Summer Opera Association, Harvard overseer, an adviser to the University of Cincinnati. In 1955 President Eisenhower tapped him for the biggest lay-educational assignment of all: chairmanship of the White House Conference on Education. Ike was impressed by the way McElroy steered a conglomeration of free-wheeling individualists toward a hard-hitting, unified report which recommended that expenditures for education be doubled. When it came time to find a successor for Engine Charlie, Ike saw to it that McElroy's name was added to the list of candidates (TIME, July 29) for the job.

Personality

Big (6 ft. 4 in., 210 lbs.), blue-eyed Neil McElroy encourages people to call him "Mac," has a soap salesman's knack for making new friends, introduces himself to strangers as "McElroy of Procter & Gamble." He enjoys parties, tennis, fishing, poker and bridge, tries to spend weekends with wife Camilla, son Malcolm, 14, daughter Nancy, 21 (another daughter, Barbara, 19, is married), is a working Episcopalian. At the office he is a stickler for accuracy, delegates large chunks of responsibility, expects subordinates to back up suggestions and arguments with facts. To forestall a conflict-of-interest problem, he will sell $56,000 worth of General Electric and Chrysler stock, and resign as director of both companies, but will keep his $588,000 in P. & G. stock; the Defense Department does little business with P. & G.

Monstrous Jot

McElroy takes command of the Pentagon at a time of restlessness in U.S. armed services caused by fast-changing technologies, by rising costs, by missile weaponry that will obsolete long-standing military philosophies. Inevitably he will become involved in interservice conflicts over roles and missions, will soon have to face up to a rising demand for unification of the services and at the same time wrestle with Congress and preside over the spending of $33.75 billion plus a year.

McElroy is willing to try. Says he: "I know I'm not jumping into any feather bed. But if you have the feeling you can help some, you accept. National Defense is the Number One concern of this country. Whether you call it national defense or world peace, it is one and the same thing."

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