Louisiana Haymaker

The director of the Office of Civil De fense Mobilization has one of the most thankless chores in Washington. The public yawns whenever civil defense is mentioned, and Congress finds the OCDM budget a dandy place to practice economy, trimming off an average of 76% of the requested funds over the last ten years. OCDM directors of the past have sometimes seemed to absorb the public's apathy. But Frank B. Ellis, the energetic new OCDM chief, is determined to overcome the frustrations of his job, even if it means going over President Kennedy's head. Last week Ellis did just that, with a public appeal for beefing up civil defense by tripling his agency's annual budget.

An able, aggressive New Orleans lawyer, Frank Ellis, 54, came to Washington with a reputation for getting things done. Back in Louisiana, he had masterminded the financing of the 24-mile Lake Pontchartrain Causeway. He was a leading mover and shaker in the construction of New Orleans' Moisant International Airport, and, as a fortissimo music lover as well as civic leader, he helped spark a fund-raising drive that saved the New Orleans Opera. He earned his claim to a job in the new Administration by belligerently and successfully managing Kennedy's Louisiana campaign last year, in the teeth of stiff states' rights and Republican opposition.

As head of OCDM (he was outflanked in his first choice of a Washington job, Secretary of.the Army), Ellis moved into Washington like a Miura bull. Installed in an office with a battery of multicolored telephones, he announced that things would be different. Said he: "Heretofore, there has been a lack of federal leadership and example--the very qualities we must now exhibit if we are to convince a skeptical Congress and a disinterested public."

He foamed with dramatic ideas, which perplexed and sometimes distressed the White House. His idea of writing in a clause to include mandatory bomb shelters in every FHA loan contract was quietly shunted aside. Shelved too was a plan to enlist churches in the civil defense program, and it took the firmest kind of official persuasion to keep Ellis from flying off to Rome for a papal endorsement.

In going over the President's head last week, Ellis publicly proposed $300 million instead of the paltry $104 million budgeted for civil defense by the Eisenhower Administration. He had already made his request clearly and firmly at the White House and had been turned down pending an analysis of the needs of Government agencies. Undismayed, Ellis decided to go ahead with his budget plans, with or without Administration approval. The bigger budget was needed, he insisted, to dig more bomb shelters, improve existing shelters, stockpile medicine and mobile hospitals, and expand the OCDM educational program. "I haven't received much encouragement yet," Ellis admitted, "but it is a vital interest of the President to expand and extend this program."

In official Washington last week, there seemed to be secret admiration for Frank Ellis and all his zeal. Even the New Fron tier's boss seemed less annoyed than bewildered. After a recent strenuous, desk-pounding session with Ellis, the President had a plaintive question. "How," he asked, "did we ever carry Louisiana?" The obvious answer: by the same determined tactics that Ellis was using at OCDM.

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