An Engineer for Energy

On the day last winter when the U.S. embassy in Tehran was seized by anti-Shah Iranians and the American Ambassador in Afghanistan was killed by terrorists, Defense Secretary Harold Brown was touring the West Bank of the Jordan River. His helicopter landed at an Israeli army post, and Brown went to a phone to talk with his deputy secretary in Washington. As soon as Brown finished his conversation, someone asked him if he intended to cut his trip short and return immediately to the Pentagon. "No," he said flatly. "Charles Duncan is there." Last week that trusted deputy was named to a higher post: Secretary of Energy, succeeding James Schlesinger.

During the 2 1/2 years Brown and Duncan worked together at the Pentagon, says one senior staffer with only slight exaggeration, Brown and Duncan became "fully interchangeable parts." Duncan, 52, had areas of special responsibility: the politically sensitive matter of "base realignments," the Defense Department's euphemism for shutting down unwanted military bases; the knotty problem of settling Navy claims against its shipyard contractors; and military aspects of the Panama Canal treaties. His manner is easygoing, and his conversation is spiced with Texas mannerisms ("Like my daddy used to say ..."). But he is also a tough businessman with little patience for the ways of bureaucrats. "Give me a straight shot, yes or no," he tells subordinates. If the reply is not straight enough, he may say: "That's an interesting answer, but it's not what I asked."

A native of Houston, Duncan started out as a chemical engineer and roustabout for the Humble Oil and Refining Co. After serving in the Army Air Corps during World War II, he joined a family firm, the Duncan Coffee Co. (later Duncan Foods), and in 1958 became its president. Six years later, when the company was merged into Coca-Cola, Duncan moved to London as head of Coca-Cola's European operations. He became president of the Atlanta-based firm in November 1971, at a time when Jimmy Carter was Governor of Georgia, but quit less than three years later because he wanted to go back to Houston. There he served as board chairman of an investment banking company, Rotan Mosle Financial Corp. until 1977, when he went to Washington. He works long hours at the office but occasionally escapes with his wife Anne, and sometimes their-two college-age children, to the family ranch in Wyoming.

After his appointment as Energy Secretary last week, Duncan, a proven team player and a warm but not close friend of the President's, declared: "The task ahead of me is clear, to implement an energy program that will accomplish the objectives set forth by the President." A vital part of that program, he added, is nuclear energy, which "is now playing and will continue to play a very substantial role."

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