U.S. MINISTER TO N.Z.

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23586, 13 March 1942, Page 6

U.S. MINISTER TO N.Z.

ARRIVAL IN DOMINION

WELCOME BY PRIME MINISTER

(P.A.) . WELLINGTON. March 12. The United States Minister to New Zealand, Brigadier-General Patrick J. Hurley, who has arrived in the Dominion, was met in Auckland by the American Consul-General (Mr Raymond E. Cox), and travelled to Wellington yesterday with the Minister for Supply (the Hon. D. G. Sullivan) and the Rt. Hon. J. G. Coates, a member of the War Cabinet. The Prime Minister (the Rt. Hon. P. Fraser) met General Hurley at the station in Wellington, this morning, and presented him to other members of Cabinet, and the chiefs of staff, who were also present. General Hurley, who is a lawyer by profession, served in the Great War as a major and a lieutenant-colonel with the American Expeditionary Force, receiving the Distinguished Service Medal, and was cited in general orders. He was assistant to the Secretary for War in 1929, and from December of that year until March, 1933, was Secretary for War in the Hoover Cabinet, He also held a number of other important public and private posts, and during his term of office as Secretary for War, toured the Philippines in 1931, and opposed strenuously the Philippines Independence Bill. Mrs Hurley is a daughter of Admiral H. B. Wilson, United States Navy, who commanded the American Fleet in the Great War. There are three daughters, one son, and a grand-daughter.