Ford President Is Defence Secretary

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29388, 15 December 1960, Page 17

Ford President Is Defence Secretary

WASHINGTON, December 13. Forty-four-year-old Robert Strange McNamara, named by President-elect John Kennedy today as the new Secretary of Defence, is a business man and scholar who was recently described by a friend as “a very balanced, practical intellectual.”

It was only last month that his appointment was announced as president of the Ford Motor Company—the first time there had ever been anyone other than a Ford in the post since the late Henry Ford took it over in 1906.

Mr McNamara went to the Ford company in 1946 with a group of other young Air Force officers to work in the planning and statistical office. The group became known as the “whiz kids.” Mr McNamara proved to be the fastest moving of them all. Friends say he still has a hankering for the scholarly life and lives with his wife and three children in the academic atmosphere of Ann Arbor, Michigan, the site of the University of Michigan. Mr McNamara was born in San Francisco and graduated with honours from the University of California in 1937. Later he earned a master’s degree at Harvard Business School and, after a period with a firm of accountants, returned to the business school as an assistant professor. In appointing Mr McNamara president of the Ford company last month, Mr Henry Ford, the chairman and chief executive, said of him: “Things that most men have to turn to books and reports for, Bob is carrying around right in his head." As a top executive, Mr McNamara had an influential role in the decision by Ford to bring out a compact car in opposition to foreign imports. He has not been active in politics, although he is reported to have supported Senator Kennedy in the Presidential election.

His name was not even mentioned in speculation until last week, when it was reported that he had tentatively been offered the post of Secretary of the Treasury. He was said to have replied that he was not interested in that appointment but that the Defence Department would be more to His liking. Mr McNamara is reputed to

earn more than 400,000 dollars a year. ' By announcing that he would dispose of his shareholdings in the Ford Motor Company, Mr McNamara was obviously anticipat-' ing Congressional demands that there should be no conflict of interests. The Defence Department is the largest contractor to the Government.

Mr Kennedy was expected to continue his Cabinet-making at his Georgetown, Washington, home today. Speculation centered on who would be named as Secretary of the Treasury. The Treasury post was the last of the “big three” Cabinet posts to be filled by the Presidentelect.

The Republican Under-Secre-tary of State, Mr Douglas Dillon, now in Paris for the N.A.T.O. Foreign Ministers' conference, was reported earlier this week as almost assured of the appointment.

But. today, there were reports that Democratic leaders had intimated growing opposition to Mr Dillon, as a Republican and a member of President Eisenhower’s outgoing Administration. Other names were said to be under consideration by Senator Kennedy.

The President-elect was expected to complete his Cabinet selections before returning to Palm Beach, Florida, to join his wife and family tomorrow or Friday. The name of the former Secretary of State in President Truman’s Administration, Mr Dean Acheson, came to the fore in speculation for a post in the Kennedy Administration last night. Frank Edwards, a news commentator for the Mutual Broadcasting Company, reported in a news programme that Mr Kennedy would announce his choice of Mr Acheson as permanent United States representative to the N.A.T.O. Edward- claimed that Mr Acheson had already told Mr Kennedy he would accept the appointment, which would carry ambassadorial rank.