F.B.I. And C.I.A. Heads To Stay

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31865, 18 December 1968, Page 19

F.B.I. And C.I.A. Heads To Stay

(N.Z.P. A.-Reuter —Copyright) WASHINGTON, December 17. The President-elect, Mr Nixon, yesterday signalled an apparent firm stand on law and order by asking Mr J. Edgar Hoover to stay on as Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

No time period was set for Mr Hoover’s continued service—he will celebrate his seventy-fourth birthday on January I—but it appeared likely he would remain as the

number one United States law enforcement officer for at least a year. In addition to announcing the Hoover appointment, the President-elect also said through a spokesman that he had requested Mr Richard Helms, aged 55, to continue as head of the Central Intelligence Agency (C.1.A.). The moves by Mr Nixon were of especial significance, partly because no let-down will be risked in crime-fight-ing at home and intelligencegathering abroad through a change in directorships. In Mr Hoover’s case, observers said, the Presidentelect was clearly determined tokeep a tough law-and-order man on the job.

r During the recent election campaign, when law and order was a burning issue, Mr 5 Hoover bluntly blamed coli lege campus disorders on i “Communists and Communist j dupes.”

He has been a tough antiCommunist for all his 44 years as F. 8.1. chief. Mr Hoover was attacked by Democratic “peace” candidate Senator Eugene McCarthy, of Minnesota, who said the F. 8.1.

had developed into a police agency largely under one man’s control and generally immune from criticism. But Mr Nixon was obviously eager to take advantage of Mr Hoover’s rock-like reputation and use his name to help provide law enforcement continuity from one Administration to the next, observers said. In this sense, Mr Nixon accepted Mr Hoover as the institution he has become in the minds of most Americans.

Disillusioned Maids,—Two of Durban’s 12 “meter maids” have resigned after six weeks of placing tickets on illegallyparked cars. They say they were abused and ridiculed, and one girl says a motorist even threatened to run her down for trying to give him a ticket. —Durban, December 17.