COLONEL WILLKIE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 5, 6 July 1943, Page 3

COLONEL WILLKIE

NOW IN WELLINGTON

A VERSATILE AMERICAN

Colonel Robert T. Willkie is now in Wellington. There is no mistaking the likeness of Colonel Robert T. Willkie to his famous brother, Wendell L. Willkie, American political leader and Republican nominee for President at the last election. The colonel has the wellpublicised Willkie twinkle in his eye, and it came to light when the likeness was commented on. "Like Wen?" he remarked as he put down the gold fountain pen with which he was signing things. "I suppose I am. People say I am. But I'm better looking!" he added with a smile. At any rate Colonel Willkie doesn't look his 54 years, or old enough to be a grandfather. But he is. He has two daughters and a grandchild, and while he is in Wellington, New Zealand, as a member of the United States Joint Purchasing Board, his wife and family are back in Louisville, Kentucky, helping to look after the farm. "But you're not interested in me," he remarked to an "Evening Post" reporter today. "If I have any claim to fame it is probably that I am a graduate of Indiana University and that I hold some degree honours. And of course I'm a brother of Wendell Willkie. But there's nothing much I can say about him. He's my brother and I agree with him. That's all. I saw him a day or so before I left and he was fine."

Colonel Willkie's attachment to the State of Indiana, where he was born, was undisguised. It was, he said, one of the smallest States in the Union, but it was the garden State, most of it being flat. Colonel Willkie made it clear that he could not discuss military or political questions. He was, he said, a soldier, and under the orders of his commanding officer., He has been a soldier for 20 years, on and off, and for over four years he was stationed in the Philippines. He knows the China Coast pretty well,' but this is the first time he has been so far south. "You've got a great little country here," he« said. "What strikes me most is the amount of grass you have. I've never seen such pasture. Where we are the grass is under

snow in winter, and we have to use our silos and barns. But, we milk our cows eleven months of the year."

Looking at it with a farmer's eyehe raises Hereford cattle and Hampshire hogs in Kentucky—he wondered whether we in New Zealand made the best use of the pasture. That being a bit technical, and in all probability a little controversial, Colonel Willkie was induced to say something about himself. He was brought up in Indiana, and after an extensive college education he emerged with the degrees of 8.A., LL.M., and M.8.A., which means a Master of Business Administration, a distinction he won at the Harvard College of Business Administration. Besides being a soldier, a farmer, and a lawyer, Colonel Willkie's business versatility has also extended to manufacturing, and in civil life he is production manager for the firm of Joseph E. Seagram, one of the biggest distilleries in the United States.

In taking up law Colonel Willkie followed his lather's profession, and the profession now followed by Wendell Willkie, who is senior member of a New York legal firm. Wendell Willkie is also a farmer in a fairly big way. He farms five properties. Wendell is three years younger than the Colonel, and, according to the Colonel, the former is bigger and broader, though the Colonel himself is just under 6ft and weighs 15 stone. There are two other brothers and a sister.

During his visit to Feildng General Freyberg met returned soldiers of both wars, and also Mr. Frank Elliott, father of Keith Elliott, V.C., states a Press Association message.