POST RESIGNED

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 21947, 15 February 1946, Page 3

POST RESIGNED

AMERICAN MINISTER DISPUTE WITH PRESIDENT NAVY UNDER-SECRETARY WASHINGTON, Feb. 13. President Truman has accepted the resignation of Mr. Harold Ickes, as Secretary of the Interior, and designated Mr. Oscar L. Chapman as Acting-Secretary until Mr. Ickes’ successor is appointed. Mr. Chapman has been Assistant Secretary of the Interior for 13 years.

The Associated Press says the resignation of the self-styled "Old curmudgeon.” who took office with President Roosevelt in 1933, sprang from Mr. Ickes’ opposition to President Truman's nomination of Mr Edwin W. Pauley, the Californian oil man as IJnder-Secretary to the Navy. Mr. Ickes asked to be relieved on March 31. but President Truman made his resignation effective on February 15.

President -Truman's letter accepting the resignation has not been published. Mr. Ickes’ letter to President Truman said: 'T cannot accept tile theory that 1 should have told the Senate Naval Affairs Committee less than the. truth. I don’t apologise for this, although I regretted the unhappy personal position in which I involuntarily found myself."

Mr. Ickes stated in evidence before the Senate Committee that Mr. Pauley told him in September 1944 that the Government suit for the Federal title to the submerged coastal oil lands would be bad politics as it would cost the Democratic Party 300.000 dollars in campaign contributions from Californian oil men. Mr. Ickes told the committee that this was the -awest proposition he had ever had.

Nevertheless President Truman again backed up Mr. Pauley, telling a press conference that Mr. Pauley wn, honest and that Mr. Ickes could be mistaken. Mr. Ickes’ letter to '• i • ent Truman added: "I cannot, -tiy on when you, in elTect. have expressed - lack of confidence in me.”