Power Politics

Automakers are not the only businessmen who have to thread their way through a smoke-blue Washington feud. Last week utilitymen had one too.

OPM named a coordinator for its power section: tall, aggressive, young (33) Julius A. Krug. According to OPM, Krug will "handle all defense power problems." Krug lost no time in taking these words at face value. He romped through press conferences, held many a private interview. There was talk of his setting up an advisory committee to review the whole power situation. Then he announced a three-point OPM program to: 1) create three vast regional power pools; 2) assure "adequate power" for defense and civilian needs; 3) force better priorities for electrical equipment.

Krug had made a fast start. But his appointment merely intensified the fight over who will be U.S. power tsar. Fortnight ago FPC Chairman Leland Olds launched an ambitious plan (TIME, July 28) to make FPC (i.e., himself) the boss. Olds ran head-on into Secretary Ickes, the earlier claimant. Said Ickes of Olds's plan: "It does not suit this department at all . . . some recommendations were very

ill-advised." Sensing he had been caught off balance by a powerful opponent, Olds cooked up a scheme with his buddy, TVA Boss David Lilienthal, who has an older feud with Ickes. Lilienthal, for whom Krug worked at TVA, masterminded the tie-in with OPM (which has always wanted a voice in the power problem).

The TVA-OPM-FPC combination looked like a powerful gang-up on Ickes. But Ickes last week had not begun to fight. Nobody was power tsar yet.

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