Friends on High

Without warning, the Army temporarily relieved two of its highest officers from duty. They were the first casualties in a campaign against Government officials who help Washington's "five-percenters" get Government contracts for businessmen. The suspended officers:

P: Major General Herman Feldman, 59, who joined the Army as a private 42 years ago and climbed to the post of Quartermaster General, in charge of $1.8 billion a year in Army spending. Feldman was suspended, said Army Secretary Gordon Gray, because of indications that he "furnished a contractor's representative procurement information under circumstances which appear irregular."

P: Major General Alden H. Waitt, 56, whose 31-year Army career had led to command of the Chemical Corps. Gray said Waitt was suspended on suspicion that he "improperly furnished personnel data" to a civilian.

Waitt had also had a slight brush with trouble in 1946, when he appeared as a witness at the Senate investigation of the war-contracts frauds engineered by the Garsson brothers. General Waitt had enjoyed some of the Garssons' hospitality, danced happily with Murray Garsson's daughter, Natalie (see cut).

The Army would not draw final conclusions on the generals until each has "ample opportunity for a full hearing," said Secretary Gray.

Senate investigators had been heating up a griddle for the two major generals since last month, when the New York Herald Tribune broke the story of ex-Army Colonel James V. Hunt, a five-percenter whose "dear friends" assertedly helped him get contracts. The two major generals were high up on Hunt's list.

Also among Hunt's professed friends was Major General Harry Vaughan, the President's military aide. His curious remark on the subject a fortnight ago was probably intended to be metaphorical, not a reference to any official; but it now bore the ring of prophecy. "Why pick on a sergeant [i.e., Hunt]," Vaughan had demanded, "when at least two major generals are in the same racket?"

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