CAVU

Back home in South Dakota after the war, rugged, curly-haired Joe Foss, the Marine Corps' top South Pacific air ace, found politicking almost as simple as a wingover and just as much fun. Everyone remembered that he had been the first U.S. flyer to tie Eddie Rickenbacker's World War I record by shooting down 26 Japs over Guadalcanal. In 1948, Minnehaha County elected him overwhelmingly to the state house of representatives.

Soon Joe Foss, who had left the Marines to become a lieutenant colonel in the Air National Guard, was flying all over the state acting as master of ceremonies for South Dakota's Miss America contest, dedicating baseball fields and leading airmen in a fancy repertoire of acrobatics. To questions about the future he bluntly replied: "I don't know myself what I'm going to do in 1950, but take a look at those in office now."

Last week, at 34, Joe Foss made up his mind. "Just say I'll be a candidate for the Republican nomination for the governorship in the 1950 primary," he told a newsman. Since Republican Governor George T. Mickelson could not, by law, succeed himself, Joe Foss obviously thought his political skies were CAVU--ceiling and visibility unlimited.

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