Advance Patrol

The Republicans' two-man advance patrol, wearing pin-stripe suits and noncommittal smiles, moved quietly into Washington last week.

First to appear was Detroit Banker Joseph Dodge, who presented himself to Budget Director Frederick Lawton and was assigned a big office in the Executive Office Building just two doors down the hall from Lawton's own quarters. There, Dodge took off his grey Homburg, grey suede gloves and dark blue overcoat and settled down behind a big desk on which he placed 1) a pile of celluloid calendars advertising his Detroit Bank, 2) a copy of the Republican platform (which calls for "reduction of expenditures by the elimination of waste and extravagance"). Then he got down to work looking over the voluminous drafts for Harry Truman's budget for fiscal 1954 (which begins next July 1).

By latest estimates, the budget--which must go to Congress just three days before Eisenhower is inaugurated--will call for expenditures of between $80 and $85 billion. Dodge (who emphasized that he was only "observing") is scanning the budget for soft spots, will make recommendations to Eisenhower on how and where it might be trimmed. He conferred with two men who have been doing the same kind of scanning for a long time--Virginia's Senator Harry Byrd and New Hampshire's Styles Bridges. One Byrd suggestion as to where savings might be made: the huge (an estimated $70 billion) unspent funds on hand mostly for defense purchases.

Meanwhile, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. settled down in his old Senate office in shirtsleeves and white galluses and got to work briefing himself on military and diplomatic matters. While he worked, his aides started to pack his belongings (Lodge as a lame-duck Senator will have to move out in January). Lodge operated a good deal by phone, refused to say with whom he was planning to confer. A few Washington officials waited a little nervously for the phone to ring. Said Michael McDermott, State Department press officer: the department would be "completely at [Senator Lodge's] disposal."

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