Flying Saucers

Short days after the Eisenhower Administration came into office, a spike-haired young man named Robert Walter Scott McLeod clattered through the marble corridors of the State Department like a broncobuster. A onetime (1942-49) FBI agent and former administrative assistant to New Hampshire's Senator Styles Bridges, McLeod was brought in to direct the State Department's security "cleanup" program, and he quickly kicked up a dust that never quite settled. Last week the dust blew and the epithets flew anew as President Eisenhower nominated Scott McLeod to be U.S. Ambassador to Ireland.

Scott McLeod's job was an ugly, thankless one to begin with, and he was bound to stir up enemies. As Dulles' top security officer, it was his duty to rid the department of the soft-on-Communism reputation that had built up during the Acheson regime. But by plunging in with McCarthy-like zeal, McLeod alienated good guys and bad guys alike. Moreover, he seemed to be in some initial doubt about whether his primary loyalty was to Secretary Dulles or to State's critics in Congress. The matter came to a head when McLeod, going over Dulles' head to the White House, sought to block the appointment of Charles E. ("Chip") Bohlen as Ambassador to Moscow.

Gradually Scott McLeod and the State Department got broken to each other, and McLeod was credited with a good job of administering the department's security and emergency refugee-relief programs. Today, inside the department, there is a grudging admission that McLeod, with his friendly personality and lively sense of humor, will make a creditable ambassador. Said a top State Department officer last week: "McLeod has learned a lot about the rules of the game and about international relations since he came here. He'll probably do a better job in Dublin than many people who might be picked from private life."

Outsiders were not so charitable. President Eisenhower made it crisply clear at his press conference, that he had nominated McLeod only on Dulles' recommendation. And editorial writers debated the justice of the appointment with all the virulence of 1953. Stormed the New York Times: "It would be hard to imagine a worse blow to the diplomatic corps." Replied the New York Daily News: The fact that "all of the nation's anti-anti-Communists . . . and phony liberals are in full bellow [against] the nomination ... is reason enough for the Senate to confirm, unanimously."

Just as the President characterized the McLeod nomination as State Department business, State last week cocked a quizzical eye at an ambassadorial choice made directly by Ike. The nominee, to replace Career Foreign Service Officer Frances E. Willis as Ambassador to Switzerland: Henry J. (for Junior) Taylor, 54, of Charlottesville, Va. Lifelong Republican Taylor is an independently wealthy businessman (Chairman Silicone Paper Co. of America, Inc.) and sometime author (Men in Motion, Men and Power), who switched to journalism on the eve of World War II. During the war he specialized in the "big picture," covered headquarters closely, became friendly with General Eisenhower and other top brass and was sometimes referred to by his colleagues as "The Generals' Ernie Pyle."

Intensely gregarious Henry Taylor ("a one man mob," a friend affectionately described him) branched out as a major radio commentator after the war; in his eleven-year stint as General Motors' news analyst (Your Land and Mine), Broadcaster Taylor built up a reputation as a hardheaded, conservative economist, sounded off on almost every subject from flying saucers (they "really do exist") to Chou En-lai ("Barbarian Bandit"). Last week the President referred to him as "a man for whom I have had a considerable admiration for a long time ... As far as I know, his views are very greatly like mine in the foreign field."

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