A Pro for HEW

In the hearing room of a House Post Office and Civil Service subcommittee last week, a reporter whispered a few words to Committeeman David Dennison, an Ohio Republican, who listened intently, broke into a grin and interrupted the testimony of Witness Arthur S. Flemming, president of Ohio Wesleyan University. "The White House." said Dennison, "has officially announced the appointment of Mr. Flemming as Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare." Lean, painfully shy Arthur Flemming blinked in surprise, glanced hastily around the room as if in fear that there might be embarrassing applause. "Thank you, sir," he replied. "That's news to me."

It was surprising to hardly anyone else. Health, Education and Welfare Secretary Marion Folsom, in poor health and discouraged over the failure of his school-construction program to make headway in Congress, has been wanting to resign for months. And President Eisenhower's intention to name Arthur Flemming as his new HEW Secretary was one of Washington's worst-kept secrets.

To the sprawling (five major agencies plus a score of hospitals, colleges, research institutes) Department of Health, Education and Welfare, teetotaling Methodist Arthur Flemming, 52, brings one of the U.S.'s longest, best records as a Government administrator and personnel expert. In 1939 President Franklin Roosevelt named New York-born Art Flemming, then director of the School of Social Sciences and Public Affairs at Washington's American University, as a Republican member of the U.S. Civil Service Commission. Flemming has been in and out of Government ever since.

During and after World War II, he took on job after job, including posts in the Office of Production Management, the Navy, War Manpower Commission, Labor Department, the Atomic Energy Commission and the Hoover Commission. In 1948 Flemming returned to his old school as the first lay president of 117-year-old Ohio Wesleyan. But he was back in Washington as Defense Mobilization director during the Korean war, stayed on under Republican President Dwight Eisenhower until 1957, when he returned to Ohio Wesleyan.

Last week, although reluctant to leave Ohio Wesleyan again, Old Government Pro Flemming nonetheless looked forward to his new assignment. Asked by a reporter if he minded taking over a Cabinet post in an Administration whose time was running out, Arthur Flemming replied quietly: "No. This may be a most important two and a half years for the world."

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