Disappointed Men

Homeward bound from Washington last week were two top Administration officials, both disappointed men. One was Navy Secretary Thomas S. (for Sovereign) Gates Jr., 52, already marked down in Navy legend as the best Secretary since the late James Forrestal. The other was James H. (for Hopkins) Smith Jr., 49, highly respected in the State Department for his two-year stint as International

Cooperation administrator. In the curious fashion of Washington politics, the double disappointments were intertwined.

Philadelphia Banker Gates (Drexel & Co.) took over the Navy Secretary's job in 1957 after four years as Under Secretary, demonstrated the same smartness he showed in World War 11 as a naval air intelligence officer. But Gates got torpedoed on two issues: 1) he argued unsuccessfully for Navy appropriations on a basis of Navy need as he saw it, rather than percentage of the overall four-service defense budget; 2) he offered stubborn resistance to President Eisenhower's Defense Reorganization Act on the ground that it would sap service secretaries' powers, take Navy units out of Navy control. When the act passed last year, Gates's disappointment and his determination to get home to Philadelphia became an open Pentagon secret.

Almost as well known was Jim Smith's yen for Gates's job after he finished a self-imposed two-year ICA tour. Smith, a wartime carrier pilot and postwar Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Air (1953-56), appeared a natural to become Secretary. But Gates, with White House approval, offered the job to Under Secretary William Birrell Franke (rhymes with lanky), 64, wealthy retired accountant and since 1954 a quietly competent assistant secretary for financial management. When Franke declined for health reasons (arthritis), Gates suggested Smith.

Trouble was that Senate Republicans, who like Gates, dislike able, impetuous Jim Smith. As ICA boss he was known to boil over at Congressmen, to refuse jobs to Republican politicians because politics made them "controversial."' Quickly New Hampshire's Styles Bridges and other G.O.P. members of the Senate Appropriations and Armed Services Committees passed the word to G.O.P. National Chairman Meade Alcorn that Smith as Navy Secretary was no go. On that basis Gates persuaded Franke, by then considerably recovered, to reconsider.

Last week, with Franke's promotion official, disappointed Jim Smith went home to Aspen, Colo. Gates prepared to leave June 1, after the Navy's 1960 budget passes. Last week also a third disappointed man popped up. Grieved was G.O.P. Chairman Alcorn. who had done no more than listen to congressional advice, had been clobbered in print as the man who put the finger on Independent Republican Smith.

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