Shift in Power Policy

When President Eisenhower was asked at a press conference why he had refused to reappoint William R. Connole to the Federal Power Commission, he replied with unusual feeling: "I think I can find a better man." Last week, to replace Connole, the President named Brooklyn-born Thomas James Donegan, 53, a former FBI agent and member of the Subversive Activities Control Board, who helped present the evidence to federal grand juries that indicted Alger Hiss, William W. Remington and Judith Coplon. Also named to the FPC was Paul A. Sweeny, 64, a Democrat and Justice Department lawyer, who will fill the post of John B. Hussey, who died recently.

Donegan's appointment drew angry criticism from Connecticut's Democratic Senator Thomas J. Dodd, who strongly protested Connole's dismissal. Connole had won a reputation as the commission's chief defender of the consumer. Charged Dodd: "This case highlights the lack of concern by this Administration for the consumer and the small person." Nothing in Donegan's Justice Department work, said Senator Dodd, indicates that he will make a better commissioner than Connole. Dodd pointed to Donegan's own remark: "I've never had anything to do with utilities outside of paying my gas bill." The White House hostility to Connole, a political independent, was said to be partly founded on anti-Administration cracks he had made at Washington cocktail parties. He was also disliked by his fellow FPC commissioners. The gas companies, for whom he had urged stricter regulation (in one important case his dissent was implicitly endorsed by the U.S. Supreme Court), were certainly not sorry to see him go.

But White House Press Secretary James Hagerty had another explanation for the new appointments, described them as a shift in Administration policy. Previously, appointments had been made to FPC with the knowledge that some representatives would favor different interests in the regulated industry. While Connole favored consumers, the three present FPC commissioners are considered sympathetic to industry. Hagerty said that the President now does not think of the new appointments as representing consumer, oil or gas interests. Said he: "These are the two best Americans that the President thought he could get, and he assumes they are representing the U.S., all sections of the U.S." Presumably, to make everything fair and square, the holdovers (one of whom has a term lasting until 1964) are expected to forget the grounds on which they were appointed.

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