PERSONAL FILE

sb Last fall Dwight Eisenhower led a band of Pennsylvania Republicans who urged Thomas Sovereign Gates Jr., Ike's last and ablest Defense Secretary, to be their candidate for Governor or U.S. Senator this year. After agonizing over the decision, Tom Gates refused. Only a few months earlier, he had accepted a job as chairman of the executive committee of Manhattan's Morgan Guaranty Trust Co., whose assets of $5.2 billion make it the fifth largest U.S. bank, and he did not want to leave that job. Last week the full reason for Gates's decision became clear. Morgan Guaranty promoted Gates, 56, to the presidency, replacing Dale E. Sharp, 58, who becomes a vice chairman. As the bank's chief administrative officer, Gates now appears to be the ultimate heir to 60-year-old Chairman Henry Clay Alexander.

sb Revolving doors would come in handy at the Manhattan executive suites of Fairbanks Whitney Corp., the widely diversified and often troubled manufacturer of heavy machinery. Last spring Executive Committee Chairman Alfons Landa and two vice presidents quit amid reports of angry board room battles for control of the company. Last week they were joined by Thomas G. Lanphier Jr., 46, who resigned as president of the company's largest division, Fairbanks, Morse. Lanphier -the World War II ace who gunned down Japan's Pacific Commander, Admiral Yamamoto, and later rose to become vice president of General Dynamics' VConvair Division before joining Fairbanks in 1960 -was diplomatically silent about his reasons for leaving. But by week's end two Fairbanks, Morse vice presidents and a score of other executives had also departed.

sb With Chairman Ralph Cordiner only three years away from mandatory retirement at 65, General Electric Co. last week made an important top-management appointment. Up to the powerful executive vice presidency for operations -a post once held by Cordiner and by former G.E. President Robert Paxton -moved Brooklyn-born Fred J. Borch, 52, who has been vice president of the G.E. consumer products group. Borch, who started with G.E. as a traveling auditor, will take from Cordiner full responsibility for directing manufacturing and marketing by all five G.E. operating groups. More important, the promotion marks him as a prime candidate to move -some day -into the tandem leadership of G.E. with President Gerald J. Phillippe, 52, who now heads all G.E. services, such as engineering and accounting.

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