Three at the Top

Three executives of major U.S. corporations were picked last week for bigger roles of command. The men:

> H. I. (for Haakon Ingolf) Romnes, 57, was elected president of American Telephone & Telegraph Co. to succeed retiring Eugene McNeely. Romnes, the Wisconsin-born son of an immigrant Norwegian baker, made his mark at A.T. & T. as an electrical engineer, won six patents in circuit design at Bell Laboratories before moving on to the operating side. As president of Western Electric, A.T. & T.'s manufacturing arm, from 1959 until early this year, he shaved the lead time on orders and deliveries for such critical items as cable. Romnes is a gentle and friendly executive whose great strength is persuasion and persistence; his skill is convincing people that the impossible is possible--and then seeing that it gets done. Moving up from A.T. & T.'s vice chairmanship, he becomes the firm's chief operating executive under Chairman Frederick R. Kappel, who faces mandatory retirement at 65 in January 1967.

> Robert P. Williford, 64, who retired last August as the $64,650-a-year vice chairman of Hilton Hotels Corp. (1963 sales: $226 million), was elected the surprise successor to Conrad N. Hilton, 78, as president and chief executive officer. Hilton stepped aside (he remains chairman) only because the SEC and the New York Stock Exchange insisted on separate executives when the company recently spun off its more profitable overseas operations into a separate Hilton International Co. that accounted for $60.3 million of Hilton's 1963 sales. Hilton will continue to head the international branch. Texas-born Bob Williford, a social friend and bridge crony of Hilton, started in 1932 as a $30-a-month room clerk in the original Dallas Hilton Hotel after the Depression collapsed his bond business. Gradually, he became Hilton's closest associate in building the company into the world's largest hotel chain. While Hilton made deals, Williford shaped day-to-day operating procedures. An easygoing executive who campaigns constantly for greater hotel courtesy, he has headed such famous Hilton properties as Manhattan's Roosevelt and Plaza hotels, Chicago's Conrad Hilton and Palmer House. A big color photo of Conrad Hilton dominates his Chicago office.

> Henry White Gadsden, 53, will take over as president and chief executive officer of Merck & Co., the big (1963 sales: $264 million) New Jersey pharmaceutical and chemical firm, when his boss, John T. Connor, leaves the post next month to become Lyndon Johnson's Secretary of Commerce (see THE NATION). New York City-born, Yale-educated ('33) Gadsden was a vice president of Sharp & Dohme when it merged with Merck in 1953. As Merck's executive vice president since 1955, with a salary of $124,600 a year, the soft-spoken Gadsden has impressed colleagues with a talent for flawless recall. An administrative catalyst, he likes to have men around him who disagree with one another. Although he gets "many excellent ideas" from "casual chats" with employees on his worldwide visits to Merck plants, Gadsden likes to see things in writing. Says he: "People who can't put ideas into words don't really have a grip on them." Gadsden has a grip on 18,693 shares of Merck (.058% of its common stock), plus retirement incentive and other options on 22,215 shares more.

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