Up from Oblivion

For Alexander Buel Trowbridge, it was like a ticket to oblivion when he was appointed Acting Secretary of Commerce last January. The President had just announced that he aimed to eliminate Trowbridge's department--and his job--by merging Commerce and Labor into one superdepartment. Last week, in the face of unrelenting resistance to the merger in Congress and among labor leaders, Lyndon Johnson gave Commerce a new lease on life and, providing "Sandy" Trowbridge with at least temporary job security, nominated him full-fledged secretary of the reprieved department.

At 37, the handsome, athletic six-footer will be the youngest Commerce Secretary in history and youngest current member of the Cabinet.* A Princeton honors graduate and winner of a Bronze Star in Korea as a Marine second lieu tenant, New Jersey-born Trowbridge was president of Esso Standard Oil Co. of Puerto Rico before joining Commerce as an Assistant Secretary two years ago.

State of Flux. The job, as previous Secretary John Connor said after resigning his post, is "in a state of flux." One reason why Connor quit after two frustrating years was the steady diminution of Commerce's influence over na tional economic policy, which now is substantively set by the big quadriad of the Administration's Treasury Secretary, Budget Director, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board and the head of the Council of Economic Advisers. Thus the Commerce Department's official dominion is slight--and it became even slighter when Johnson last fall created an autonomous Department of Transportation, which stripped Commerce of such major bureaus as the Under Secretaryship of Transportation, Public Roads and the St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation.

Even Trowbridge concedes: "Someday the merger of Labor and Commerce will happen, but not before the 1968 election." And he adds: "The merger is a darn good, practical thing." Essentially, such a superdepartment would eliminate wasteful duplication. Until that uncertain day, he will have his work cut out for him. His department's primary job lies in the delicate area of liaison between the Administration and big business--and some critics openly wonder whether Trowbridge is either sufficiently mature or experienced for so weighty a portfolio. In addition, he has already drawn up a formidable list of priorities, from ameliorating the balance-of-payments problem and simultaneously promoting U.S. investments abroad to expanding economic planning in the U.S. and waging an all-out campaign against inflation. "It will," he says solemnly, "require a lot of work, a lot of concentration, and a lot of convincing of people."

* His youngest predecessor was Herbert Hoover, who held the post in 1921 at the age of 46. Average age of Cabinet members is 51.

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