Heirs Apparent

In the locker rooms of the Detroit Athletic Club, and at the 19th hole of the Bloomfield Hills Country Club, the guessing game has been going on for months. Who will move up when General Motors Chairman Frederic G. Donner steps down?

Donner reaches G.M.'s mandatory retirement age of 65 this week. If he follows company custom, he will give up his chairmanship by month's end, but he will probably keep a seat on G.M.'s board and a place on the all-powerful finance committee. It is almost taken for granted that Donner's successor will be the current president and chief operating officer, 60-year-old James M. Roche (TIME cover, May 20, 1966). Most of the speculation, therefore, swirls around the identity of the man who will replace Roche.

Odds are that the new president will be one of G.M.'s five present executive vice presidents: George Russell, 62, Roger M. Kyes, 61, Edward N. Cole, 58, Semon E. ("Bunky") Knudsen, 55, and Edward D. Rollert, 55. On the basis of seniority, Russell, who has long been Donner's top financial aide, stands first in line. But since G.M.'s presidency ordinarily leads to the chairmanship, with at least three or four years in each post, Russell's age is counted against him. The same applies to Kyes, who served in the Eisenhower Administration as "Engine Charley" Wilson's Deputy Secretary of Defense; Kyes has also had several heart attacks.

The other three are look-alikes in their corporate backgrounds. All are graduate engineers who have been G.M. divisional heads. Cole came from Chevrolet, where he was best known for having developed the Corvair; though the car has had recent safety and sales problems, it is still counted a success in G.M. circles. An articulate man with an outgoing personality, Cole should be the favorite for the big job if G.M. is anxious to polish its public relations image, which became somewhat tarnished under austere Fred Donner. But Cole has a black mark on his record: he was less than stringent in enforcing Donner's policy against participation in auto racing.

Knudsen, who has headed both the Chevrolet and Pontiac divisions, is the son of a popular former G.M. president. He lacks Cole's flair, would be more in the Donner-Roche tradition. Rollert, a Buick alumnus, is considered a comer, but he has been an executive vice president only since February 1966, and it would be a surprise if he were leapfrogged over the others.

While the board as a whole will vote on the company's seventh president, it is Donner himself who will surely have the last word. And until he gives it, the guessing game ends at the door to the General Motors building. For the surest way to boil Fred Donner's blood is to play company politics.

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