Supersalesman Arrives

Historians of the Nixon Administration may well conclude that the President's economic shock programs of 1971 first took shape during a White House briefing on foreign trade last April. It was conducted by a scholarly looking supersalesman, Peter George Peterson, who three months earlier had resigned as chairman of Chicago's Bell & Howell to become Nixon's adviser on foreign economic affairs. Using slides and flip charts, Peterson forcefully drove home to the President for the first time the seriousness of the nation's slipping trade position and one of its causes, the decline in U.S. productivity compared with that of its competitors. Nixon began using phrases from the presentation almost immediately, and in August incorporated into his New Economic Policy several of Peterson's recommendations--including the import surcharge and the freeing of the dollar from gold.

Last week Nixon appointed Peterson, 45, the Secretary of Commerce. He will succeed Maurice Stans, 63, a close confidant of Nixon's who is being assigned to repeat his effective 1968 performance as chief fund raiser for Nixon's election campaign.

Reminders of Debt. Personable "Maury" Stans leaves behind a proudly pro-Establishment record. He rarely turned down an invitation to lecture a friendly businessmen's audience on the marvels of old-fashioned capitalism, which included his own rise from house painter's son to millionaire accountant. He gladly took up the cause of almost any businessman who was unhappy with Washington. As an influential Cabinet member, Stans argued strongly against federal adoption of a no-fault auto-insurance plan, against the ban on DDT and against a presidential commission's advice to junk the oil-import quota system. He also led the battle to impose trade quotas on foreign-made textiles. His job as keeper of the party war chest will undoubtedly include reminding many favored industrial leaders of their debt.

To replace Peterson as international economic adviser the President chose Peter Flanigan, 48, a Princeton-educated former Wall Street investment banker who has been a high-level Mister Fix-It--the chief White House liaison man with business leaders and Wall Street. Flanigan will give up his seat on the Cost of Living Council and most other jobs concerning the domestic economy. That will undoubtedly please Ralph Nader, with whom Flanigan has clashed repeatedly. Besides overseeing the comprehensive trade policy drafted by Peterson, which could well lead to a "Nixon Round" of tariff-cutting negotiations (TIME, Jan. 24), Flanigan will continue to be a contact man between businessmen and federal agencies on some key issues. These include the possibility of relaxing antitrust laws in an effort to give U.S. multinational corporations the same kind of backing abroad that many Japanese and Common Market firms receive from their governments.

Peterson, the son of a Greek immigrant who operated a small restaurant in Kearney, Neb., graduated from Northwestern University and was head of McCann-Erickson's Chicago office before going to Bell & Howell. He stepped in as chairman when Charles Percy left to campaign successfully for a U.S. Senate seat from Illinois. As Commerce Secretary, Peterson is determined to reverse the long-time decline of the department by making it meet more needs of modern, often socially concerned businessmen. He also wants to push Commerce to the forefront of the nation's search for new technology and better productivity. Says Peterson: "We will seek to shift Government research and development from an end in itself to the development of new business products as a means of increasing American competitiveness."

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