THE ADMINISTRATION: New Stripes

In the striped-pants sectors of the State Department, handsome John Emil Peurifoy had been looked upon as the mechanic who tended strictly to the cogs of State’s clanking administrative machinery. Last week Harry Truman nominated Mechanic Peurifoy—now a $15,000 Deputy Under Secretary for Administration—to the striped-pants job of Ambassador to Greece (succeeding cherubic, 68-year-old Henry Grady, transferred to trouble-spot Iran).

Even though Congress instinctively mistrusts most State Department careerists, the Senate would probably confirm 42-year-old Jack Peurifoy with little trouble. Fifteen years ago, after a brief tour at West Point cut short by his father’s death and his own pneumonia, Peurifoy started his career in Washington’s bureaucracy in a $90-a-month job running an elevator in the Senate office building. When he returned to Capitol Hill last month to play State’s David against Goliath Joe McCarthy, many a Senator privately admired the way he had slung back McCarthy’s rocks as fast as they came (although State would never forgive him for indiscreetly volunteering that 91 of its employees had been fired for homosexuality).

For Peurifoy’s job the President picked 35-year-old Carlisle Humelsine, a relaxed, resourceful wartime communications expert for General. Marshall, who winnowed thousands of messages from all over the world, boiled them down for Marshall, and set up the Chief of Staff’s daily briefing session at 6:40 a.m. Within State, Humelsine had earned a reputation for mowing trivia and red tape out of Dean Acheson’s path, leaving the Secretary freer than any of his predecessors to concentrate on the big issues. Like Peurifoy, hard-working Carl Humelsine had never taken time to be measured for striped pants.