The Administration: CIA’s New Boss

Even before his inauguration. John Kennedy knew he would have to start casting about for a new U.S. intelligence chief: Central Intelligence Agency Director Allen Welsh Dulles told the President elect that he hoped to retire within a year. After the disaster of the Cuba invasion, in which CIA estimates and planning came under heavy fire, the question of Dulles’ successor was a common subject of Washington gossip. Last week, in a brief public ceremony at the Newport. R.I., Naval War College, President Kennedy announced that Dulles, 68, would retire in November after eight years as CIA’s boss. On hand to hear the President’s sincere tribute to Dulles as a “courageous, selfless” public servant was the nation’s new chief of intelligence: John Alex McCone, 59, a California industrial leader and former (1958-60) chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission.

From Kennedy’s viewpoint, John McCone was an ideal choice. A tough, canny administrator with a wide range of governmental experience, he is respected on Capitol Hill as well as throughout the executive departments. As a politically active Republican (who was a top possibility for Secretary of Defense had Nixon won), McCone should be virtually immune from partisan political criticism. Just after the Russians broke the moratorium on atomic testing last month, Kennedy summoned McCone from California to Washington for consultation; to receive the President’s telephone call, McCone left a golf course where he was playing with Nixon.

Fortnight ago, McCone was again in Washington to discuss atomic testing problems with Pentagon officials when he was asked to an early evening White House conference. In the quiet of his second-floor study, President Kennedy asked McCone to take the CIA post. McCone asked for a week to think it over, went back home to San Marino to talk the job over with his wife Rosemary, then called in his acceptance.

Prescience & Skepticism. CIA’s director-designate is a Roman Catholic, son of a San Francisco foundry owner. John McCone studied engineering at the University of California, hired himself out as a riveter after his graduation in 1922. By the time he was 32, McCone was executive vice president of Consolidated Steel Corp. Eight years later he left to form the engineering firm of Bechtel-McCone-Parsons, took on the added job of running the California Shipbuilding Corp. after the U.S. entered World War II. Starting from absolute scratch—its main yard was a swamp, and less than 1% of its 40,000 workers had shipbuilding experience—Calship turned out 467 cargo carriers and tankers in four years. At Calship, McCone worked 15 hours a day, organized the yard on an assembly-line prefabrication basis, stepped up production to record levels by improving welding techniques. After the war, McCone turned from making ships to running them: the Joshua Hendy Corp., of which he is chairman, operates a fleet of tankers and cargo ships out of West and East coast ports.

In recent years McCone has hardly had time to keep more than one eye on his businesses. He was first called to Washington in 1947 as a member of President

Truman’s Air Policy Commission, which urged a SAC-dominated Air Force. McCone served 16 months in 1950-51 as Under Secretary of the Air Force, won considerable credit for helping to increase his service’s share of the budget. President Dwight Eisenhower called on McCone to advise Defense Secretary Neil McElroy on Pentagon reorganization, and three years ago appointed him to succeed Lewis Strauss as chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission.

In his varied Washington jobs, McCone has displayed both a prescience and a skepticism that should serve him well at CIA. As Air Force Under Secretary, McCone a decade ago urged that the U.S. spend at least $2 billion yearly on its missile program, place both civilian and military research under one head. Within the councils of Ike’s Administration, McCone argued hard for resumption of nuclear tests in 1959, loyally refrained from public complaint even after his judgment was overruled. But McCone quietly fought on, ordered that AEC’s Nevada test sites be prepared for future nuclear experiments; those sites were ready when President Kennedy announced that the U.S. would conduct underground tests.

More Power. In taking over Dulles’ two jobs—the CIA director is also chairman of the U.S. Intelligence Board—McCone will wield more power than his predecessor ever had. Kennedy told McCone that he expects him to assume prime responsibility for all the intelligence operations carried on by the Government. McCone will coordinate the reports made by the CIA with those of other security agencies, attempt to provide one consolidated intelligence estimate for the President’s guidance. Within months McCone will also present to the White House recommendations for improving the administration of one of the Government’s largest (about 15,000 employees, an estimated annual budget of more than $500 million) and most important agencies.