PERSONNEL: Changes of the Week, Oct. 18, 1954

¶ General Walter Bedell Smith, 59, Under Secretary of State and stand-in for Secretary John Foster Dulles at the recent Geneva Conference (TIME. July 26 et seq.), became vice-chairman of the board of the American Machine & Foundry Co. in what Chairman-President Morehead Patterson called “a key policymaking role in the company.”

¶ Leston P. Faneuf, 49, became company-wide general manager of Buffalo’s Bell Aircraft Corp. Lawrence D. (for Dale) Bell, 60, who remains as president, thought that the company was getting too big for one boss, will devote himself to policy matters while Faneuf handles operations. Before he joined Bell in 1943, Faneuf had worked at almost everything else but aviation. After graduating from Vermont’s Norwich University (1926), Faneuf became commandant of the Niagara Falls De Veaux School. The next year he was on the copy desk at the Buffalo Courier-Express, a year later went back to teaching (French) at Buffalo’s exclusive Nichols School for boys. He kept on job-jumping (political reporter at the now defunct Buffalo Times, secretary to Buffalo’s mayor, district manager of Buffalo’s OPA office) before joining Bell as Larry Bell’s assistant. An amateur chef, he cooked the meals for Bell executives when they stayed in the plant for days at a stretch rather than face angry pickets during a 1949 strike.

¶Cecil M. Dunn, 48, was hired away from RCA-Estate Appliance Corp., of Hamilton, Ohio, to become president of St. Louis’ Magic Chef, Inc., biggest U.S. stovemaker. He replaces Arthur Stock-strom, 62, who becomes board chairman. Dunn started in the stove business 27 years ago as a door-to-door salesman for Estate, became Estate’s president in 1952 after it was taken over by Noma Electric Corp. (now Northeast Capital Corp.). Dunn pulled Estate out of the red with a sweeping cost-control and product-improvement program. This year he negotiated the sale of the company to RCA, remained as its boss. At Magic Chef, Dunn faces the same problem he had at Estate: the company lost $1,414,866 in the first six months this year.