PERSONNEL: Promotions

¶ J. Sayles Leach, 61, stepped up from executive vice president to president of the Texas Co., succeeding Harry T. Klein, 66, who was boosted to a newly created post, chairman of the executive committee. W.S.S. Rodgers will continue as board chairman. After graduating from Baylor University in 1915, Leach came to Texas Co. as a bookkeeper in the Dallas sales office, moved into the sales department and in 1938 was named a vice president.

¶ Mutual Broadcasting System’s Board Chairman Thomas F. O’Neil, who is also a vice president of General Tire & Rubber Co., took over Mutual’s presidency when Frank White, 52, resigned his $100,000-a-year job after a disagreement over a new contract. General Tire, owner of the Don Lee and Yankee networks, got majority stock control of Mutual when its networks merged last year with two Mutual stations in New York City.

¶ Howard Edwards Whitaker, 48, executive vice president of the $100 million Mead (paper) Corp., was moved up to president, succeeding Charles R. Van de Carr Jr., 66, who becomes chairman of the

Engineering and Development Committee, a company policy group. An M.I.T. graduate, Whitaker joined Mead Corp. when he got out of college, rose through the pulp and board mills, served on the WPB during the war. He was made operations vice president for Mead in 1946 and executive vice president a year ago.

¶ Charles Scribner Jr., 30, was named president of the publishing house, Charles

Scribner’s Sons, succeeding his father, who died in February. A Princeton graduate, young Scribner served three years in the Navy during the war, was made a company director in 1947, a vice president three years later. He is the great-grandson of the Charles Scribner who founded the publishing firm in 1846.