Geronimo!

In today's Army, parachute jumping is the quickest way up. Last week three parachute generals leaped upward in the Army's top echelons. The three:

P: General Maxwell Taylor, 53, appointed chief of the U.S. (and United Nations) Far East Command to replace retiring General John E. Hull. A handsome six-footer, Taylor was wounded once and jumped twice into battle with his 101st Airborne Division in World War II. He was the Eighth Army's last combat commander in Korea, incidentally learned Korean (he also speaks French, German, Italian, Spanish and Japanese). On a recent flight to Washington, lean-flanked Max Taylor, who believes in constant conditioning, exercised with dumbbells in the plane aisle, read nine Greek plays in translation and a volume of Philosopher Immanuel Kant.

P: Lieut. General Lyman Lemnitzer, 55, named to Taylor's old job as ground forces commander in the Far East. In World War II he ran up a fine staff record but, as an antiaircraft officer, landed no front-line commands. Grimly, he turned to the paratroops (at 50) and made five qualifying jumps, triumphantly took over a fighting division in Korea.

P: Major General James Gavin, 48 next week, promoted to Lemnitzer's former post as deputy chief of staff for plans and research. Brooklyn-born Gavin ran away to join the Army at 17, and soon won a competitive exam for West Point (although he never went to high school). A pioneer paratrooper, he jumped nearly 100 times and fought 422 days in combat with his 82nd Airborne Division, later wrote the Army's standard Airborne Warfare, in which he developed the doctrine of "vertical envelopment."

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