More Than Money

Into President Eisenhower's hospital room one day last week walked U.S. Secretary of the Treasury George Magoffin Humphrey to talk about money and other matters. He brought good news: his newest estimates indicate that the U.S. budget for the current fiscal year ending June 30 can be balanced. A combination of two circumstances are at work, said Humphrey. "One will be somewhat higher revenues than we anticipated, because of the continuation of the good times that we are now enjoying, and the other will be because of the savings that have been made."

Whether the balance on June 30 will leave room for a tax cut next year Secretary of the Treasury Humphrey could not say. He hoped that it would, but he did not try to forecast that possibility for the President. From the budget they moved on to discuss a wide area of U.S. Government policy. The breadth of their discussion was no surprise. While there is a slogan in Washington that "Money means George, and George means money," the fact is that George means quite a bit more.

"That's All I Want." Although he is much less in the public eye than some other members of the Administration team, e.g., Vice President Nixon and Presidential Assistant Sherman Adams (TIME, Oct. 17), George Humphrey has a wide influence that touches about every phase of government. Because military planning and foreign policy have such a deep effect on the U.S. budget, Humphrey sits as a key member of the National Security Council.

At times, Washington has thought that it was witnessing a head-on clash between Humphrey and Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson. In Denver last week Humphrey took pains to tell reporters where he stands with his good friend Wilson: "There is no controversy or problem between Mr. Wilson and myself at all. There never has been any time when I thought that there should be any change in the program of defense. I never asked Mr. Wilson to do anything that would change that. Mr. Wilson, on the other hand, has assured me that he is doing everything that he can do to try to eliminate any wasteful action. Now that's all I can ask; it's all I want. I have known Mr. Wilson for a great many years, and I have a lot of confidence in him."

"Do You Remember?" In addition to spreading his influence beyond the Treasury into other departments, Humphrey has--to the surprise of many of his friends--become a considerable politician. When Defense Secretary Wilson made his widely criticized "bird-dog" remark during the congressional election campaign of 1954, it was Humphrey who took charge of strategy on minimizing the damage. George Humphrey, it has been noted in Washington, is quite nimble at keeping his foot out of his mouth.

The Secretary of the Treasury is in great demand as a speaker at big Republican fund-raising dinners. Last week he spoke at two, in Chicago and Boston. At the $100-a-plate dinner in Boston's Commonwealth Armory, attended by 4,200--the biggest political event of its kind ever held in Boston--George Humphrey said: "Do you remember the slogan, 'You never had it so good,' and the song with the refrain, 'Don't let them take it away'? Let me ask: Who wants to go back?"

By last week George Humphrey's name was on most lists of presidential possibilities for 1956. He waves away all such talk. Aside from his own reluctance, he has disadvantages: 1) He is older (66 next March) than President Eisenhower, 2) he would be a big target for the Democratic "big business" line, and 3) he is not a colorful performer on the platform or on television. Nevertheless, with Dwight Eisenhower lying ill, George Humphrey's important role in the Administration and in the Republican Party has become more important than ever.

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