The Chair for George

By decades-old White House tradition, a retiring Cabinet member may keep a simple but substantial souvenir: the black leather, brass-fitted armchair that he uses at Cabinet meetings during his tour in office. For Dwight Eisenhower, the presentation of a black leather chair last week to his good friend, retiring Treasury Secretary George Magoffin Humphrey, symbolized the beginning breakup of the first Administration "old gang'' and the pressing, painful process of putting together a younger team for the rest of the second Administration.

As a final official farewell gesture, the President honored Humphrey with a black-tie White House stag dinner, attended by the Cabinet and other top Government leaders, e.g., Vice President Nixon, U.N. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge. Later, Treasury officials put up the cost of a new black leather chair ($116.50) for Humphrey's hand-picked successor, Lawyer-Financier Robert Anderson, 47, onetime (1954-55) Deputy Defense Secretary. The next black-chair souvenir, Washington suspected, will go to another businessman turned Administration stalwart, outgoing, outspoken Defense Secretary Charles Erwin Wilson--as soon as the Administration can find a good and willing man (TIME, July 29) to fill the gaping vacancy.

Last week the President also:

P: Asked Congress to appropriate $35 million for a second Washington municipal airport at Burke, Va., 17 miles southwest of the capital, to ease nearby National Airport's traffic load, which has almost doubled since 1950.

P: Sent his "very good wishes" to the people of Communist Poland on the 13th anniversary of the establishment of a provisional Communist government in Lublin after the Russian "liberation" of eastern Poland from the retreating Nazi armies in World War II.

P: Ordered Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to fly to the London disarmament talks. White House officials explained that Dulles' sudden trip was neither routine nor intended to embarrass U.S. Disarmament Negotiator Harold Stassen; instead, Dulles wants another face-to-face huddle with Western diplomats on key issues (see FOREIGN NEWS).

P: Turned down the plea of Old Guard Republican Samuel Wilder King, 70, for renomination, instead chose young (38) Honolulu Ikeman, Lawyer William Francis Quinn, as twelfth territorial governor of Hawaii.

P: Received courtesy calls from H.R.H. Marshal Sardar Shah Mahmoud Khan Ghazi, sometime (1946-53) Prime Minister of Afghanistan, and Thai Ambassador to the U.S. Pote Sarasin, soon to take off as Secretary-General of the Dulles-built, anti-Communist Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO).

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