Advocate for the Army

Who is the Secretary of the Army? It is a safe bet that no more than one out of 100 men in the street would know. For the Army Secretary, like his Air Force and Navy counterparts, is trapped in a limbo of anonymity between Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and the uniformed military chiefs.

The incumbent is Stephen Ailes, 53, who has been at the Pentagon since 1961, first as Under Secretary and for the last 16 months as Secretary. During his Washington stay, he has been associated with some significant changes in army life.

By making the course tougher for both instructors and rookies, Ailes helped give recruit training a higher priority, a good thing in an era when the foot soldier is coming back into his own. He shared in shaping the 1962 Army Reserve-National Guard reorganization and was active in formulating follow-up reforms now before Congress. The aim is a merged Army Reserve-National Guard that would be more combat-ready and much less a political plaything. The Army is presently the only service that uses the draft, and Ailes would like to reduce the Army's dependence on it; he has played a leading part in drawing up a novel scheme to put about 60,000 volunteers, who have previously failed to qualify, through an intensive rehabilitation program to make them physically and mentally able to soldier properly.

Ailes has put off his retirement at least twice, and some time after July he will return to his Washington law practice. The Army will miss him. "He is in love with the Army," one general says of the white-haired Army Secretary who has never been in military service. "The Army has been his client, and he has been its advocate."

A top candidate as Ailes's successor is Republican Stanley R. Resor, 47, a Manhattan lawyer (and son of J. Walter Thompson's late board chairman, Stanley Resor) who came to the Pentagon only last month as Army Under Secretary. Resor won the Silver and Bronze Stars as an artillery major in the Battle of the Bulge. He is a particular protege of Ailes's predecessor, Cyrus Vance, now Deputy Secretary of Defense and McNamara's right-hand man. Resor and Vance roomed together at Yale Law School and have been close friends ever since. Both are tall, sharp-featured, and tense in manner and speech. "Shut your eyes," says an Army Department aide, "and you think Resor is Vance talking."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.