Treasury's Wunderkind

In the past few months, Gerald Parsky, 32, seems to have emerged out of nowhere to become one of official Washington's brightest new Wunderkinder--and the youngest Assistant Secretary of the Treasury ever. Parsky serves Treasury Secretary William Simon as confidant, emissary and all-round Mr. Fixit. He sees Simon a dozen times daily and often closes his 14-hour workday chatting with his chief over soggy pizza and a couple of fingers of Scotch. With his wife and two children, Parsky sometimes spends Sunday, his only day off, at the Simon estate in Virginia.

Lean, tireless, dapper and serenely poised, Parsky was born in Connecticut, graduated from Princeton, and was for a time an English teacher (he still unwinds by reading Wordsworth and Keats). He later became a corporate securities lawyer and then a middle-level Treasury official. He left that post in 1973 for the Federal Energy Office, then headed by Simon, where he established himself as a crack coordinator and credible witness in congressional hearings. When Simon became Treasury Secretary, he tailored a new job especially for Parsky. Among other things, Parsky is charged with developing policies to muffle the impact of high-priced oil imports on the U.S. balance of payments. Last week Parsky was in Cairo to discuss the possibility of U.S. economic aid to Egypt. There is some talk that Simon will soon leave the Cabinet. But for the moment, at least, Simon is the Administration's chief economic spokesman; and as his alter ego, Jerry Parsky is one of the Administration's most powerful bright young men.

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