The law creating the office of Secretary of Transportation had hardly been signed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1966 when a second-term Congressman from Seattle pinpointed the job as his next stop on the turnpike of his political career. Last week Brock Adams (he never uses the second syllable of his baptismal name Brockman) arrived at this goal when President-elect Carter announced his nomination as Transportation's fifth Secretary.
While Adams, 49, bided his time through two Republican Administrations, he did everything possible to qualify himself for the post he coveted, accumulating extensive knowledge about the responsibilities of the department that he is...