World Business: Mr. Dollar Goes Abroad

(4 of 10)

makes Fowler's tenure particularly challenging is the important changes that are sweeping over the U.S. economy. International monetary policy has become an overriding consideration in Washington's deliberations, and the loss of U.S. gold to other nations continues to influence many decisions. Furthermore, the Government is involving itself more and more in the U.S. economy. Lyndon Johnson realizes that he needs good times to finance his Great Society programs, and he intends to keep the economy in its present high gear by selectively increasing Government spending, reducing taxes and applying wage and price guidelines. Fowler's influence and power are all the greater because Johnson is no economic theorist; he knows what he wants, but he does not know exactly how to get it done. For that he depends on the economic team headed by Fowler.

Fowler is one of the best-liked men in Washington. Businessmen know him well from his past work as Treasury Under Secretary (1961-64) and from his private law practice, in which his many blue-chip clients included the Automobile Manufacturers Association, Olin Mathieson and Corning Glass. Most Congressmen are impressed by his long experience in many phases of Government. As Johnson's chief economic monetary spokesman, Fowler confers with the President at least half a dozen times a week, often pops into the White House to sip root beer and chat about business. He has already established himself as the leader of the President's "quadriad" of four top economic policymakers, who are charged with keeping the U.S. economy brisk and rising.

Prayer from the Pastor. The manager of the U.S.'s international monetary policy is a Norfolk & Western Railway engineer's son who earned a doctorate in law at Yale ('33) and was an editor of the Law Review. Joe Fowler hitched on to the New Deal as a Tennessee Valley Authority attorney, quit the Government in 1946 to head his own Washington law firm, then was called back temporarily in 1951 to work in the Office of Defense Mobilization, of which he became boss the following year. In 1961, when Republican Douglas Dillon needed a savvy Under Secretary to help steer legislation through the Democratic Congress, he recommended Fowler to President Kennedy. Before accepting the job, devout Episcopalian Fowler asked his minister, the Rev. William Sydnor, to "pray for God's guidance" for him. The answer was yes.

In early 1964, Fowler returned to private law to earn some money, went on to organize the star-spangled Businessmen for Tax Reduction, which saved the tax-cut bill by selling the idea of deliberately incurring a budget deficit; he also headed Businessmen for Johnson and Humphrey. Whenever Johnson ran into Fowler after the election, the President asked if he had made enough money to return to Government. When American Electric Power Co. President Donald Cook turned down his bid for the Treasury, Johnson turned almost automatically to Fowler. Summoning him to the Oval Room, Johnson said: "I have not come to ask, I have come to tell, and I want you to do the same thing. Would you mind going home for lunch and telling Trudye you are going to be named Secretary of the Treasury?" Fowler protested that he and his wife planned to leave for Europe in a few days. Replied the President: "Don't bother me with details."