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The two academicians in the Cabinet, Chancellor Clifford Hardin of the University of Nebraska (Agriculture) and George Shultz, dean of the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business (Labor), made their marks as administrators as much as scholars. David Kennedy (Treasury) is a Chicago banker so well regarded by both parties that Lyndon Johnson invited him to head the Treasury in 1965.
The Why of the Rogers Appointment
More than most Presidents-elect, Nixon relied heavily on the supporting cast he has learned to trust from close experience. Maurice Stans (Commerce) is a colleague from the Eisenhower days and a longtime Republican fund raiser. John Mitchell (Attorney General) was Nixon's law partner and campaign manager. Wisconsin Congressman Melvin Laird (Defense) has served Nixon occasionally as an adviser. California Lieutenant Governor Robert Finch (Health, Education and Welfare) is an old friend, campaign aide and confidant. In fact, Finch is matched in the boss's esteem only by William Pierce Rogers, Attorney General in the Eisenhower Administration, whom Nixon selected to become the 55th Secretary of State and Keeper of the Great Seal of the United States. Over the years, Nixon has reserved his friendship for few men. With intimates like Finch, Mitchell and Rogers heading major departments, what in other Administrations would serve as a Kitchen Cabinet will be officially installed in the parlor.
Rogers was the nominee who aroused most interest. Despite all the speculation, his name did not leak out until early last week. Moreover, Rogers has virtually no significant experience in foreign affairs beyond a good-will mission to West Africa during the Eisenhower Administration and a brief stint last year as delegate to the United Nations Ad Hoc Committee on Southwest Africa.
"According to the papers," Rogers quipped after the news became official, "I was the last one asked to the prom." Not quite. Nixon had had Rogers in mind for Secretary of State for some time. Rogers has enjoyed Nixon's complete trust since the 1952 campaign, when he advised Nixon during the furor over the "Nixon fund" and helped frame the famous Checkers speech. In 1955, when Eisenhower suffered a heart attack, Nixon turned to Rogers before anyone else. "He was a friend," Nixon later wrote in Six Crises, "who had proved during the fund crisis that he was a cool man under pressure, had excellent judgment, and was one to whom I could speak with complete freedom without any concern that what I might say would find its way into the Washington gossip mill."
"Judgment," being "cool under pressure"—these are attributes Nixon prizes in subordinates; he used the terms repeatedly last week in introducing his men. (He also used the phrase "extra dimension" ten times during the TV program.) Loyalty is another quality Nixon seeks, and he has obviously found it in Rogers, who says: "The only thing a Cabinet officer should have in mind is the success of the Administration."
Rogers' very lack