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Subdued and pleasant, Maurice H. Stans, 60, fits into the sprawling Department of Commerce as unobtrusively as a wastebasket. Yet, as he demonstrated during his term as Budget Director under Eisenhower, he can be an authoritative advocate of fiscal conservatism. During the 1959-60 recession, he successfully opposed a tax reduction against the wishes of then Vice President Nixon. He later became one of Nix on's most efficient fund raisers. After leaving home (Shakopee, Minn.) at 17, Stans studied accounting at night, joined Chicago-based Grant & Co. in 1928 and built it into one of the country's leading accounting concerns. Along the way, Accountant Stans took up the unlikely sport of big-game hunting.
Post Office
A millionaire businessman who runs his own company as carefully as he pilots his de Havilland 125 jet, Win ton "Red" Blount has been assigned the government's most inefficient operation. Like so many of Nixon's appointees, Blount (pronounced Blunt) is a self-made man and is currently president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Twenty years ago he invested $28,000 in used earth-moving equipment to begin a small construction firm. Today it is the $6,000,000 Blount Bros. Corp. of Montgomery, Ala. The only Southerner on the Cabinet, Blount, 47, is described as more a realist than an enthusiastic integrationist. Nevertheless, he is respected by federal officials for his quiet work behind the scenes to relax tensions during crises at Selma and Birmingham.
If Nixon adopts the advice of President Johnson's Kappel Commission Report, Blount will be the nation's last Postmaster General. The Commission, headed by Frederick R. Kappel, former A. T. & T. chairman, said that the department was wasting about $1 billion a year. With Nixon's approval, Blount is expected to convert the unwieldy department into a Government corporation to be run by a board of directors. Since the Postmaster General is traditionally the most political member of the Cabinet, Blount's high esteem among Southern G.O.P. leaders is expected to prove another plus for Nixon.