Miller pleases Burns' fans and foes; Mclntyre completes economic team
The suspense over who would replace Arthur Burns as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board—or if he would be replaced at all—began to build even before Jimmy Carter entered the White House. During his campaign, Carter made it clear that he felt each President should choose a Fed chairman whose views were compatible with his own—and he has chafed increasingly under Burns' open criticism of White House policy. But could Carter afford to dump the legendary and controversial Burns when his second four-year term as chairman of what has been called the nation's "Supreme Court of money" expires Jan. 31? At 73, Burns had become a rock-like symbol of resistance to inflation at home and a champion of a strong dollar abroad. He was trusted and admired by U.S. businessmen and foreign finance ministers, precisely the two groups most skeptical of Carter's own savvy as an economic manager.
Last week, though, Carter decided that, yes, he could drop Burns and life would go on pretty much as usual. In a move that surprised official Washington and caught Burns off guard while he was on vacation in Florida, the President picked as Burns' successor a man whose name had never come up in public speculation: G. (for George) William Miller, 52, chairman and chief executive of Textron Inc., one of the nation's first and most successful corporate conglomerates.
The appointment seemed as politically adroit as it was unexpected. It pleased the liberals who have long thought that Burns was strangling the nation's economic growth by being too stingy in doling out money, thus pushing up interest rates too much, and yet it did not seem to antagonize Burns' conservative admirers. Quite the contrary; Miller's long career at Textron and service on various business and government committees have given him a wide acquaintanceship in the financial community, and most businessmen and bankers hailed him as one of their own. Miller will have to be a miracle man to keep that universal favor; his cheering section includes both people who predict that he will be less tight on money than Burns, and others who assert with equal confidence that he will prove just as conservative and independent as the chairman he replaces. But for the moment the only discordant notes came from some American grumblers who think that Carter should have chosen a banker or economist rather than a corporate chieftain, and from the foreign exchange markets, where the dollar initially fell a bit further—not because money traders overseas distrust Miller, but simply because they know little about him.
In a far more expectable decision. Carter named James T. Mclntyre Jr. his onetime budget director in Georgia, as head of the Federal Office of Management and Budget, succeeding Bert Lance (see story page 45). Thus the President completed his economic team on the eve of his departure for a seven-nation tour.
Arthur Burns had not wanted to leave his post, and had been publicly deferential toward the President lately. Carter, in return, consistently flattered Burns, and throughout the fall kept insisting that there was no real dispute between them.