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Without benefit of aides and brain-trusters, with no prepared statements in his pockets, handsome, prematurely grey Edward R. Stettinius Jr. appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The Senators questioned him, unanimously voted Committee approval.

The Senate usually waits a day after committee action on nominations. But just a few hours later Stettinius was confirmed as Under Secretary of State, without a dissenting vote. Up rose Democratic Leader Alben W. Barkley in fulsome eulogy. Immediately Arthur Vandenberg, powerful Republican member of the Foreign Relations Committee, was on his feet to say that the Republicans agreed.

This week Secretary of State Cordell Hull, back from a rest in Hot Springs, Va., introduced his new Under Secretary to a press conference with a verbal bouquet. Smiling and with hands on the back of a chair in the familiar Hull manner, Ed Stettinius said: "This is the climax of my young career." The man who left a $100,000 headship of U.S. Steel to enter Government service, who was generally praised for his work as Lend-Lease Administrator (TIME, Oct. 4), now faced the toughest administrative job of his career. Largely in his hands was the direction of a maze of State Department activities which spread around the globe. The new Under Secretary started with a great advantage. Even Columnist Drew Pearson, roundly denounced by Franklin Roosevelt for calling the State Department anti-Russian, said: "The Russians . . . believe in Stettinius."

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