Peace & Politics

To a practical politician like Harry Tru man, Californian Edwin Wendell Pauley had a claim to a good job. Big, hulking Ed Pauley, operating oilman (Petrol Corp.) and fast-moving dealer in California oil properties, was a faithful, hard-working political war horse -- treasurer of the Dem ocratic National Committee, a crack money-raiser, a tried & trusted Truman friend to boot. But there were few cheers in Washington last week when Harry Tru man announced that Ed Pauley was to be the U.S. member of the Allied Reparations Commission, with the rank of Ambassador.

To make room for Politico Pauley, who will go to Moscow as the President's personal representative when the Commission meets this month, Harry Truman had to displace an appointment made by Franklin Roosevelt only six weeks ago: sharp-eyed, perceptive Dr. Isador Lubin.

A Roosevelt troubleshooter and economic factfinder, Dr. Lubin had had some ex perience in international dealings. Before Roosevelt, he had been economic expert for the U.S. Food Administration in 1918, for the War Industries Board the next year. Now he will accompany Ambassador Pauley to Moscow, act as his associate, take the lesser rank of Minister.

Up from the Ranks. In Ed Pauley's career there had been little to qualify him for the task ahead. He operated spectacularly in the oil business from the time he was graduated from the University of California in 1923 (he had been an un spectacular two-letter man: football, crew). As an independent, he battled the big oil companies for a time on production allotments and in price wars, managed to make himself a sizable business. In 1932, he set off on a flyer in politics, by 1936 was an active and aggressive Democratic party worker.

In 1940, Bronx Boss Ed Flynn, then Democratic National Chairman, got Pauley to take over the raising of money in eleven western states--a job Pauley did so successfully that Flynn soon made him a regional director for the party. Two years later Franklin Roosevelt asked him to become the party's secretary-treasurer to wipe out a deficit of $750,000. Ed Pauley did the job. By last summer he was a big-enough shot to poke wavering delegates in the chest with a heavy forefinger, nudge them into line for Harry Truman. His sales talk: "We're not nominating a Vice President; we're nominating the next President."

Pauley was at the White House when Truman summoned correspondents and announced the appointment. The new Ambassador, who had been mentioned as a willing and anxious possibility for various Cabinet posts (Treasury, Commerce, Interior), slipped into his diplomatic role with a pronouncement that he would be no "soft-peace man." Isador Lubin, an experienced behind-the-scenes worker, said nothing.

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