Gentleman from Boston

Christian Archibald Herter, 52, who marshaled the congressional investigation of Europe, is a gentleman politician. He cuts a fine patrician figure on Boston's Beacon Hill, likes to hunt ducks on his own preserve in South Carolina and has never known the rigors of doorbell-ringing in the wards. But few Congressmen work as hard or as effectively as lanky (6 ft. 5 in.), handsome Chris Herter; fewer still can match his first-hand knowledge of Europe.

Herter, whose parents were wealthy expatriate artists, was born in Paris. He lived there until he was nine, was brought to the U.S. for schooling. After getting a degree cum laude at Harvard, Herter went back to the Continent. In Berlin, Brussels and Paris, he performed various chores for the U.S. State Department. During World War I (he was rejected for Army service), he met Food Administrator Herbert Hoover, spent four years working as his secretary and assistant.

In 1924, in partnership with a Boston friend, he bought up a genteel weekly review called the Independent. It did poorly. The partners launched a new and slicker magazine, the Sportsman. It did poorly, too. Herter started lecturing on international relations at Harvard.

Help from a Boss. Then he ran for state representative from Boston's silk-stocking Fifth District (Beacon Hill and Back Bay). With the help of a former Harvard roommate, who was the districts Republican boss, he won in a breeze. In the legislature, he did an unspectacular but thoroughgoing job. In 1939, he was elected speaker. Three years later, when eccentric old George Holden Tinkham announced his retirement from Congress, Chris Herter spoke up for the job and readily got it.

Affluent Mr. Herter--his wife, who has borne him four children, was a Standard Oil heiress--went to Washington as a stalwart critic of the New Deal. He thought the Social Security Act "the most colossal and most dishonorable hoax ever perpetrated by any American Government on the American people." He spoke seldom and studied exhaustively. On foreign policy, he saw eye to eye with Arthur Vandenberg. In 1945, Herter visited eight. European countries to inspect UNRRA operations, helped push through legislation to provide UNRRA with additional U.S. funds.

No Tuxedos. By the time the 80th Congress opened, Herter had already foreseen the vast difficulties which the U.S. would face this year. He introduced a resolution to set up a special committee to study Europe's economic needs. The resolution went unnoticed until after the Truman Doctrine was proclaimed. Even then, it got bogged down in jurisdictional jealousies. Friendly Chris Herter wanted to bow out of the picture, but Speaker Joe Martin finally straightened things out. Herter ran his committee with a free hand, picked men carefully, gave each man a specific assignment. He told them: "This is a working committee. Leave your tuxedos at home."

In Europe, Herter knew whom to see and what to look at. Meetings and trips were meticulously scheduled--and the schedules were usually kept. Herter drove his committee hard and himself harder. This week, back in the U.S., he was dog-tired, but satisfied with the job he had done. Politics was not without its rewards. In his 25th Harvard anniversary report, Chris Herter had written: "While it is an occupation that can hardly be called remunerative in the ordinary sense, it has a variety of interests and a fascination which holds one to it."

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