Right Man

Winston Churchill had kept the job for himself until he could find the right man to fill it. This week, having found the man, and secured his release from another job, Churchill picked Field Marshal the Viscount Alexander of Tunis to be Britain's Minister of Defense. The chief, unpublicized intent of Churchill's recent visit to Canada was to get Alexander, who will leave his post as Governor General of Canada later this month to join Churchill's cabinet. His five-year term had already been temporarily extended twice while Canadians looked for a replacement. On the eve of his appointment to the Cabinet, it was announced that Viscount

Alexander would be raised to the rank of earl.

The appointment, though it got Canada its first native-born Governor General (see HEMISPHERE), cost Canada the most popular Governor General (the 37th) it had ever had. A trim soldier with a cool head, imperturbable nerves and mild manner, Alexander fought around the globe in the last war. He was "last man off the beach" at Dunkirk, went into Burma, the Middle East, North Africa and Italy, became Supreme Allied Commander in the Mediterranean. He did his work well and modestly and did not rush his memoirs into print afterwards. "If he had," a fellow general once said, "the personal pronoun would never appear."

Self-effacing Field Marshal Alexander is a smooth politician ("90% of my job in the Mediterranean was politics"), a passable amateur oil painter and, at 60, still an avid outdoorsman (formerly football, track and cricket, now mostly shooting, skiing and fishing). He was born Harold Rupert Leofric George Alexander in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, the third son of the Fourth Earl of Caledon. After Harrow and Sandhurst, he wore "the brightest Sam Browne and boots in the British army," fought in World War I, served in India between the wars.

His appointment was bound to stir up opposition. The Labor Party doesn't want another peer in the government (which means he sits in the House of Lords and cannot be subjected to the sharp questioning of the House of Commons). And many Britons, including War Office men, dislike having a soldier in a job traditionally held by a civilian. It was opposition which would question neither Alexander's character nor his ability.

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