AN AIRMAN-BOSS FOR NATO

Slated to succeed General Alfred M. Gruenther as supreme allied commander in Europe at year's end: General Lauris Norstad, U.S. Air Force.

Born: March 24, 1907 in Minneapolis, of Norwegian-Swedish stock, the son of a hard-working U.S.-born Lutheran minister.

Education: High school in Red Wing, Minn. (pop. 10,645); planned to study law, but became interested in the Army when he tagged along with his father to Fort Riley, Kans. on church business; graduated 139th (weak in science and mathematics) in the 1930 class at West Point; went off to flight training in the Army Air Corps.

Early Career: Assigned to duty in Hawaii, he was tapped for staff duty before he had a chance either to com mand a squadron or gather the service and flight time necessary for 6-17 pilot rating. He was assistant chief of staff for Air Intelligence when the U.S. entered World War II, became one of the Air Corps's youngest brigadier generals at 36. Because he looked even younger than he was, he had to learn to endure gibes about his age: once while in Tunisia, in mufti, he was ordered by a chicken colonel to hustle up a drink, complied gracefully.

World War II: In February, 1942, G-2's Norstad was called to the office of General "Hap" Arnold, thought he was about to be bawled out for an argument with a senior general, instead was told: "What I need is someone to help me do my thinking. That's your job now." With that mandate Norstad became the Air Forces' hottest young planner, helped map the air-war plan that placed emphasis first on the European theater, then on the Pacific. He was air-operations officer for the Twelfth Air Force under Jimmy Doolittle in the North African campaign. Of his service in North Africa, General Dwight Eisenhower later wrote: "[He] so impressed me with his alertness, grasp of problems, and personality that I never thereafter lost sight of him." In 1944 he became Arnold's chief of staff in the Twentieth Air Force, helped direct the unprecedented, long range B-29 raids, including the first A-bomb drops on Japan.

Postwar: At the insistence of Army Chief of Staff Eisenhower, Airman Norstad was named War Department director of plans and operations. While Air generals and Navy admirals brawled in public, Norstad and the late Admiral Forrest Sherman quietly conferred, arrived at agreement on service unification. Norstad became Air Force operations chief in 1947, went to Germany in 1950 as commander in chief of the U.S. Air Force in Europe, was named Al Gruenther's deputy air commander in July, 1953. At NATO Norstad shaped atomic strategy, built up the air base network-communications system-and radar-warning service.

The Man: A slim, long-legged six-footer, boyish-faced Larry Norstad seems shy and retiring, takes an occasional drink, detests cocktail parties. Of his job as NATO commander, a longtime friend says: "The social duties will be the toughest part of the job for him." Norstad smokes a pipe (or, sometimes, Turkish cigarettes), and when in Washington likes to argue law with Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter. His mind, says a former Air Force colleague, is like "a precision instrument." Norstad lives in an 18th century French villa with his wife Isabelle and 18-year-old daughter Kristin. When he relieves able Al Gruenther and becomes the first SACEUR airman he must show, in addition to his proved abilities as a military planner, a great--but still unproved--talent as a public diplomat.

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