Interior Redecorated

As a conference on federal public-works activities came to an end in the President's office, Dwight Eisenhower asked Fred Seaton to stay for a while. Presidential Aide Seaton had been rounding up names of potential nominees for Secre tary of the Interior, and now the President had made up his mind. His choice was a man who had never been mentioned in public speculation about the job. The name: Fred Seaton. Said Seaton last week, after the appointment was announced: "The White House roof fell in on me."

The appointment of Political Diplomat Seaton (see box) to the politically hot Interior post was as shrewd as it was surprising. Ever since 1953, some Democratic politicians have been shouting against the "giveaway" policies of the Eisenhower Administration's Department of the Interior, chiefly because the department has emphasized private and local, rather than federal development of natural resources. After Secretary Douglas McKay resigned in mid-April to run against Oregon's Democratic Senator Wayne Morse, it was clear that some U.S. Senate Democrats, e.g., Oregon's Richard Neuberger, would fight confirmation of McKay's Under Secretary, Clarence Davis, if the President nominated him. Last week Neuberger happily called the Seaton appointment a "repudiation" of McKay's policies; Morse expressed his "enthusiastic endorsement."

But the foes of Douglas McKay are due for a disappointment if they really expect any basic change in Interior Department policy. Appointee Seaton announced: "I certainly expect to carry out the Eisenhower-McKay power policy." He asked Davis, a fellow Nebraskan of somewhat more conservative leanings, to stay on as Under Secretary. Although Davis had been a leading candidate for the secretaryship (with 14 Western G.O.P. Senators and a solid phalanx of top Nebraska Republicans behind him), he agreed to stay on and his supporters accepted the situation without public protest.

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