Benton Y. Bowles

What Damon was to Pythias or David to Jonathan, William Benton was to Chester Bowles. In 1929, four months before the stock-market crash, the two Yalemen (Benton '21, Bowles '24) founded the advertising agency of Benton & Bowles. By 1936, the year Benton sold out to be vice president of the University of Chicago, they had run their billings up to $15 million a year. Bowles hung around until 1941, making more money; then he too gave in to the longing for a larger life of public service, headed up the Connecticut OPA, later became Franklin Roosevelt's OPAdministrator. Though apart in business, Benton & Bowles remained a close political team; in 1949 Bowles, then governor of Connecticut, appointed Benton, seasoned by two years as an Assistant Secretary of State, to the U.S. Senate.

Last week the team turned into Benton v. Bowles. Returning to his home in Essex, Conn, from a Bahamian vacation, Chester Bowles, 56, announced that he would try to win the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senator and the chance to run against Republican Incumbent William A. Purtell. Already in the running: Bill Benton, 57, who lost to Purtell in 1952, has been campaigning for six months, refused to be budged by Bowles's announcement because the campaign "will not affect our personal friendship in any way." Also in the running: former U.S. Representative Thomas J. Dodd, who tried for the Senate in 1956, felt that the state machine failed to back him, this year has virtually sewed up his own powerful bailiwick of Hartford County (pop. 619,000) and much organizational support, may well mow down both Benton and Bowles as one man.

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