Struggle for Empire

As if the makers of U.S. foreign economic policy did not have plenty to worry about already--Soviet economic offensives, the "revolution of rising expectations" in underdeveloped countries, resentment against budget deficits at home--an old-fashioned struggle for bureaucratic empire was shaping up in Washington to complicate matters. Apparently with the unspoken O.K. of newly appointed Commerce Secretary Lewis Strauss, the Commerce Department's blunt, contentious Assistant Secretary for International Affairs Henry Kearns, 47, onetime California Chevrolet dealer, is trying to invade the State Department's foreign economic policy domain, ruled over by rich, polished Deputy Under Secretary for Economic Affairs C. Douglas Dillon.

Last week, at hearings of the House Ways & Means subcommittee on foreign-trade policy, Kearns called for "a single agency within the Federal Government responsible for coordinating all efforts to promote private investment abroad," then blandly quoted two businessmen who had suggested this job for Commerce. Scattered through Kearns's lengthy prepared statement were yard-wide hints that Congress would do well to beef up Commerce's role in foreign economic policy. Sample: "Those responsible for developing an interest in foreign investment abroad, such as the Department of Commerce, should have a voice in the foreign lending policies of the public agencies."

Through all this, Diplomat Dillon, sometime U.S. Ambassador to France, sat by without flicking an eyebrow.

The insider odds are that Kearns will make little headway. Dillon carries a lot more prestige than Kearns, both within the Administration and on Capitol Hill. During last spring's hearings on the Administration's reciprocal trade bill, Kearns's rough-edged stubbornness so annoyed Ways & Means committeemen that there was talk of formally expelling him from the hearing room. When Dillon replaced Kearns as the Administration spokesman, the stalled bill glided through the committee with ease. But Kearns has an influential friend on Ways & Means: Louisiana's Hale Boggs, chairman of the foreign-trade subcommittee. "He's not afraid to barge in where angels fear to tread," Boggs admiringly says of Kearns. At week's end Hale Boggs took off for Europe for a ten-day look at Western European trade policies, and with him went Henry Kearns.

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