SALT AT THE HELM

Appointed last week as Deputy Secretary of Defense: Navy Secretary Thomas Sovereign Gates Jr. His record:

Early Life: Born April 10, 1906 in Philadelphia's blue-blooded Germantown, son of a millionaire attorney-banker-industrialist who became president of the University of Pennsylvania (1930-44). Prepped at Philadelphia's Chestnut Hill Academy; majored in English at Penn ('28), played basketball, managed the football team, made Phi Beta Kappa.

Career: Joined Philadelphia's solid Drexel & Co. investment house, sold securities, rose to partner in 1940, became a civic wheelhorse in Philadelphia's Associated Hospital Service, Child Guidance Clinic, Boy Scouts, Navy League, also served as a private in the National Guard. Commissioned in Navy intelligence in 1942, he sailed in major campaigns (Southern France, Philippines, Okinawa, Iwo Jima), performed gallantly (two Bronze Stars), was mustered out as a commander after 42 months, rose to captain in the Reserve and retired in 1953.

Government: Tapped by President Eisenhower as Under Secretary of the Navy in 1953, Republican Gates was promoted to Secretary when Charles Thomas resigned in 1957. Known as a black-shoe, sea-blue navyman at home either behind a desk or on a deck, he helped guide the Navy through its heady revolution from guns to guided missiles, from props to jets, from steam to atom power. Businessman Gates also brought into the Navy the best electronic bookkeeping system of all the services, bucked the admirals to inaugurate a program under which talented but untrained enlisted men now take science courses at schools such as Caltech and M.I.T. Though a devoted Eisenhower team player, Gates publicly blew his stack against Ike's Defense Department reorganization plan ("The Secretary of Defense has all the authority he needs"), cannonaded against interservice bickerings ("The Secretary of Defense continues to struggle handicapped by traditionally divided service opinions"). Anxious to return to his gold-plated Drexel investment job, Gates early this year resigned his $22,000 secretaryship, effective June 1. But Ike persuaded him to stay in Washington as Deputy Secretary. Said Gates: "It plays hob with my personal plans, but I guess it is my duty."

The Man: Cruiser-sized (6 ft. 2 in., 180 lbs.), handsome Tom Gates dresses with hand-tailored, striped-tie conservatism ("He is," says a longtime friend, "about the only man I know who wears both button-down collars and a collar pin"), works and lives quietly, avoids Washington's social swim. In the office from 8:30 to 7:30 p.m. six days a week, he often goes home to a brace of martinis and dinner, then straight to bed. He smokes sporadically, munches Life Savers to cut down on the weed, carries his head at a peculiar starboard tilt (he says he picked up the habit while trying to dodge low-slung overheads aboard ship). Gates has not had a full-fledged vacation in six years, manages only a few hours at a time for golfing (mid-80s), boating with his wife Anne and their three daughters, romping with his four grandchildren. Says a longtime banker friend from Philadelphia: "Tom Gates has an unusually high sense of public duty. It's in the nature of the man."

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