Tough & Tested

Meeting in Washington last week, the Republican National Committee selected a new national chairman: New York's tough, energetic Representative William E. Miller, 47. He succeeds Kentucky's Republican Senator Thruston B. Morton, who was anxious to turn his attention to the problem of getting re-elected back home in 1962.

Miller is a darkly handsome Roman Catholic who graduated from Notre Dame and Albany Law School, entered the Army in World War II as a private, worked his way up to first lieutenant in the legal department. After the war, he became one of Justice Robert Jackson's bright young assistant prosecutors at the Nuernberg war-crimes trials. Returning to New York and moving into politics, he was elected to Congress in 1950. Torn between politics and his Lockport, N.Y. law practice, he nearly quit Congress in 1953. Instead, he took down his shingle and plunged full-time into his duties in the House, where he waged a dogged fight against public power projects (Niagara Falls and power-rich Niagara County are both in his home district).

As a loyal and effective party regular, he won the regard of House Republican Leader Charlie Halleck, and it was Halleck who, early last year, tapped Miller to head the House Republican campaign committee. Miller delivered, and the G.O.P. took 20 new House seats. Miller wants to improve that showing next year. Says he: "If we don't make gains at the local, state and congressional levels in 1962, then the 1964 presidential nomination won't be worth a damn."

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