University of Virginia Library

President-Elect Nixon
Announces Positions
For Incoming Cabinet

President-elect Richard M. Nixon announced to
the country last night his selections for the twelve
men that will help him chart foreign and domestic
policies for the next for years. Of his Cabinet he
said, "I have picked big men, and, mind you, they
are big men, strong men, men I will rely upon as
members of the Cabinet. We are not going to have
a Cabinet of basically yes men."

Mr. Nixon, in his unprecedented nationwide
television broadcast, revealed to the American
people a Cabinet that in many respects mirrors the
President-elect in background and the makeup of
the man.

Listing a few similarities: almost all of those
chosen come from families of modest means and
grew up in small towns or cities; they all tend to
be middle-of-the-road Republicans who are in their
40's and 50's and made their fortunes after the
end of World War II.

The new Cabinet members are:

Secretary of State - William P. Rogers, 55, was
Attorney General during the second term of the
Eisenhower Administration and has been a close
friend and confidant of Mr. Nixon's for years.

Secretary of Defense - Representative Melvin
R, Laird of Wisconsin is a consummate politician
who has built a vast knowledge about the working
of the Pentagon during his 16 years in the House.

Secretary of the Treasury - David M.
Kennedy, 63, presently board chairman of the
Continental Illinois National Trust Company of
Chicago, and a former lawyer, rose in the Federal
Reserve System to special assistant to former
Reserve Board Chairman Marriner Eccles.

Attorney General - John N. Mitchell is a
Nixon law partner and was his presidential
campaign manager this year. Mr. Nixon admires
him for his tough minded, analytical approach to
complex problems.

Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare -
Another close friend of Mr. Nixon's, Robert .
Finch, 43, is lieutenant governor of California, He
managed Mr. Nixon's unsuccessful 1960 bid for the
presidency and was a key campaign advisor this
year.

Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
- George Romney, the governor of Michigan, is
best remembered for his unsuccessful bid for the
presidential nomination this year. A white-haired
man of 61, he was successful in bailing American
Motors Corporation, of which he was president,
and the state of Michigan out of financial trouble.

Secretary of Labor - George P. Shulz, 46, is
dean of the graduate business school at the
University of Chicago and a seasoned arbitrator of
labor-management disputes.

Secretary of Transportation - Governor John
A. Volpe of Massachusetts rose from the position
of cement mixer when he was married to a wealthy
contractor.

Secretary of Interior - Governor Walter J.
Hickel of Alaska is an Anchorage hotel owner and
contractor who gained his first full time political
job when he defeated the state's first elected
governor, Democrat William A. Eagan.

Secretary of Commerce - Maurice Stans, 60, is
a New York investment banker who is expected to
exhibit the same conservative views and attention
to detail he did as President Eisenhower's budge
director.

Postmaster General - Winton M. Blount, 47, is
president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and
head of a multimillion-dollar construction firm in
Montgomery, Ala.

Secretary of Agriculture - Clifford M. Hardin
is a save six-footer with gray hair who puffs on a
pipe and keeps a cool head.