ARMED FORCES: It Makes a Difference

To find a new commandant for the U.S. Marine Corps to succeed retiring General A. A. Vandegrift, President Truman last week delved down to the eighth name on the rank list. His man: Major General Clifton B. Gates, 54, one of the Pacific war's most brilliant island-hopping campaigners, now boss of the Marine school at Quantico, Va.

Cliff Gates, a lean, six-foot Tennessean, became a Marine lieutenant in 1917. In France, he fought through Belleau Wood, Château-Thierry, Soissons and the Argonne Forest. Once, pinned in a pocket with only two men left alive in his company, he held off...