National Affairs: WHO'S WHO IN THE GOP: VANDENBERG

Before the Philadelphia convention next June, a major job of the nation's voters will be to absorb, weigh, and compare the records in the Republican Who's Who of presidential candidates. Herewith, in the last* of a series, TIME publishes the condensed biography and political record of Michigan's Arthur Hendrick Vandenberg.

Vital Statistics. Age: 64 (born March 22, 1884, in a modest frame house in Grand Rapids). Ancestry: His father, Aaron Vandenberg, was of Dutch descent; his mother, Alpha Hendrick, of English. His father, a native of New York, moved to Michigan in 1878, where he went into the harness-making business. His elder half-brother Collins is the father of General Hoyt Vandenberg, new Air Force chief of staff. Educated: Grand Rapids grade and high schools, one year at the University of Michigan (1901-02). Married: in 1907 to Elizabeth Watson of Grand Rapids, who died in 1916; in 1918 to Hazel H. Whitaker, a Fort Wayne schoolteacher, social worker and newspaperwoman. Children (by his first wife): Arthur H. Vandenberg Jr., 40, a bachelor and his father's longtime secretary; Mrs. John Bailey, 38, of Battle Creek, Mich.; Mrs. Edward Pfeiffer, 36, of Huntington, N.Y. Church: Congregational. Nicknames: Van (to his friends), Pops (to his wife).

Personal Traits. He is big (6 ft. 1 in., 200 Ibs.) and barrel-chested, black-browed and bespectacled, with thinning grey hair brushed carefully across a high-domed head. He dresses meticulously, wears custom-made blue or grey suits (his wife chooses the cloth), recently adopted a diplomat's Homburg. No backslapper, he is well-liked but something of a lone wolf in the Senate cloakrooms. In private he is amiable, with a quick, irreverent wit. When speaking he uses a sweeping sidearm gesture like a baseball pitcher's, rolls out his rounded, often eloquent periods in full, organlike tones.

Career. A former newspaper editor and publisher, he has been elected to only one public office: U.S. Senator. He was appointed early in 1928 to fill an unexpired term, elected in November 1928, re-elected in 1934, 1940, 1946. Except for Kansas' aging Arthur Capper, he is the ranking Republican in the Senate, has been president pro tem since January 1947.

Private Life. He and his wife have lived in Washington's Wardman Park Hotel for the last 18 years. After a day at the Capitol, he gets into a pair of old grey slacks, settles down to skim official reports, read history, or clip newspapers for his scrapbooks, tries to be in bed by 9 o'clock. He limits his drinking to one whiskey & soda before dinner, smokes only denicotinized cigars. In 1932, he was bothered by shortness of breath and pounding of his heart under exertion. Doctors diagnosed it as a "slow heart," but nothing organically wrong. They prescribed digitalis (which he has taken ever since). The ailment has never recurred. For recreation, he likes to play gin rummy or backgammon with his wife, swims (sidestroke) twice a week in the Senate pool. Back home in Grand Rapids, he lives in a biggish brick & stucco house, works at an old-fashioned rolltop desk in his book-lined den.