THE ADMINISTRATION: Change at Treasury?

Asked about reports that he intends to resign within a few weeks, Treasury Secretary George Humphrey replied: "It is well known that I have been in the Cabinet much longer than I originally planned." Humphrey's retirement after Congress had finished with the budget had long been predicted (TIME, Feb. n), but his answer set off other rumors. One had to do with Humphrey's future: that he will take over as chairman of the board of Pittsburgh's National Steel Corp. (succeeding Ernest Tener Weir—see BUSINESS), which he helped form in 1929. The others concerned possible successors as Treasury Secretary. The names most often mentioned: Robert B. Anderson, 46, the Texas Democrat who served ably in the Eisenhower Administration as Navy Secretary (1953-54) and Deputy Defense Secretary (1954-55), and Banker Lewis W. Douglas, 62, the New Deal's first Director of the Budget (18 months in 1933 and 1934), Harry Truman's Ambassador to the Court of St. James's (1947-50), and in the last two elections an Arizona Democrat-for-Ike.