A Pro for DOT

When he signed the bill creating the twelfth Cabinet-rank federal agency last month, Lyndon Johnson gave no nod, verbal or cranial, to the man who had worked hardest to create the Administration's long-sought Department of Transportation. Alan Stephenson Boyd stood stoically aside while the President praised others and declared gratuitously that he was looking for a "strong man" to head DOT. Last week Johnson announced his choice: Alan Boyd, 44, former chairman of the Civil Aeronautics Board who, as Under Secretary of Commerce for Transportation, had devoted his days since June 1965 to the task of planning and promoting the new department.

It was a typical keep-'em-guessing Johnsonian performance. Boyd, who was given no hint of his elevation, had been offered a $100,000-a-year job as head of the Association of American Railroads. Until Johnson pulled out Boyd's name, the front runner in the press guess-stakes had been White House Adviser Joseph A. Califano Jr., who with Boyd helped push the bill through Congress.

Cutting the Knot. Boyd faces a formidable task. He will attempt to unscramble the world's biggest, most bitterly competitive transportation complex, a Gordian knot of railroads (214,650 miles), airline routes (280,696 miles), and highways (3,600,000 miles). To cut the knot, Boyd's department aims to coordinate the responsibilities of 31 federal agencies. With 91,000 employees and a $5.5 billion budget, he will run the Government's fifth-largest department.

A high-domed, husky (6 ft. 31 in.) Floridian with a deceptive, country-cousin air, Lawyer Boyd comes to the job with impressive professional credentials. A combat pilot with more than 3,000 hours of flying time (World War II and Korea), Boyd served successively on state commissions to improve Florida's aviation, highway and railroad systems. A self-styled "Eisenhower Democrat," he was summoned to Washington by Ike in 1959 to serve on the CAB. After President Kennedy appointed him CAB chairman in 1961, Boyd showed his scrappy independence by voting to deny Boston-based Northeast Airlines' application to fly the competition-clogged New York-Florida route on a permanent basis. Though Robert and Ted Kennedy fought hard for the home-town airline, Boyd stood his ground and Northeast lost its bid for the Florida run (CAB reversed itself after Boyd's departure and granted permanent certification). "I've never been persuaded yet," Boyd once said, "by the logic of being pushed around."