CONSTRUCTION AND REFORM

OUTSIDE the White House, carpenters banged together sturdy planks of high-grade pine to construct the inaugural-parade reviewing stand. With far less noise and motion, the man who will take the salute on Jan. 20 was also building, and also using first-rate materials. President-elect Richard Nixon, having picked most of his administrative staff, began to select policymakers.

One of the most important choices was still unofficial at the end of last week, but Nixon left little doubt that he would appoint California Lieut. Governor Robert Finch as Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare. Finch, 43, one of Nixon's oldest friends and political associates, will be no ordinary Cabinet member. He will oversee Nix on's entire domestic program. Finch may also eventually head a new agency. Nixon has tentative plans to ask Congress to combine HEW with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, forming a new Department of Human Resources. The purpose of the merger would be to unite all urban, welfare, public-health and education programs under a single executive—one with total access to the President.

NSC Resurrection. Nixon can also be expected to keep his door and ear open to two others named to important posts. Paul W. McCracken, 52, an economist, a University of Michigan professor of business administration, and a member of Dwight Eisenhower's Council of Economic Advisers, will become chairman of Nixon's CEA (see BUSINESS). Harvard Government Professor Henry A. 'Kissinger, 45, who has served as a Government consultant and was a foreign-policy adviser to Governor Nelson Rockefeller during the preconvention period, will be Nixon's assistant for national-security affairs.

The appointments that were publicly announced received virtually unanimous praise. But it was Kissinger's that attracted the most attention—because of the man (see following story), because of the sensitive nature of the post, and because Nixon labeled Kissinger his instrument for a "complete reorganization and restructuring of the entire White House security planning machinery." If Kissinger and his new boss have their way, that will mean the resurrection of the National Security Council as a major organ of government.

Established in 1947 by the legislation that also created the Defense Department and the Central Intelligence Agency, the NSC-was designed to integrate military, diplomatic and economic policies. Harry Truman did little to develop the NSC, but under Eisenhower it became an important force and acquired two subordinate branches, a planning board and an operations-coordinating board. Critics of the system charged that the NSC structure amounted to an obstructive bureaucracy. The Kennedy Administration did away with the subsidiary boards and operated on a more informal basis, with McGeorge Bundy running the White House's "little State Department." Lyndon Johnson continued the Kennedy practice, first with Bundy and then with his successor, Walt Rostow.