U.S. at War: Meals for a Czar

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Faithful James F. Byrnes, who gave up a $20,000-a-year lifetime job on the Supreme Court for a touch-&-go future as economic czar, began to wonder last week how he could balance his budget. Federal administrative jobs usually pay $10,000 a year. Out of that would go $7,000 to pay taxes on this year's income, $3,200 for rent on his Shoreham Hotel apartment. Even if he never ate a meal, Jimmy Byrnes was $200 in the red.

So, strictly from hunger, Byrnes called the Budget Bureau. Said he, wryly: He could wangle one meal a day from his new adviser, Benjamin V. Cohen. Various friends might supply another. Who in the Budget Bureau would be willing to go the third meal?

Bureau experts got busy, discovered that there were no salary limits on Byrnes's new job, concluded that they could pay him $15,000 a year. With diligent budgeting, the nation's economic czar will have to cadge no meals next year.