THE ADMINISTRATION: Unfixed Asset

Bone-tired from the eight-month process of pulling together the $65.9 billion budget for fiscal 1957, Budget Director Rowland Hughes (TIME, Jan. 23) slipped into the White House one day last week and, for "compelling personal and family reasons," asked the President to set a date for his resignation. They agreed on April 1, and while Hughes ducked out for a week's rest in Boston, the President released a blue-ribbon letter of "deepest regret." He wrote: "You should take vast pride in the balanced budgets now at hand . . ." When he leaves Government service, 59-year-old Hughes intends to take a six-month vacation, is uncertain what he will do thereafter.

As Hughes's successor, Ike nominated Percival F. Brundage, 63, for 20 months Hughes's deputy in the Budget Bureau and former senior partner of the top-ranking accounting firm of Price Waterhouse & Co. Brundage (Harvard, '14) is a Republican, father of two, and lives in Montclair, N.J. When his mind wanders from his ledgers, it wanders great distances: he is president of the Friends of Albert Schweitzer College Inc., and keeps a bust of the 81-year-old philosopher-missionary on his Budget Bureau desk.