Special Section: 50 Faces for America's Future

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government, is a likely contender for Governor or U.S. Senator in the early 1980s.

12. Jane M. Byrne, 45, shocked Chicago when she defeated Mayor Michael Bilandic and the Democratic machine in a primary and then went on last April to become mayor of the city where she had been born and raised. A protégée of late Mayor Richard Daley, Byrne had spent ten years as Chicago's commissioner of consumer sales and served one year as co-chairman of the powerful Cook County Democratic Central Committee. She is a scrappy reformer who is out to rechannel the Democratic machine's energies into delivering services for Chicago's neglected neighborhoods, especially for the blacks and latinos who supported her. Her tough stand in suspending city supervisors who fail to show up for work has pleased taxpayers and set the city bureaucracy on nervous edge. Yet her use of patronage powers in appointing people of unquestioned loyalty—while firing holdovers from the previous administration—has made her the target of criticism. Says Byrne: "I dedicate this administration to bringing a new renaissance of neighborhood life and community spirit."

13. Joan B. Claybrook, 42, spent seven years as a Nader Raider before Carter put her into the driver's seat of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. During the past two years, she has ordered a record 15.6 million automobiles recalled for safety checks and changes. Her biggest victory: forcing Firestone to take back 8.7 million "500" radial tires, a move that so far has cost the company $147 million. She has also established tough fuel economy standards (27 m.p.g. by 1984) and stuck to them despite protests from manufacturers. Some of her former consumer-rights colleagues claim Claybrook was too lenient in postponing the deadline for airbags; Ralph Nader has called her an "accommodator" and demanded her resignation. Detroit wants her to go for other reasons: the Georgetown-trained lawyer is known in the industry as the Dragon Lady. Says Claybrook: "I think that having critics is just a part of accomplishing something. It is also part of democracy."

14. William J. Clinton, 32, is sometimes lampooned in political cartoons in Arkansas as a brat furiously pedaling a tricycle. No one, however, can deny that the nation's youngest Governor is making progress on an uphill path. Instead of cutting taxes, like everyone else, Democrat Clinton persuaded the assembly to raise them by $47 million. With the funds, Clinton will give the public schools their largest rise in state aid in history (20%), increase teachers' salaries (now among the nation's lowest), and improve care for the elderly. A Georgetown and Yale Law School graduate and a Rhodes scholar, Clinton has also regained power for the Governor's office that had been usurped by the legislature. Limited by law to two terms, Clinton is expected eventually to run for Congress.

15. Philippe de Montebello, 43, was born into an artistic Parisian family. When his family moved to the U.S., de Montebello studied art history at Harvard and took up painting. "You have talent but not genius," his father told him. So in 1963, de Montebello joined the Metropolitan Museum of Art as a curatorial assistant. He was tapped for the directorship of Houston's Museum of Fine Arts in 1969, and in four years