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Show ' . a , . - , . ... . ,.it .,. ... , j Veterans' Administration r (' j Has Capable Leader ! t-- General I'radley lias Fatherly Interest j. ! ,1 in Veterans; Actions Show His Aljility - :' to Aclininister This Yi Job k By BAUKHAGE f Commen(a(or and Veivs Analyst L . r i j WNU Service, 1G16 Kye St., N. W, Washington, I), C. I have just come back from a visit with the father of IB million. That isn't such a far-fetched figure to use in describing the tall, rangy Missourian, who is in charge of "the biggest business in the world," which ia how they describe the Veterans' Administration in Washington. To call Omar Nelson Bradley "father" of the service men and women isn't stretching it Ernie Pyle once said: "If I could pick any two men in the world fur my father except my own Dad, I would pick General Omar Bradley or General Ike Eisenhower. If I had a son, I would like him to go to Bradley or Ike for advice." Ernie was a pretty keen judge of human nature on the hoof. I thought of that when one of Bradley's Brad-ley's co-workers in the Veterans' Administration, who is almost a decade older than the general, said "fatherly" was the way to describe de-scribe the manner in, which he was treated the first time they had a problem to straighten out with the boss. And then I met the General. I found a weather-beaten, wiry, long-legged soldier, whose eyes twinkled brighter than the four stars on his collar. Fatherly, yes and I'll have a word about that a little later. But I found out something else. I found out why he ought to be able to run one of the hardest jobs in the government. govern-ment. And I'll admit, right off, it sounds almost too good to be true. We had been talking about the details of the reorganization of the agency which is now going on and with which General Bradley is minutely familiar. Then I asked him what it was, if anything, in his military training and experience experi-ence that he could use in his present pres-ent position. He said that he thought it was the same with all jobs such as this. And here is the theory on which he works: "First, build your organization on functional lines. Second, get the right man to head up each function. Third, give him full responsibility re-sponsibility to act on his own authority." au-thority." How, I inquired, does this fit in with your military experience, having had some of that branch of adventure myself although running a platoon isn't running an army. "It's a good deal like the army," he answered. "You have your staff. You have say 20 sections, each with a special function, working work-ing under your chief of staff. Sometimes, of course, you group some of the functions, but the organization or-ganization is along functional lines." And how, I asked, do you choose the men to head up these various activities? His answer came back without the slightest hesitation. "I choose a man, first for his ability, second for his loyalty and I count honvily on the loyalty. Get loyal men of ability and you've gone a long way toward solving your problems in any organization." organiza-tion." That sounded pretty good to mc, but what about the present situation where, after all, there is always a Congress on Capitol Hill, a Congress with constituents who have votes and some of whom want jobs. I asked the General, what about politics? He didn't seem worried. He said that he hadn't had any trouble. "I'm not a politician," he said. "I never intend to run for office." That was all he would say, but here is a story I picked up later at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. A certain Congressman got a hot letter from a constituent who had been fired from the Veterans' Administration. No doubt with due cause. He hot-footed it up to the General and spoke, as legislators legis-lators often do to officials, with considerable vigor. "I want the man re-hired at once," the Congressman demanied. The General was polite but sorry. He stood by his decision. "If you don't, I'll attack you on the floor." "Go ahead," said Bradley, faintly recalling, I imagine, some of the attacks in Normandy. "I'll block your bills," said the j irate Congressman. That was a horse of a different color. "You will?" said the General. "A'.l right, and if you do that, I'U go to the President with my resignation. He'll get that or find a means to stop you." (Period.) j We all knew about the Gen- j eral's war record in Tunisia, on the Normandy beachhead, among j the hedgerows, where he smashed a gateway at St. Lo which made j Patton's lightning drive possible, j But we didn't know much about the man. Most of us didn't know , he was from Missouri and later some of us might have suspected that that was the reason why he , was picked, although the Presi- i dent said it was because he wanted 1 a World War II soldier to take j care of the wants of World War II veterans. Now we have some other reasons for believing that the choice was predicated on wise advice and is going to prove itself a fortunate one. On the horse-sense side, it is because Bradley has established a record as an administrator. He proved that in the army and had the acumen to see the chief fault in the veterans' organization and has set out to remedy it. On the emotional side well, Ernie Er-nie Pyle was right. The trouble with the Veterans' Administration was that it grew so rapidly that it didn't have time to delegate authority. And there was another reason for this. It was built on what seemed a very sound theory. Let's take its services to the veteran. For instance, small hospitals were scattered all over the country, many in little communities commu-nities where the veteran could get to them easily. But that didn't work out. It was hard to get expert ex-pert medical men, good service and the latest equipment in the smaller communities and because the regional re-gional organization was spread so thin, it was necessary to have a strong hand in Washington. The result was that the grip of that hand was so tight that the whole system was cramped. Bradley put his finger on the situation (with the help of well-chosen well-chosen counsel) and reversed the former policy. Now it's "bring the veteran to the hospital." Bring him by rail or plane in an emergency, emer-gency, but bring him to a well-manned, well-manned, well-equipped center whose size and importance will attract at-tract the best there is in medical skill, when he needs specialized care. Hand in hand with this regional centralization of the medical facilities, facili-ties, the new organization has decentralized de-centralized the authority. As soon as Bradley looked over the set-up he said: "This is like having a 150 regiments regi-ments under one man. In the army that would be unthinkable. We'd break it down into corps and divisions at least." And so that is what was done. But first he made a sharp cleavage cleav-age between the medical organization organiza-tion and the rest of the activities. He created a new office, "Acting Surgeon General of the Veterans' Administration." And he appointed ap-pointed the best man he knew, Major General Paul Ramsey Haw-ley, Haw-ley, who had been chief surgeon for the European theater and did an outstanding job. And here I wonder if there wasn't one of those important unconscious un-conscious childhood impressions which helped. Bradley's middle name, Nelson, is for a well-loved family physician. And Bradley's fatherliness is attested to in his interest in the physical welfare of his men. Again and again war correspondents mentioned the fact that he planned engagements so that his troops would suffer the fewest casualties possible. He has an instinctive understanding of the afflicted. BARBS... by b ait k ha g e Mahomet went to the mountain. The Mikado went to MacArthur. This, it seems only fair to say, merely demonstrates the exctlient judgment of all parties concerned. As I look back over a few decades dec-ades 1 have enjoyed on this mundane mun-dane sphere, the only things I regret seem to be the things I missed. A lot of New Yorkers who had forgotten there were such things find to use stairs during the ele- j vator men's strike. And this did ' more for the calves than if they'd ; taken the ceiling price off of veal. 1 ... j Production of rubber hee's is still behind demand. But there are still more of the other kind of heels than "we need. I i |