Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1962-03-18
Counsel for A. |. D.
A Man of CHANCES
BY ALAN EMORY
Contributing Writer

Seymour j. Rubin must be the
most sworn-in member of the New
Frontier. Within a space of seven
months the Harvard law graduate
took the oath for five different
jobs under President Kennedy. He
still has the last-general counsel
for the Agency for International
Development (AID)-and, with the
Presidents foreign aid program
now before Congress, he will be
buster than ever.
AID is the latest in a line of
alphabetical titles for the agency
running the foreign aid program,
and Mr.. Rubin is it's No. lawyer.
A wrestler when he attended the
University of Michigan, Mr..
Rubin, at At, now wrestles with
the intricacies of foreign eco
Monies.
He is a lively dark haired man
OF medium height, direct speech
and a penchant for cigars. His
wife, the former Janet Beck of
Liberty, N. Y, whom he met in
her brothers apartment in Cam
bridge, Mass, while a Harvard
law student. runs Washington's
Oldest art gallery, The Obelisk.
The Rubins, as might be ex-
pected, have art on display in
their house in Georgetown, both
paintings and sculpture, some
from the gallery, some privately
purchased. Most of it is European.
Is Michigan Graduate
The Chicago-born Rubin re-
ceived his University of Michigan
degree in 1885, his bachelor of
laws from Harvard three years
later and master of laws in 1899,
also from Harvard. He spent a
year as law clerk to the late Cir
cult Court of Appeals Justice Au-
gustus N. Hand in New York, then
came to Washington in 1910 with
Securities and Exchange Commits
sion, intending to spend a year
here picking up some experience
to use in the practice of corporate
law in Chicago.
He never got back to Chicago
to practice law. The Office of
Price Administration next beck
oned, and life in Washington in
the 1940s was too exciting to
forego. Early in 1943 a friend in
the State Department said that
agency needed personnel for eco
nomic warfare work, so MIR. Rubin
headed there and, with one period
out for private law practice, he
has been there in one capacity or
another ever since.
In 1948 Mr.. Rubin resigned
from the department and joined
a law firm headed by James M.
Lands, former SEC chairman.
While at State he headed several
United States missions and dele
cations and, at the time he left,
he was assistant legal adviser for
economic affairs. He returned in
1872 with the personal rank of
minister to head team nego-
tiating tax agreements between
the United States and the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization
countries. while in 1923 he
bowed to the request of Averell
Hartman to help administer the
Mutual Defense Assistance Con-
troll (Battle) Act, which regulates
trade with Communist bloc ma
lions.
"Amoteurism" in journalism
During his private law days Mr..
Rubin wrote numerous articles for
law journals and other publica-
lions, including one piece support
ing "amateuriSm" in diplomacy,
a direct refutation of the argu-
ments of Walter Lippmann and
George F. KEENAN,. In 1858 he
wrote Private Foreign Invest
ment," book published by Johns
Hopkins Press.
Last March reunion of "old
frontierSmen," as Mr.. Rubin puts
it, summoned him out of the pri-
vate world and onto a three-man
study mission working on the Be-
livian economy. After the group
turned in its report the President
asked Mr.. Rubin to keep an eye"
ON the situation.
Henry R. Labouisse, who was
then running the foreign aid pro-
gram, asked him to join a task
force presenting the aid plan to
Congress, a job he had frequently
undertaken in the late 1940s and
early 1950s, and he accepted. The
President also named him as
public (non-governmentaD mem
Der of the Commission on Inter-
national Rules of Judicial Pro-
cedure, his third administration
appointment in a matter of
months.
But Mr.. LabouisSe wanted him
as general counsel for the Inter-
national Cooperation Admins
tration and told Mr.. Rubin the
White House wanted him to con-
tinue in that capacity with the
new AID. While Mr.. Rubin en-
joyed private practice, he got more
of a kick out of Government