Fulton hinted as successor to Hopkins
Young lawyer has Truman’s confidence
WASHINGTON (UP) – A little more than four years ago when Harry S. Truman of Missouri was appointed chairman of the Senate’s new Special War Investigating Committee, he sought a counsel who would neither “smear nor whitewash” war activities under committee scrutiny.
He asked the Justice Department to recommend a man. The Department said that Hugh Fulton, a special assistant to the Attorney General in the Criminal Division, would fill the bill.
Yesterday, Hugh Fulton was the first man to confer with President Truman as he took over the Chief Executive’s office at the White House.
New job for Fulton
Mr. Fulton spent an hour with Mr. Truman. He would not talk about it afterward, but that the meeting at such a critical hour started a strong thread of speculation running through official Washington.
The talk was that Mr. Fulton would resume his former role as a close and trusted adviser to Mr. Truman – this time in the White House instead of the Senate. There were rumors that he might become President Truman’s “Harry Hopkins.”
Before March 1941, when the “Truman Committee” was established by the Senate, Mr. Fulton and Mr. Truman had never met. But when they did, the Senator from Missouri was impressed. Mr. Fulton got the job.
Fulton not yet 37
Mr. Fulton remained with the committee until Mr. Truman resigned the chairmanship to campaign for the vice presidency last year. The chief counsel resigned at the same time but remained with Mr. Truman as his political adviser during the political campaign. Mr. Fulton then went into private law practice.
Big, boyish-looking, fair complexioned and mild-spoken, Hugh Fulton is not yet 37. He was born in North Baltimore, Ohio, May 24, 1908. Although a hefty fellow, Mr. Fulton has been ruled physically unfit for military service.
Educated at Michigan U
President Truman won national prominence as head of the Senate’s war effort investigations. But he always gave Mr. Fulton a substantial share of credit for the committee’s success.
Mr. Fulton joined the Justice Department in 1940 after serving as an executive assistant to the U.S. Attorney in New York for a year. Before that, he was in private law practice with a firm in New York. He was educated at the University of Michigan.