The Gary American

Kennedy Names Hatcher Associate Press Sec'y

HYANNIS PORT, Mass.-- (ANP)---President-elect John F. Kennedy, in announcing major appointments to his "New Frontier" team, named Andrew T. Hatcher, a former California Labor Department official, as assistant press secretary.

Hatcher, 37, who acted as a press aide in the campaign and accompanied Kennedy in all his travels North and South, will be the highest ranking Negro ever to serve on the White House staff.

Prior to Hatcher's appointment by Kennedy, it was believed that E. Frederic Morrow, appointed White House aide by the Eisenhower administration, and the late J. Ernest Wilkins, Sr., who served as assistant secretary of labor, had held the highest-ranking Washington posts among Negroes in government service.

A former editor of the Sun Reporter, San Francisco Negro weekly newspaper, Hatcher has been active in Democratic politics in California and on the national level since 1950.

A native of Princeton, N. J., Hatcher was educated there and at Springfield College, Mass.

He was court attache and clerk to U. S. District Judge Oliver J. Carter of San Francisco from 1952 to 1960, when Gov. Edmund Brown appointed him assistant labor commissioner.

Hatcher worked with the 1958 campaign of Sen. Clair Engle and was one of the originators of the California Democratic clubs.

A former Army lieutenant in World War II, he served a three-year tour of duty.

Hatcher is married to the former Ruth Avery. They have seven children ranging in age from 2 1/2 to 12 years.