Caspar Willard Weinberger

WASHINGTON, Nov. 28— Caspar W. Weinberger, whose nomination as Secretary of Health, Education and Wel fare was announced today, told his staff at the Office of Management and Budget yes terday that he would be leav ing.

And the 55‐year‐old Mr. Weinberger said that he had hoped to stay on as budget director long enough to prune the language as well as the content of Mr. Nixon's next budget message. Then a staff member told him that this had been the unrealized am bition of 15 of his prede cessors.

Where was the “slippage?” Mr. Weinberger asked.

“At the top,” the aide re plied.

“I should have followed the old lawyers' dictum: Nev er ask a question in cross examination unless you know the answer,” said Mr. Wein berger, who is a lawyer.

New Opportunity

At the Department of Health, Education and Wel fare, Mr. Weinberger may well have the opportunity to fulfill another ambition, to prune the department's staff by 10 per cent, as he tried to do in December, 1971, in his capacity as budget director.

The move was opposed then by Secretary Elliot L. Richard son, who was nominated to day to move to the Depart ment of Defense. Mr. Richardson was apparently suc cessful. The department had 112,000 employes then, and as of October, the total was 114,253.

Mr. Weinberger, who is generally known as Cap, has a reputation as a tough ad ministrator and a devout fis cal conservative, and this has led to the sobriquet Cap the Knife, But the nickname is said to be totally misleading as an indicator of his person ality.

He has a wry and self‐ deprecating sense of humor —he once attributed his re luctant acceptance of a post he did not want to “some vagrant sense of duty left over from my New England ancestors”—and a corre sponding lack of self im portance.

He Headed F.T.C.

Mr. Weinberger has been a member of the Nixon Ad ministration since January, 1970, when he was sworn in as chairman of the Federal Trade Commission.

After 17 months there, dur ing which he is generally conceded to have revitalized the agency, Mr. Weinberger became the first deputy di rector of the Office of Man agement and Budget on its creation. He became director last May.

A native Californian—he was born in San Francisco Aug. 18, 1917—Mr. Wein berger served as that state's finance director in 1968 and 1969, after two years as chairman of the state's Com mission on State Government Organization and Economy.

He also served as chair man of the Republican State Central Committee and in the State Assembly.

Harvard Graduate

Caspar Willard Weinberger went to Harvard for his un dergraduate and graduate ed ucation — a bachelor's de gree, magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, in 1938, and a law degree in 1941.He served four years in the Army dur ing World War II, entering as a private and leaving as a captain.

Mr. Weinberger and his wife, the former Jane Dalton, live in Washington's Capitol Hill redevelopment area. They have two children.

At a news conference to day after the announcement of his nomination by Presi dent Nixon, Mr. Weinberger noted that the budget that President Nixon will present in January, 1973, would be the fifth government budget he has worked out — two in California and three here. He said he thought three was enough.

He added in a joking tone that he had thought the job of heading the budget office was the worst in the Govern ment “as far as difficulties and problems and late hours are concerned.”

“But I now understand there's a worst one,” he added. He did not have to say which job he was talking about.