Appointment of Leon V, Langan, Gallup, N. Mex., and Thomas M. Heid, Albuquerque, N. Mex., as assistants to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and of Carl Beck, Springerville, Ariz., as the Commissioner 1s field representative was announced today by Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay. They have been serving as consultants.
Mr. Langan and Mr. Reid will function as staff advisers to the Commissioner and will perform a wide variety of assignments as his personal representatives. One of their most important duties will be to work with other key personnel of the Bureau in developing policies designed to reduce Federal participation in .Indian Affairs in accordance with the announced basic Indian policy of the Department.
Mr. Langan will concentrate in the fields of community services, (health; education, welfare, placement and relocation, and law and order), administration, and information. Mr. Reid will specialize in the fields of resources (credit, extension, forest and range management, irrigation, management of trust land, roads, and soil conservation), program development, and legal activities.
Mr. Beck will also serve as personal representative of the Commissioner and will perform a variety of assignments under his immediate direction. One of his major duties will be to carry out spot surveys or studies of problems or situations at Bureau field jurisdictions requiring urgent attention.
Mr. Langan, a native of St. Louis, Mo., joined the Indian Bureau last August after having served three years as secretary and general manager of the Gallup Chamber of Commerce and also of the Intertribal Indian Ceremonial Association. Prior to that he was engaged in the merchandising of Indian arts and crafts and for two years owned and operated a soft drink bottling and distributing organization in Gallup. During the war he was employed for one year in a civilian capacity at the St. Louis Ordnance District and later served two years in the Navy. Before the war he worked for two years as a sales engineer with the Binkley Manufacturing Co., Warrentown, Mo., and for two years with the Emerson Electric Manufacturing Company of St. Louis as a special assistant to the works manager.
Mr. Reid also came with the Bureau in August after having served two years as agricultural attache at the American Embassy first in Guatemala and then in Cuba. Prior to that he served for four years as chief of the quarantine division with the United States mission for the eradication of the foot and mouth disease in Mexico and for four years conducted his own ranching business in Valencia County, N. Mex. From 1933 to 1943 he was a county agricultural agent in New Mexico and served for 2 ½ years of this period as State extension agronomist.
Mr. Beck originally came with the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1929 on the Navajo Reservation and has served in a variety of positions, including the superintendencies of the Western Shoshone Agency, Owyhee, Nevada, and the Fort Hal1 Agency in Idaho. He resigned from the Bureau in 1948 to enter private business and returned as consultant last April.
