Obama names Geithner as Treasury Sec.

UPDATED:

CHICAGO (AP) – President-elect Barack Obama tapped New York Federal Reserve President Tim Geithner as his treasury secretary on Monday, turning to a veteran of financial crises at home and overseas to lead the rescue of the nation’s swooning economy.

At a news conference 57 days days before his inauguration, Obama also chose Lawrence Summers as director of his National Economic Council. Summers was treasury secretary under former President Bill Clinton.

Obama said that recent news “has made it even more clear that we are facing an economic crisis of historic proportions.” Offering a grim prediction, he added, “Most experts now believe that we could lose millions of jobs next year.”

He said his newly minted economic aides offered “sound judgment and fresh thinking” at a time of economic peril.

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Mr. Obama and Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. will hold a news conference in Chicago, hoping the announcement will ease Americans’ economic woes and potentially continue the market rally from Friday when news leaked Mr. Geithner is the choice to lead Treasury through the crisis.

Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers will help shape White House policy as director of the National Economic Council while Mr. Geithner, now president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, will be responsible for managing the Wall Street bailout he helped to engineer this fall.

The news conference will mark the first announcement of a Cabinet member, though several names have leaked out and have been confirmed.

With this team in place and following the Thanksgiving holiday, Mr. Obama’s transition team will roll out more high profile Cabinet posts, including Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state.

Obama chief strategist David Axelrod, who in January will assume a senior White House adviser role, said Sunday that Mrs. Clinton and the other Cabinet members “are not going to be potted plants in their departments.”

“They are going to be partners with him in governance, and he is going to encourage that,” he said on ABC’s “This Week.”

“There’s one person who’s going to be in charge of American foreign policy, and there’s one person who’s going to be in charge of American economic policy. And that’s Barack Obama,” Mr. Axelrod said.

Mr. Axelrod said that the president-elect and his transition team were heartened by the 494-point Dow rally Friday afternoon following the first reports about the new treasury leader.

“He is the sort of person you want when you’re facing the kind of economic crisis we have today,” Mr. Axelrod said of Mr. Geithner. “He’s someone who is steeped in the economy and in managing crises … and he’s someone who, by both temperament and experience, is well suited for the times we’re in. And we were gratified by the reaction to news of his pending appointment.”

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