Northrop Official Gets Major Pentagon Post

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger on Tuesday swore in Donald Hicks as undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, a major Pentagon post vacant since December.

Hicks was senior vice president for marketing and technology for the Northrop Corp. of Hawthorne, Calif., an aerospace company that is trying to sell its F-20 Tigershark fighter to the Air Force in competition with the F-16. The F-16 is built by the General Dynamics Corp. of Fort Worth, Tex.