President Bush Names Key Aide SEC Chairman : Richard C. Breeden Helped Formulate White House’s Plan to Bail Out S

President Bush Monday named Richard C. Breeden, a key White House aide who played a critical role in crafting the Administration’s plan for bailing out the savings and loan industry, to be chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Breeden, 39, a native of Manhattan Beach, will succeed David S. Ruder, a securities expert who announced in May that he would step down to return to Northwestern University. The SEC, an independent agency, regulates the nation’s securities markets.

The appointment comes at a time when the SEC is facing conflicting challenges at home and abroad, including a need to strengthen enforcement of domestic laws against insider trading and corruption while keeping U.S. markets competitive internationally.

Believer in Deregulation

The announcement Monday ended months of speculation over who would replace Ruder, an outspoken academic who frequently strayed from the Bush Administration’s blend of free-market principles and pragmatism.

Breeden essentially beat out two rival contenders for the job--former Ford Administration economist Paul W. McAvoy, now a Yale University professor, and Manuel H. Johnson, vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.

A soft-spoken, pragmatic man with a wide range of contacts in government and the private sector, Breeden is a staunch believer in deregulation. Beyond that, his personal views are not widely known.

“He’s pretty much a blank slate,” said Robert Litan, a Brookings Institution analyst.

Aides said that Breeden would not comment on any issues until his nomination is considered by the Senate. The Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee is expected to begin hearings on the appointment within a few weeks.

Helped on Task Force

Breeden’s nomination generally was greeted with praise. Roderick M. Hills, who held the post during the Gerald R. Ford Administration, termed it “a splendid appointment,” noting that Breeden has “a strong, inquiring, independent mind” and is “well respected.”

And Brookings’ Litan cited Breeden as a man who had “a lot of White House experience and knows a lot of people that he needs to know.”

Breeden broke into government policy-making circles in the early 1980s when he served as staff director of a special task force on regulation of financial services headed by Bush, who was then vice president. He served as Bush’s deputy counsel until 1985.

A 1972 graduate of Stanford University, Breeden earned a law degree from Harvard University. Before being named to his current White House post, he served as a partner in the Washington office of Baker and Botts, a Houston law firm.

Openly a Bush partisan, Breeden is widely expected to favor tough enforcement of insider trading and corruption laws while relaxing some of the traditional barriers that have prevented banks from entering the securities trading business.

But securities analysts say that the job will not be easy. The industry has been buffeted by a spate of widely publicized scandals involving insider trading and corporate takeovers, which in turn have led to calls for stricter law enforcement.

At the same time, America’s securities markets are facing increased competition from those of Europe and Japan. Experts contend that U.S. markets need the freedom to experiment with new instruments to remain competitive.

Other High-Level Jobs

The SEC chairman also may be faced with a decision on whether the United States should join with governments of other major industrial countries in some sort of formal international regulation of the global securities industry, as they are doing with banking.

“The challenge that he will be facing is that our capital markets are under siege,” Hills said Monday. “It’s not going to be easy to keep our markets both competitive and well policed.”

Breeden had been mentioned as a possibility for the SEC post and other high-level jobs, among them the new Resolution Trust Corp., the agency that will preside over the liquidation of some $400 billion worth of foreclosed real estate assets from failed S&Ls.;