Samuel H. Beer, professor of Government, will become chairman of the Government Department this fall, it was learned last night.

Beer will succeed Valdimer O. Key, Jr., professor of Government, who has held the department chairmanship for only one year. Key assumed the post when McGeorge Bundy was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences last fall.

Beer has been at Oxford for the past year under a Fulbright Fellowship. He is studying the structure and function of British political parties.

Rhodes Scholar

A graduate of the University of Michigan in 1932, Beer won a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford in his senior year and remained in England until 1935. Upon his return to the United States, he served for a time as a speech-writer with the Democratic National Committee.

After a brief period on the staffs of the New York, Post, and Fortune, Beer joined the faculty in 1938. During the war he served four years as an artillery officer. He rejoined the faculty in 1945.

Beer was a member of the 17-man faculty committee which helped to prepare the report on "General Education in a Free Society." The Committee's recommendations ultimately led to the adoption of the General Education program. He received a full professorship in January, 1953.

Active in local political affairs, Beer is a member of the Executive Board of the Massachusetts Americans for Democratic Action. He has also served as chairman of the organization's Political Action Committee.