By Carol Loomis

    News from the Paul Volcker front: No, he has not persuaded the Obama administration to toughen up its policies about the proprietary trading of the big U.S. banks, a move he's been vigorously campaigning for in his job as chairman of the Economic Recovery Advisory Board.

    But his powers of persuasion have worked elsewhere: Volcker has just become engaged to his longtime assistant, Anke Dening. The former Federal Reserve boss proposed on Thanksgiving Day and the two then traveled to Germany to visit her relatives. And now they're vacationing in the Turks and Caicos Islands.

    A widower, Volcker is 82 and his fiancee younger by perhaps 15 to 20 years--friends aren't sure of her age.

    Volcker, who works out of a Rockefeller Center office in Manhattan, has said Ms. Dening will continue in her job as his assistant.