Military Ambassador

Luckily, he was used to quick sartorial changes. So when elegant Anthony Joseph Drexel Biddle Jr., 47, last week stepped out of his five ambassadorships, one ministership and into a lieutenant colonel's uniform, he did it with neatness and dispatch. In his new job, his business will be U.S. relations with occupied European nations (Poland, Czechoslovakia, Norway, Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg). But his boss will be General Eisenhower instead of Cordell Hull.

Said President Roosevelt, explaining the shift: "We are, I hope, approaching the (period when these [occupied] governments must look forward to the re-establishment of their countries. I think it is wise for us to take up the military side of the restoration problems." The President made it plain that the "military side" (presumably cooperation with the underground, etc.) would henceforth be dominant. Other problems will be handled not by a new Ambassador-Minister, but only by charges d'affaires. Diplomats in London generally cheered. They agreed that the Allied Army's diplomatic record (in North Africa and Italy) could stand improvement. Free French, who count Biddie on their side, were especially jubilant.

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