Ambassador to Germany?

The stormy petrel of the U.S. foreign service got a new job last week. To fill a part of the expanding diplomatic gap left by the Phillips resignation (see The Presidency), the State Department hurriedly appointed Career Diplomat Robert Daniel Murphy, 49, as political adviser to General Eisenhower. Bob Murphy, who had the game kind of job when General Eisenhower invaded North Africa, will have the rank of ambassador. He will deal primarily with problems of German occupation.

Along with Murphy went Career Diplomat Samuel Reber, his onetime assistant in Algiers. Sam Reber, 41, is an expert on French affairs, once held down the Department's French desk. With the rank of minister, he will handle, temporarily at least, diplomatic liaison with the new French Government.

New Deal newspapers howled the loudest against Bob Murphy's appointment. They recalled: 1) his friendship with the men of Vichy when he was the top U.S. representative to the French (1942); and 2) his choice of General Giraud as a candidate to head a new French Government. A Milwaukee-born Irish Catholic who has spent most of his life in Europe, Bob Murphy never bothered to deny charges that he looked on Europe's conservatives with a vast tolerance.

During all the muddled months of U.S. "expediency" toward France, he reported directly to the White House--whence the soothing policy was laid down. He was never in a policy-making position, but he occupied a spot where his opinions carried weight. In his new job, as in the old one, the enigma of Bob Murphy remained a closely guarded State Department secret.

A protege of Bill Bullitt and a friend of Admiral William D. Leahy, Bob Murphy got along well in North Africa with General Eisenhower. To begin his new job, he will probably report for instructions at the forthcoming Roosevelt-Churchill conference (see The Presidency).

By now the pattern of the U.S. diplomatic invasion of Europe was becoming clear. Mr. Murphy, apparently, will move along with the generals, heading east toward Berlin. (Thus far, he is the likeliest U.S. diplomatic representative to Occupied Germany.) As the various countries are liberated, the State Department will rush in diplomatic reserves to deal with the new governments. Last week the State Department was getting ready to fill the vacancy in Paris.

The U.S. Embassy on the Place de la Concorde had not yet been reopened. But Janitor Pierre Bizet, who had stayed on during the entire German occupation, was ready to sweep its parquet floors and polish its crystal chandeliers. In the speculation as to the new U.S. Ambassador to France, current guesses gave the job to able Norman Armour, now marking time in Washington since his recall from Argentina (TIME, July 10).

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