Changing of the Guard

EXTERNAL AFFAIRS

After more than five years as the U.S. envoy to Canada, Ray Atherton was past 65 and heading for retirement. On the way, he would round out his career by serving as a U.S. delegate to the U.N. General Assembly.

In Ottawa, Harvard-educated Ambassador Atherton found that his dignified reserve matched that of the Canadians with whom he had to do business. Canadians liked him, whether in diplomatic dealings or at the parties which he threw.

To take Atherton's place, President Truman last week named Laurence Adolph Steinhardt, 55, who had made a fortune as a Wall Street lawyer before Franklin Roosevelt gave him (1933) his first diplomatic job as minister to Sweden. In the last 15 years, few U.S. envoys have had it tougher than Larry Steinhardt. After three grueling years as ambassador in Moscow (through the Hitler-Stalin pact period and the Nazi invasion of Russia) he had three tense years in Ankara. As ambassador to Prague, he had just returned from leave in the U.S., where he underwent a serious operation, when the iron curtain was rung down on Czechoslovakia.

A facile speaker and hard worker,with a keenly analytical mind, Steinhardt likes to keep his finger on every last detail. He will have it easier in Ottawa. But his service in Ottawa might be brief. Should a Republican Administration take over next January, Steinhardt would follow tradition and offer his resignation. As a good Democrat he could be pretty sure that it would be accepted.

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