Walking Home

"No single man," said Israel's testy Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion last week of his longtime Cabinet Partner Moshe Sharett, "is so obviously fitted for the task of Foreign Minister." With this glowing tribute the Prime Minister promptly fired Sharett from the job he had held since Israel's founding.

Israel's volatile, visionary Premier and his painstaking, cautious and pedantic Foreign Minister have persistently irritated each other since the day when Sharett shivered and Ben-Gurion bubbled at the prospect of proclaiming a new Jewish state. Since then Sharett, who took time last week even in the middle of his resignation speech to correct a misspelling in his notes, has occupied himself with tempering Ben-Gurion's most headstrong policies. It was Sharett who successfully fought "B.-G.'s" plan to attack Gaza after the Arab murder of praying schoolchildren in Shafrir (TiME, April 23).

Sharett's successor, bustling, Russian-born, Milwaukee-bred Golda Myerson is only the second woman in history to head a nation's foreign ministry (the first: Rumania's Communist virago Ana Pauker). She is expected to keep the place tidy and to give Ben-Gurion no trouble.

At the moment of his leaving, Sharett's policy of moderation had apparently failed: Israel has not succeeded in arguing a single jet aircraft out of the U.S. or gaining any effective support in the U.N. Security Council. His departure does not necessarily presage a new, tough foreign policy, but it will undoubtedly produce a new tone.

As Sharett left Ben-Gurion's office, the chauffeur of his black Chrysler sprang to attention and began to open the door. Moshe Sharett shook his head violently, clasped the chauffeur's hand in farewell, and without a backward glance walked home to lunch.

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