Two Cheers for Diplomacy

On the campaign trail last fall, Jack Kennedy pledged that U.S. embassies would no longer be political plums for heavy campaign contributors, would be staffed solely "on the basis of ability." But last week, as reports of the Administration's favorites for diplomatic posts filtered through Washington, many of Kennedy's staunchest admirers wondered aloud where reward stopped and ability began. "Almost everybody has given three cheers for President Kennedy's top domestic appointees," wrote the New York Times's James B. Reston, a Kennedy admirer, "but two cheers is all he is likely to get for his diplomatic appointees." Among the front runners for top ambassadorial assignments:

Lieut. General James Maurice Gavin, 53, now president of Arthur D. Little, Inc., largest private research and management consultant firm in the U.S., will get the touchy and prestigious post in Paris. Onetime boss of the Army's Research and Development section, ex-Paratrooper Gavin petulantly resigned from the Army in 1958 after losing a battle to push his service farther into the space and missile business. Hustling into print with his book, War and Peace in the Space Age, Gavin impressed the then Senator Kennedy (who reviewed the book for the Reporter magazine) with his argument that future wars would be limited and tactical, necessitating a flexible NATO equipped with a "fire brigade" capable of quelling brushfire wars in Europe or Africa. During the campaign, Gavin offered Kennedy foreign policy recommendations by mail, sold himself as a potential diplomat with flair rather than experience, was pushed for Paris by Kennedy's Georgetown friend and neighbor. Bill Walton. Kennedy's design may be to match one obstreperous general with another (Gavin knows De Gaulle slightly), but the Quai d'Orsay was discreetly baffled by the appointment. So, less discreetly, were State Department regulars. Since Paris is one of the most expensive American embassies to maintain. Gavin will be the principal beneficiary of the increased expenses to be allotted to nonwealthy ambassadors.

Dr. Edwin Oldfather Reischauer, 50, is set to take over the embassy in Tokyo. Another Harvardman, Reischauer was born in Japan, graduated from Oberlin, received his Ph.D. from Harvard, where he is now director of the Center for East Asian Studies. Both scholar and diplomat, Reischauer spent considerable time in Japan, served on the State Department's Far Eastern desk in the hectic years of Asian upheaval after World War II, published more than half a dozen books on the Orient, has been an advocate of U.S. recognition of Communist China and a critic of American "overemphasis" on military power in Asia. In 1956 Widower (three children) Reischauer married Jaoanese Newswoman Haru Matsukata. granddaughter of Prince Masayoshi Matsukata, who was twice Japan's Prime Minister in the 1890s and one of the builders of modern Japan. Writing in Foreign Affairs, Reischauer was sharply critical of "the shocking misestimate of the situation" by his predecessor, Douglas MacArthur II (who will head the Belgian embassy in his next post), during the riots that brought cancellation of President Eisenhower's visit to Japan last spring. Of particular appeal to the Administration is Reischauer's intimate knowledge of Korea as well as Japan. The State Department would like to bring Korea back into Japan's orbit, thus take some of the heat off Japan's search for greater trade with Red China.

George Frost Kennan, 56-will go to Belgrade as Ambassador to Yugoslavia. Onetime Ambassador to Moscow (1952) and longtime student of Communism and Russia, Kennan singlehanded did much to awaken the U.S. to the dangers of postwar Soviet imperialism, authored the Truman Administration's "containment" policy. Careerist Kennan was shunted into exile (to the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study) by John Foster Dulles in 1953. In 1957 he flirted with "disengagement," i.e., neutralization of Germany" and the disarming of NATO, as a means of reaching a settlement with the Russians. No less a person than his ex-boss, Dean Acheson. slapped him down. "Mr. Kennan has never, in my judgment, grasped the realities of power relationships," said Acheson, "but takes a rather mystical attitude toward them." But Tito's Yugoslavia should give Kennan an ideal opportunity to sense the internal rumblings of international Communism.

Earl Edward Toiler Smith, 57, is slated to go to Bern as Ambassador to Switzerland, although the Swiss have made it clear that they are less than pleased. Financier, sportsman, onetime member of the Republican national finance committee, Palm Beach neighbor and old friend of Jack and Jackie Kennedy. Smith was Ambassador to Cuba from 1957 to 1959. An ardent supporter of ex-Strongman Fulgencio Batista, Smith early recognized Fidel Castro as a pro-Communist fanatic but underestimated the strength and public support of Castro's rebel band--an oversight that helped fan the smoldering embers of Cuba's anti-Americanism. Smith left Yale after two years, married Consuelo Vanderbilt in 1926. Twice divorced (second wife was Mimi Elaine Richardson), Smith is now married to Florence Pritchett, television personality and sometime clothes designer.

Anthony J. Drexel Biddle, 64, former Ambassador to Poland during the convulsive early days of World War II, will return to diplomacy as Ambassador to Spain. After Poland was overrun by the Nazis, Biddle served in London as ambassador to the exiled governments of Poland, Belgium, The Netherlands, Norway, Greece, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, thus holding more diplomatic posts simultaneously than any other envoy in U.S. history. He resigned from the diplomatic corps in 1944, joined General Eisenhower's SHAEF staff as liaison officer with the Allied governments, then went on a tour of duty with Ike in NATO, which gives him an insight into Western defense problems in Spain.

Grant Stockdale, 45, a Miami real estate dealer and former administrative assistant to Jack Kennedy's old Senate pal, Florida Democrat George Smathers, will be Ambassador to Ireland.

William Attwood, 41, foreign editor of Look magazine and an erstwhile ghostwriter for Adlai Stevenson, will get his first taste of diplomacy as Ambassador to Guinea, where left-leaning President Sekou Toure is a potential spark for the African tinderbox.

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