Shifting Diplomats

In a major diplomatic reshuffle last week, the U.S. tapped two top-ranking State Department officers to strengthen its hand in the troubled eastern Mediterranean, reassigned four ambassadors-in-being to make room for the shifts. The changes:

Athens. Replacing Cavendish Cannon, named first U.S. ambassador to Morocco (TIME, July 23): George Venable Allen, 52, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern, South Asian and African Affairs. Troubleshooter Allen, onetime North Carolina schoolteacher and newspaper reporter (Asheville Times), longtime (26 years) Foreign Service officer, has had delicate assignments before--as ambassador in Iran (1946-48) when the West successfully pressed the Soviets to withdraw from Azerbaijan, in Belgrade in 1949, after Tito had been kicked out of the Cominform and was looking to the West for aid. His present mission: to make a new stab at reducing tensions between NATO partners Greece and Turkey over Cyprus, to dampen neutralist swings in Greece.

Cairo. Replacing Henry A. Byroade in precarious Nasser-land: Raymond Arthur Hare, 55, Director General of the Foreign Service since 1954, an old Mid-East specialist with embassy service in Beirut, Teheran, Cairo and Jidda in the 1930s and '40s, as ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Lebanon in 1950 and '53. Dapper Ray Hare, who looks like Ronald Colman, has a profound knowledge of Arab society and economic life, but no previous ties with Nasser, hence symbolizes a fresh, new era of U.S.-Egyptian policy.

Pretoria. Replacing Tom Wailes in the Union of South Africa: Henry A. Byroade, 43, West Pointer ('37), Army brigadier general at 33, with the State Department since 1949, where he served as Assistant Secretary for Near East, South Asia and Africa before his appointment to Cairo. Straight-shooting, cheerful Hank Byroade advised against the new U.S. "get tough" line with Egypt, was shifted to make clear the switch in U.S.-Nasser policy.

Budapest. Replacing Christian Ravndal in Hungary: Edward Thompson Wailes, 53, Foreign Service officer since 1929 and the department's Assistant Secretary for Personnel and Administration before going to troubled, racist South Africa. Tall, balding Tom Wailes, a specialist on Europe, will report on a Communist satellite that appears to be in considerable ideological ferment.

Quito. Scheduled for reassignment to Ecuador, where the post is open: Christian Magelssen Ravndal, 57, born in Syria, son of a U.S. diplomat, in the Foreign Service since 1920, with duty in Germany, Canada, Sweden, Latin America. Big, rumpled Chris Ravndal, whose great forte is public relations--he likes to get out into the back country and put across the U.S. point of view--served his first ambassadorial assignment in Uruguay, is an authority on Latin American affairs. All the shifts left the State Department abuzz at week's end with one big unanswered question: Who replaces Allen as Assistant Secretary for the Near East?

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