Comings & Goings

In Augusta President Eisenhower announced these ambassadorial nominations:

RUSSIA. Replacing Manila-bound Charles E. ("Chip") Bohlen: Llewellyn E. Thompson, 52, Ambassador and High Commissioner to Austria since 1952. For longtime (26 years) Career Diplomat "Tommy" Thompson (who, like Bohlen, worked for Ike as Russian interpreter at the 1955 Geneva summit talks) the shift will be a second Moscow assignment; he was second secretary and consul of the Moscow embassy 1940-44, won a Medal of Freedom for staying on "at the risk of capture" by the invading Nazis after the rest of the diplomatic corps was evacuated to Kuibyshev. Last year Colorado-born Ambassador Thompson won a citation from Ike for his "firmness, patience, negotiating skill and good judgment" in helping negotiate both the Trieste Agreement and the treaty with the Russians that gave Austria its independence.

ETHIOPIA. Replacing the recently resigned Rev. Dr. Joseph Simonson, 52, Lutheran minister and publicist (and reportedly one of the U.S. diplomats who fell into Dick Nixon's "cornball" category during the Vice President's recent African trip): Don Carroll Bliss, 59, now foreign service inspector in the State Department and a hardworking, unobtrusive career officer who has done duty in Ottawa, London, Calcutta. Paris, Athens, Bangkok, Singapore and Djakarta during his 34 years with the foreign service.

BURMA. Replacing soon-to-be-reassigned Joseph C. Satterthwaite: Walter Patrick McConaughy, 48, director of Chinese affairs in the State Department since 1952. Foreign Service Officer McConaughy has seen his share of lights going out in Asia: in 1941, while serving in the U.S. embassy in Peking, he was interned by the Japanese, released the following year. After a swing through Latin America he returned to China as U.S. consul in Shanghai, closed down the post in 1950 after the Communists had moved in. Principal current aim and ambition: to keep the lights burning brightly in Burma.

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