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By Janice Castro

If Jim Baker takes over management of the sputtering Bush re-election campaign, Deputy Secretary LAWRENCE EAGLEBURGER will fill his shoes at State. Even so, President Bush is unlikely to nominate Eagleburger as his new Secretary of State. A former ambassador to Yugoslavia, Eagleburger has become a subject of the House Banking Committee inquiry into charges that the Reagan and Bush Administrations improperly allowed Iraq to use U.S. funds and sensitive American technology to build its war machine. The committee is also probing Eagleburger's actions as a onetime director of a Yugoslav bank that was later convicted of money laundering. Eagleburger has not been linked directly to any illegal or improper activities. But rather than endure the messy publicity that confirmation hearings would generate in the midst of the election season, Bush will probably ask Eagleburger to soldier on as Acting Secretary.