Embassy Chairs

Carrying out his predicted shift in the U. S. diplomatic corps, President Roosevelt last week sent to the Senate his recommendations that 1) trouble-shooting Joseph Patrick* Kennedy-succeed the late Robert Worth Bingham in London, 2) Assistant Secretary of State Hugh R. Wilson succeed anti-Nazi Professor William E. Dodd in Berlin. When news of these appointments leaked out (TIME, Dec. 20), the scramble for embassy chairs left one diplomat awkwardly standing, Lawyer Joseph E. Davies. He had just returned from the Soviet Union to see the President and told the press: "I'll go anywhere the boss sends me." Included in last week's Presidential recommendations was the transfer of Ambassador Davies from the grandly colonnaded embassy at Moscow to the smaller, iron-fenced embassy at Brussels.

If this provided a chair for Joe Davies, it took one away from Careerist Hugh Gibson, who was sent to Belgium from Brazil only a few months ago. Letting Diplomat Gibson stand for the moment, the President filled a vacant chair by appointing Norman Armour, his successful Minister to Canada, to succeed retired Hoffman Philip as Ambassador to Chile.

Vacant diplomatic chairs are now: Moscow, Ottawa and Assistant Secretary of State.

-Winding up his Maritime Commission job, Joseph Kennedy (in San Francisco last week to sign a subsidy agreement with big Dollar Steamship Line) announced that he had already signed long-term agreements providing a $7,359,000 annual subsidy to seven U. S. shipping companies which have promised to construct 43 new vessels at a cost of $110,000,000

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