Appointments: Bad & Good

President Eisenhower last week named South Carolina's Governor James Byrnes to be one of five U.S. delegates to the eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly. Howls of protest rose. Chief complaint: Byrnes is one of the South's best-known champions of race segregation; as governor, he pledged his administration to abandon South Carolina's public-school system if the Supreme Court outlawed segregation in the schools. The U.N.'s General Assembly contains many Asian and African delegates explosively sensitive on the subject of race. Sample protests in telegrams to the President :

P: Textile Workers Union (C.I.O.): "This is a post for which he is outstandingly unqualified. The appointment of Byrnes will be a propaganda weapon of untold value to the Kremlin."

P: NationalAssociation for the Advancement of Colored People: "The Communists can brand him by his own words and deeds as a proponent of racism . . ."

P: American Jewish Congress: "Mr. James Byrnes has disqualified himself to be a spokesman of the ideals of American democracy."

Other Eisenhower appointments of the week:

P: To be Ambassador to Thailand: Major General (ret.) William J. ("Wild Bill") Donovan, 70, Medal-of-Honor-winning commander of the Fighting 69th in World War I and head of the OSS in World War II. In Thailand, Donovan's OSS performed some of its greatest feats. Working with Japanese-appointed Regent Pridi Banomyong in what has been called "the greatest doublecross in history." OSS operatives built up a resistance movement under the conquerors' noses.

P: To be head of the U.S. Information Agency: Theodore C. Streibert, 53, able former board chairman of the Mutual Broadcasting System, lately adviser to HighCommissioner James B. Conant in Germany. Streibert's newly created agency is to include all of the old U.S. Information Service (Voice of America, etc.), together with the information setups of the Mutual Security Agency and the Technical Cooperation Administration.

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