Embassy Row

Two of John Kennedy's choices for ambassadorships were in trouble last week.

In Bern, the Swiss cabinet took the unusual step of formally delaying its acceptance of Earl E. T. Smith, onetime U.S. Ambassador to Cuba and longtime millionaire Republican golfing pal of Jack Kennedy and Father Joe. Swiss Ambassador Auguste R. Lindt huddled with Under Secretary of State Chester Bowles to discuss the Smith appointment. Swiss authorities pointed out the technicalities that 1) Smith has done little to disguise his fondness for deposed Cuban Dictator Fulgencio Batista, and 2) Switzerland represents U.S. interests to the government of current Cuban Dictator Fidel Castro. While inspired Swiss newspaper editorials denounced the Smith appointment, and the Swiss cabinet resolved to "wait and see what will happen in Washington," John Kennedy was standing firm.

In Tokyo, conservative opposition mounted against the choice of brainy but blunt Edwin O. Reischauer, a Japanese-born Harvard professor with a Japanese wife. Japan's Ambassador to the U.S., Koichiro Asakai, summoned Japanese correspondents in Washington, asked them such leading questions as "Do you believe we should accept an ambassador who is not a full and true American?" Outgoing U.S. Ambassador Douglas Mac Arthur II also opposes Reischauer, who had charged that MacArthur's embassy was guilty of a "shocking misestimate of the situation" leading up to last spring's Japanese riots. After MacArthur invited him in to see official embassy reports, Reischauer publicly retracted, said that the real misjudgment was made in Washington.

Meanwhile, with no fuss whatsoever, President Kennedy asked some 40 career ambassadors to remain at their present posts. Among them: Roy Rubottom, Argentina; H. Freeman Matthews, Austria; John Moors Cabot, Brazil; Edward Page Jr., Bulgaria; William C. Trimble, Cambodia; Christian M. Ravndal, Czechoslovakia; Robert McClintock, Lebanon.

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