Assistant to Carter Takes New Post

Joyce Start, associate special assistant to President Carter at the White House, has been appointed coordinator of the study mission to Israel and Egypt formed by Georgetown University’s Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Center announced. The appointment is effective April 1. The White House successor has not been named.

Starr, who is Jewish, will establish “a full time working presence in Tel Aviv and Cairo” on the Georgetown Center’s behalf, the announcement said. “Under Center auspices, she will compile and monitor an inventory of area experts and their ongoing research. She will advise the Center in Washington on how to better integrate its broader program into area developments triggered by the continuing movement of Egypt and Israel toward a settlement.”

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency was informed that Starr “probably” will be based in Tel Aviv and commute to Cairo. The base, JTA was told, will be in Tel Aviv rather than in Jerusalem because it has a greater complex of activities and is the larger city. The fact the U.S. Embassy is in Tel Aviv and not in Jerusalem was not a factor, JTA was told.

In her new position, Starr, who is 33 years old, will be associated with the Center’s International Research Council which includes 26 scholars under the chairmanship of Walter Loqueur, the historian, Two of the Council’s members are Boutros Ghali, president of the Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Egypt, who also is Egypt’s Foreign Minister and has a prominent role in the current Egyptian-Israeli peace negotiations. Another scholar-member is Dr. Aharon Yariv, director of the Canter for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University. Starr earned her doctorate in sociology at Northwestern University in 1973. She was active in the Carter-Mondale election campaign in 1976.