President Carter will name a successor to Alfred Atherton, his special Ambassador-at-Large to the Middle East, in the next few days, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency was informed. Atherton, reportedly, will be named U.S. Ambassador to Egypt, succeeding Hermann Eilts.
William Scranton, the former Republican Governor of Pennsylvania, is reportedly slated for Atherton’s post, but other candidates have also been mentioned, Including former Undersecretary of State Philip Habib and McGeorge Bundy, who has served as advisor to presidents Kennedy and Johnson.
Atherton played a major role in the Israeli Egyptian negotiations that resulted in the peace treaty signed last month. He has been Washington’s chief expert on the Middle East for the last 10 years and in recent years was engaged in shuttle diplomacy between Israel and Arab capitals. Eilts, also a key figure in the peace negotiations, reportedly desires to retire to join a university faculty.
The emergence of Scranton’s name as Atherton’s successor was seen here as a trial balloon aimed at gaining bipartisan support for the Administration’s Middle East policies. Scranton served as special envoy to the Middle East for President Nixon and was named U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations by President Ford. In both capacities, he angered friends of Israel by his advocacy of “even-handed” approaches to the problems of the Middle East.
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