Key to U.S. Stand Toward Israel Seen in Successor to Byroade

The future American policy toward Israel and the Arab League will be indicated by the administration’s choice of a successor to Henry A. Byroade as Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, when and if Mr. Byroade becomes U.S. Ambassador to Egypt. This was predicted today in an editorial in the Washington Post, one of the capital’s most influential newspapers. The White House has not yet announced Mr. Byroade’s appointment to Egypt although State Department sources maintain that such an announcement is shortly forthcoming,

(A rumor in diplomatic circles here held that Byroade’s successor as Assistant Secretary of State in charge of Near Eastern Affairs will be Loy Henderson, a career diplomat with long experience in the Near East.)

The Washington Post editorial said Mr. Byroade would be sent to Egypt with “a man-on-the-spot responsibility for executing whatever new look is evolving on Middle East policy–perhaps the main man-on-the -spot responsibility.” It was noted by the newspaper that “Mr. Byroade has made two or three speeches of late which have laid him open to the charge of personal partiality. He has been chided, for instance, by the Israelis for some plain spoken references.”