Malcolm Toon, a veteran Foreign Service career officer whose experience has been limited to Europe, mostly Soviet and Eastern European affairs, will be nominated shortly as the new U.S. Ambassador to Israel. President Ford is expected to announce the nomination and submit it for Senate approval as soon as formal acceptance is received from Israel, sources said.
Toon, who will be 60 in July, was Ambassador to Yugoslavia until recently and was slated to replace Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker as the chief American representative at the Geneva Middle East peace conference. His assignment was changed following the death Monday of Kenneth B. Keating who was Ambassador to Israel since 1973. Toon, who served as Ambassador to Czechoslovakia from 1969-71, and holds the rank of career minister, a rank just below career ambassador, has no experience in Middle Eastern affairs. But State Department officials were said not to consider that a drawback.
In addition to his previous ambassadorial posts, Toon served twice in Moscow and was the State Department’s officer in charge of Soviet Affairs in the 1960s, He was reportedly under consideration as Ambassador to Moscow in 1973 but the appointment went to Walter J. Stoessel.
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