The Senate on Tuesday confirmed Henry Grunwald to be U.S. ambassador to Austria. He was confirmed by voice vote without debate.
Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) called the confirmation of Grunwald, who is Jewish, “one more goody” for President Reagan.
Byrd was referring to Reagan’s many recent nominations, many of which, including those for posts in Yemen and Iraq, were not acted on before the Senate adjourned Tuesday.
The vote on Grunwald came after Byrd had delivered the traditional end-of-session call to Reagan. The House and Senate adjourned Tuesday night, ending the first session of the 100th Congress. The next session begins in January.
Grunwald, who resigned in August as editor in chief of Time Inc., said in a telephone interview Wednesday that he could not comment on his appointment “until after I have taken up my post in Vienna.”
He did not give a date when Austrian President Kurt Waldheim would receive his credentials, but Grunwald said he is “planning to leave the United States for Vienna in the middle of January.”
Grunwald, 65, was born in Austria, and left Vienna in 1940 to flee the Nazis.
His appointment comes at a time when U.S. relations with Austria are strained over Washington’s decision to bar Waldheim from the United States in the wake of charges linking the Austrian president to atrocities committed in the Balkans during World War II.
There will be no Daily News Bulletin dated Friday, December 25, 1987, because of the postal holiday.
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