The Hemisphere: Careerman to Havana

To touchy Cuba, where Ambassador Earl E. T. Smith, a political appointee, had just resigned under rebel criticism (TIME, Jan. 19), the U.S. State Department last week prepared to rush one of its top careermen, Manhattan-born, Yale-educated Philip Bonsai, 55.

Bonsai, since March 1957 Ambassador to Bolivia, has had to deal before with a thorny Latin American situation. In 1955, as Ambassador to Colombia, he was accredited to the government of Dictator Gustavo Rojas Pinilla. Distinctly not one of the diplomat types who deem it a simple duty to stay close to the boss,...