Nation: Old Faces and New

One set of decisions that the new Administration cannot defer is the selection of people to run and represent the Government. Last week Richard Nixon made several appointments: >Charles W. Yost, 61, an author and retired career diplomat, became the surprise choice as Ambassador to the United Nations. Yost is a Democrat, but not the sort of prominent party man that Nixon had been seeking to give his Administration a bipartisan touch. Hubert Humphrey, Eugene McCarthy and Sargent Shriver all turned down the assignment, which traditionally has had more prestige—and problems—than power. Shriver had seemed the likeliest prospect, but is understood to have run into resistance from his Kennedy in-laws. However, Nixon intends to keep Shriver as Ambassador to Paris, where Yost once served as deputy chief of mission. Yost entered the foreign service in 1930 and, after taking a brief recess for some short-story writing and freelance journalism, rose steadily to the coveted rank of career ambassador. He held three ambassadorships (Laos, Syria, Morocco) in the Eisenhower Administration, then became deputy to Adlai Stevenson and Arthur Goldberg at the United Nations. In 1966, he retired to join the Council on Foreign Relations. In a 1964 book, The Age of Triumph and Frustration: Modern Dialogues, one of Yost's imaginary speakers sums up a diplomat's view of Realpolitik: "The hopes of international peace depend upon a firm disregard of the rights and wrongs of disputes, on which there can almost never be agreement, and on a purpose either to settle them by compromise or to ignore them."

>J. Edgar Hoover accepted Nixon's invitation to remain as FBI chief. Nixon will be Hoover's eighth President (Calvin Coolidge was the first) and almost certainly his last. "The Director" is already four years past the normal mandatory retirement age (he will be 74 on New Year's Day), and it is understood that he will step down at age 75 with 45 years of service as the bureau's chief. Why the extension? Explained a Nixon aide: "You don't begin a law and order campaign by firing J. Edgar Hoover."

Nixon will also retain Richard Helms, 55, as director of the Central Intelligence Agency. The first CIA career man to head the agency, Helms has earned a reputation as a quiet, impartial professional during his ZVi years as director. He has not hesitated to express dissenting views within Administration councils (including pessimism about Viet Nam), and is noted for his candor in private congressional hearings. Except for the furor in early 1967 over the funding of private organizations, a practice Helms inherited, he has managed to keep the agency out of public controversy.