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Shamir gets the nod

The phone call from President Chaim Herzog came at precisely 8:45 a.m. last Wednesday. Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir was alone in his office in Jerusalem. Would he be free to stop over at noon? asked Herzog. Certainly, responded Shamir. To an aide who joined him a few minutes later, Shamir remarked happily, "Every few years my career takes a turn, and it's always up."

The phone call meant that Shamir, 67, would almost certainly succeed Menachem Begin, who announced on Aug. 28 that he planned to resign as Prime Minister of Israel. Shamir, who had been chosen to be leader of the Likud bloc when Begin stepped down, had managed to secure the support of all 64 members of Begin's outgoing coalition. Israeli law required Herzog to consult with representatives of parties in the Knesset, but there was never much doubt that he would ultimately ask Shamir to form the new government.

So he did. Shamir now has 21 days to complete his negotiations. He is permitted a 21-day extension, but he probably will not need it. Said Foreign Ministry Shamir Spokesman Avi Pazner: "He's got it practically wrapped up. The other partners won't make new demands." First, however, the Prime Minister-designate must make a pro forma effort to put together a government of national unity with the opposition Labor Party, a condition that some members of his coalition stipulated as the price of their support to give the government more authority to deal with Israel's pressing foreign and economic problems. Given its ideological differences with Likud, it is not seriously expected that Labor will come aboard.

While Shamir was gathering the reins of power, one of his more prominent colleagues, former Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, was making an apparent power play of his own. Ever since his demotion last February to Minister Without Portfolio, Sharon has blamed the press for inciting criticism of the war in Lebanon. Last week, speaking before a small crowd in a Jerusalem mall, Sharon called Israeli journalists "hypocrites" and "masters of self-destruction." Warming to his subject, he shouted to his audience, "Who are the news media?" To which the crowd responded, "P.L.O.! P.L.O.!" The National Press Association retaliated with a statement describing Sharon's attacks on the press as "clear evidence of his desire for totalitarianism." Most observers believed that his outburst was part of an open campaign to return to the Likud bloc's inner circle. For now, the tactic seemed to have backfired. ·