Changing of the Guard

Nine months after John Kennedy became President, an old boyhood friend joined him in Washington, taking up residence in the massive British embassy on Massachusetts Avenue. As Her Majesty's Ambassador to the U.S., David Ormsby Gore, who became Lord Harlech on the death of his father last year, had nearly everything in his favor: a wealth of international experience, an easygoing charm, a beautiful wife, and a long intimacy with the Kennedy family dating back to Father Joe's own ambassadorial days in London. Able to pick up the phone and get instantly through to Kennedy, a relationship few ambassadors have ever enjoyed with any U.S. President, Lord Harlech kept Anglo-American cooperation on a smooth course.

No career diplomat, Lord Harlech clearly lost much of his pleasure and raison d'etre in his post with Kennedy's death. And with the election of a Labor government, former Conservative M.P. Ormsby Gore's position became even less tenable. Last week the Foreign Office in London finally got around to announcing the inevitable changing of the Washington guard. Next spring 46-year-old Lord Harlech will be replaced by Britain's recent Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Sir Patrick Dean, 55. The son of a Cambridge pathologist and later a Cambridge don himself, gregarious Sir Patrick is one of Britain's foremost experts on international law. He joined the diplomatic service shortly after World War II, moved up through a variety of jobs to become chief of mission at the U.N. in 1960.

Meanwhile, Lord Harlech, off skiing in Colorado last week with his wife and three of his five children, was pondering his own future. If he wants to return to active Conservative Party politics--and friends think he may--he will have to disclaim his title. He has until next Feb. 14, the first anniversary of his father's death, to make up his mind under Britain's 1963 Peerage Act whether he wishes to remain Lord Harlech or go back to being just plain David Ormsby Gore.

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