To a sensitive nerve end in U.S.-Asiatic relationsthe absence of American diplomats whose prestige matches the importance of Asia in the 1942 worldFranklin Roosevelt applied some balm last week. To serve as his "personal representative" in India he appointed suave, gracious William Phillips, a top-flight career diplomat who has held many an important post since he left Harvard Law School for the State Department in 1903.
William Phillips, whose family has been distinguished in New England since the founding of Massachusetts Bay Colony, has no State Department rival save Under Secretary Sumner Welles for tall, aristocratic elegance. He was once Assistant...