Expert on Asia Picked as Next Envoy to Japan

The Bush Administration has decided to name Michael H. Armacost, a senior State Department official, as the next U.S. ambassador to Japan, department and congressional sources said Tuesday.

The appointment may disappoint the Japanese, who had suggested that they would like some prominent American political figure or former Cabinet member--such as former Secretary of State George P. Shultz or former Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci--to be selected for the job.

Armacost will take the place of recently retired Mike Mansfield, the former Senate majority leader, who served as ambassador in Tokyo for 11 years.

Mansfield was so popular in Japan that, when Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita visits here this week, he will attend ceremonies at which Mansfield will be given a special award from the Japanese government, the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun.

Armacost, 51, now is undersecretary of state for political affairs, the third-ranking official in the State Department, a job from which he has supervised negotiations with the Soviet Union over Afghanistan. He is considered an expert on Asian affairs and once worked as a Foreign Service officer in the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo.

He served also as U.S. ambassador to the Philippines from 1982 to 1984. In that job, he infuriated then-President Ferdinand E. Marcos by attending the funeral of the murdered opposition leader Benigno Aquino. After Armacost returned to Washington to become undersecretary of state, Marcos’ wife, Imelda, boasted that she had succeeded in getting Armacost ousted as ambassador.

Armacost’s younger brother, Samuel H. Armacost, served as the chairman, president and chief executive officer of the Bank of America until he stepped down in 1987. When asked at Senate confirmation hearings about his connections with his brother, Michael Armacost replied: “I don’t intrude in his business, and he doesn’t intrude in mine.”

The White House is expected to make an official announcement of Armacost’s appointment during Takeshita’s trip to the United States this week. Takeshita was scheduled to arrive in New York City Tuesday night and will see President Bush here Thursday.

Another senior Asian policy-maker was selected by the Bush Administration Tuesday. Dr. Karl D. Jackson, a scholar from UC Berkeley, was named to direct Asia policy for President Bush’s National Security Council. For the last two years, Jackson has been deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia and the Pacific.