BARBER SET TO CHANGE STYLE
It is ironic that the chosen apostle of the Reagan Administration's sudden conversion to the cause of multilateralism in dealing with the debt crisis is almost unknown outside the US. Barber Conable has been called to the presidency of the World Bank and the feeling is that during his tenure there could be widespread changes in its philosophy and its day-to-day running.
"His appointment was a shock to everyone including himself,' said Dr Thomas Johnson, director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute and a long-time friend. No one doubts that the amiable grandfather is a compromise candidate but Conable may just be as ambitious as he is affable.
For 20 years a Republican Congressman for an extremely safe seat in upstate New York, the 63-year-old Conable stepped down in 1984. Since then a series of part-time appointments, teaching, a fellowship at the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute, a directorship of pharmaceutical company Pfizer, a board member of the New York Stock Exchange, have given him plenty of free time for his farm near Rochester and for a major preoccupation, the Museum of the American Indian in New York.