Moynihan Accepts India Envoy Post

Daniel P. Moynihan, professor of Education and Urban Politics, said yesterday that he has officially accepted President Nixon's nomination as U.S. ambassador to India.

White House Press Secretary Ronald L. Zeigler made the official announcement at a press conference yesterday morning.

Spokesmen for the Indian government in New Delhi approved Moynihan's appointment in a diplomatic communique which arrived in Washington Sunday morning.

Diplomatic protocol required that the announcement of Moynihan's appointment await New Delhi's official approval.

Moynihan said yesterday that New Delhi's approval was a routine diplomatic gesture. "No one is ever turned down. If they turn someone down, you'd have to go to war, for heaven's sake," he said.

The 45-year old veteran of policy-making in the last three Presidential administrations said that he will probably assume office late next month, pending his confirmation by the Senate and assignments from the State Department.

Moynthan said that he will request a two-year leave of absence from the Corporation. "But I surely won't leave until I've graded off the papers for Soc Sci 115," he added.

Kenneth E. Keating former ambassador to India who resigned earlier this year, praised Moynihan's appointment in a telephone interview Sunday night. "I think it's an excelient appointment," Keating said.

Moynihansaid that the appointment came as a great surprise," but added that he did not hesitate to accept it.

"President Nixon said to me, 'India is the world's largest democracy and I'd like you to go as our ambassador,'" Moynihan said "And I certainly didn't have any way out of that."

Although Moynihan has most recently worked in domestic policy making, his professional training dealt with international affairs. He said that he traveled abroad in diplomatic capacities several times for the last three presidents.

A leading urban sociologist and co- author of Beyoad the Making Pet. Moynihan helped draft the first Federal anti-poverty legislation in 1963 as an economic advisor to President John F. Kennedy '40. He completed the project in 1964 as the Economic Opportunity Act under President Lyndon Johnson's administration.

Moynthan became the center of controversy in 1965 when his report on the black family in America. "The Negro Family: the Case for National Action," was condemned as racist by influential black leaders. The Johnson Administration had pleased to use the report as the basis of its civil rights program.

In 1966, Moyathan came to Cambridge as director of the MIT-Harvard Joint Center for Urban Studies, but returned to Washington in 1969 as a domestic affairs adviser for President Nixon