National Security Council Appoints Pastor to Post

Zbigniew Brzezinski, President-elect Carter's national security advisor, has named Robert A. Pastor, a teaching fellow and Ph.D. candidate in the Government Department, as Latin American Affairs co-ordinator for the National Security Council.

Working in co-operation with department heads representing Africa and Asia, Pastor will focus on co-ordinating foreign policy issues towards Latin America and forming a policy towards the "developing world."

Contrary to the role it has played in recent years, the council will serve as a facilitating body rather than as a rival to the other government departments, Pastor said yesterday, adding, "We structure presidential options."

"It's quite clear that it's not going to be a policy-making body," he said.

He also emphasized the council's job as a connecting link between different departments in the Carter administration.

Intricacies

Pastor is not unfamiliar with the intricacies of foreign policy or the incoming Carter administration. He was staff director for the Commission on United States-Latin American Relations and he briefed President-elect Carter on foreign policy last summer while serving on Carter's foreign policy and defense task force.

Pastor received his undergraduate degree in history from Lafayette College in Pennsylvania. Following his graduation from the Kennedy School of Government, Pastor became a teaching fellow with Harvard's Government department, and is presently at work completing his doctoral thesis.

He was also a Peace Corps volunteer for two years in Malaysia and Southeast Asia, serving from February 1970 until September 1972.