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Mrs. Meir Forming Government, Indicates There Will Be No Change in Present Composition

A 70-year-old grandmother began the task of forming a new government that will lead Israel at least until the national elections next Oct. 28. Mrs. Golda Meir, who was named Premier-designate by President Zalman Shazar yesterday, indicated that there would be no changes in the coalition put together by the late Prime Minister Levi Eshkol during the war crisis of May, 1967 and which continues to serve today as the care-taker government of Acting Prime Minister Yigal Allon. Mrs. Meir said yesterday that the new government will "keep its present composition in party and personal elements; it will be a cabinet of continuity and contain no radical changes in the policies of Levi Eshkol."

Mrs. Meir, a former Milwaukee school-teacher who served as Israel’s Minister of Labor, Foreign Minister and Ambassador to Moscow, will be the third woman in modern history to hold a nation’s highest executive post. The others were Mrs. Solomon Bandaranaike who served as Prime Minister of Ceylon in the late 1950s and Mrs. Indira Gandhi, the present Prime Minister of India.