Edwin O. Reischauer, ambassador to Japan, will return to Harvard this Fall and become a University Professor, one of Harvard's higher honors.

The White House yesterday announced a new ambassador U. Alexis Johnson, deputy under secretary of state, and thus confirmed long-standing rumors that Reischauer would leave. Reischauer, it is known, has been eager to get back to scholarship after five years away.

As University Professor, Reischauer will not be tied to any department, and will be free to teach and do research anywhere in the University. The Board of Overseers voted this Spring to offer him the position. The six other University professors are Paul A. Freund, constitutional lawyer; Paul H. Buck, former provost and American historian; Edward M. Purcell, Nobel laureate in physics; Edward S. Mason, economist; John F. Enders, Nobel laureate in medicine and physiology; and Merle Fainsod, an authority on Russian government and Director of the University Library.

No date for Reischauer's return has been set, but the White House said yesterday that Johnson's nomination will be sent soon to the Senate and that Reishauer will probably be home before the beginning of the Fall term.

It was not known yesterday what teaching, if any, Reischauer would do in the Fall. A statement from the University News Office said that he was "expected" to lecture in the "History of Asian Civilization," an undergraduate course; neither the History Department or the Center for East Asian Studies knew of his teaching plans.

Reischauer was appointed ambassador to Japan by President Kennedy in 1961; he served in the post longer than any man since Joseph C. Grew '02 went to Japan in 1931 and stayed for a decade.

Before leaving for the Far East, Reischauer was director of the Harvard-Yenching Institute and professor of Japanese History and Literature. He has written a number of books, including Japan, Past and Present (1947). The United States and Japan (1950, revised 1954). Towards a New Far Eastern Policy (1950).