Jonathan Moore, an associate of Elliot L. Richardson '41, will replace Ernest R. May as director of the Institute of Politics sometime before next fall.

Requires Approval

Although officials at the Institute refused to comment on or confirm Moore's nomination, reliable sources said yesterday that the appointment now only requires approval by the Board of Overseers before becoming effective.

May refused to comment on the report, but he said that if he left the Institute he would remain as professor of History. He has indicated in the past that he would like to step down as director, perhaps taking some other position at the Institute, so as to spend more time on academic work.

"When it comes to an appointment matter under the authority of the Corporation and the Board of Overseers, you know a dean doesn't say anything when there isn't an official announcement," Don K. Price, dean of the Kennedy School of Government, said last night.

Moore served as an executive assistant in the State Department's Far Eastern division in 1969, when Richardson was Undersecretary of State.

When Richardson left the State Department Moore went with him, holding high positions successively in the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, the Defense Department, and the Justice Department.

Earlier Career

Earlier in his career, Moore was a legislative assistant to Massachusetts Senator Leverett Saltonstall '14, a special assistant in the Defense Department's internal security division and a special assistant in the State Department during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. He was also a foreign affairs adviser to the 1968 presidential campaigns of George Romney and Nelson A. Rockefeller.

Moore was a resident fellow at the Institute in 1966-7. Assuming his nomination is confirmed, he will be the third director of the Institute and the first without a previous Harvard affiliation. Moore is considered a liberal Republican.