JERUSALEM, March 7, 1969 (UPI) - The ruling Labor Party today nominated Golda Meir, a 70-year-old former Milwaukee schoolteacher, as Israel's fourth premier. "I'll do my best," she said.
The central committee's vote, 287 to 0, with 45 abstentions, left no doubt that President Shneor Zalman Shazar would name Mrs. Meir to lead the nation.
Most of those who abstained, and the nearly 100 party leaders who did not attend the meeting, were supporters of Defense Minister Moshe Dayan.
Mrs. Meir said she would make no changes in the cabinet of her predecessor, Levi Eshkol, who died Feb. 26.
Mrs. Meir, a native of Russia, went to the United States with her parents when she was eight. She left Milwaukee in 1921 to join other Jews with the "expectation of national independence."
She has served Israel as foreign minister, labor minister and ambassador.
Mrs. Meir will hold the premiership at least until the September general elections. Then, politicians said, Dayan and Yidel Allon, now acting premier, are expected to challenge her for the post.