US sending official to aid Salvadorans on elections

The United States will send a top official to El Salvador this week to advise the military-civilian junta on holding elections for a constitutional assembly next year, an American embassy spokesman reports. US diplomats hope the March balloting will ease tension and unify centrist and rightist political groups opposed to left-wing guerrillas. The assembly elections will set the stage for drafting a new constitution and presidential balloting in 1983. The US-backed junta sees the elections as a way of peacefully resolving the virtual civil war here.