Monday, May 12, 2008
Probably not, but Madeleine Albright has reason to worry: When the right wing gives up and confirms the telegenic diplomat as U.N. ambassador, his next job could be secretary of state.
Jun 28, 1999 | Diplomats are people who are sent abroad to lie for their country. The joy of being U.S. ambassador to the United Nations is that instead of lying in some far-off foreign field, you can lie at home, and make the TV chat shows as well. We can be sure that Richard Holbrooke will take full advantage of any such opportunity if the Senate confirms his position this week after a year-long holdup by Sen. Jesse Helms, chair of the Foreign Relations Committee.
We can also be sure that Secretary of State Madeleine Albright knows it too, since that is how she got her present position. The U.N. ambassadorship is a cabinet post with a highly visible domestic presence. Secretaries of state often have problems with U.N. ambassadors cleverer and more telegenic than themselves. James Baker ditched the highly effective and admired Tom Pickering for that reason, and he was not even in the cabinet. Albright consistently tried to dampen Bill Richardson's enthusiasm for television appearances while he was U.N. ambassador, officially to make sure that the message was coherent -- but mostly for fear of being overshadowed.
In the case of Holbrooke, Albright's fears are soundly based. He is simply several leagues above her -- and a publicity hound to boot. Leaving a well-compensated job with Credit Suisse to become a civil servant implies some considerable degree of ambition: Albright will be lucky to see out the rest of the Clinton term. There is every expectation that Holbrooke will follow in her footsteps, especially if Gore is elected.
It has been embarrassing for Washington not to have had an ambassador for such an eventful year. It's likely that Kosovo rescued Holbrooke's nomination from the jaws of Jesse Helms' opposition. There is, of course, absolutely no evidence that just because Madeleine Albright has a very chummy relationship with Helms, she was in any way involved in the long delay in Holbrooke's nomination. But one cannot help suspecting that the old lines
"Thou shalt not kill
But needst not strive
Officiously to keep alive,"
may have run through her mind occasionally about his nomination and confirmation.
Most diplomats represent their government's policy; they do not shape it. However, Holbrooke's 1995 Dayton experience promoted him into the statesman class, a considerable cut above the suave messenger-boy role so many ambassadors played in the past. Many of the diplomats canvassed at the United Nations have no doubt that he can be very effective when the full faith and credit of U.S. foreign policy is behind him -- but in recent years that is about as often as a transit of Venus.
Ambassador Sir John Weston, who returned to Britain just after Holbrooke's nomination was announced, described him as "one of the life forces in the world of the foreign-policy professionals." However, he added: "It's important to listen to what others have to say, and be seen to do so. Very often that is the secret of getting things done in the United Nations. I have no doubt that a person of Dick Holbrooke's political experience will understand that very quickly," he said, a diplomatically oblique way of casting doubt on Holbrooke's capacity to learn to listen.
Others are more explicit in their doubts about both his ethics and effectiveness. For example, in his negotiations in 1997 as special representative on Cyprus, he wanted the European Union to admit Turkey -- and did not seem to understand that Europe would not admit a country that had the death penalty, imprisoned journalists and bombed Kurds, just because it suited Washington's Middle-East policy.
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