Squabbling over Statecraft

By James Kelly

A briefing in a New Zealand bar boomerangs in Washington

"Ambassador Kirkpatrick did a superb job, which has been characteristic of her performance at the United Nations from the outset." So said Secretary of State Alexander Haig last week about Jeane Kirkpatrick, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. That gracious praise was not exactly spontaneous: Haig was scrambling to patch up the damage done by leaks from his own aides, who had criticized Kirkpatrick's handling of a U.N. resolution condemning Israel for its bombing of Iraq's nuclear reactor. The sniping infuriated not only Kirkpatrick but the White House as well. It deeply embarrassed Haig and provided more ammunition for both domestic and foreign critics who feel that the Administration's foreign policy is aimless in substance and disorganized in execution.

The flap began at a hotel bar in Wellington, New Zealand. State Department Spokesman Dean Fischer and Politico-Military Affairs Director Richard Burt, who were accompanying Haig on his two-week swing through the Pacific, asked Bernard Gwertzman of the New York Times and Karen Elliot House of the Wall Street Journal to join them for drinks. With Fischer glancing at notes, the two aides blamed Kirkpatrick for fouling up negotiations on the U.N. resolution. They claimed she ignored instructions from the National Security Council and initially supported a resolution that called for economic sanctions against Israel, urged nations to review their arms policies toward the Jewish state, and declared that Iraq had a right to collect compensation from the Israelis. When Haig received a copy of the draft in Peking, according to the aides, he scribbled a note to Kirkpatrick telling her that the U.S. could not vote for such a resolution. The aides contended that she succeeded only in persuading the Iraqis to abandon the call for sanctions.

But after Haig telephoned Iraqi Foreign Minister Saadoun Hammadi from Manila, claimed his aides, the Iraqis also consented to drop the arms policies provision and soften the call for damages, thereby allowing the U.S. to vote for the resolution.

Both the Times and the Journal carried accounts of the criticisms implying that the aides had been speaking with Haig's knowledge and approval. Vacationing in Saint-Remy, France, Kirkpatrick declared she was "surprised and hurt" about the attack on her performance. She insisted that in her negotiations with the Iraqis she had followed a National Security Council directive approved by Haig and Reagan. She contended that she never supported a resolution calling for sanctions or a review of arms policies toward Israel; she acknowledged that Haig had called Hammadi, but only after the negotiations had ended. Furthermore, Kirkpatrick claimed she talked at least twice a day with either Haig or Acting Secretary of State Walter Stoessel as well as with National Security Adviser Richard Allen. "I was determined not to be involved in an agreement which, once it was concluded, the President was going to say, 'Oh gee, she shouldn't have done that,' " Kirkpatrick told TIME. "If there had been any more communication, we would have had to have an open telephone line."

Annoyed by the newspaper accounts, Reagan called Kirkpatrick to reassure her that, as one White House aide put it, he was "very pleased" with her work on the resolution. Haig also telephoned her to apologize. At a hastily called press conference, the Secretary declared: "Any such statements by my aides are misinformed or they have been misinterpreted."

Was Haig indeed upset over Kirkpatrick's conduct? Or did his aides take their potshots at the Ambassador to glorify their own boss? Though Haig's role in springing the leaks remains murky, his aides may only have been trying to reflect the Secretary's pique at not winning more credit for helping to negotiate the U.N. resolution. Ever since Haig landed in Peking two weeks ago, Fischer and Burt had been playing up his bargaining efforts to reporters, to foster the image of a Secretary of State in charge of his own department while halfway around the globe. Both aides are experienced newsmen: Fischer was a TIME correspondent for 16 years, while Burt formerly worked for the New York Times. In their meeting with two reporters at the Wellington bar, Burt kept slipping in digs at Kirkpatrick and White House aides. The pair also got at least one key fact wrong: Fischer later admitted that Haig had not called Hammadi during the negotiations, but only after the resolution had been hammered out.

Until now Haig and Kirkpatrick appeared to work well together. The Secretary called her for advice once or twice a day, and Kirkpatrick thought she enjoyed excellent access to Haig. "He said to me at the beginning, 'Don't forget, I'm at the other end of the telephone,' " she told TIME. "He has been at the other end of the telephone, and when I have a question, I call him up." Hand-picked by Reagan for the U.N. job, Kirkpatrick is viewed by some State Department officials, however, as an ideologue with her own lines of communication into the White House. (As a full-ranking Cabinet officer, she reports to the President and the National Security Council as well as to Haig.) She is also especially close to Allen, of whom Haig is no fan. As one official put it, Kirkpatrick suffers from a tendency "to run her own mini-State Department in New York."

Judged by her colleagues at the U.N., Kirkpatrick wins only mixed grades. A former professor of political science at Georgetown University, she tends to lecture fellow delegates and has indicated little interest in grasping the way the U.N. really works. So stubborn is she on occasion that some diplomats have dubbed her "Mrs. Nyet." Nonetheless, her success in helping to negotiate the U.N. resolution condemning Israel has stirred hopes on the East River that she may yet master the art of diplomacy. Says one ambassador: "It does show that she is educable.''

--By James Kelly.

Reported by Peter Stoler/New York and Gregory H. Wierzynski with Haig

With reporting by Peter Stoler/New York and Gregory H. Wierzynski with Haig

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