BURT, THE NEW-WAVE DIPLOMAT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000201720004-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 19, 2012
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: February 28, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/19: CIA-RDP90-06965R000201720004-9
.,?EARED
WASHINGTON POST
28 February 1986
Burt, the New- Wave Diplomat
Rocking the Siaid \Xesl Germans, the \oung U.S. Ambassador Launches a m Offensive
By William Drozdiak
W.nhwKlnn I'n,f Rire IMII 15I H.t'
BONN-In the Bohemian quarter of West
Berlin known as Kreuzberg, where
avant-garde artists and Turkish migrant
workers enjoy cheap rents and tree-spirited
life styles flush against the Wall, a local band
called the Subtones was belting out a few
tunes from the 1960s when an American fan
asked if.he could sit in,
Seizing the microphone in the recording
studio with relish, the United States ambassa-
dor to West Germany, Richard R. Burt, let
down his premature gray hair and wailed
some favorite oldies such as "Teenager in
Love" and "Tell Me" with backup help from
group singer Pommy Laniour.
Later, after a round of beer and reminis-
cences about the music of the Doors and Jimi
Hendrix, Burt was presented by his hosts
with a tape of the impromptu jam session.
"I'm going to play this to my wife all day
long," the envoy gushed with a touch of pride.
Said Gahl Hodges Burt with a grimace: "I'll
buy myself some earplugs."
The foray into Berlin's rock scene was not
atypical for the brash young arms control
expert, whose enthusiasm for heavy metal
sounds is well known to his Washington
friends, with whom he used to frequent Club
Soda, the rock revival spot in Cleveland Park.
And once, while attending a Dire Straits
concert in the divided city, Burt was whisked
backstage to meet guitarist Mark Knopfler,
one of his musical idols. After a friendly chat
the young ambassador gave the rock star a
copy of "Deadly Gambits," the book by'Ti
magazine's Washington bureau chief Sti'obi
Talbott that describes the nuclear policy bat;
ties in President Reagan's first term waged
primarily between Burt and his Pentagon
rival Richard Perle. -
West Germany's staid diplomatic circuit
rarely has endured such a generation shoc
occurred last September, when the septua.
genarian Arthur Burns was replaced by Burt,
still in his thirties, to run what is considered
America's largest and most important embas=sy in continental Western Europe.
Burns was revered by his peers and the
Germans alike as a modern-day Nestor who
exuded sagacity and discretion. His fondest
passions were economics, classical music and
his own oil paintings, which decorated the
sprawling ambassadorial residence on the
banks of the Rhine.
While acting as her husband s
unofficial adviser, and occasionally
curbing his rock fantasies, Gahl also
gets to share in some of the more
rewarding aspects of diplomatic life.
Both of them count the release of
Soviet dissident Anatoly Shcharan-
sky on Feb. 11 as one of the most
moving events in which they have
participated.
Burt was a pivotal figure in early
soundings about negotiating
Shcharansky's freedom as assistant
secretary for European affairs, and
when lie became ambassador in
Bonn he became intimately involved
in the delicate dealings among
Washington, Bonn and East Berlin
that culminated in the dramatic
events on Berlin's Glienicke Bridge.
Burt recalled being struck by
Shcharansky's remarkable good
humor and open-minded view of life
as he escorted him off the bridge
and into a limousine. When they
arrived at Tempelhof military air-
port, where Shcharansky would
depart on a plane to meet his wife
whom he had not seen since the (lay
after their wedding in 1974, Gahl
Burt offered the freed dissident a
gift of wine and fruit. He tore open
the package and began devouring
the strawberries, expressing aston-
ishment over their size and fresh-
ness. Later, when their plane was
halted on takeoff because of frozen
brakes, Shc:haransky turned to Burt
and said with a twinkle in his eye:
"American technology? I thought
this only happened in the Soviet
Union."
The job as United States ambas-
sador to West Germany has been
described as one of the most elabo-
rate postings in diplomacy. In addi-
'tion to duties as envoy to Bonn, he
acts as the chief American repre-
sentativc in West Berlin, where the
United States shares ultimate gov-
erning authority as one of three
western allied powers responsible
for the city. The Bonn ambassador
also serves as ranking civilian lead-
er for more than 200,000 American
troops stationed in West Germany
and Berlin.
"if you are not careful the job will
run you," Burt says when asked
RICHARD BURT
what is The most d itticuit part of the
ambassador's post. "You have to
depend on people to give you good
advice on how to spend your-time."
His route to the ambassadorship
was sometimes circuitous. In 1977,
Burt was assistant director of the
International Institute for Strategic
Studies in London and started to
write newspaper "think pieces." By
`1979, he was the New York Times'
national security affairs reporter
and well on his way to becoming
controversial. lie infuriated U.S.
intelligence sources when he wrote
a story in June J~M about a Norwe-
gian site under consideration to
replace Iranian listening posts and
U2 flights over Turkey as one
means of verif in Soviet coin Ti-
ance with the SALT treaty.
"You don't have to read anything
less juvenile than Richard Burt to
see Zbigniew Brzezinski's lips move
while Burt writes," State Depart-
ment spokesman Nodding Carter
told The Boston Globe in July 1980.
(Carter said recently his opinion of
Burt has changed since then. "He's
in a different world now, on the
operating side. He's obviously per-
forming very well now," Carter
said.)
STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/19: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201720004-9