AMERICA'S TOP MESSENGER BOY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504280002-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 11, 2012
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: September 16, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
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ARTICLE APT NEW REPUBLIC
RED
ON PAGE 16 E 23 September 1985
The odd career of our new man at the United Nations.
AMERICA'S TOP MESSENGER BOY
BY MICHAEL MASSING
THE SENATE confirmation hearing last May for Ver-
non A. Walters, nominated to replace Jeane Kirkpat-
rick as ambassador to the United Nations, lasted exactly 48
minutes. Most of them were given over to flattery and
deference. Democrat Joseph Biden, for one, could hardly
contain himself: "I have only been here going on 13
years," he said, "and I think you are about the most fasci-
nating guy who has ever appeared before us.... You are
a man of extraordinarily broad range. Yours is a career that
is something the novelists make up." Walters's nomina-
tion sailed through without dissent.
This was the fifth confirmation hearing in Walters's long
career, and all have been equally pro forma. Vernon
"Dick" Walters, now 68 years old, commands respect. He
was with Harriman in Paris at the birth of the Mar-
shall Plan, with Truman at Wake Island when he con-
fronted MacArthur, with Nixon when his car was attacked
Michael Massing wrote "CBS Under Siege" in the May 6
issue of TNR. He writes frequently on foreign affairs.
by angry mobs in Venezuela. He smuggled Henry Kissin-
ger in and out of Paris during his secret talks with the
Chinese and North Vietnamese. And, as deputy director
of the CIA from 1972 to 1976, he was one of the few Nixon
appointees to emerge from Watergate with his reputation
intact.
Over the last four years Walters has traveled to 108
countries in his job as ambassador-at-large for the Reagan
administration. From Mengistu Haile Mariam to the pope,
Walters undertook the administration's most sensitive
diplomatic missions. When Roberto d'Aubuisson threat-
ened to get out of hand in El Salvador, it was Walters who
went to straighten him out. And when Fidel Castro ex-
pressed his willingness to talk with the United States, it
was Walters who was dispatched to meet him.
Personally as well as professionally, Walters seems larg-
er than life. Fluent in seven foreign languages, he has
frequently been called on to translate for presidents. On
visiting a foreign land, Walters has been known to arrive
early and ride the buses for a day in order to pick up the
01"
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local dialect. He is a lifelong bachelor and devout Catholic Vernon Walters was born in New York City in 1917. At
who never skips Sunday Mass. His talents as'a raconteur the age of six he moved with his family to France and then
are well known, and his engaging personality has won Britain, where he gained proficiency in French, Spanish,
him friends of all political persuasions. Italian, and German. Returning to the U.S. as a teenager,
Most remarkable of all is Walters's durability. He is Walters had to drop out of school to help with his father's
now entering his fifth decade of government service. Wal- insurance business. Years of clerkdom stretched ahead of
ters always seems to surface in some capacity, be it trans- him when World War II intervened. In the Army, Wal-
lator, envoy, soldier, or spy. "He's indestructible," says ters's language skills gained him admission to officers'
Thomas Powers, the author of The Man Who Kept the school and then assignment to an intelligence unit. He
Secrets, a history of the CIA. "He's been a workhorse for eventually ended up in Italy, where General Mark Clark,
so many administrations. They feel free to call on him impressed with his language mastery, made him his staff
to do just about anything." Powers sees Walters as a aide.
modern-day courtier, a person whom rulers can count From there Walters's rise has a storied quality about
on to do unpleasant "housekeeping" chores in a loyal, it. In 1945 Major Walters was assigned to Brazil as assist-
uncomplaining manner. Richard Helms, one of Walters's ant Army attache. When General Marshall came for a visit,
bosses at the CIA, observes, "As Harriman once said, Walters translated for him. Marshall subsequently recom-
'I may not agree with him, but he's loyal and always mended him to Averell Harriman, who took him to Paris
does as he's asked.' " He adds that Walters "is an to assist in administering the Marshall Plan. When Harri-
accomplished linguist and a very bright fellow, but he's man returned to Washington two years later, Walters
not a policymaker." Indeed, through 40 years of govern- went with him. In Washington his knowledge of lan-
ment service, Walters has never held a policy-making guages came to the attention of Eisenhower, who took
post. him as his translator on a 1951 tour of Europe. Through-
As U.N. ambassador, he at last has a podium for his out the 1950s he accompanied Eisenhower on all of his
own views, and the world may be startled by what it trips'abroad. In 1960 Walters, by then a colonel, became
hears. Vernon Walters may be a man of many tongues, but Army attache in Italy; two years later he was posted
the language he speaks best is the language of the cold to Brazil.
war.
IT WAS TO BE an eventful assignment. President
T 0 UNDERSTAND Vernon Walters, there's no better Joao Goulart, a left-leaning populist and nationalist,
place to begin than his memoirs. Silent Missions, pub- seemed determined to enact far-reaching social and eco-
lished in 1978, is surely one of the most extraordinary nomic reforms. This distressed many Brazilian military
political autobiographies ever written. Not for the insights officers, who by early 1964 began plotting Goulart's over-
it offers into contemporary history or world politics- throw. Walters, who had excellent contacts within the
there's little of that-but for the cascade of details it pours Brazilian military, kept in close touch with the conspir-
forth. Walters is by nature a garrulous man, and in these ing officers. So close that in the week before the coup,
630 pages he recounts virtually every unclassified act to he wired precise details back to Washington, accurately
have befallen him, from negotiating with Mossadegh in predicting the day on which the golpe was to begin
Iran to losing a cat in Vichy. (March 31, 1964). The coup's leader was General Hum-
The great figures of postwar history parade through berto Castelo Branco, a very close friend of Walters;
the book, their every gesture recorded for posterity. the two had been floor-mates in Italy in World War II.
When Walters is laid up in the hospital, Eisenhower Walters had lunch with the general the day after his
sends flowers and helps him get a private room. When inauguration.
Jacqueline Kennedy waits for a plane connection at the All of which has led to widespread charges that Walters
Rome airport, Walters is there to keep her company. A helped instigate the coup. "He was the linchpin, the one
whole chapter is devoted to de Gaulle, recounting every person all the officers would talk to while they were still
conference and state dinner at which the two men met. afraid to talk with one another," says Jan Knippers Black,
We even learn of the mementos de Gaulle bestows on author of the book United States Penetration of Brazil (1977),
Walters: a cigarette case on one occasion, a lighter on which is highly critical of U.S. policy. Walters denies this,
another. maintaining that he did only what his job required, which
By far the most ubiquitous presence in the book, was to gather information. "What advice could an Ameri-
though, is Walters's mother, who lived with him until she can colonel give to Brazilian generals who'd overthrown
died in 1964. When Walters calls on the pope, he takes his two governments in the previous five years?" he asks. "I
mother along. On one occasion, Laura Walters causes a was a well-informed observer, not a participant." He says
crisis by sending her son's only wing collar to the laundry that of the many documents from the period that have
hours before he is due at a formal dinner. And, when been declassified, "not one shows any participation by
Walters is transferred from Washington to a NATO job in me."
France, he writes that "as usual I left my mother behind to Those same documents do show that the United States
do all of the actual work of moving and flew to Paris." fully backed the coup and even drew up contingency
NOW
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3.
plans to intervene if necessary. In the end, whether Wal-
ters simply reported on the coup or actually helped foment
it is probably a moot point. Even assuming that he exer-
cised remarkable self-restraint and did not communicate
Washington's approval of the coup, his presence was
probably enough to reassure the plotters. Either way, Wal-
ters was simply carrying out U.S. government policy.
Within a year of the coup, he was promoted to brigadier
general.
Once the coup had succeeded, Walters did not conceal
his joy. Arthur Schlesinger Jr. recalls meeting Walters at
Harriman's estate soon
after Goulart's over-
throw. "He was so
pleased with the
coup," says Schlesing-
er. "He seemed ex-
treme in his views of
Goulart. Goulart was
a sometimes radical
demagogue, but Wal-
ters thought he was an
agent of international
communism." Even in
1978, after Brazil had
undergone years of re-
pression, Walters had
only praise for the
coup: "A regime basi-
cally unfriendly to the
United States had been
replaced by another
one much more friend-
ly. Some may regard
this as bad. I do not. I
am convinced that if
the revolution had not
occurred, Brazil would
have gone the way of
Cuba.... We would
have had another Gu-
lag archipelago."
In 1%7 Walters re-
ceived a plum assign-
ment-military attache in Paris. But he wasn't happy. As
he explains in his memoirs, it would have been "intoler-
able" for him "to go straight from the cocktail circuit
in Rio de Janeiro to the cocktail circuit in Paris,"
especially with the Vietnam War in progress. So he
made a detour to see that conflict firsthand. He was
there only slightly more than a month, and from his
own account, he seems to have spent most of his
time flying in and out of battle zones-camera in hand-
inspecting the damage after some fierce battle or other.
For Walters, Vietnam was a "battlefield of freedom,"
"one of the noblest and most unselfish wars in which
the United States had ever participated." Despite the
brevity of his stay in Vietnam, Walters was promptly pro-
moted to major general. Then it was off to Paris for
cocktails.
After five years in France-highlighted by Henry
Kissinger's 15 secret missions-Walters returned to Wash-
ington in 1972 to become deputy director of the CIA.
No sooner had he been installed than Watergate began
to explode. In June the FBI's investigation of the
burglary threatened to expose the White House connec-
tion, and Nixon decided to enlist the CIA's help in
calling off the bureau. Walters was chosen for the
job because, as John Dean later told the Senate
Watergate Committee,
"he was a good
friend of the White
House and the White
House had put him in
as deputy director so
that they might have
some influence over
the agency." Nixon's
chief of staff, H. R.
Haldeman, told Wal-
ters that the FBI's
probe could expose
sensitive operations in
Mexico and that he
should instruct the bu-
reau to back off. Wal-
ters complied. Soon af-
ter, Walters checked
out the White House
story and found it
wasn't true. Sensing a
cover-up, he refused to
cooperate further with
the president's men,
turning down a request
that the CIA post the
burglars' bail. Walters
won praise for his per-
formance, and in 1973
received a CIA medal
for withstanding exter-
nal pressure.
Walters spent much of his time at the agency co-
ordinating CIA liaison with foreign intelligence agencies;
as part of his duties, he received more than 50 chiefs
of foreign intelligence services on their visits to Washing-
ton. One of the organizations he dealt with was DINA,
Chile's dreaded secret police. Walters has acknowledged
that, as part of his normal liaison activities, he twice re-
ceived DINA's head, Manuel Contreras, on his visits to
Washington.
The connection came to light after two DINA agents
assassinated Orlando Letelier, Chile's foreign minister
under Salvador Allende. In the summer of 1976 Walters
traveled to Paraguay to negotiate the release of a
CIA agent from jail. A few weeks later two DINA agents
dial
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bearing false passports showed up in Paraguay requesting
U.S. visas. Their stated mission: to investigate Chilean
exiles living in the U.S. The agents said they intended
to contact Walters once they arrived in Washington. The
U.S. ambassador in Paraguay sent Walters a cable inquir-
ing about the mission. Walters, who had just retired
from the agency, replied that he knew nothing about
the Chileans and had no desire to see them. The
visas were denied. But the DINA agents managed to enter
the U.S. by other means and, in September 1976, they
successfully carried out their real mission-the murder of
Letelier.
THE TIMING of Walters's visit to Paraguay, plus the
DINA agents' use of his name, has raised suspicions,
especially among former associates of Letelier in Washing-
ton, that Walters knew in advance about the DINA mis-
sion. Walters dismisses such charges. He notes that he
met with FBI agents about the case and offered to take a
lie-detector test. He also met with the prosecutor in the
case, Assistant U.S. Attorney Eugene Propper. "He had
all the CIA records, all the files," says Walters. "Why
didn't he call me to testify?" Propper, now in private
practice in Washington, backs up Walters's account: "Wal-
ters had no connection to any of this. He was already out
of the agency."
Walters got a chance to comment on the assassination
in 1981 during a congressional hearing on Chile. Letelier,
he asserted, had been receiving money from the Cuban
intelligence service. Asked if Letelier had thus posed a
threat to Chile, Walters replied, "Well, I really can't say.
I think whoever did it thought so. You know, it was
like Talleyrand's remark to Napoleon after the murder of
the Duke of Enghien, whom Napoleon had kidnapped in
Germany.... He had brought him to Paris and he shot
him in the moat of the Castle of Vincennes. And Talley-
rand, who was an absolutely unscrupulous rascal and a
very wise man, was pouting and Napoleon said, 'Mr.
Talleyrand, you think it was a crime, don't you?' And
Talleyrand said, 'No, Your Majesty, it was worse. It was
a mistake.' I think if there was ever a mistake, it was
the killing of Orlando Letelier." The remark is vintage
Walters, in both its use of anecdote and its refusal to
pass moral judgment on an authoritarian ally, in this case
Pinochet's Chile.
After his retirement from the CIA in 1976, Walters
moved to Palm Beach, Florida. But he returned to
Washington after Ronald Reagan's victory to serve as
ambassador-at-large. Walters's connections and stature
made him, in many respects, a superb emissary. Leaders
on the left knew that when Walters came calling, they
had better listen. And leaders on the right were
more willing to hear out a former lieutenant general
than an effete foreign service type. Thus, Roberto
d'Aubuisson seems to have gotten the message when
Walters warned him not to knock off the U.S. ambassador
to El Salvador. And when U.S. relations with Spain be-
came strained, Walters was sent to meet with Socialist
premier Felipe Gonzalez and relieve the tension. Walters,
says one State Department admirer, is "a master
diplomat."
Perhaps nowhere did Walters's skills prove more useful
than in approaching the Latin American military govern-
ments that had become pariahs under Jimmy Carter. Wal-
ters undertook frequent goodwill missions to Argentina,
Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay. One of his objectives was to
help lift the arms embargoes that the U.S. under Carter
had imposed on the region's prime human rights offend-
ers. In March 1981, for instance, Walters told a House
.subcommittee of his opposition to sanctions against Chile.
As usual, Walters appealed to history to make his case: "I
was a very young man when Italy invaded Ethiopia and
the whole world banded together to apply sanctions to
Italy. They had no effect. I know of no case where sanc-
tions of any kind have ever influenced a government other
than to rally the people around the government even
though the government may have been unpopular at the
time." (This stand did not keep Walters from publicly
endorsing the U.S. trade embargo against Nicaragua in a
press conference last May.)
GUATEMALA WAS another frequent destination. In
1981 the regime of General Romeo Lucas Garcia was
generally regarded as the most repressive in the hemi-
sphere. From the start of Lucas's presidency in 1978, thou-
sands of Guatemalans had been killed by the security
forces; an estimated 400 people were slaughtered in Janu-
ary 1981 alone. Nonetheless, Walters visited Lucas three
times to express the administration's desire to restore mili-
tary aid. Privately, Walters told Lucas that a resumption of
assistance would require some improvement in his gov-
ernment's human rights record.
Publicly Walters held a rare press conference in May
1981 in Guatemala City. Speaking in Spanish, he told re-
porters that the United States wanted to help the Lucas
government defend "peace and liberty" and "the consti-
tutional institutions of this country against the ideologies
that want to finish off those institutions." Noting that it
was "not difficult to see which are our friends and which
are not," Walters promised that Washington would "stay
by the side of our allies." When asked about reports of
extensive political killings in the country, Walters replied
dismissively, "There will be human rights problems in the
year 3000 with the governments of Mars and the moon.
There are some problems that are never resolved."
Ambassador-at-large Walters was a regular visitor to
Africa as well. In northern Africa, Walters worked to
isolate Libya and to strengthen the administration's
ties with the region's pro-Western regimes-Nimeiry's
Sudan, Bourguiba's Tunisia, and especially Hassan's
Morocco. Walters had known King Hassan since World
War II, when he gave the 13-year-old prince a ride in
an American tank. Hassan is one of Washington's few
friends in the Arab world, and Walters frequently vis-
ited Rabat in an effort to keep it that way. He also
traveled to Algeria, seeking to draw that traditionally
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left-leaning country into the Western camp.
In southern Africa, Walters served as traveling sales-
man for the administration's "constructive engagement"
policy. He visited virtually all of the black "Front Line"
states, attempting to convince them to negotiate with
South Africa. Two visits he made to Angola in the summer
of 1982 throw some light on Walters's operating style. At
first glance, he might seem an odd choice for such a mis-
sion. After all, according to John Stockwell, a former CIA
employee who broke with the agency and wrote an ac-
count of the Angola campaign, In Search of Enemies, Wal-
ters had tried to enlist Brazilian and French help in the
CIA's unsuccessful effort in 1975 to install a pro-Western
government in Angola.
But Walters speaks Portuguese and knows the region,
and he was sent to talk with President Jose Eduardo
dos Santos and other high officials. His objective was
to convince Angola to enter a dialogue with South
Africa. Despite Walters's background, the Angolans were
impressed with his affability and fluency, according
to Gerald Bender, an Angola expert at the University
of Southern California who briefed Walters before his
meeting with dos Santos. Bender recalls that during Wal-
ters's stay, he handed out chocolate bars to everyone in
sight.
There was only one problem: shortly after he left, the
South Africans bombed an Angolan town. Within weeks,
they began their annual summer offensive. The Angolans
were livid, and Walters was never sent back to talk with
them. "The South Africans left Walters without any credi-
bility," says Bender. Did Walters know about the South
Africans' intentions? Bender doubts it. "Quite probably
the South Africans pulled the rug out from under him. He
acted strictly as a messenger boy. He presented what he
came with."
A AMBASSADOR to the United Nations, too, Vernon
Walters can be trusted to carry out the secretary of
state's instructions. His reputation for loyalty surely
helped him get the post. George Shultz, who became dys-
peptic whenever Jeane Kirkpatrick strayed from the reser-
vation, should enjoy much better digestion with Walters.
Still, the U.N. post requires a great deal of spontaneous
debate, and the world will no doubt have the opportunity
to hear Walters unbound.
Politically, Walters describes himself as "right of cen-
ter-midway between Lowell Weicker and Jesse Helms."
He becomes indignant whenever anyone questions the
Reagan administration's commitment to human rights:
"One of my principal purposes has been to remind people
all over the world about our attitude to human rights....
When I think of the number of trips I've made on human
rights matters, and then hear the Reagan administration
accused of callousness, it makes me angry." In Africa, in
fact, Walters has helped spring prisoners from the jails of
regimes of the left and right.
Frequently, however, Walters's pronouncements sound
distinctly Helmsian. The world of Silent Missions is full
of fanatical communists incessantly scheming to enslave
the free world. In discussing the events of May 1968 in
France, Walters saw parallels to Czechoslovakia, "where
the population had gone to sleep in a democracy and had
awakened in a Communist state." The Dominican Repub-
lic in 1%5 faced "a brutal Communist takeover," and the
U.S.-led invasion enabled the country "to find its way to
stable, orderly democratic government again." More gen-
erally, Walters remarked that "the Latin American mili-
tary are a stabilizing force and a block to the ambitions of
the Communists." This in 1978, when Chile, Argentina,
and Uruguay were locked in the vise of military
dictatorships.
TODAY, Walters maintains that Augusto Pinochet's
regime "is unquestionably the legitimate government
of Chile"; his last election, in 1980, was "fair and legiti-
mate." He does add "that doesn't mean I approve of what
he's doing." He has nothing but praise for Zairian presi-
dent Mobutu Sese Seko, whom Walters considers a good
friend (he attended Mobutu's most recent inauguration in
December), and who, he says, "has held his country to-
gether. That's no small achievement."
I asked Walters about Guatemala. "This country has not
solved its human rights problem," he said. "Its govern-
ment hasn't solved a lot of problems-schooling, housing,
hunger, human rights. Every government has to face
these things." Recalling his conversations with Lucas Gar-
cia, he said, "I told him there was no chance he would get
aid while he was killing bystanders, killing college profes-
sors and labor leaders. He didn't comply." So was the
"quiet diplomacy" favored by the administration effec-
tive? "In the long run, yes," said Walters. "The Guatema-
lan military realized it wouldn't get anywhere by killing
people. The military is beginning to understand. They're
not killing as many people as they did before." (In July The
New York Times reported that "Guatemala appears to still
have the worst incidence of human rights violations in
Central America." It quoted the archbishop of Guatemala
as saying that "the Army kills many people [including]
children.")
Delegates to the United Nations will find in Vernon
Walters the embodiment of a great American paradox. On
one hand, Walters is a gregarious, earnest, kindhearted
man. His image of America was fixed in World War II,
when GIs handed out chocolates to war-stricken Europe-
ans. Walters fervently believes in the principle of freedom
and will travel anywhere, anytime, to argue on its behalf.
In a sense, Walters represents the sense of decency and
fair play that lies at the core of the American character. But
he also reflects a less attractive side of the national charac-
ter. This America so fiercely opposes communism that it
seems forever ready to reinforce the status quo. It pro-
claims its support for nationalism and self-determination
so loudly that it feels free to intervene in order to preserve
them. In the name of freedom, this America makes com-
mon cause with dictators and despots. It is an unfortunate
message to send to the world.
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