NEW MAN AT THE U.N.: GLOBAL TROUBLE-SHOOTER AND SKILLED LINGUIST

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000705970023-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 12, 2011
• Sequence Number: 23
• Publication Date: February 9, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000705970023-2
ON p~~F ~ 7P_ r NEW YORK TIMES
9 February 1985
New Man at the U.N.: Global ?'rouble-Shooter
and skilled Linguist
Global Trouble-Shooter
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
Special to The New York Timm
UNITED NATIONS, N.Y., Feb. 8 -
In "Silent Missions," his memoir, Gen.
Vernon A. Walters relates a conversa-
tion he had at a reception in 1964 with
the Soviet Ambassador to Brazil.
Man
in the
News
The Ambassador com-
plained to General Wal-
tem. then the United
States military attache in
Brazil, that Americans al-
ways wanted to speak English. Even
when they try to learn a foreign tongue,
he continued, they suffer because they
do not have the Slavs' ear for lan-
guages.
General Walters, a gifted linguist,
bluntly switched to Russian, asking
him if he would like to speak Portu-
guese instead. The Ambassador, insult-
ed, replied, "Walters, you may be good
soldier, but diplomat you are not."
Interpreter to Presidents
Now Vernon Anthony Walters, 68
years old, the 6-foot-3-inch former sol-
dier and Ambassador at Large, will
have the opportunity to prove his diplo-
matic skills as successor to Jeane J.
Kirkpatrick as chief American dele-
gate to the United Nations.
The highly visible, Cabinet-level job
will mean a new challenge for the man
who has made his reputation as a
global trouble-shooter who does not call
attention to himself. Gezieral Walters
speaks seven foreign languages, five of
them fluently, and has served part.
time as interpreter to five Presidents.
Of his outspoken predecessor, the
general said in a recent telephone in-
terview: "She's done a terrific job of
restoring the position of the United
States in the U.N. Everyone has a dif-
ferent style, but it's the same President
and basically the same policy."
Supporters of General Walters say'
they are confident he will bring both
candor and loyalty to the United Na-
tions job.
"He's been everywhere in the world,
speaks all the languages and can de-
bate very effectively, " said William E.
Colby, former Director of Central In-
telligence. "When he worked for me, he
was fearless in expressing his views
and totally loyal once a decision was
made. I used him as a total alter ego."
But critics assert that although he
has been effective when acting under
instructions, he has never been called
upon to craft policy or make major
policy judgments.
A practicing Roman Catholic and
fervent anti-Communist, he is also an
unabashed American flag-waver who
has called the Vietnam War "one of the
noblest and most unselfish wars" in
American history. He says his world
view is determined by what he calls his
"certain idea about the United States
- that it is the last best hope for man-
kind."
Human rights advocates, like Law-
rence Birns of the Council on Hemi-
spheric Affairs, a private study group,
have criticized what they characterize
as his lack of concern for human rights
abuses and his long history of warm
relations with extreme right-wing mill
tary governments, such as the Pin
Chet Government in Chile and Argenti-
na's former military junta.
Some rights advocates say they re-
call his response to a reporter's ques-
tion in 1981 on, Guatemala's poor
human rights record. He said: "There
are some problems that are never re-
solved. One has to define a solution that
respects a being's right to live without
fear. But as I see it, the best way to d
that is not to impose the ideas of one na-
tion on top of another."
Born in New York on Jan. 3,1917, the
youngest of three children, he attended
French and English Catholic schools
but dropped out at the age of 16 to work
in his British-born father's insurance
company.
He enlisted in the Army in 1941 and is
fond of telling friends: "Adolf Hitler,
did at least one good deed in his life. Hel
got me out of my father's insurance
company with my father's bless-
Within a year he was a second lieu-
tenant. As a bright aide who used his
linguistic abilities to befriend foreign
generals and diplomats, he rose rap-
idly through the ranks. In World War
II, he was assigned to be a liaison offi-
cer with the Brazilian forces fighting in
the United States Fifth Army in Italy
under Gen. Mark Clark. His language
abilities brought him to General
Clark's attention, and ultimately to the
attention of Gen. Alfred M. Gunther,
the Fifth Army's chief of staff. He was
aide-de-camp to General Clark during
the liberation of Rome.
From military attache in Rio de
Janeiro and Paris, he rose to become a
senior officer of the Defense Intelli-
gence Agency. After 35 years in the
service, he retired as a three-star gen-
eral.
Although he may not have made his-
tory himself, he has certainly seen it
firsthand. He served as W. Averell
Harriman's aide in the early years of
the cold war, accompanied_ President
Truman on his historic meeting with a
defiant Gen. Douglas MacArthur and
shuttled with President Eisenhower to
a series of summit meetings from
Geneva to White Sulphur Springs,'
W. Va.
As translator for Vice President
Nixon during his good-will tour of Latin
America in 1958, General Walters was
cut in the mouth by broken glass when
a mob stoned their car in Caracas.
Later, as military attache in Paris,
General Walters is remembered for
smuggling Henry A. Kissinger in and
out of France for clandestine meetings
with Le Due Tho of North Vietnam.
"He was great as our James Bond,
getting us in and out secretly, even giv-
ing us code names," said Winston
Lord, president of the Council on For-
eign Relations, who accompanied Mr.
Kissinger to the secret talks with the
Vietnamese.
Just weeks after becoming deputy di-
rectarof the . under rest ent f
Nixon. General Walters carried out
structions from the White House chief
of staff H. R. eman, to warn e
Y.E.I. that the Watergate investigation
could compro se t igence opera-
tions in Mexico. "It simply did not
occur to me that the chief of staff to the
President might be as me .W o
someting that was illegal or wrong," he
wrote in his memoirs.
He sat out a rter years, becom.
ing a private consultant, including
among his clients an American com-
pany interested in selling arms to Mo.
rocco. He gave up the lucrative work
when President Reagan offered him
the job of roving Ambassador in 1981.
Since then, General Walters has vis.
ited 100 countries and logged an aver-
age of 10,000 miles a week as the Rea-
gan Administration's chief trouble.
shooter.
A lifelong bachelor who does not
smoke, drinks little and has an ac-'
knowledged weakness for good choco.
lates, General Walters combines
straight talk with a raconteur's charm.
"I've always felt I could get more done
with no publicity," he said in the inter
view.
"This is further than I ever expected
to get," General Walters-said of his
new job. "Maybe I'm not so much of an
amateur as the Soviet Ambassador
thought I was."
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000705970023-2