PLAYING THE U.N. GAME WITH GUSTO

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00418R000100390006-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 14, 2012
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: May 30, 1988
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
5 I Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/14: CIA-RDP99-00418R000100390006-4
Time
Playing the U. N. Game U.S. News & World Report
with Gusto
SUMMARY: Vernon Walters comes well-prepared to be ambassador to
the United Nations and President Reagan'b chief diplomatic
troubleshooter. A retired general, a linguist and an Irrepressible
raconteur, Walters"s wide experience Includes serving U.S. leaders fbr
more than 40 years, often In roles requiring discretion. His style as
ambassador Is far dill rent from that of his predecessor, leans
Kirkpatrick, and ho draws darts from some of her proteges.
United States-bashing at this modem-
day tower of Babel, the United Na-
tions, is on the wane, surfacing
only now and again in speeches by particu-
larly antagonistic delegates, says a satisfied
Ambassador Vernon A. Walters. "The last
time I heard the old kind of hellfire rhetoric
was from a North Korean.... He says the
U.S. goes around the world ravaging,
smashing, destroying governments, bum-
ing, raping, murdering:' the globe-trotting
diplomatic troubleshooter recounts. "Dur-
ing the speech, I get a note from the Italian
delegate that says: 'Now I know what you
do when you travel: "
Keeping tabs on the whereabouts of
Vernon "Dick" Walters, who continues to
be sent by President Reagan on sensitive
missions to foreign lands even as he serves
in the high-visibility post of U.N. envoy, is
a popular pastime for journalists and other
information junkies who want to figure
where news will likely break next. Trouble
is, despite his 6-foot-3 height, his wide
girth and his unmistakable Brooklynese, it
is tough to tail the shadowy Walters, who
still adheres to the idea from his CIA days
that the best cover is quick and un-
announced movement.
Only later, for example, did it come to
light that Walters may have been in Fiji
before and during last year's coup d'etat, as
ousted Prime Minister Timoci Bavadra
contended in calling for a congressional
investigation. The charge is the latest to
underscore the sometimes curious role in
foreign policy played by the retired three-
star Army general over the course of an
extraordinary 47-year career in government
as top-level aide, soldier and spy.
The latest sighting of the peripatetic
Walters was at the end of April, on a whirl-
wind tour of 13 Latin American countries
that sent off ripples of speculation that
Washington was seeking regional support
for a new move against Panama's Gen.
Manuel Antonio Noriega.
Date
He was back at the U.S. Mission in New
York for a week in early May, where he sat
for an interview in his office, which is filled
with the memorabilia that tell his life story:
autographed photos from the six presidents
he has served, flags from most of the 130
countries he has visited as a Reagan emis-
sary, strange lime green and baby blue arti-
facts from obscure corners of the world
most people would not know even exist. "I
went to Africa in March and tried to pick
up a few I've missed. Guinea, Principe,
Burkina Faso, Benin.... I still haven't hit
Gambia:"
Then Walters was off again, this time to
the Middle East, part of an ongoing U.S.
effort to resolve the Iran-Iraq War. "I'm
going to all the countries in the Gulf region,
Israel, Egypt, Iraq, Iran - no, not Iran. To
the Iranians, I'm a satanic viper;" he says
in the slightly bemused tone of a U.N.
veteran.
Name-calling does not seem to test the
patience of the unflappable Walters. Nei-
ther does the virulent anti-Americanism,
the bloated bureaucracy, the hypocrisy, the
sense of impotence - all the qualities that
led his predecessors to call the United Na-
tions everything from a "dangerous place"
(Daniel Patrick Moynihan) to a "Turkish
steam bath" (Jeane J. Kirkpatrick).
After all, life at the United Nations can-
not be more of a challenge than, say, ac-
companying President Harry S. Truman to
Wake Island to fire Gen. Douglas A. Mac-
Arthur in 1951; refereeing, in fluent Span-
ish and with a mouthful of glass, when an
angry mob attacked Vice President Richard
M. Nixon's limousine in Caracas, Venezu-
ela, in 1958; smuggling Secretary of State
Henry A. Kissinger in and out of Paris 15
times for secret talks with the Chinese and
Vietnamese; serving as deputy CIA direc-
tor at the height of the Watergate scandal;
or, more recently, helping secure the re-
lease of American hostages from Shiite
militants in Beirut.
r"s^.ttt:d
Page
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a.
Says Walters: "Many of the things I did
I can't talk about. One of them is getting
people out of jail. It's the kind of thing you
can't talk about if you ever want to do it
again" But, pausing, he says: "I've been to
Damascus four times on the hostages. One
month after the last time I went, Mr.
[Charles] Glass escaped. His chains sud-
denly fell off. The last time I know of that
happening was with St. Peter, when he was
in prison in Rome."
In spite of the discretion his duties have
demanded, the gregarious name-dropper
regales all who cross his path with a leg-
endary stock of stories. "He has the history
of the world at his fingertips;" says Ambas-
sador Herbert S. Okun, Walters's deputy.
"He's an institution himself." Even so, Wal-
ters reveals precious little of substance: he
calls the tactic "constructive ambiguity."
Hence the title of Walters's 1978 auto-
biography, "Silent Missions;" in which he
writes of translating for President Eisen-
hower and Charles de Gaulle as they spoke
in their bathrobes at Rambouillet Castle
near Paris, of accompanying W. Averell
Harriman to meetings with Iran's Premier
Mohammad Mosaddeq just before he was
overthrown by Mohammad Reza Pahlavi,
of wiring to Washington details about the
Brazilian coup led by Gen. Humberto Cas-
telo Branco the week before it happened.
Still, an air of mystery surrounds these
and other Walters escapades.
That is probably because a conversation
with him leaves little room for probing
questions. It is more like listening to a
coruscating Bob Hope monologue: He
knows just when to pause, when to deliver
the punch line. He waits for the inevitable
laugh. a sly smile emerges from his capa-
cious jowls, and he charges off on another
topic without missing a beat.
"The Soviets are experiencing very se-
rious internal problems;" Walters starts off
somberly. "There's a man in the Soviet
Union who has been paying for an automo-
bile for three years and one day he finally
gets a call from the dealer. The man gets
very excited and asks the dealer when the
car will be delivered. The dealer tells him
Dec. 7, 1992. The man asks, 'In the mom-
ing or the afternoon'?' The dealer says,
'Why do you want to know?' And the man
answers, 'Because the plumber is coming
in the morning.'
"Let me tell you a Soviet story about
how glasnost works," he continues. 'A man
goes to the corner stand to buy a kvass [a
popular Soviet drink] and notices that the
price has gone up to I ruble from 50 ko-
pecks. He asks the proprietor why. The
proprietor says, '50 kopecks for the kvass,
50 kopecks for glasnost.' So the man hands
over a ruble and receives 50 kopecks in
change. 'Why the change?' the man asks.
And the proprietor says. 'We're out of
kvass. "
His gift for languages - Spanish, Por-
tuguese, French, German, Dutch, Russian,
Italian and numerous dialects thereof -
and his close-up look at scores of the
world's leaders have enabled him to perfect
imitations of such disparate characters as
Pope John Paul U, the late Gen. Francisco
Franco, Fidel Castro and Augusto Pinochet
Ugarte.
Walters says that his linguistic abilities
- acquired at schools in England and
France before he dropped out at 16, and
then back in his native New York as an
insurance claims adjuster in the city's eth-
nic enclaves - launched his career. But he
is sensitive to criticism that he has been
little more than 'America's top messenger
boy," as The New Republic once put it.
Though Walters has never held a policy-
making position in government, he is cer-
tainly more than just a courier.
Reagan brought him out of a comfort-
able retirement in Palm Beach, Fla., to be
his roving representative in 1981. Walters
made forays to Latin American military
dictatorships to explain that democratiza-
tion and human rights improvements had to
accompany normalized relations with the
United States. Many analysts believe the
message carried clout coming from a man
known as "the general" rather than from a
striped-pants type. He also visited Africa,
working to strengthen ties with Sudan,lir-
nisia and Morocco and to isolate Libya.
Often, Walters trades on a personal con-
nection. He has known King Hassan II of
Morocco since World War U, when he gave
the 13-year-old prince a ride in an Amer-
ican tank. He has close ties to Brazil's
military, having once been a tentmate of
Castelo Branco in Italy. But even at a first
meeting, Walters is convivial and disarm-
ing, speaking Portuguese and handing out
chocolate bars in talks with Angola's Marx-
ist President Jose Eduardo dos Santos and
impressing Castro so much that he regret-
ted Walters was an opponent.
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When Walters began lobbying for the
U.N. post ("I guess I lusted after it in my
heart"), some said he had finally tired of
his surreptitious style and wanted a turn in
the limelight. "I held a press conference
when I was nominated, and the question
about operating in the shadows came up.
And I said, 'Look, I have two footlockers
full of speeches I made as deputy director
of central intelligence. I've never traveled
under a false name, with a false passport
and, unlike some of the people in this
room, I've never registered in a hotel under
a false name.' That was the last question I
had on that particular subject:'
Now, he is free to talk about his work.
"The most important thing I could do here
is help end the Gulf war," he says. "We're
trying to get agreement on an amts em-
bargo against Iran, but it's an uphill fight.
All we're trying to do is stop the killing.
... They won't miss them now, but in 15
years, they'll weep for this lost generation:"
Invoking a favorite locution, he continues:
"Look, I've been to war. I know what war
is lik- It's not just an abstract thing tome"
(He Pis stationed in North Africa and Italy
during World War II, and in Greece during
the civil war, he served in both Korea and
Vietnam.)
Abstractions do not preoccupy this man.
His most satisfying moment, he says, was
the resolution condemning the Soviet occu-
pation of Afghanistan, which passed in the
last session by a 125-19 vote, the most
support the resolution has ever attracted.
Another high point was his successful ef-
fort earlier this year to secure a visit by a
U.N. human rights inspection team to
Cuba, a move that was defeated by one vote
last year.
Even if he were more lithe, Walters
would have had trouble filling the shoes of
predecessor Kirkpatrick, the tough-talking
academic who raised hackles in the United
Nations and acquired star status in conser-
vative circles with her ringing defense of
the West. Many in the United Nations,
however, think Walters has the better touch
for the job. Kirkpatrick herse:f once be-
moaned the fact that she was an "intellec-
tual in a world of bureaucrats:'
Walters has never claimed to be a tow-
ering intellectual figure, and with his prized
reputation as a fixer, he is no ideologue.
The social milieu of the United Nations,
which Kirkpatrick spurned, suits his talents
as a masterly raconteur. "If you're the
American, and you don't go to some recep-
tion, they read something into it you may
not intend:"
He spends much of his time schmooz-
ing, even with the Soviets and the Nicara-
guans. 'About the only ones [ don't talk to
are the Iranians and the Libyans. You have
to lobby."
"He genuinely likes people:' says Okun.
"He's one of the most gifted linguists alive.
He knows these countries, the geography
and the ethnic differences. He's curious and
has a youthful enthusiasm. And he tends to
know more about foreign countries than the
specialists on the staff:"
Walters, in short, is playing the
U.N. game with gusto. Which
is precisely what riles the Kirk-
patrick proteges, who see the fissures be-
tween the two ambassadors as a matter of
principle, not, as Walters says with a dis-
missive scowl, "style and personality."
"My impression is that the overall posi-
tion of the U.S. Mission has deteriorated:'
says Ambassador Charles M. Lichenstein,
Kirkpatrick's former deputy. "Walters de-
fers too much to the career Foreign Service
people around him. And he's always away.
When we were there, we tried to get the
principal interests of U.S. policy on the
U. N. ? rida. We tried to find ways of
asserting ourselves:'
Now the director of the United Nations
Assessment Project at the Heritage Foun-
dation, Lichenstein has just completed an
analysis of voting patterns in the 42nd Gen-
eral Assembly, which ended in December.
"The coincidence of voting with the United
States fell to an historic low, 18.6 percent,"
he says. "That's a 27 percent drop over the
previous year."
Ambassador Alan L. Keyes, another
former Kirkpatrick deputy who resigned as
assistant secretary of state for international
organizations last fall, notes that the coinci-
dence figure fell "even though the U.S.
took weaker stands, fewer no votes and
more abstentions:" Keyes, now a resident
scholar at the American Enterprise Insti-
tute, thinks this was particularly evident in
resolutions dealing with Israel. According
to Keyes, U.S. "principled opposition to
the use of the Security Council as an anti-
Israel bludgeon has lapsed:"
3%.
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y
Walters says gaining support for U.S.
positions has been made difficult because
"my entire tenure has taken place against
the backdrop of a U.S. refusal to pay its
dues;' a move by Congress to extract a
series of reforms from the world body. The
United Nations and its associated agencies
spend about $4.5 billion a year, the United
States pays 25 percent of that, more than
twice what the Soviets pay and the equiv-
alent of what the entire Third World pays.
Yet the 159-member General Assembly,
under a one-nation, one-vote system, con-
trols how the money is spent. The idea of
withholding dues was to get the body to
adopt a voting system on budgets weighted
in accord with how much a country contrib-
utes financially.
Walters has successfully lobbied the
White House to release more than half of
the dues. "We did get some of the reforms,"
he says. "A budget must now be approved
by consensus [giving each member veto
power]. A hiring freeze and a 15 percent
personnel cut is in place. And for the first
time we have a budget this year that is
smaller in real terms than the last one:'
Walters's efforts in turning the U.S. spigot
back on also have drawn fire from people
such as Keyes, who dismisses the U.N.
reforms as "business as usual:'
Okun says that Walters has chosen a less
confrontational tack in pursuing U.S. inter-
ests. "He is an internationalist, a man of
alliances. He went to Europe to administer
the Marshall Plan. He wants to place us
back into a role of world leadership."
Says Walters: "My instructions from the
president were to reform it, not wreck it.
As an old soldier, I don't like to give up
ground by default. I like to stay and fight."
Certainly, he is not squishy in dealing with
U.S. adversaries. Asked about the flag of
South Vietnam displayed in his office, Wal-
ters calls it "unfinished business:"
On his availability to undertake silent
missions for future presidents, Walters is
typically circumspect. "I would like to say
I will retire and settle down,' he says, "but,
you know, I tempt easily:'
- David Brock in New York
act.
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