But the National Security Adviser hangs tough
Zbigniew Brzezinski. For most Americans the name is still a tongue twister, but it has become well known nonetheless, just as the proud, ambitious and dynamic Polish-born professor hoped it would when Jimmy Carter appointed him White House National Security Adviser nearly four years ago. But with his fame has come more notoriety and criticism than he expected. Aside from the President himself, Brzezinski is the most controversial member of a highly controversial Administration. He is widely blamed for many of the troubles that have beset the U.S. since he came into office.
During a brief appearance at last month's National Democratic Convention in New York City, Brzezinski was booed by many of the delegates. Last week Brzezinski was the target of a scathing indictment by William H. Sullivan, former U.S. Ambassador to Tehran. In the latest round of one of Washington's favorite parlor games, "Who Lost Iran?" Sullivan pins the tail squarely on Brzezinski, accusing him of undermining diplomatic efforts to open contacts with the Ayatullah Khomeini and thus blunt the anti-Americanism of the revolutionary regime. Writing in the fall issue of Foreign Policy magazine, Sullivan also claims that Brzezinski first scuttled a U.S. plan to mediate between Khomeini and the Iranian armed forces, then tried to organize by remote control an anti-Khomeini military coup, even after the Shah had fled the country.
Citing the delicacy of ongoing efforts to secure eventual liberty for the hostages, Brzezinski refuses to respond point by point to Sullivan's bill of particulars. (Khomeini last week specified the conditions for freeing the 52 captives: the return of the Shah's fortune to Iran; release of Iranian funds now blocked in American banks; cancellation of U.S. claims against Iran; and guarantees that the U.S. will not interfere in Iranian affairs.) But in an interview with TIME last week, Brzezinski characterized the Sullivan charges as "totally self-serving." He also denied one charge that, if true, would be especially damning. Sullivan writes that in November 1978 Brzezinski dispatched Ardeshir Zahedi, then the Shah's envoy to Washington, on a fact-finding mission to Iran, thus circumventing and humiliating Sullivan, and that Brzezinski consulted with Zahedi every day over an open long-distance telephone line, with the Soviets presumably listening in. According to Brzezinski, however, Zahedi returned to Tehran on his own initiative and phoned only two or three times. "I have no regrets," says Brzezinski.
This week Brzezinski is preparing to defend another aspect of his performance during the Iran crisis, and he is scheduled to do so in an inquisitional setting that his predecessors have been spared. The White House has waived the Executive privilege that normally protects National Security Advisers from congressional summonses, and Brzezinski has agreed to testify before the special Senate Judiciary subcommittee investigating Billy Carter's ties with Libya.