Though his cool exterior showed no cracks, Secretary of State Warren Christopher was fed up with a series of insistent questions on Haiti from Jesse Helms, the conservative Republican. "Senator," Christopher said in his deadpan tone, "a few people have sometimes misunderstood my courtesy for a lack of resolve. But I think they've been sorry when they've made that mistake."
That may have been true in the boardrooms of Los Angeles, where Warren Christopher worked for decades as a highly successful lawyer, but it works less well in the Hobbesian jungle where U.S. foreign policy faces considerable challenges. Which ruthless leaders are actually sorry about mistaking Christopher's courtly bearing for lack of resolve? Not Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, whose forces are bombarding Sarajevo; not Haitian strongman Raoul Cedras, whose thugs are thumbing their nose at the U.S.; not General Mohammed Farrah Aidid, the clan boss ravaging Mogadishu.
Christopher and the other two members of the troika that helps run U.S. foreign policy -- Secretary of Defense Les Aspin and National Security Adviser Tony Lake -- share all the virtues in the Boy Scout Oath and then some: they are talented, intelligent, hardworking men who rarely backstab or second-guess one another. They argue correctly that they have done well enough on the issues that affect the country's most vital interests, including Russia, the Middle East, relations with Japan, and the future of NATO. It is also true that Bosnia, Somalia and Haiti are intricate problems with no easy solutions. Yet the U.S. performance in each of these countries has been marked by vacillating objectives, bad staff work and a reluctance by any of the trio to take the lead in shaping policy. And it is the mishandled episodes rather than the well-managed issues that create the image of a team out of its depth. Moreover, they work for a President who himself faces a steep learning curve on foreign policy and sometimes treats international issues as nuisances that keep him from dealing with priorities at home.
Last week, in what looked like a first effort to face the problem, the State Department's No. 2 man, Deputy Secretary Clifton Wharton, stepped down. It was not what it seemed. Wharton, a successful educator and investment executive, had never functioned as Christopher's policy deputy; he handled mostly organizational tasks. "Nice man, wrong job," says an Administration official. Christopher asked Wharton to take a less important post, and when details of their talk were leaked last week, Wharton resigned on the spot. But since he was not actually part of the policymaking, his departure is not a solution.
Under Secretary Christopher's stewardship, U.S. foreign policy is being questioned from Capitol Hill to capitals of the world, in editorial columns and on TV panel shows. Bosnia, Somalia and Haiti have become symbols of U.S. efforts going nowhere. Foreign leaders wonder at the passivity they detect in the U.S. and whether it will change when the next major crisis arrives, as it inevitably will. Public attention has focused on the trouble spots and the Administration's disorganized, amateurish response to them. Says a former U.S. diplomat: "The top levels don't know what they want to accomplish."