The Kirkpatrick Mission: Diplomacy Without Apology

National Review, Dec 2, 1991 by Christopher M. Gacek

IN his classic history The Congress of Vienna, Sir Harold Nicolson, the British statesman and author, repeats Prince Metternich's self-assessment: "I am bad at skirmishes, but I am good at campaigns." Determination in the face of opposition is one of the qualities that great actors on the international stage, whether persons or nations, must possess in order to alter the course of world events. In our time, Jeane Kirkpatrick was such a political figure-one who recognized that politics is a struggle to impose one's values and ideas on the international system. It is a struggle that never ceases, that takes place on many levels, and that, despite diplomacy's politeness and blandishments, is founded on mankind's most savage instincts. To succeed in this arena, one must be good at campaigns, not just skirmishes.

To our good fortune, we now have a highly readable account of Mrs. Kirkpatrick's tenure as the permanent U.S. representative to the United Nations. Allan Gerson's The Kirkpatrick Mission is important not only for the insight it delivers into the character and political thought of a crucial figure in the first Reagan Administration, but also because it offers real reflection on the constraints on American foreign policy and, for that matter, the foreign policies of all states ! Mr. Gerson offers an exciting and rare account of the manner in which international law affects the conduct of foreign policy: that is, how precedents cited to justify actions in one case often return to haunt the nation that adduced them. There are excellent chapters on the efforts to amend the Geneva Conventions of 1949 in ways beneficial to terrorists, the legal arguments for the Grenada operation, the World Court's consideration of Nicaragua's complaint against the U.S., the rights of the PLO observer mission in New York City, and the legal requirements of the U.S. to pay UN assessments. Each case betters our understanding of the impact that legal issues have on foreign policy.

Mr. Gerson served as counsel to Jeane Kirkpatrick during her tenure as head of the U.S. mission to the UN, from 1981 through 1984. His work for Ambassador Kirkpatrick focused primarily on providing her with accurate legal advice that she could use privately to counter the often biased legal positions of her opponents inside the government, and publicly to attack the arguments of America's opposition at the UN. As Gerson makes all too clear, the legal advisors in the State Department and the U.S. mission to the UN could not be trusted to provide President Reagan's advisors with policy options that would sustain the President's foreign-policy philosophy. On the contrary, the State Department's legal office could be counted upon to use its authority as the foremost international legal advisor in the U.S. Government to obstruct policies of which it did not approve.

Mr. Gerson lucidly recounts Mrs. Kirkpatrick's policy recommendations, and the successes that occasionally followed, but he also describes with brutal clarity how tenuous her power was. Ultimately, power is closely bound up with personal relationships: a person with little support from those with power has no power. Mrs. Kirkpatrick's power rested on the respect Ronald Reagan had for her. The presence of Judge William Clark as National Security Advisor gave her easy access to President Reagan. When Clark was purged in October 1983 by the Deaver-Baker-Shultz faction and replaced by Bud McFarlane, conservatives like Jeane Kirkpatrick were handed an important defeat. Another avenue to Ronald Reagan had been cut off.

So in the battle with the extremely hostile State Department bureaucracy, Mrs. Kirkpatrick had lost a centrally placed ally. As Mr. Gerson assesses the situation, "It became clear that with Bill Clark out, and Bud McFarlane ... in, her influence at the White House peaked." Bud McFarlane, he notes, was so weak that he would never be able to stand up to George Shultz. Mrs. Kirkpatrick had hoped to succeed Judge Clark, and a conservative effort was launched to secure the post for her. But the opposition to her candidacy was too strong, and from that point it was only a matter of time until she left her ambassadorial post.

Upon taking the UN job, Mrs. Kirkpatrick was advised that the UN was not a serious place and that what transpired there should be ignored by great powers like the United States. She, and Allan Gerson, rejected that position, convinced it was based on the false premises that bilateral relations are the locus of international negotiations and that public multilateral diplomacy counts for little. In fact, a woman of ideas like Jeane Kirkpatrick could see that the UN is, in a sense, the foremost international diplomatic stage. It is where arguments are publicly made and must be answered.

These arguments can be like the big lie that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination," or they can be reasoned arguments about the use of force in the Persian Gulf. In any case, the rise of modern telecommunications accentuates the importance of public argument of the sort that takes place at the UN. For warriors like Jeane Kirkpatrick and Allan Gerson the battle must be joined. The international contest will not come to a halt in our absence, and our exit from the public arena could allow the powerfully constraining instruments of international law to be altered in ways that would damage our interests. The U.S., Gerson argues, must never lose sight of the fact that the UN and international law are merely different means used in the struggle of world politics.