Jim Baker's right-hand man - John R. Bolton, State Dept. official for international organizations

National Review, May 14, 1990 by William McGurn

Washington, D.C.

WHILE MOST eyes here were focused on the crisis in Lithuania or the Administration's China policy, a little-noticed but far-reaching decision came out of the State Department: the United States had reviewed its 1984 withdrawal from the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and decided against re-entry. In a press conference on April 17 the assistant secretary for international-organization affairs, John Bolton, said that "little if any true reform had taken place" since the U.S. left, and released an exhaustive 43-page study backing up the charge.

"When we first withdrew from UNESCO their expectation was that they would get rid of [Director General] M'Bow, make some cosmetic changes, and that after a year the U.S. and Britain would declare victory and come back," says Mr. Bolton. "But it hasn't worked out that way."

The U.S. move put quite a crimp in the Brie accounts at UNESCO's Paris headquarters, which still gobbles up more than 70 per cent of the organization's overall expenditures. America's continued absence leaves a $50-million hole in the budget, which explains why UNESCO has been so anxious to woo back Uncle Sam. As reported in NR ["Off the Record," Jan. 22], the campaign included a plot to get Barbara Bush to do a video on illiteracy; the plan backfired when a UNESCO crack about her "fuzzy-mindedness" got back to the First Lady. More recently UNESCO has upset its largest remaining contributor, Japan, by creating 33 new posts (in Paris, of course) at a cost of $6 million despite promises to cut personnel.

The real story here, however, is not UNESCO but the 42-year-old Wunderkind who has held the American line: John Bolton, a man with the odd combination of Jim Baker's trust and Ronald Reagan's principles. In Bolton's office rests a dummy grenade--a gift from his former colleagues at the Agency for International Development, with the inscription, "John R. Bolton, Truest Reaganaut." But since last May Bolton has served George Bush as the State Department's man for international organizations, one of those relatively obscure but critical positions, responsible for about a billion dollars in U.S. contributions to dozens of organizations.

"The issue really is whether the U.S. is going to stick to its decisions or pay for the privilege of getting kicked around," says Elliott Abrams, who had Bolton's job back in 1981. "This has ramifications all throughout the UN system and other organizations. We are fortunate that our guy in there now understands this clearly."

Bolton proved this even before he was officially sworn in. The day after his rushed confirmation hearings, he flew to Geneva to fend off the PLO's attempt to join the World Health Organization (WHO) as a member state, a move that would have opened the door for similar recognition from a host of other organizations. The choice of WHO was clever, for WHO grants membership by a simple, rather than two-thirds, majority vote. Some of the member nations already recognize the PLO, and a number of those that don't would be easily intimidated by threats of terrorism.

When Bolton arrived in Geneva the members told him the same old story: We support you in private, but we won't go against the PLO in public. Bolton had already made it clear that the U.S. would withdraw its financial support from WHO if the PLO were admitted, but he had to leave the members with some face. So he pushed for a critical point: a secret ballot. With that, the motion to admit the PLO was deferred; Arafat was reportedly dumfounded.

BOLTON was also in the thick of the effort to make sure the elections in Nicaragua were genuine. The UN secretary general sent down former Attorney General Elliot Richardson as his personal representative to monitor the elections. John Bolton kept the heat on Richardson with a steady stream of letters pointing out instances of Sandinista harassment and intimidation, and a good deal of the credit for the outcome thus goes to his shop. Indeed, a senior Administration official says that Bolton's effectiveness transcends his dealings with international organizations and works "within the Department of State itself."

So how does a man who wears Adam Smith ties survive in a Bush Administration? A good part of the answer is his personal friendship with Secretary of State Jim Baker. Bolton did high-level volunteer work in Baker's unsuccessful 1978 campaign for attorney general of Texas. Baker didn't forget: the hotshot young lawyer was one of the first people he brought into the Reagan Administration. Asked about his closeness to Baker, Bolton shows his State Department pinstripes. "On the matters that I deal with, we agree," he says diplomatically. It's also true, and this combination of principles and connections makes him a rising conservative star.

"As the cold-war front becomes somewhat less important for the U.S., the Third World front becomes somewhat more important," says Burton Pines of the Heritage Foundation. "[We deal with it] in international organizations, and Bolton understands how to use American leverage and American principles to advance American interests.