Jeane Kirkpatrick worked very hard at the UN, but it is still functioning, so she has resigned. Our new man is Vernon Walters, who has a long history in diplomacy. Let me recount some of his achievements for you.
In 1961, Ambassador Vern was military attaché in Rome (attached to, but not of, the military—that is, a specialist in military intelligence, that is, advising the military on what to do about the problems caused by intelligence). He advocated at that time that the US should rescue Italy if the Socialists should enter the government coalition, which of course they shouldn’t. And didn’t.
He speaks eight languages with duplicity.
In 1971, Vern, as Deputy Director of the CIA (this has been declassified), helped out in the process of classifying the Daniel Ellsberg break-in and the Watergate burglary. They had to be classified, to protect certain CIA operations. If the connection between these things is not clear, then you probably don’t understand it.
In 1976, a former ambassador from Chile under former President Allende was neutralized in Washington. The Paraguayan official who obtained visas for the later-convicted assassins gave them a Washington contact phone number: Vern’s. But they never had occasion to call. So Vern never got the chance to talk them out of it. So this was not one of his achievements.
In 1981 Vern became PrezRon’s ambassador at large. He went straightaway to Argentina and Chile to announce cancellation of President Carter’s human rights policy, which was replaced by President Ron’s quiet diplomacy. Vern has been the quintessential quiet diplomat, remaining quiet in about 100 countries. He also speaks eight languages with duplicity.
Vern brings to his new post a strong sense of justice, having called the Viet Nam war “one of the noblest and most unselfish wars in U.S. history.” His grasp of history extends into the future as well; on the question of human rights in Guatemala he remarked, “There will be human rights problems in the year 3000 with the governments of Mars and the Moon.” At the United Nations, Vern will be in a good position to lay the groundwork for that exciting future.
SHULTZ SPEAKS OUT
The Secretary of the State recently spoke out on “America and the Struggle for Freedom.”
He explained that the democratic revolution sweeping the world today is led by the foster children of the American revolution—ours, that is. He listed among our children the valiant Freedom Fighters in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Nicaragua, Ethiopia and Angola, and the peaceful advocates of democratic change in South Africa, Chile, Korea and the Philippines. (The different tactics for the two groups result from the different nature of their adversaries—totalitarianationistic in the first group, merely authoritarianationistic in the second. Those countries in the first group are either dungeons or tunnels; the nations of the second group are our friends and therefore can be influenced to modify their systems peacefully, if absolutely necessary.
Secretary George then explained that we have always promoted decolonization. We had no interest in countries having colonies; we certainly never had any. We wanted to build a new relationship with other peoples’ former colonies. There isn’t any particular name for this relationship, and there won’t be.
After World War II, George reminded us, the U.S. promoted democratic institutions in Western Europe. We started by eliminating the Communist threat in the unions there, and then corrected premature moves of a radical nature away from stability in Italy, which had only recently been de-authoritarianated and needed time to adjust. In Greece we had to save the people from their irresponsibility, which established a precedent. Or anyway a colonel.
George touched briefly on historical examples of our support for freedom fighters. We smuggled guns and powder to Simon Bolivar, out of a disinterested interest in decolonization of Spain’s interests in Our Hemisphere. And we accepted aid from France in our struggle against England, having first assured ourselves that the French were acting only from their own interest in the decolonization of the English-speaking world. The Secretary did not mention multinational corporate investment, as this was a speech about foreign policy.
In conclusion, the Secretary reminded us all of America’s moral responsibility to lead the free world, saying there is no one else to take our place. Therefore we must take their places.