Disappearing Act at Foggy Bottom

By WALTER ISAACSON

The State Department's influence continues to wane

"He spends eight hours a day in there being frustrated," says an aide, pointing to Secretary of State George Shultz's wood-paneled inner office. Frustration, of course, has long been an occupational hazard at the State Department, but Shultz has recently had more than his share. Not only on Central American questions but also on arms control and Middle East policy, Shultz has been losing influence to National Security Adviser William Clark and other hard-line presidential advisers.

The Washington-wise Shultz, an unscarred veteran of Cabinet posts in the Nixon Administration, took over twelve months ago from the self-styled vicar of foreign policy, Alexander Haig, whose petty turf struggles and emotional pronouncements, as well as battles over substantive policy, kept the State Department at the forefront of power but alienated other officials and finally the President. Shultz was hailed as a calm and soothing replacement, a man to whom power flows naturally. Last September he engineered what then seemed the sound plan of trying to bring Jordan into negotiations over the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Soon afterward, he succeeded in quietly reversing the Administration's impetuous embargo on parts for the Soviet gas pipeline, which threatened to split the NATO alliance.

But since then, Shultz's authority has been oozing away. The Middle East plan fizzled. Then Clark, with hardly a word to the State Department, decided to fire Arms Control Director Eugene Rostow and replace him with Kenneth Adelman, a young hard-liner whose slender credentials caused an uproar on Capitol Hill. Two weeks ago, State Department Loyalist Philip Habib was replaced as Middle East envoy by Robert McFarlane, Clark's deputy at the National Security Council. Although he will report to Shultz, McFarlane, in a convoluted arrangement, will remain an assistant to Clark. In both cases, the White House acted out of a sense of impatience over the State Department's methodical and low-keyed approach. "They dumped Al Haig because he was too active," says a former top Cabinet official, "and now they are irritated with George Shultz because he is too passive."

State's loss of clout is most evident on Central American policy. Haig had made that arena one of his prime concerns, speaking out early and forcefully on the need to "draw the line" in El Salvador against the spread of Soviet influence. Haig's heated rhetoric was eventually cooled at White House insistence, but policymaking power remained at the State Department in the hands of Thomas Enders, Assistant Secretary for Inter-American Affairs. Enders tried to balance military moves with more emphasis on political and economic initiatives. Under congressional pressure, he even paid lip service to the possibility of a negotiated settlement with the leftist guerrillas in El Salvador.

Shultz supported Enders' approach. With bureaucratic adroitness, Enders controlled most elements of the Central American policy loop, carefully cultivating allies in the Pentagon and CIA. But the pre-eminence of Enders, and, by extension, that of the State Department, did not sit well with others in the Administration. Says one senior official: "He operated without review and without constraints."

Clark was irked by Enders' one-man show--and by his reluctance to pressure Congress for economic and military aid. He convinced Reagan, and U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick agreed, that a Central American policy review was needed. In a telling remark, one White House official noted acerbically, "You don't handle Central American policies with tea and crumpets on the diplomatic circuit." Shultz and Clark cut a deal: in return for firing Enders, the Secretary of State would be given day-to-day control of Central American policymaking. Deane Hinton, the able Ambassador to El Salvador, was also fired as part of the bargain.

Shultz accepted Clark's choice of a replacement for Enders, L. Anthony Motley, and was prepared to acquiesce in his choice of a retired admiral, Gerald Thomas, to replace Hinton. But senior members of the Foreign Service, led by Under Secretary Lawrence Eagleburger, balked at the appointment, claiming it was an insult to the department's professionals. Shultz eventually prevailed in placing a career diplomat, Thomas Pickering, in San Salvador, but the Secretary's pliant attitude served to reinforce the image of State Department weakness.

In recent weeks, Shultz's authority has continued to slide. When former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was named chairman of a special commission on Central America, one of Shultz's staffers lamented, "Well, so much for Shultz being in charge." Shultz and his colleagues at State were even kept in the dark about the timing of the naval operations off the Nicaraguan coast. "We find out about our policy options in the morning paper," complains one official.

Perhaps most damaging to morale at State is the meddling of White House hard-liners in the minutiae of diplomacy. "You've got a situation where very strong people are debating about the nickles and dimes of everyday decisions," says a Shultz intimate. "These damn disputes are distorting the whole policy." Through it all, Shultz has remained relatively serene. He supported, for example, both the Kissinger and McFarlane appointments. Aides say Shultz reserves most of his resentment for the policymakers at the Pentagon. His relationship with Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, who once worked under him at Bechtel Group Inc., has been cool.

The loss of the State Department's authority is in part due to Shultz's own personality. Although he has enormous leverage over the Reaganauts, who can scarcely afford to lose another Secretary of State, he is temperamentally reluctant to argue his case in public, or even very strongly in private. Like the good Marine he used to be, he soldiers on. But both his reticence and his unwillingness to take firm policy positions leave the impression--and hence add to the reality--that he is not in control. The professionals who work with him can only hope that those who have usurped the department's role might overextend themselves, and thus let the pendulum of power swing back toward State.

--By Walter Isaacson.

Reported by Gregory H. Wierzynski/Washington

With reporting by Gregory H. Wierzynski This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.