Giving Notice

Kirkpatrick 's long goodbye

The U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Jeane Kirkpatrick, has made no secret of her desire to leave her Cabinet-level post after the current General Assembly session ends in December. The only question during the past year was whether she would return to private life or move into one of the handful of policymaking jobs in Washington that appeal to her formidable intellect. In the days after the presidential election, her choice was rapidly narrowed as Ronald Reagan issued, and was taken up on, reappointment offers to the incumbent Secretaries of State and Defense, the National Security Adviser and the head of the Central Intelligence Agency. That was just about the extent of Kirkpatrick's wish list.

Without notifying the President in advance, Kirkpatrick announced her plans last week to step out of public life. "I am absolutely not being coy about it," she said. "I have an intention and that is my intention." Well, perhaps. But only a couple of hours later the U.N. Ambassador ordered a wire-service reporter dressed down for making her decision sound irrevocable in his story, and indeed she did not specifically rule out taking another post in the Reagan Administration. Many Washington insiders concluded that Kirkpatrick was engaged in calculated job jockeying. Said an Administration official: "It's her way of getting Reagan's attention."

An unhappy departure by Kirkpatrick could prove politically costly to Reagan. Though she styles herself a lifelong Democrat, her forcefully conservative foreign policy views have proved enormously popular with the Republican's powerful New Right adherents, who accorded her one of the G.O.P. Convention's most effusive platform welcomes last August in Dallas. Kirkpatrick has reportedly turned down several offers of an ambassadorship, including the prestigious posting to Paris. "I don't know if there is anything in Washington for her," said one White House official, who quickly added, "I mean something that would befit her qualifications."

One result of Kirkpatrick's remarks may have been to hasten an audience with the President. Instead of waiting for the final 1984 meeting of the General Assembly, Kirkpatrick hopes to talk to Reagan about her future within the next week or so. At that point, both her intentions and those of her boss should become clear once and for all.