America Abroad

By Strobe Talbott

The most frequently uttered five syllables in Washington these days are "bipartisanship." That tender word is part of the vocabulary of the honeymoon between a new Congress and a new Administration, especially when the pillow talk turns to foreign policy. It is meant to conjure up the happy image of Republicans and Democrats hand in hand at the water's edge. Actually, the word is doubly misleading, both in its evocation of the distant past and in its implications for the near future.

The brief heyday of bipartisanship was in the Truman years, when a Democratic Administration enlisted the support of a pre-World War II isolationist Republican, Senator Arthur Vandenberg, in the postwar reconstruction of Europe. But Vandenberg later joined in highly partisan attacks on the Democrats for "losing" China and "letting" the Soviet Union acquire the atom bomb.

Nor has disagreement between the Republicans and Democrats been the principal obstacle to effective foreign policy in recent years. Rather, the source of poison and paralysis has more often been ideologically motivated obstructionism within each of the two parties.

Jimmy Carter had far more difficulty with another Democrat, the late Henry Jackson, than with most Republicans. Likewise, Ronald Reagan's diplomatic appointees encountered more opposition in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from the G.O.P.'s own Jesse Helms than from the soporifically temperate senior Democrat, Claiborne Pell. In 1985 Helms held up the confirmation of Reagan's Ambassador to China, Winston Lord, for more than three months, preventing him from being at his post when then Vice President George Bush visited Beijing.

Lord's main sin was that he had served as a close aide to Henry Kissinger, whom Helms Republicans and Jackson Democrats will forever blame for detente and SALT. Now that is bipartisanship.

For nearly a decade, Bush has been suppressing and denying his own centrist roots. In an interview with TIME on the eve of his Inauguration, Bush was asked whether he was a moderate. "No!" he snapped, reacting to the label as though it were a synonym for wimp. He protests too much, out of fear of the right. Helms & Co. sense that fear and mean to play on it.

On the surface, Secretary of State James Baker's confirmation hearings last month were a love feast. Helms exuded courtesy, calling Baker "Secretary Jim." But the North Carolina Senator and his allies used the occasion to declare themselves on some potentially troublesome issues: Salvadoran rightist Roberto D'Aubuisson may be an admirable patriot who has got a bum rap for the death squads, and Winnie Mandela is a terrorist.

Meanwhile, Republican hard-liners have been sniping at the appointments of a number of experienced middle-of-the-roaders, particularly ones with Kissinger connections, such as Baker's chosen deputy, Lawrence Eagleburger. Another target of opposition has been Lord, whom Eagleburger wanted to be Assistant Secretary for East Asia. And as a sop to the right, a former Helms protege, ( Richard McCormack, got the job of Under Secretary for Economic Affairs, instead of almost everyone's first choice, Robert Hormats, a highly regarded international trade specialist.

Behind the talk of interparty cooperation, the lines are being drawn for some nasty intraparty fights -- over personnel now and policy later. The toughest test that Bush and Baker face on the home front of their foreign policy will not be whether they are able to sit down and compromise with the Democrats but whether they are able to stand up to their fellow Republicans.