MAN BEHIND THE MASK

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000606120032-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 2, 2010
• Sequence Number: 32
• Publication Date: February 3, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
WASHINGTON POST
3 February 1986
Man Behind the Mask
After 31/2 Years at State, George Shultz
Is More the Fighter and Less the Sphinx
First of two articles
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/02 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000606120032-3
1 Is.l. 611L1
By Dom Qbadaeler
w- - F. sra Wtfty
Shortly before Chrmas, Sec-
retary of State George P. Shultz
startled the executive vice presi-
dent of the Heritage Foundation,
Philip Truhtcki, with a "very cold
. very ,nfriendly greeting" when
the two were introduced at a hol-
iday party. As Truluck recalled,
Shultz : 'jumped, right down my
throat," inaccurately charging that
the conservative think tank had
called for his resignation and berat-
ing Heritage for sending him "ridic-
ulous letters."
About the same time, Shultz sur-
prised the nation-and the White
House-by threatening to resign if
required to take a polygraph test
under an order signed by President
Reagan. The following day, Reagan
exempted Shultz from any lie de-
tector tests and sharply modified
his directive.
Then, a few weeks ago, Shultz
erupted at presidential chief of staff
Donald T. Regan at a meeting
called to discuss the U.S. response
to the Rome and Vienna airport
attacks by a Palestinian group with
links to Libya, according to reports
circulating at the White House.
When Regan reportedly charged
that "we have no antiterrorism pol-
icv." Shultz snaooed back that the
chief of staff didn't know what he
was talking about.
What is happening to the previ-
ously unflappable, impassive, often
Sphinx-like secretary of state? Is his
recent uncharacteristic behavior a
sign that Shultz is preparing to
leave after 31h years-a longer ten-
ure in the job than any of his last
four predecessors, Henry A. Kiss-
inger, Cyrys R. Vance, Edmund S.
Muskie or Alexander M. Haig Jr
"Shultz these days often seems
fed up-tired, and short tempered.
He seems more uncommunicative
and less patient than in the pagt,"
said an official who sees him 1
quently. "There seems to be in him
a little bit the sense of a man throw-
ing caution to the winds .... I
don't think he is looking to leave; or
to stay. But I think it would take
very little to trigger his departure."
Compared to his immediate pre-
decessor-the mercurial Haig-
Shultz has imparted an aura of calm,
if not cohesion, to U.S. foreign re-
lations. With the exception of the
U.S. failure in Lebanon, the Shultz
era has seen few crises and no dra-
matic disasters. Unlike the reign of
Kissinger or Vance, the Shultz era
also has seen no dramatic accom-
plishments for U.S. foreign policy-
no successful Arab-Israeli disen-
gagement or peace agreements, no
strategic arms treaties with the
Soviet Union, no new openings to
China.
The pink-cheeked, stocky Shultz,
settling back wearily into a yellow
wing-back chair before a crackling
fire in his office at the end of a long
day recently, denied that he is los-
ing his cool and hinted at intentions
of staying in office for the rest of
Reagan's term.
"I would like to have the admin-
istration end with a kind of sense of
continuity, that the things that have
been put in place have been suc-
cessful enough so that whoever suc-
ceeds the Reagan administration-
obviously I hope it will be a Repub-
lican administration-will feel that
those are the right things," Shultz
said when asked about his goals for
the future.
"The interests of the United
States around the world are moving
in a generally positive direction," he
continued. "That is to say, the
strength of democracy, the
strength of our basic idea of free-
dom, the developments in the world
economy, our relationships with
major countries, our alliances, all
have been in a positive mode."
Much of
cratic boilerplate, but in the view of
Shultz and many others, a rebuild-
ing of U.S. military and economic
power have brought basic improve-
ments in the U.S. world position
since 1981. The administration
came to office believing that an
American decline in the 1970s rel-
ative to the Soviet Union and other
industrialized nations needed re-
dressing as the groundwork for for-
eign policy gains.
It has been easier to obtain con-
sensus within the administration on
rebuilding American power than
agreement on what the United
States should do in the world from
an improved position. In the ab-
sence of a chief executive with
clear-cut ideas about international
strategy, or who is willing to im-
pose decisions on opposing factions
within his administration, the past
31/2 years diplomatically have been
essentially unassertive, unexciting
and nondynamic.
Shultz's attributes of patience
and persistence appear well-suited
to such a time of relative stability.
But as the Reagan administration
heads into its sixth year, the inter-
national challenges of the Mikhail
Gorbachev era and the internal
challenges of bureaucratic deadlock
and budgetary pressures may call
for more imaginative efforts.
For the most part Shultz has
been a manager of diplomatic re-
lations rather than a strategist in
the Kissingerian mold or an activist
resembling Vance or Haig. The un-
pretentious Shultz's favorite met-
aphor for his job is that of a "gar-
dener" of diplomacy, who persis-
tently cultivates the soil of relations
for some future bounty.
Little Things `Add Up
Shultz's notion of foreign policy
leadership emphasizes small incre-
ments and modest choices rather
than dramatic initiatives. "To a cer-
tain extent what you do all day is
cope," he said. "A tremendous
amount of policy comes about
through the way whatever little
things you do all day long add up, or
whether they don't add up .... If
you have a sense of direction as you
are working with the details, then
there is a chance that the way the
details are handled will gradually
support the general line or direction
you're going in."
I
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/02 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000606120032-3