VERNON WALTERS: MR. BACKGROUND STEPS FORWARD

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504730030-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 24, 2012
• Sequence Number: 30
• Publication Date: February 1, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/24: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504730030-3
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
=~ `! T 2 WPEARED \ 1 February 1985
Vernon Walters: Mr. Background
steps forward
WASHINGTON - Shortly after meetings-41 years ago-with thePales- Defying the White House's instruc-
United States -'Army troops tine Liberation Organization. He is the bons, a tars Grav the FRI opera.
swept ashore in North Africa _ only member of the Reagan administra- tion would not jeopardize CIA activities
in 1942, a young American officer met a Lion to have spent four hours in fervent in Me-77o Nixon then called Gray and
13-year-old Moroccan boy, stood him on conversation with Fidel Castro-com- asked him if Walters had called. 21f
a tank and gave him a joyride. ? ing away with the impression that Cas- Nixon knew that-Walters was'supposed
And, as the storybooks say, that little tm wanYed' to break away; from his .1 to have called, he must also have known ?.
boy grew up to be King Hassan II of dependency on the Soviet.. aion. He is r why he called-and the only. reason lo
following the resignation'of. -Jeane fessional, the exact opposite of the _ofmanylanguagesandmatchless-n
Kirkpatrick. - ' " naive and amateurish ideologues Whom'. contacts used him as a roving ambas-
If Walters takes the UN job, it will
mark another victorywithin the Reagan
administration for professionalism over
ideology. Where Kirkpatrick was out-
spoken-even demagogic and strident-
Walters has made a career of being `,
semi-visible and low-key. He has gone
through postwar American history like
?a 638-year-old, 6-foot-3-inch Zelig, in the
Woody Allen movie, popping up in the
background of all the grainy old,
newsreels.
Who was that man at Gen. Mark
Clark's side during his triumphal entry
into Rome?, And-who was that fellow.-.
with President Truman when he-co:
fronted Gen. Douglas MacArthur on
Wake island in 1950? his inquiries
And there, sitting in the back of the.'
limousine with Vice President Nixon, -
when a crowd attacked his car in Cara-
cas, Venezuela, in 1958, is that ...? And
who arranged Henry. Kissin.
ger's secret trips to Paris?
And who was the first official
to drop the hint that President
Nixon was deeply involved in
the Watergate cover-up? And
when the Palestine Liberation
Organization asked King Has-
san to arrange a secret meet-
ing with the U.S. in 1973, to
whom did King Hassan turn?
The answer to all these Lars-Erik
questions, and lots of others
the world hasn't even thought Nelson ,
of asking yet, is Vernon Wal-
ters. He is the only U.S. repre-
sentative to have held official _
the first Reagan _admimstra sador
Little 'was said about hW actiAr.
.
Lion tried to put into key posi- ties, but if you plotted Walters' travels -
tions. He is best-known for by sticking pins Into a map,.you would--
.speaking nine languages, and - conclude A hat- he was trying to Sur-
having an uncanny" ability to . round-and isolate-Castro and Libya's
fake four or five others, ' like
Muammar Khadafy - by - organizing
?= Walters' rolein - exposing -
- Watergate is . ` little-remem ,
bered..Six-days after-the June
AIG EVEN flirted, briefly with
the idea of getting Khadafy's
neighbors to knock him off-but'
his aides figured out that they Walters is a devout Catholic, to whom 1
might stop an FBI investiga- murder is a mortal' sin. He has been
tion into- funds that were accused of being too cozy with Latin
channeled through Mexico by American military dictators-many of
...telling Walters to ask FBI whom he met as young officers in
Director Patrick .Gray-to drop World War II. And the Argentine gener-
als say he secretly encouraged them to -
launch their devastating war in the
Falklands.
But he understands one basic law of
the real world. "Nobody cares about
policy,", he once said. "Once you leave
the United States, its personal relation-
neighboring countries against them. .
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/24: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504730030-3