VERNON WALTERS SAID CHOICE FOR U.N. POST

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00901R000700060034-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 17, 2005
• Sequence Number: 34
• Publication Date: February 1, 1985
• Content Type: NSPR

ONrp~ q ' DFor Release 1bo,5 ry ~1-00901
Vernon Walters -Said'
Choice for U.N.: Post
By Lou Cannon and David Hoffman
Washington Post Stpit Writers
President Reagan.has decided to
name retired lieutenant general
Vernon A. Walters-to replace Jeane
J. Kirkpatrick.as ambassador _to the
United Nations, well-placed admin-
istration officials said yesterday.
Walters, the chief. diplomatic
troubleshooter at the State Depart-
ment, has the support-of Secretary
of State George P. Shultz and also is.
considered acceptable to more con-servative elements in theadminis-
tration.
An accomplished linguist reputed
to be fluent in eight languages, Wal-
ters served as an aide to President
Dwight D. Eisenhower- at various
summit meetings and was with
then-Vice President Richard M.
Nixon when his party was stoned by
demonstrators in Caracas in 1958.
-Nixon appointed Walters deputy
director of the Central Intelligence
Agency in 1972.
In this, post ' Walters was ap
proached by Nixon chief of staff
H.R. Haldeman and asked to block
an investigation by the Federal Bu-
reau of Investigation into h~ a Wa-
tergate burglary by saving that it
would compromise CIA interests in.
Mexico.
Walters did as he was told but
then checked on what Haldeman
had said and told" White House
counsel John Dean that no.such in
terests would be compromised. -
"It simply did not occur to_ me
that the chief of staff to the pres-
ident might be asking me to d6'
something that was illegal or
wrong," Walters wrote in his mem-
oirs.
Administration officials who said
that Walters would be named by the
president said the issue of whether
the U.N. post would remain of Cab-
inet rank still was unresolved.
Reportedly, - Kirkpatrick had
urged Walters not to accept the job
-unless it was a Cabinet position,
while. Shultz does not want. it to be a
.Cabinet post. - , t r
The sources said the status of the
job would "be worked out soon"by
the president but indicated that
Walters would accept the post in
any case.
Walters retired from the CIA in
.1976 and since 1981 has been used
,widely as a consultant and ambas-
sador-at-large by the State -Depart-
ment.
He served on an advisory com=.
mittee to Reagan during the :1984
campaign.
'Meanwhile, sources also said that
'Max-L. Friedersdorf,'a veteran, of
the Nixon, Ford and Reagan admin-
istrations, is discussing the possi-
bility of returning to the White
-House at "the outset of Reagan's
second term as chief of liaison with
Congress.
Friedersdorf, who held a similar
post in 1981, has talked about" com?
ing back to the White House with'
incoming chief of staff Donald- T.
Regan, but they have not a greed on
details, officials said.
Regan has been advised by'sev
eral leading members of Congress
and lobbyists to select a well-re;
spected and experienced chief of
congressional liaison because of the
difficult battles coming up over the
budget, the MX missile and aid t6
the rebels fighting the Sandinista
government of Nicaragua.
Officials said Friedersdorf is -in;
terested in returning to the White
House but wants ajot) somewhat
removed from day-to-day lobbying
and a title such as "counselor" to
the president.
Friedersdorf, who left the White
House after the first year of the
Reagan administration to become
ambassador -to Bermuda, is vice
president for public affairs for Pep-
sico Inc. He could i-ot be reached
for comment yesterday..
He worked as a congressional
lobbyist for Nixon and was later
chief lobbyist for President Gerald
R. Ford.
He was- appointed chairman of
the Federal Electio ' Commission in
1977 by President Jimmy Carter..
Regan is expecte to appoint four
key deputies in the reas of politics,
communications, pt5licy and con-
gressional relations. Officials said
some of the appointments may
come as early as next week while
others may wait for several months.
Edward J. Rolli ` s, the former
Reagan-Bush camp ign director, is
expected to be brow ht back to han-
dle political affairs.
STAT
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 Approved For Release 200fJ/$pRkC4P"901 Rq
' i ~ F APPEARED .; 1 February 1985
Vernon Walters:
ackground
steps forward '..-; `,-
ASHINGTON - Shortly after. meetings=l1 years ago-with the Pales. Defying the White house's instrue-
United States Army troops tine Liberation Organization. He is the tions. Waiters to ravtthe ?F RI np'p=a
W swept ashore in North Africa only member of the Reagan administra- tion would not JeoRardi* CIA activities
in 1942, a young American officer met a tion to have spent four hours in fervent ~IMexico. Nixon then gilled Gray and
13-year-old Moroccan boy, stood him on conversation with Fidel Castro-com- asked dim if Walters ad called. = If
a tank and gave him a joyride. ing away with the impression that Cu- Nixon knees that Walters}hwas-supposed
And, as the storybooks say, that little , tro wanted' to, break away, from ' his to have called, he must a so have known
boy grew up-to be-King Hassan Il of dependency on the Sovief.Vnion. He is'. Iiv he called-and the , nly, reason for
------ ?.-.I ?L../. __.__.w A...-J.-~ ?t w.ww ..wL- L_.1 f_.J ._-___ ._ . r _f __ _ .. _
following the resignation -'of -Jean e f,assioaal, the exact opposite` of the . oleo-of-may language and matchless
Kirkpatrick naive and amateurish ideologues whom contacts " used him as roving ambas--
If Walters takes the UN job, ir, will
mark another victory within 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 68-year-old, 6-foot-3-inch Zelig, iii, 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.com
fronted Gen. Douglas MacArthur on
Wake Island in 1950?
And there, sitting in the back of the., -his
limousine with Vice President Nixon,
when a crowd attacked his car in Cara-
cos, 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
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
when the Palestine Liberation
Organization asked King Has-
san to arrange a secret meet-
ing with the U.S. in 1973, to
me first .was+u?.?~+,???+??~???? odor. Little was said about his'actlvi-
tions tried is put into best-known key p al- ties, but if you plotted Walters' travels
tion '. He for
speaking nine languages, and by sticking pins into a ixsap,.you would
having an uncanny. ability to conclude that- he was trying to ; sur-
fake four or five others,'like round--and isoIate-CaJtr6 and Libya's'
Siid,Caesar. Muammar Khadafy _. by : organizing
Walters' role exposing- neighboring countries a lgainst`them..
i -Watergate is - ', lIttle?remem- AIG, EVEN flirted; briefly 'with;'
bered.-Six days after the June Hthe idea of getting Khadafy's
16, 1972, burglary, Nixon and neighbors to kndck him off-but
his aides figured out that they Walters is a devout Caoolic, to whom
might stop an FBI investiga- murder is a mortal- sin. He has 'been'
tion into funds that were accused of being to Oozy with Latin -
telling Walters to 'ask FBI whom he met as _yo
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-
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 ON FLGE
roved For R IasDl lQLZl lACjAi "11-00901 R000
1 February 19135
Reagan is expected to nominate
former CIA deputy for U.N.
post
By Owen Ullmann
Inquirer Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - President Reagan
has decided to nominate Vernon A.
Waters, a former deputy director of
the CIA, as ambassador to the United
Nations, but he is still considering
whether the post should have the
SaMecabinet rank that ' departing
Ambassador Jean J. Kirkpatrick
holds. White House sources said v s-
terday.
"Walters will take it either way -
with or without cabinet rank," one
White louse official said of Walters,
68, a retired general who now is
chief diplomatic trouble-shooter for
the State Department with the title of
ambassador-at-large.
An aide to Walters said the ambas-
sador was traveling out of the coun-
try and could not be reached for
comment.
The White House official said Wal-
ters' boss, Secretary of State George
P. Shultz, had urged the President to
downgrade the U.N. post so that the
new ambassador would not be able to
challenge Shultz's foreign policy po-
sitions at the cabinet level, as Kirk.
patrick frequently has done.
Kirkpatrick, a Democrat who has
won a following among Reagan con-
servatives because of her strong anti-
communist views, ended, months of
speculation about her future by an-
nouncing after a private session with
Reagan on Wednesday that she
would return to teaching and writ-
ing at Georgetown University.
According to U.S. officials at the
United Nations, 12 of the 16 U.S. am-
bassadors - including every one
who has served in the last 20 years -
either held cabinet rank or was al-
lowed to attend cabinet meetings
without the official rank.
Walters, who has spent nearly all
of his career working behind the
scenes on delicate diplomatic mis-
sions, was a trusted aide to former
President Richard M. Nixon and a
close associate of Alexander M. Haig.
Jr., who was deputy to Henry A. Kis-
singer during the Nixon administra
tion. Haig, who preceded Shultz as;
Reagan's secretary of state, brought
Walters into the State Department as'
his chief trouble-shooter.
Walters, fluent in more than five.
languages, has been a translator for-
high-level diplomats and for presi.'
dents, including Dwight D. Eisen-'
bower and Nixon. In April 1972, he
bec a the second-ranking official
at the IA, a post he held until July
1976, when he retired.
His CIA tenure came in the midst.
off' the Watergate scandal It was he
who vsMted L Patrick Gray 3d, then
'-
t e FBI director, and, in effect tried
to wave the FBI off the a4~ at a to
investigation by warning that the
case might expose CUA assets in Mexj-
Walters later wrote that he knew
of no CIA assets eing compromised
but acted at the behest of .White
House chief of staff H R Haldeman
because "It simply did not occur to
me that the chief of staff to the
president might be asking me to do
sQmet ing that was illegal-or
wrong.'
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STAT
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!-p'T1r~f kppaRprovecl For Release 2( R? ftf~I4ilAl91-0090 R000700060034-1
pc1G
1 February 1985
~
A likely successo
Tow that Max Kampelman is
on his way to Geneva for
the ' nuclear disarmament'
talks with the Russians, -
Vernon A. Walters -. Dick, to 'his
friends - is the leading candidate to -
succeed Jeane Kirkpatrick as -
American ambassador to the United
Nations.
Mrs. Kirkpatrick` and the New.
Right like Gen. Walters because he.
is more interested in the workings of
realpolitik than in human rights..,
Secretary of: State' George Shultz
likes him because Geri. Walters has
proved both loyal and discreet in his
job as ambassador-at-large (and
because, since Gen. Walters 'lacks
political ambitions, ? Mr Shultz
believes he can control him in a way
he could not Mrs. Kirkpatrick). ' '
President' Ronald -Reagan - likes
him because Gen: Walters can say
"yes, sir" in eight languages. ' .
liberals do not like Gen. Walters.
They regard him as a polyglot
bubble-head with ' a ? background , in
the arms trade-and an affinity for:.~
Smith Hem pstone, 'editor-in=chief ?
of The Washington-.,Times,'-is a,
nationally syndicated columnist. Gen. Vernon A. Walters
dictators, an unprincipled fixer who]
wormed his way from priv4te to lieu-' i
tenant general (and to deputy direc-`
Agency under, Presidents' Richard' '
Nixon mid Gerald r ora) by guile and
flattery"
Others perhaps less tha enthusi
astic about the 69-year-oid former
intelligence operative inc'ude for
mer U.S. Information 'Agecy chief'
Frank, Shakespeare, 71?ans r?tation'
Secretary Elizabeth Hanf rd Dole;
former Republican senator;from Illi=
nois Chuck Percy, and U.S. Ambassa. i,
dors s . Griffith Galbraith. (France);
Maxwell.' Rabb (Italy), Jo' avin`
(Mexico) and William Wilorn G(The
,Vatican).. All of them hive . been
reported in the running for; the U.N.
. :post.
However one 'feels. ab ut Dick'
? Walters 'this scribbler first met
Walters 20 years ago durin his sec
and tour as military'attac e at the,
American Embassy in Brazil -- he is
a ' most unusual man w. Roman'
Catholic and a lifelong back lor, with
a mind unsullied by attend nce at a
college or university.
Dick Walters; who was born in
New York City, "stands 6-foot-3,
weighs.210 pounds and has the affa-
ble, somewhat rumpled air of a suc=
' cessful insurance executi~e, which'
is; exactly what .his father !was. He
Ct ritinu.d
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