Word: berger
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Berger served that apprenticeship in Jimmy Carter's State Department, first writing speeches for Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and later taking on a broader advisory role. "He writes very clearly, simply, eloquently, in primary colors rather than purple," says Tony Lake, then his boss at State, who will now, as Clinton's National Security Adviser, be Berger's boss at the White House...
...Berger's great asset to Clinton has been -- and will be -- what Greg Craig, a Washington lawyer who served with Berger on the board of a human-rights group, calls "an unerring instinct for the important" -- the ability to figure out which issues are peripheral before that becomes obvious to others, and to avoid spending any more time in a meeting than needed to accomplish his purpose. Colleagues praise him for other lawyerly virtues as well: sound judgment, discretion, the ability to absorb technical minutiae fast without losing sight of the big picture, a willingness, says a friend, "to work...
These days, it is Brent Scowcroft, the outgoing National Security Adviser, who is frequently at the other end of the secure phone in Berger's shabby transition office, keeping the Clinton camp informed of what Bush is planning in Somalia, Yugoslavia and elsewhere. Berger gives Bush's foreign policy team credit "for working together about as well as it's been done," a virtue whose importance is reinforced by the memory of how Carter's presidency was undermined by the unceasing attacks on Vance by Carter's National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski. Berger's instinct, like Clinton...
With Lake, Berger's relationship is more one of an alter ego than a subordinate. Berger was sufficiently self-effacing to bring Lake into the campaign as his boss, and the two ended up co-directing foreign policy for Clinton with remarkable harmony. "Almost in shorthand, we can argue things through, and at the end neither of us has kept score," says Lake...
...Berger can make Washington's wheels whirl and knows Clinton well enough to tell him when he is going wrong. But what does Berger himself really value? "His family, the Baltimore Orioles and human rights," quips a friend. Central to his thinking, Berger says, is the conviction that pursuing American values abroad -- democracy, human rights, free markets -- "is very much in our interests. It's a chaotic world, but one that's also filled with opportunities, because American leadership is not only unquestioned but actively desired by many countries...