Word: brzezinski
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...rebelled and threatened to resign. That set off a back-room tempest in the Administration. The principals, Vance, Strauss, Jordan and Vice President Walter Mondale gathered that night, at the end of March, in Mondale's living room. Vance insisted that he had already yielded too much to Brzezinski in the past couple of years, as Vance put it, to protect Brzezinski against his own large insecurities. "It's not personal, it's institutional," maintained the Secretary. "It will be a terrible blow for the State Department." Mondale tried to be the peacemaker. The group stayed...
...Strauss appointment dispirited Vance for months. Never a conceptual person, more a man to work patiently toward a solution, Vance had found the constant sparring with Ideaman Brzezinski to be wearing. He had resisted Brzezinski's combative line toward the Soviets and opposed his successful campaign to speed up normalization with China. Whenever Vance chose to challenge Brzezinski by going directly to the President, as he did over the adviser's repeated alarms about Cubans in Africa, Vance always won. But such challenges were rare. "Cy's not a good infighter," conceded one of his admirers...
...knew there had been disagreements about a proposed U.S. resolution at the United Nations that would stress broadened support of the Palestinians. Vance and Brzezinski, in agreement for a change, had urged the President to take a tough approach. Strauss wanted to be more flexible; he wanted simply to float the idea to the leaders because he was afraid they would fight it. Strauss knew that Carter had come down on the side of the Vance-Brzezinski approach. But he was stunned when he got aboard the plane and was handed a sealed envelope that contained a rigid list...
When he got back he insisted on a meeting, and that was swiftly arranged. Vance interrupted his vacation on Martha's Vineyard; Brzezinski, about to leave town, delayed his departure. The three gathered in the Situation Room of the White House, along with Mondale, who was asked by Carter to represent him. With some heat, Strauss accused Brzezinski of writing the restrictive language in the sealed instructions, and the National Security Adviser confirmed that he had done so. Strauss bluntly laid out his understanding of his role: he had been placed in an intolerable position, and that could never...
...this point, Brzezinski had not been displeased about Vance's distress over Strauss. The feisty Security Adviser had told intimates that he believed Strauss would eventually falter because of his lack of international experience, and this could only enhance his own standing. With Vance having already declared he would leave his job next year, and Carter devoting far less time to foreign policy, Brzezinski had become even more influential. White House aides contend privately that Brzezinski wants to succeed Vance, and he sees Strauss as a rival...