Word: haig
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Clark's first job in the Administration was deputy to then Secretary of State Alexander Haig, who argued vociferously that the Soviet Union was going to "test" the U.S. in Central America by promoting leftist revolution. Haig went so far as to draw up contingency plans for blockading Cuba to prevent the shipment of Soviet arms from there to Nicaragua and to rebels in El Salvador. He was ordered by the White House to tone down the bellicose talk, and through most of 1982 the region got a relatively low policy priority. But last whiter Clark, by then transferred...
...Washington-wise Shultz, an unscarred veteran of Cabinet posts in the Nixon Administration, took over twelve months ago from the self-styled vicar of foreign policy, Alexander Haig, whose petty turf struggles and emotional pronouncements, as well as battles over substantive policy, kept the State Department at the forefront of power but alienated other officials and finally the President. Shultz was hailed as a calm and soothing replacement, a man to whom power flows naturally. Last September he engineered what then seemed the sound plan of trying to bring Jordan into negotiations over the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Soon afterward...
...National Security Council. Although he will report to Shultz, McFarlane, in a convoluted arrangement, will remain an assistant to Clark. In both cases, the White House acted out of a sense of impatience over the State Department's methodical and low-keyed approach. "They dumped Al Haig because he was too active," says a former top Cabinet official, "and now they are irritated with George Shultz because he is too passive...
...page statement, which was personally cleared by Reagan, was the first comprehensive statement of U.S. policy toward the Soviets since Shultz succeeded Haig almost a year ago. The warmer tone, however, did not stop Shultz from castigating the Soviets for their arms buildup and "unconstructive involvement" in unstable areas of the world. He came close to accusing the Soviets of testing new intercontinental ballistic missiles in violation of the unratified SALT II agreement, and excoriated them for human rights "infractions." In the past decade, he said, "the changes in Soviet behavior have been for the worse...
...Unlike Haig, who was preoccupied with Soviet involvement in international terrorism, Shultz placed human rights front and center as a test of Soviet intentions. Said he: "The need for steady improvement of Soviet performance in the most important human rights categories is as central to the Soviet-American dialogue as any other theme." In a break with past Administrations, Shultz argued that arms control should not be the centerpiece of U.S.-Soviet relations. "As important as it is," he said, "arms control has not been-and cannot be-the dominant subject of our dialogue with the Soviets." Indeed, he painted...