Word: strauss
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...introduction of Newcomer Strauss into the Middle East summitry shook the State Department to its foundations. That Carter would reach around Vance and Brzezinski and pick the glad-handing Texan, a lawyer, politician and trade negotiator relatively inexperienced in diplomatic affairs, stunned the department professionals. The move further diminished Vance's standing, removing a principal foreign policy area from his direction. It not only disillusioned the whole State Department but also aggravated the long-term power struggle between State and the National Security Council. Brzezinski saw Strauss's appointment as both a weakening of Vance's authority...
Carter's chief reason for appointing Strauss was to have a high-level official primarily responsible for dealing with Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat. In the wake of the Camp David summit, the two leaders were constantly turning to Carter for counsel. The President had made up his mind that Vance was not strong enough to control the volatile peace negotiations, and he was not satisfied that Brzezinski was able to make decisions on his own. "Cy can't hold Begin and Sadat away from me," Carter complained to his closest White House confidants, "and Zbig is into...
...although Carter was already depending on Strauss to direct his re-election campaign, he chose the Texan as his special envoy to the Middle East last April. Once again the narrow limits of Carter's talent pool were revealed, for Strauss had little cachet in the diplomatic field, but he would bring the President a more audacious and political style in the Middle East. "I don't care whether Cy likes it or not," Carter told his aides, anticipating a protest from Vance. The President made certain to tell Brzezinski explicitly that he wanted Strauss's role...
...upset Vance quite a bit. The normally imperturbable Secretary was badly shaken by the decision, especially when he learned that Strauss had insisted he report directly to the President. Strauss, before he accepted the job, presented Carter with a long memo of understanding, declaring that he would not work directly for Vance or Brzezinski. Carter was startled. He told intimates that it was the first time he had ever received written conditions about an assignment from the man who was about to get it. He went along with Strauss's terms but turned over to Hamilton Jordan the delicate...
...soon as Vance heard the news, he 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...