Bush Salutes Diplomatic Corps in Choice for U. N. Post

Thomas R. Pickering, named to the highly visible post of U. S. ambassador to the United Nations, is a 29-year veteran of the Foreign Service who is admired for his intellect even by his critics.

President-elect George Bush said his selection of Pickering, now U. S. ambassador to Israel, was intended to symbolize the importance he attaches to the nation’s corps of professional diplomats. Pickering is only the third career Foreign Service officer to be named chief of the U. S. mission at the United Nations.

“For people in the career Foreign Service, this is a real morale booster,” one State Department official said.

Pickering, 57, is described as a “workaholic,” but he also likes scuba diving, driving fast cars and poking around at archeological sites--hobbies he may have to give up when he takes up his duties at U. N. headquarters in New York.

Praise From Predecessor

“He is an extremely able professional,” Samuel W. Lewis, Pickering’s predecessor as ambassador to Israel, said of him. “He has broad experience for the U. N. because he served in major posts in Africa, Latin America and the Middle East.”

Pickering has been ambassador to El Salvador, Nigeria and Jordan, as well as Israel. He also was assistant secretary of state for oceans, environment and scientific affairs and, 20 years ago, was assigned to the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.

As ambassador to El Salvador from 1983 until 1985, Pickering was the object of at least three assassination plots, which U. S. officials blamed on followers of Roberto D’Aubuisson, a rightist politician who ran second to Jose Napoleon Duarte in that country’s 1984 presidential election.

D’Aubuisson complained that Pickering provided covert U.S. support to Duarte in the hotly contested election. Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N. C.), a backer of D’Aubuisson, mounted a spirited campaign against Pickering and forced two days of heated hearings on Pickering’s nomination to the post in Israel. Helms said that in El Salvador, Pickering had used “the resources of the U. S. Embassy to assure the victory of one democratic faction over another.”

Promise to Helms

In the end, however, Helms voted for Pickering’s confirmation. The senator said that Pickering had promised not to interfere in Israeli politics. At the same time, Helms praised Pickering’s intellect.

Pickering’s service in Jordan and Israel won him praise from both sides of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

For instance, Burton S. Levinson, national chairman of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, who met Pickering frequently in Tel Aviv, said: “I have always been impressed with his knowledge, integrity and his warmth. My meetings with him have always been very comfortable. I was always very proud that he was an American ambassador.”

The King’s Favorite

Former Sen. James Abourezk (D-S. D.), founder of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee, said: “He has always been a good ambassador. He has been straight, all the way through.” A decade ago, when Pickering was winding up his tour of duty in Jordan, King Hussein is reported to have referred to him as the best American ambassador he had ever dealt with.

By choosing a professional diplomat for the U. N. post, Bush passed up the opportunity to pick a high-profile politician. Pickering’s predecessors have included Adlai E. Stevenson, twice a Democratic candidate for President; Arthur J. Goldberg, a former Supreme Court justice; Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a U. S. senator; Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, an outspoken professor, and George Bush himself.

Only Charles W. Yost, who served two years in the post during the Richard M. Nixon Administration, and Donald F. McHenry, who served 16 months during the Jimmy Carter Administration, were career diplomats.