Top U.S. Envoy in Iraq a ‘Hard-Charging’ Californian : Diplomacy: Colleagues say Joseph Wilson is steely enough to stand up to Saddam Hussein and savvy enough to know how.

President Bush has advised Iraqi President Saddam Hussein that if he wants to talk, he can simply place a local call to the ranking U.S. diplomat in Iraq.

Bush’s man in Baghdad is Joseph C. Wilson IV, a 40-year-old Californian described by colleagues as steely enough to stand up to Hussein and savvy enough to know how to do it.

“We’ve got a very able person there in Baghdad who is prepared to talk,” Bush told reporters this week when asked if the United States is ready to negotiate with the Iraqis.

Wilson, the deputy chief of mission at the Baghdad embassy, has called the shots there throughout the current crisis because U.S. Ambassador April C. Glaspie was out of the country.

In the aftermath of Iraq’s Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait, Wilson was summoned to Hussein’s office and told categorically that the smaller country no longer existed. And it has been Wilson’s job to respond in person to Hussein’s demands and to press for the release of the American hostages in Iraq and Kuwait.

“Joe’s a very capable diplomat, the kind of person who can go in there and hear a stern message from Saddam Hussein and not be intimidated,” said Jack Bryant, deputy executive director of the State Department’s bureau of African affairs, where Wilson worked when he joined the Foreign Service 14 years ago.

Bryant described his friend as a confident diplomat who has enjoyed a rapid ascent through the ranks of the Foreign Service by distinguishing himself in several postings in Africa.

At one point in his career, Wilson was assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria, South Africa, after a small scandal involving a U.S. diplomat there. He was credited within a year with raising morale and “cleaning up the mess,” according to an official who requested anonymity.

“Joe is hard-charging, both in his efforts to have fun and to succeed at what he’s doing for the department,” said another friend who also asked not to be named. “He’s a blend of the traditional Foreign Service type, who can be very stiff and diplomatic if the occasion calls for it, and the modern Foreign Service type, who knows how to have fun and get to know the local people.”

Wilson was made second in command in Baghdad in 1988 by Ambassador Glaspie, an experienced Arabist, shortly after she was assigned there by the Ronald Reagan Administration. Shortly before the invasion of Kuwait, Glaspie went on vacation in London.

After years in Africa, Wilson found his first posting in the Middle East difficult, said friends. He arrived when relations between the United States and Iraq were rapidly chilling. In addition, he does not speak Arabic.

“Joe was used to the slower pace of small countries in Africa,” said a friend who visited Wilson and his French-born wife, Jackie, in Iraq. “Baghdad was a bigger city than anything he had seen in the sub-Sahara. So there were adjustments.”

But Wilson boasted to his friend that a year or so after arriving in Iraq, he managed to break the ice with local officials, persuading them to do something rare: attend a party at his home.

“It was a cookout,” said the friend, “and Joe was able to get this very high-ranking official to wear a big Texas cowboy hat.”

Born in Connecticut, Wilson spent most of his teen-age years abroad. His father was a journalist overseas, mostly in Paris, where the younger Wilson learned the language and developed a love of everything French.

According to Bryant, Wilson began calling California home after receiving a bachelor’s degree in history from UC Santa Barbara. His two children by a previous marriage live in the Los Angeles area, and his mother in Palm Springs.

Friends recalled Wilson as a “California golden boy” when he joined the Foreign Service in 1976. He was tagged with the nickname “Carpenter”--a skill he had picked up living in Northern California, and was seen as an officer bound for success.

Bryant gave Wilson his first assignment to help small U.S. embassies in Africa prepare for a visit by Henry A. Kissinger, who was making his first trip to the region as secretary of state.

“I can still see Joe, slim and tall, rolling warehouse carts of supplies through the hallways of the State Department, getting them ready to ship off to rinky-dink offices in Africa,” Bryant said. “He was ambitious, and when you asked him to do something, he got it done.”

Later, Wilson spent two-year stints in embassies in Niamey, Niger; Lome, Togo; and Bujumbura, Burundi. His most recent assignment was in Brazzaville, Congo, where he won the Foreign Service’s Rifkin Award.

A group of friends in the State Department were recalling Wilson this week, wondering what lies ahead.

What if the crisis in the gulf got worse? What if Wilson became a hostage himself? Could he stand the pressure?

Most of his colleagues and friends concluded that Wilson could survive with ease.