New Foreign Policy Team Announced

President-elect Bill Clinton named the core of his foreign policy team Tuesday, placing a new emphasis on human rights, refugees and the environment while stressing continuity in the delicate U.S.-mediated Arab-Israeli peace process by reappointing the State Department’s top Middle East expert.

In all, Clinton and Secretary of State-designate Warren Christopher announced 13 top-level State Department appointments, including former Ambassador to China Winston Lord, a harsh critic of the Bush Administration’s policy of reconciliation with China, to be assistant secretary of state for East Asia. The Clinton transition team, which has been accused of foot-dragging in staffing the government, said that it will appoint 100 to 200 more officials before the end of next week.

In a step calculated to reassure Arab participants in the Middle East peace talks, Clinton retained Edward P. Djerejian as assistant secretary of state for Near East and South Asian policy, a post that he has held since September, 1991.

George Stephanopoulos, Clinton’s communications director, said that Djerejian, a career Foreign Service officer, was given a fresh appointment in the new Administration instead of being asked to stay on the job through a transition period.

A former ambassador to Syria who also served as a diplomat in Jordan, Morocco, Lebanon, France and the Soviet Union, Djerejian, 53, is widely respected in the Arab world. Some Arab delegates to the peace talks, who had complained that Clinton’s pre-election rhetoric was strongly pro-Israel, have advocated Djerejian’s reappointment as an indication that the new Administration is serious about playing the role of “honest broker” between Israel and its Arab adversaries.

At the same time, Clinton selected Samuel W. Lewis, a former ambassador to Israel who is popular with the Jerusalem government, to be the State Department’s chief of policy planning. Lewis, 62, has been president of the government-financed U.S. Institute of Peace since he returned in 1985 after a 31-year career in the Foreign Service.

Dennis Ross, Lewis’ predecessor in the policy post, was asked to remain temporarily as a consultant. Ross, a close aide to former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, teamed with Djerejian in mediating the Arab-Israeli talks.

In a sign that he intends to put more emphasis on the environment, human rights, refugee affairs, population and narcotics, Clinton said he will appoint former Sen. Timothy E. Wirth (D-Colo.) to a newly created job as undersecretary of state for those issues. While awaiting congressional approval of the reorganization, Wirth will act as counselor of the department.

As undersecretary for political affairs, the State Department’s third-ranking post, Clinton named Peter Tarnoff, a veteran Foreign Service officer who is now president of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Lynn E. Davis, an arms-control expert and a high-level Pentagon official in the Carter Administration, was named undersecretary for international security affairs, the State Department’s top arms control post.

Other appointments were:

* Joan Spero, executive vice president of American Express and a former member of the U.S. delegation to the United Nations, to be undersecretary for economic and agricultural affairs.

* J. Brian Atwood, a senior Clinton campaign adviser and a State Department official in the Carter Administration, to be undersecretary for management.

* Thomas E. Donilon, a White House official in the Carter Administration and a partner in the Washington office of Christopher’s law firm, O’Melveny and Myers, to be assistant secretary for public affairs and department spokesman.

* Strobe Talbott, editor-at-large of Time magazine and an Oxford University classmate of Clinton’s, to be coordinator of policy toward the new states of the former Soviet Union.

* Stephen A. Oxman, an investment banker and former executive assistant to Christopher during the Carter Administration, to be assistant secretary for European and Canadian affairs.

* George E. Moose, a career Foreign Service officer who has been ambassador to Senegal, to be assistant secretary for Africa.

* Harriet C. Babbitt, chairwoman of the Latin American subcommittee of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs--which encourages democracy abroad--and wife of Interior Secretary-designate Bruce Babbitt, to be U.S. representative to the Organization of American States.

Christopher also announced that Bernard Aronson, the Bush Administration’s assistant secretary for Latin America, will stay on, at least until the crisis in Haiti is resolved.