New Energy for U.S. Foreign Agenda : Choice of Talbott for State Dept. post furthers revitalization

Whether the second year of his presidency will find Bill Clinton devoting to national security and foreign relations challenges the time and concentration these compelling matters demand remains to be seen, but if nothing else he has now strongly signaled his intention to seek greater vigor and decisiveness in making and carrying out key policies, and that’s all to the good.

The latest sign came Tuesday with Secretary of State Warren Christopher’s announcement that Strobe Talbott, who currently holds the title of ambassador-at-large, will be nominated to the No. 2 job at the State Department.

Talbott will fill the vacancy left by the sudden resignation last month of Clifton Wharton Jr., a highly respected university administrator who had little previous foreign policy experience. Wharton left in apparent frustration over having been given too little to do, though the timing of his requested resignation, after a succession of Administration blunders and embarrassments in Bosnia, Somalia and Haiti, encouraged talk that he was being made the scapegoat for actions and policies with which he in fact had little to do.

Talbott is a longtime journalist who brings to his new post a high degree of foreign relations expertise as well as demonstrated media savvy--not to be scorned in an Administration that has sometimes had trouble articulating a sense of just what its foreign policy is.

For nearly a year Talbott has served as the President’s personally chosen point man in relations with Russia and the republics of the former Soviet Union. In that capacity he has consistently championed President Boris N. Yeltsin’s efforts to bring a free-market economy and democracy to a country that has not known the former for nearly three generations and has not known the latter ever.

Developments in Russia and in neighboring states promise, at the very least, to remain lively and demanding in coming years. In Russia especially ominous uncertainties have been raised by the strength shown in recent legislative elections by both neo-fascist and neo-communist parties, grim reminders of Russia’s virtually unbroken tradition of centralized, authoritarian rule. Clinton and Christopher should be especially well-served by being able to call on Talbott’s formidable firsthand experience with Russia and its leaders.

But perhaps the biggest contribution Talbott can make will be to persuade Clinton, where others have failed, that he must pay greater concentrated attention to global issues that affect the political and security interests of the United States. Surely this consideration wasn’t far from Christopher’s mind when he recommended the appointment of Talbott, the President’s old friend and onetime roommate at Oxford.

However drawn he may be to his domestic agenda, Clinton remains simply by virtue of his office and the enormous powers it commands preeminent among world leaders. That responsibility demands more time and energy than he has so far been willing to give. The nominations of retired Adm. Bobby Ray Inman to succeed Les Aspin as secretary of defense and of Talbott to the top tier at the State Department are encouraging indications of a new appreciation of what that responsibility requires. Both of these first-rate choices deserve speedy Senate confirmation.