NEWS ANALYSIS : Clinton’s Talking Muddles Policy : Foreign affairs: Many think he would be more persuasive if he reserved comment until he made up his mind what to do.

Late last month, in the aftermath of yet another Administration foreign policy embarrassment--the abrupt reversal over linking trade with China to human rights improvements there--President Clinton said there was nothing wrong with his foreign policy that better communication could not solve.

Clinton acknowledged in a recent interview with The Times that his inability to articulate his Administration’s foreign policy goals “is not inspiring people’s confidence in me.”

He said that, if he were better able to communicate his goals, Americans would be more comfortable with his policies.

So in recent weeks, the White House has hired a new foreign policy spokesman, begun regular high-level communications strategy meetings and put the President on display more often to demonstrate his grasp of foreign affairs.

But while Clinton may believe that failure to communicate is at fault, others see a more troubling problem--the tendency to communicate more while having less to say.

Clinton’s new expansiveness has exposed the sometimes tortuous path that his thinking takes to arrive at foreign policy decisions.

Many outside observers--and some senior White House aides--believe that Clinton would be more persuasive if he would reserve comment on foreign affairs until after he has made up his mind what to do.

Despite recent attempts to improve the presentation of Administration policy, the dispute with North Korea has been marked by crossed signals, mixed messages, empty threats and the unusual spectacle of a current and a former President at odds over U.S. policy.

The performance is reminiscent of earlier foreign policy troubles--in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Somalia, Haiti and China--in which Clinton and his advisers talked tough but did not follow through with forceful action.

As he did with Bosnia last year, Clinton talked about putting together an international coalition to punish North Korea before he had done the groundwork with U.S. allies. Both attempts at concerted international action failed.

White House aides, concerned that Clinton had not clearly spelled out U.S. interests in Korea and the Administration’s policy for dealing with North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, persuaded the President to disrupt his schedule and make an unplanned appearance in the White House briefing room last week.

Clinton gave a rather long talk on why Americans should care about what happens in Korea and explained that he was trying to put together an international coalition to thwart North Korea’s efforts to produce nuclear weapons.

But within a day, his effort to rally U.S. allies to impose sanctions against North Korea was undercut by former President Jimmy Carter’s statement that sanctions would be counterproductive and should not be part of U.S. policy.

Clinton appeared in the briefing room again Wednesday to announce the “good news” that North Korea had agreed to freeze its nuclear programs while Washington and Pyongyang engage in high-level talks.

But the President acknowledged that North Korea may not be sincere and said he would reassess U.S. policy again if Pyongyang reneges on its promises to open its nuclear facilities to inspection.

The answer to Clinton’s communications difficulties lies not in more talk from the President and his advisers--which tends to confuse and alarm the public--but less, according to former White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater.

“The problem is . . . every time he tries to show people he knows the subject, he defeats his own purpose,” said Fitzwater, who was spokesman for Presidents George Bush and Ronald Reagan. “He should know enough to be careful not to say too much.”

Whether the crisis of the day is in Pyongyang or Sarajevo or Kigali, the President should explain U.S. interests in easily understood form and refrain from musing aloud about complex, fast-changing international crises, Fitzwater said.

“In the absence of policy, too often your communications are swept up in response to questions and they always relate to action and threats,” he said. “All we’ve seen is either (Vice President Al) Gore or the President making threats of one kind or another. My advice to them would be to settle on two or three brief points that make a case for our policy and, whatever the question, repeat those points and reassure the public (that) they are staying on top of the issue.”

Following Fitzwater’s advice might have spared Clinton embarrassment over the last year as he has been forced to retreat from threats and evolving policies around the globe:

* Had Clinton not promised vociferously to revoke China’s most-favored-nation trading privileges if Beijing did not improve its human rights record, he would not have had to back down a year later.

* If he had not threatened Haiti’s coup leaders with military action, he would not have had to face the ignominy of weeks of inaction while the Haitian generals consolidated their power and did great harm to their enemies.

* If he had not noisily brandished the sanctions weapon against North Korea and hinted at the possibility of war on the Korean peninsula, he would not have had to explain how Carter’s visit to Pyongyang could produce “hopeful signs” that the crisis might be ended quickly and peacefully.

One senior White House official said Clinton aides understood from the beginning of his presidential campaign that Clinton’s habit of thinking aloud would be a major challenge.

“We hoped at first that all of you, the press and Washington in general, would adapt to his style and understand that he likes to try out ideas in public,” the official said. “But we got over that hope pretty quickly.”

The problem, the official added, was that, although Clinton understands--in theory--the dangers of thinking aloud, he cannot stop himself.

The same malady afflicted former Defense Secretary Les Aspin, who brought to the Administration ruminative habits developed over years in Congress, where he had less of an impact on the United States’ image abroad.

Other White House aides argued that the problem is not an excess of words and a dearth of experience but rather the ambiguous nature of the post-Cold War world.

Clinton has been buffeted by crises that do not lend themselves to simple black-and-white analysis and us-versus-them rhetoric, White House Communications Director Mark Gearan said.

“It’s a difficult time we’re living in. The global map is much more complicated now than it was in the days that there was us and the Soviet Union,” Gearan said.

He noted that instant global communications make the President’s job much tougher as well, citing Carter’s mission to North Korea as an example.

The demand for instant news and analysis preempts the careful consultation and coordination required to present a cogent explanation of Administration policy.

Without saying so, Gearan suggested that Carter should have walked away from the CNN microphones in Pyongyang and called the White House to coordinate his statements before openly contradicting Administration policy.

Gearan then cited another example of how the velocity of news coverage makes his job of coordinating Administration communications virtually impossible.

Last year, the Pentagon launched cruise missiles against Iraq’s intelligence headquarters in Baghdad just as CNN’s political commentary show “The Capital Gang” was airing live.

As the talk show participants were debating the effect of the military raid on the Administration, Anthony Lake, the national security adviser, was on the phone to Gen. Colin L. Powell, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, trying to determine where the missiles were landing.

“We didn’t know if they were falling on downtown Baghdad or downtown Boston, and they’re already dissecting the impact on the Clinton presidency,” Gearan complained, adding: “Conducting diplomacy in the age of instant communications is a very different proposition. Without wanting to sound like I’m whining, it’s unprecedented.”

Times staff writer David Lauter contributed to this report.