NEWS ANALYSIS : 11th-Hour Envoys Open Escape Route for Clinton

For months, ever since President Clinton and his aides began seriously considering a U.S. invasion of Haiti, they have hoped against hope for one unlikely outcome: that Haiti’s brutal rulers somehow would surrender without a fight.

“That would be quite a victory,” a close Clinton aide mused recently. It would relieve Clinton’s deep personal uneasiness about sending U.S. troops into battle, especially in an unpopular cause. And it would offer a badly needed policy triumph to a President who has seen too many of his domestic and international initiatives go awry.

This tattered hope of escaping military conflict, with its special resonance for a young President who avoided military service and opposed the Vietnam War, lay behind Clinton’s surprise announcement Friday that he is sending special envoys to Haiti this weekend.

Clinton’s unhappiness at the prospect of a military clash has been palpable: One visitor who saw the President on Friday said that he spoke of the prospect of war without passion or conviction, as if he still had not made up his mind.

And in political terms, as Clinton knows from his 1992 campaign against George Bush, even a military victory like the 1991 Persian Gulf War would be no guarantee of long-term presidential success.

Officials said they had largely given up hope for a negotiated end to the standoff with Haiti’s military rulers until Thursday, when former President Jimmy Carter relayed a message from the regime’s leader, Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras, asking for talks about the junta’s terms of departure.

Officials are still not sure that the Haitians are serious, but they are willing to find out.

“The word dignity has figured in quite a few of the feelers we have received from them,” one official said. It is as if the generals want to know how they would “surrender their swords,” he said.

So with that slight encouragement, the idea of sending three distinguished Americans on a last-minute negotiating mission, even if its prospects of success are slim, offered Clinton one final hope for escape from a war he does not relish.

So eager was Clinton to try this one last chance at a peaceful outcome that he agreed to send Carter, retired Gen. Colin L. Powell and Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) to Haiti--even though the message from Cedras was ambiguous: agreeing to talks about his departure without clearly saying he is ready to go.

Top officials acknowledge that they still do not know what Cedras and the other Haitian leaders--army chief of staff Brig. Gen. Philippe Biamby and police chief Lt. Col. Michel-Joseph Francois--have in mind: whether they want to take the Administration’s offer of a CIA-supplied safe passage out of Haiti and a comfortable exile in South America, or whether they really intend, as they have said, to fight to the death.

For weeks, U.S. officials have been receiving “feelers” from people claiming to represent Cedras or Biamby or Francois. Most turned out to be insubstantial.

But Carter’s messages this week came directly from Cedras to the former President, so they at least had the virtue of being authentic.

Nunn and Powell were added to the mission for several reasons. One, although officials did not want to admit it, is to keep an eye on Carter, who embarrassed Clinton in June by launching free-lance negotiations with North Korea (although officials now say they are pleased with the way that effort turned out).

Clinton also asked Nunn, who has opposed an invasion of Haiti, to explain clearly to Cedras that Congress is not, as a practical matter, going to stop the military action from going ahead.

And Powell was asked to participate because his stature as a famous retired general is expected to draw respect from the Haitian officers.

Their presence on the delegation could also have the effect of disarming domestic opposition to Clinton’s policy in Haiti, even if only slightly.

Many members of Congress had called on the President to send a final diplomatic offer to Haiti before launching an invasion. Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) even suggested Powell for the job--little dreaming that Clinton might take him up on it.

In that sense, even if Clinton’s three emissaries fail, the mission will have symbolic value--showing critics, both at home and abroad, that the President went the extra mile to seek a diplomatic arrangement.

But in the end, officials agreed, Clinton’s main motive was simpler: He just doesn’t want to go to war.

Aides said they have been mystified by the charge from some Republicans that Clinton believes that a successful military campaign will boost his popularity. Even a few deaths among U.S. forces, or among American citizens in Haiti, could come back to haunt him, they noted. And they foresee possible trouble down the road if U.S. troops remain on peacekeeping duty in Haiti, as expected, into the presidential election year of 1996.

“Anybody who thinks we want to invade for political reasons,” one official said wryly, “isn’t looking at the polls.”

A High-Profile Team

A look at the envoys who were asked by President Clinton on Friday to go to Haiti and meet military leaders there in what could be a final effort to avoid a U.S.-led invasion.

JIMMY CARTER

Whether he’s wielding hammer and nails on a low-income house or the weight of his office in world affairs, Carter has hardly stopped trying to build things since he lost the presidency in the 1980 election. Carter, 69, and the Carter Center he set up have monitored elections in about a dozen countries, promoted child immunization and human rights in the Third World, and worked for the betterment of America’s inner cities. He is credited with negotiating a freeze on North Korea’s nuclear program and arranging for North-South talks earlier this year..

COLIN POWELL

The former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff may be going to Haiti to explore peace, but he also had a hand in shaping the strategic thinking of the invasion force now massed against Haiti. Before retiring last year after a 35-year career in the armed forces, America’s top military officer moved to increase cooperation among the services with reforms that would be put to their first big test in a Haiti invasion. His authoritative, soothing manner during the Persian Gulf War made him a media star and raised expectations he might run for the presidency. Powell, 57, has been working on his biography.

SAM NUNN

The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Nunn (D-Ga.) has expressed reservations about invading Haiti, saying the crisis there was not a vital U.S. interest and restoring democracy would be a long-term commitment. Nothing big that happens in the military, and not much in foreign affairs, escapes the scrutiny of Nunn, 56, one of Washington’s most powerful men. He voted against authorizing force in the lead-up to the Persian Gulf War when Republican George Bush was president and has sometimes been at odds with Democrat Bill Clinton. But White House officials said in January they had asked Nunn to become defense secretary, and he refused.