NATO’s Power Vacuum Worsens as Top Contender Is Withdrawn : Europe: Lacking U.S. backing, Dutch candidate for secretary general is yanked. Hopes for a smooth transition in crucial period fade.

In a move that completes a brief but bitter transatlantic diplomatic debacle, the Dutch government withdrew the name of former Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers as a candidate for the job of NATO secretary general on Friday after he failed to win U.S. backing.

“The United States has let it be known that it will not support Lubbers’ candidacy,” Dutch Foreign Minister Hans van Mierlo told reporters in The Hague.

The development effectively returns to the drawing board the search for a successor to Willy Claes, who abruptly resigned as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization chief three weeks ago amid accusations of scandal during his period as a Belgian government minister.

It also ends hopes among the alliance’s 16 member states for a smooth leadership transition at a crucial time in NATO history.

The only other declared candidate for the job, former Danish Foreign Minister Uffe Ellemann-Jensen, is said to be opposed by France, because Denmark has strenuously protested the recent resumption of French nuclear testing.

On Friday, the day NATO ambassadors had hoped to formally agree on the next secretary general, they instead met to begin again in the debris of a rare public disagreement on an important alliance issue.

“We’re trying to build bridges now,” said Robert Hunter, the U.S. ambassador to NATO. “The whole exercise is to find the right person to lead the alliance at this important time. If we’ve learned anything, it’s that we want to do things quietly.”

Only 10 days ago, Lubbers seemed a virtual shoo-in after receiving enthusiastic backing from French President Jacques Chirac and British Prime Minister John Major. The next day, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl also gave Lubbers his support.

But it soon became clear that Washington was unhappy with the choice.

Early this week, the Clinton Administration’s conspicuous silence on Lubbers was attributed to irritation that it had not been consulted before the Europeans gave such upbeat public endorsements rather than to any lack of confidence in the 56-year-old former leader.

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While admitting their annoyance at the European actions, Administration officials now say privately that Lubbers was rejected because of “a broad range of problems,” including questionable business dealings during his years in government and his performance as prime minister of three coalition governments between 1982 and 1994.

The result has left European egos bruised and officials on both sides of the Atlantic wishing that it had all never happened.

“It’s been very badly handled,” admitted a senior NATO official who declined to be identified by name. “What’s happened is going to prolong the whole [selection process].”

With the alliance on the verge of important decisions about enlarging its membership eastward, and also in the final planning stages of a massive Balkans peacekeeping operation, NATO member governments had hoped to have a secretary general in place before a meeting of defense ministers later this month and of foreign ministers early next month.

That now seems highly unlikely.

“We’ll take as long as we need to find the right person,” Hunter said.

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For Lubbers, the longest-serving Dutch prime minister of the post-World War II era and a popular figure in his country, the rejection marks the second personal humiliation in as many years.

He was a leading candidate to succeed Jacques Delors as president of the European Union’s Executive Commission last year until he was rejected by Kohl, who is said to dislike Lubbers personally and believes that he tried to delay German unification.

Marshall reported from Brussels and Pine from Washington.