WASHINGTON INSIGHT

A THOUSAND WORDS: On Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s first day in office, she found three portraits her predecessor, Warren Christopher, had left on the wall: Thomas Jefferson, Dean Acheson and Cyrus Vance, former secretaries of State, all. Albright kept Jefferson but replaced the others with George Marshall and Edmund Muskie. The Muskie for Vance shift is easy to understand--Christopher was Vance’s deputy and Albright worked on Muskie’s Capitol Hill staff. But what about Acheson and Marshall, probably the two most distinguished secretaries since World War II? Well, Acheson was a career diplomat who liked to manipulate events from behind the scenes, while Marshall was a scholar-soldier-diplomat known for articulating U.S. policy.

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ALL CLEAR: In Albright’s first speech to State Department employees, she took aim at the cherished obfuscation of diplomats. Albright wants the department to try harder to tell its story to Americans and, as it does so, abandon its customary “acronyms, jargon, generalities and banalities.” But that may be an uphill fight, she conceded, noting that the inspection certificates in the department’s elevators refer to “vertical transportation units.”

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GOOD COP/BAD COP: No less than five top administration officials spoke out last week about Saudi Arabia’s cooperation--or lack thereof--with FBI investigators trying to find the terrorists responsible for the June bombing in Dahran that killed 19 U.S. airmen. But the statements were hardly uniform. First, FBI Director Louis J. Freeh and Atty. Gen. Janet Reno accused the Saudis of withholding crucial information. Although Freeh has made three trips to talk with the Saudis, the public complaints were the first any U.S. officials have issued. Next was White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry, who sanded off the rough edges, saying: “The important thing here is to continue working with the Saudi government.” Then Albright shifted the line, insisting “the Saudis have been cooperative.” Tuesday, President Clinton said: “I’m confident that in the end they will do what I have been assured personally by the highest levels of the Saudi government they should do.” Confused? But senior U.S. officials are betting the Saudis understood the carefully choreographed message.

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ENTICING POST: The most sought-after job in Washington? Not the Clinton White House but president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The finalists: Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott; former Democratic Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia; U.S. Ambassador to Russia Thomas R. Pickering; Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner Doris Meissner; Michael McFaul, a political analyst in Moscow for the Carnegie Endowment; and Richard Haass, director of foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution here.

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ENGLISH POLICE: The Ebonics debate is generating sparks on Capitol Hill. Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.) has introduced a resolution to deny federal education funds for “any program that is based upon the premise that ‘Ebonics’ is a legitimate language.” He even circulated a letter among colleagues saying: “When Is a Language Not a Language? When It’s Ebonics!” Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) was not amused. An aide has distributed a dueling letter that points out more than 20 errors of grammar and form in King’s missive. Said Rodney Walker, Conyers’ press secretary: “As Congress continues the Ebonics debate, who will decide what constitutes standard English, Mr. King?”