Albright Headed to Helms Territory

It is part of a diplomat’s job to go into hostile territory and meet with implacable opponents. Now Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is taking it a step further than any of her recent predecessors. She’s going into deepest Helms country.

The State Department announced Wednesday that Albright will visit North Carolina on March 25 at the invitation of Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.). The climax of the visit will be an evening speech to the Jesse Helms Institute at Wingate University in Wingate, N.C.

Helms, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has been a hair shirt for secretaries of State of both parties for as long as anyone can remember. Right now he is threatening to block Senate ratification of a new treaty banning poison gas weapons, a top priority for Albright and the Clinton administration.

But Albright hopes to make bipartisanship a hallmark of her tenure. And Helms, who enjoys being called “courtly,” has gone out of his way to treat Albright with courtesy. Around the State Department, the pressing question is whether the Albright-Helms era of good feeling will survive a whole day spent in each other’s company.