Army General Is Clinton’s Pick to Chair Joint Chiefs

President Clinton on Wednesday selected Army Gen. Henry Shelton to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, aides said, in a choice that reflects his desire to emphasize peacekeeping operations, improve ties between the services--and to move cautiously on touchy military issues.

Shelton, 55, who now runs the elite Special Operations Command, won Clinton’s blessing after an afternoon meeting at the White House with Defense Secretary William S. Cohen. A formal announcement of the selection may come as early as this morning, officials said.

A 34-year veteran, Shelton is a dark-horse candidate who came to the fore only after Cohen’s first choice, Air Force Gen. Joseph W. Ralston, withdrew amid an outcry over a 13-year-old adulterous affair. The controversy forced the administration to search for a morally spotless candidate, and Shelton by all available accounts fills that bill.

He has a range of other assets that commend him for what Clinton wants his top military advisor to do--and to avoid doing.

As commanding officer of the Special Operations Command, Shelton has run a 46,000-troop force that is in the forefront of what the Clinton administration wants to do with the armed forces. Its Green Berets, Army Rangers and Navy SEALS are trained to conduct special commando-style missions and also teach developing nations’ military organizations how to defend themselves.

With its $2.3-billion budget, Special Operations also helps build infrastructure and services in developing nations, including everything from schools and medical clinics to utilities.

Importantly, Shelton has run two operations that coordinated several military services: the Special Operations Command and the Army-Navy team that took control of Haiti in October 1994.

While he has experience with the kind of peacekeeping and nation-building operations that are an increasingly prominent military task, Shelton also has a war background. He served two tours of duty in Vietnam, was deputy commander of the 101st Airborne Division during the Gulf War, and, as special-operations commander, “has bossed around thousands of the toughest soldiers in the world,” said John Hillen III, a military analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations who now serves under Shelton in the Army Reserves.

Shelton, 6-foot-4 and 210 pounds, has also kept his hand in as a paratrooper. Three years ago, to check out the airflow around a C-17 cargo aircraft that some feared unsafe, Shelton and Air Force Chief of Staff Ronald R. Fogelman made an unannounced jump at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.

The product of a North Carolina tobacco-growing farm family, Shelton also has a polite reserve that makes him easy to get along with. “He has a polite, gentlemanly style--an old-fashioned, Confederate warrior demeanor, and I mean that in the best possible way,” said Hillen.

Shelton has another asset: a rather short paper trail. In none of his posts so far has he needed to express opinions on the controversial issues of the day, such as those concerning integration of women in the military and the need to reshape the military for a new era without a single obvious enemy.