Thank you. Mike. Six minutes past 12 programming on Minnesota Public Radio is supported by standard heating and air conditioning the Twin Cities Home Comfort Experts for 69 years featuring your heating and cooling products. Good afternoon, and welcome back to mid-day on Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Gary. I can glad you could join us today. Tom gjelten. His life has taken a significant turn for the doll. Just a few years ago. Tom gjelten was filing riveting reports from the front lines of Bosnia these days he's tracking reports of what are euphemistically called Frank and open discussions at Foggy Bottom. After years is a foreign correspondent Tom gjelten now covers the state department for national public radio in 2 weeks ago. He was in the Twin Cities. This part of Minnesota Public Radio is broadcast journalist series to talk about his new life as a diplomatic correspondent while he was here in the Twin Cities. He was on midday. Of course, perhaps you heard that program. He also spoke at the Macalester College chapel and st. Paul in the subject of diplomacy Under Fire Tom gjelten began his remarks by noting that preparing his speech. This year was much more challenging than preparing for the speech that he gave at McHale. You're a few years ago. When I was here at McAlister three and a half years ago talking about the book that I had just written. I was at that point still fairly fresh from a war zone and I could I could tell stories, you know, sexy stories about what it's like to be a war correspondent. It was not hard in those days. It was not hard to keep people's interest in and what I had to say tonight, my topic is what it's like to be a state department correspondent. So this will be a real test of my ability to hold an audience because that the truth is that I might as well just get it straight right from beginning compared to what I've been doing for the previous eight or 10 years. It's really boring. I'm not I'm not saying that I'm not as happy as I was when I was a a foreign correspondent covering Wars or conflicts around the world. The truth is that I'm in fact happier. The reason I'm happy it always is is not because my work is more interesting. It's much less interesting in many ways. It's it's I'm happier because I now have a personal life which for 8 or 10 years is a globe-trotting correspondent. I did not have since I've come back. I've gotten married those of you who come to these events regularly know that I married to Martha raddatz hussar Pentagon correspondent and who was here with you just last October and so but you know what you have to make choices in life and you have to make compromises and I've given up some of the Glamour and excitement of being a foreign correspondent for a certain more stable life, and I'm very happy about that. But as a state department reporter the highlights of the highlight of my day Day after day after day is the state Department's noon, press briefing. This is my this is what keeps me going. I used to interview War victims generals presidents taxi drivers around the world. Now I go I put on a Jamie Rubin the spokesman of the state department, but we we did a little check on this the other day. We Ted Clark and I and Ted Clark is the other state department reporter between the two of us. We have quoted Jamie Rubin the state department spokesman 30 times in the last three months. So Jamie Rubin is by far the person in NPR the gets coated more than anyone else. This is Far Cry, of course from what I was doing before when Jimmy Ruben does not have a briefing we get very worried because Jimmy room is the voice the United States government on US foreign policy and it's very difficult to report in foreign policy without having the spokesman speaking for it. He does not give a briefing everyday we Course have to do stories every day. So what we do when he doesn't give a briefing is sometimes we call him up and ask him to give a sort of a private breathing but Dad and I had noticed that for some reason NPR's at the bottom of his call back list at 8 would always call at about 5:30 in the afternoon says hi. This is Jimmy. What can I do for you? Well by that time all things considered on the air and already angry. We've missed it. So Ted and I went to see him to basically beg him to return our calls earlier in the day so we could do our stories. So as you can see, this is just I just I'm going to have a hard time making this quiet engrossing as as I may have three and a half years ago with Jamie Rubin basically does with the spokesman for the US state department does is read with called guidance. He gets a big thick notebook that he takes out to the podium everyday the state department has 13 bureaus and each Bureau has its own public affairs department and what their job is is to anticipate the questions that the US. And foreign reporters who cover the state department will have every day and they make him it's very carefully cross reference does a different color for every country and so forth and and these people have the job of anticipating what questions is going to be asked and giving him a proposed answer. He doesn't make policy. All he does is he looks up in the book The Page corresponding to the question of u n e reads you that the guidance if you don't really want to go to the brief and we're done trying to listen to it. You can bypass him and go to the people that write the guidance and find out what he's going to say because he doesn't improvise. It's it's a purely just a matter of reading what he supposed to say. Now some State Department reporters make the mistake of getting into arguments with him and started challenging him on policy, which is a complete waste of time because all he's doing is reading what he has in in front of you. And so this is what it's a very different type of reporting that that one does covering the state department this morning. I had a story on and wish I quoted under sector of State Stuart eizenstat about the President Clinton's decision to waive a certain section of the Elms Burton Cuba sanctions bill for another six months and he was very concerned. He knew already that but I interviewed him yesterday that this was going to be happening today, but he's very concerned that I word it in such a way that I don't preamp the president's own announcement. You got to play games with these people, you know to make sure that you're right it in a certain way that you don't make Stuart eizenstat who's just a lowly under Secretary of State sound like is a head of the president so that it can be complicated sometime. Another part of the challenge of being a state department Porter is simply guessing which of those questions in his book are going to have some news where the answer is because 99% of them are really boring and you've got it you sometimes just have to throw up all kinds of crazy questions hoping he's going to get one back. And give you something interesting now. I actually don't go to the briefings that often because NPR is a very high-tech news organization. We have them wired into NPR so I can sit at my desk and listen to it on my own desk radio. I only go to a question if I only go to one of these briefings if I if I if I have a question. So not only and I am I doing something very boring. I just now at finally got a desk job after all these years. I'm able to be a reporter. I put on some weight since I was a war correspondent and I think that's probably obvious. The you learn and covering the state department of learn to listen for for particular words because they that's where you get the the content the meeting you learn what two terms mean when when Jamie Rubin comes out and says that Secretary State Albright and so and so had a Frank exchange of views and all that. They had a knock-down-drag-out fight. When he says that the latest move by the Israelis are the Palestinians is quote not helpful, you know that they're really angry about it. I probably called him up and shoot him out in the phone. This Monday's briefing at this money is breathing. Jamie said that the ball with respect to the peace process in in the Middle East now is not in the Palestinian Court. The ball is in the court of the Israelis. These are they this is a very popular expression among State Department suppose when they start talking about whose Court the ball is then you know, what which side they're putting pressure on. I mean, there are certain phrases like this that you have to keep an ear out for And so this is and you also have to sit through some really Arcane discussions. Very wide who is the dean of the state department reporters was asked four times to Jamie Rubin on on Monday. I have to have the transcript hear. What was the u.s. View on the with the Palestinians had to change as far as their Covenant was concerned was clear from the answer the first question that Jamie Rubin didn't want to answer it. But very wide as one of these stubborn guys. He comes back over and over again asses to ask the question is slightly different way each time and Never really got it, right. I happen to know a little bit about the money briefing cuz I was there by story on Monday. There was a very interesting story The New York Times on Sunday and Monday quoting a a former sabotage expert a Cuban Exile who fought against Castro in the in the sixties and did a lot of dirty work for the CIA and confessed in these interviews with the New York Times that he'd been the guy that had bombed the hotels in Havana last summer. We spent a lot of attention and not only that it's some very prominent Cuban American politicians in Miami had been supporting him and even giving him money which course would be a violation of US law for a US citizen to be financing terrorism a bra and I wanted to know I went to make sure that I have a lot of questions about this and I wanted to make sure that the Jamie answered them. I got there a little late in the fact most of the questions we're already asked about it. So I probably wouldn't have needed to go but I did have one I did have one. One question that no one else had asked he kept saying in this in his interview that he had a u.s. Passport but wasn't a US citizen and I just I couldn't understand this and was much out of curiosity is anything you have to do when you come to the state about you can't be afraid to ask stupid questions and silly questions because you just never know what kind of interesting response you're going to get but I am reading from the official transcript of stop the state department briefing and I'm quoting myself from Monday after Monday 1. Do you know where the Luis Posada or can you find out where the Luis Posada has a u.s. Passport and to is it possible to have a passport and not be a citizen and Jamie Rubin answers that would strike me as being inconsistent. Then he goes on to say the way I read the story was that Luis Posada had a false u.s. Passport and I said he had a you're implying that he had a false passport. That was the implication story. Then I asked so does the state department give out passports under false names? Zach said when I asked that I was just a completely saw him question. It was a serious question at this point in the transcript in parentheses laughter and it wasn't until after it was all my colleagues that must have thought that took the cake that day for the stupidest question State Department, Chris. Jamie says, of course not and then I asked what other agents of the u.s. Cuz I was very clear that he knew about this guy but he work for the CIA we knew we had a u.s. Passport. Jamie is saying that the state department does not give out passports to people who aren't citizens and it doesn't give out false passports. Well if you had a u.s. Passport, where did he get it if you work for the CIA could does it can the CIA give out passports to people under false names in my guess is they can but they're never going to admit that and Jamie should have just disses me at this point and says why you conspiracy theorists are going to continue to work issues such as these but it's it's anybody. It's it's our view. We have not had a relationship with this person in decades. And anybody who suggests otherwise is stirring the pot so I dropped the question. I'm actually mocking myself a little bit here. Am it is true. This is not quite as challenging as being a reporter but there are interesting things about covering US foreign policy. There are interesting things about covering the state department and in some ways they are analogous to being a correspondent in the field where you have to be a very quick student of in exotic places. You have to sort of learning the lay of the land very quickly as a as a state department Porter. You have to be willing to sort of play the role of being an instant expert or a generalist are there are many days when I come into work and don't find out until 10:30 or 11 in the morning what story I'm going to have to do that day and it may be a story about us foreign policy with respect to some country. Let me know absolutely nothing about and then I I just have a few hours to figure out everything I can to make as many phone calls as I can to go to a reference librarian look up the clips to to call around and actually this Is a very this is a very challenging aspect of my work and it's one that that I do enjoy enjoy this artist starting from this is something that a lot of you might find terrified by think journalists sort of don't mind being in Stinnett between our knowledge is is this is this deep but there's that there actually is something exciting about going from ground zero to being all things considered as expert on a subject in a for 5 hours last week last week. I had to report on developments in Nigeria and I actually asked for it for State Farm Road. I had a very traumatic day last Tuesday Thomas Pickering under secretary of state was that day in Nigeria meeting with Nigeria's military ruler General Abu bakar and big question was whether he was going to secure General abubakar his agreement to move to restore democracy in Nigeria and particular to relay. Political Prisoners the most famous of whom was Chief Osceola who actually won presidential elections. They are 1993 and was not allowed to take the presidency. In fact was thrown into jail a year later because he refused to relinquish his claim to it and I've been languishing there for ever since and one of the Thomas Pickering jobs that they goals was to get a viola released. I was doing the story preparing it for all things considered that afternoon. I just started in the morning. I had gotten the name of key fob the oldest daughter who actually lived in Washington one of his many daughters. I mean no one of his many children you have many wives, you know, but she was actually one of the point people than Nigerian opposition in Washington. I called her up and I interviewed her at some length. It was a very pointed interview. She's very concerned about the Health and Welfare of her father and I went back upstairs to my desk and I had no sooner sat down in my desk then the Little bells on the computer that indicate up a bulletin started Dean and a two-word flash across the top of the screen abiola dead didn't say anything else these when wire when you get the first flashes, they don't even take the time to write a complete sentence. They just put the information out and I just looked at the screen I said, how can this be? I just talked to his daughter. I'm doing when it says I'll be all the dead people. He was meeting with Pickering. You're supposed to be released and then I thought what should I do? I mean, I just got off the phone moments ago with his daughter. She obviously doesn't know this. Should I call her up and tell her very quickly. Who knows if it's correct, you know, you learned over the years to be very wary of these instant bulletin because sometimes they do turn out to be wrong to remember when Bob Hope died. So too prematurely a few weeks ago. So I did not call her up. But then this 2 minutes later the phone rang and it was Hassan audio. Play somebody had obviously I talked to her and she said what are you hearing from Nigeria? And I said well outside. We really don't know where we are hearing some very disturbing news. She said don't tell me and she got up to what you obviously wanted to me to say is that while there was some erroneous report that your father died, but we already know it's not true and is the second she realized that I was not going to say that you just want to hear anymore and she hung up. I talked to her a couple of times again that day but all of a sudden at 2 in the afternoon, we had a very different story and set a story of a of a mission diplomatic mission in Nigeria to release political prisoners. We had joy of the sudden and unexpected and unexplained death of the chief opposition figure in the country. We had to scramble to to get something together. We ended up spending a half-hour of all things considered that night a talking about the death of Avila Avila, which is Isn't it was actually a controversial decision on our part. I mean, I don't know a couple weeks ago. How many people here if I said how many people have you raise your hands if you know who moo shu da Viola is how many people would would really know who he was and that day. I'm sure that a tiny tiny percentage of her audience had any clue who the shooter of yours and here he dies in prison for years after he was last seen in public and we're spending a full half-hour on on his death what would actually happen if it just I just got into the studio. I was doing a sort of a live Q&A with the host and 2 minutes into it if those are your listing might know the Tom Pickering who was there when I'll be able to died he was in the room when I when I ovulate died came on the phone it went directly to him you talk to us for about 10 minutes. It was a very dramatic interview describing what it happened and then we I came back and we had a couple analyst in the studio in and we talked for 15 minutes about what this would mean for Nigeria what it would mean for Africa what it would mean for the future of democracy. Missing the region would it be for us policy and a half hour but went by very quickly and I think even people that didn't know who I'll be a little was found this probably worthwhile and interesting. So there are some dramatic aspects of this of this job and also some important ones. I don't mean to belittle it. One part of it that I'm not crazy about is the social aspect of the job which is actually important because when you're covering institutions be at the state department Pentagon Congress the White House, you are very dependent on knowing the people there who have the information because you don't want to just of course. You don't want to just rely on Jamie Rubin all the time in the public affairs officers. You got to go beyond that and the only way that you can do that as develop personal relationships with people in important policy making positions so that you really get a sense of what's actually going on where our policy is heading and and in Washington this conforms to your stereotypes in the way that you do that is by schmoozing with these people and you means you'd go out to dinner or you go to a lot of social functions and I do it a special amount of it because I'm married to Martha raddatz who is our Pentagon correspondent and she has to do a lot of it as well. So we end up Doing a lot of this kind of stuff last week. We were at a dinner that sector depends calling. I was I was there is Martha's husband in this case you sometimes goes is my wife. In this case. I was her escort. The secretary Cohen was given for the Greek Minister of Defense. But while I was there at Saint Nick Burns who was Jenny Ruben's predecessors the state department spokesman Somebody That I Used to put on dozens and dozens of times in the past. He was rewarded for his performance by being named ambassador to Greece. So since we're the Greek defense minister here, it's protocol for the u.s. Ambassador to accompany him when he comes back to the United States and I saw him there Martha was friendly with him, too. But for different reasons, they had some Boston Connections in common and and Martha she saw me talking to Nick and she came over and said Nick. How you doing? What are you doing here? And mixes. Well the ambassador to Greece. Martha had forgotten she goes to the street forgotten that this was just this night was Grease. The other night was the other night was Poland and before that it was in Austria, but she just remembered it was Nick Burns. It was kind of embarrassing for her. She said she knew he was overseas somewhere. She knew it wasn't in Washington, but she completely forgot and he was the Ambassador Greece. I have to I have to tell a few jokes at my expense cuz I know you I know that she was a big hit here and you're so she's got some Equity that I think I can go ahead and spend that this does sound like sort of classic Washington Insider stuff, you know look like Cokie Roberts being friends with people in high places and in some people see this and they think there's something kind of corrupting about mixing with these people in and that argument can certainly be made. I actually think that we do have a responsibility to to sort of get inside these in Situations not to always take a real adversarial attitude towards him not always trying to start a Pick-A-Part what's going on at the Pentagon are the where the state department or the white house after all these are the institutions of our government and when were in the field or when we're out in the country, we can report on all the start of the controversial aspects of US policies, but those of us who cover these institutions I think do actually have a responsibility to those institutions to sort of be in a sense a kind of an intermediary between these institutions and the American people. I think the White House reporter does have an obligation of Fairly and objectively and without comment presenting what the White House take on the news is I think the state department reporter has to sort of communicate State Department the state department views on foreign policy issues to people. I know that Martha is the Pentagon reporter. Feels that she has a responsibility to give her listeners a sense of what the US military is really like what the way they think why they do things the way they do and so I think we do carry. I don't know if what you want to call it client Titus but we do have a little bit of a sense of loyalty to the institutions that we covered in my case covering diplomats. I'm aware. The diplomats are often very maligned is professionals you can you can recall when the state department Appropriations bill was up a few years ago. They were very many derogatory things said about about diplomats driving around in limos and state department bureaucrats bureaucrats and and embassies with their marble halls and and so forth and there is some cute that happened but also and I'm speaking now from my experience in the field. There is also true that a lot of the work that diplomats do is dirty and it's dangerous. And I do think it's important that people have some sense of what goes into being a dip what diplomacy is all about in these special days in the aftermath of the of the Cold War. I spent a lot of time in Bosnia. And there I saw firsthand what work us diplomats were doing the US Embassy staff in Bosnia lived in horrible conditions. They slept even the ambassador's slept on for months and months and months left on an army cot in his office at ColdWater. They did not have hot water. They didn't have electricity all the time. And it basically the same conditions that other people lived in and they were doing very important work some of you may know of the US Diplomat Robert Frazier who is based in the state department to you in Washington with Deputy assistant secretary for European Affairs, and in the early months of 1995 fell to him to do all the groundwork that later resulted in the Bosnian peace negotiations. He would spend hours and hours and hours going back and forth between Belgrade and Sarajevo in Zagreb trying to nudge these people a little bit closer to a piece of keep as many of you probably know he died in Bosnia and he did not die out a very glamorous. The actually died a horrible. He was in the armored personnel carrier going over a very dangerous mountain into sorry. It was the only way you can get into sorry about in those times. The road was very narrow. Another armed personnel carrier was coming up the his armored personnel carrier DeSoto pulled to the side two wheels went over the edge rolled down and exploded and he and two other people died in this in this fiery crash. He was so that you would not know about Robert Frazier. If he hadn't died the fact that he died in the line of duty did give him a certain stature but he is one of dozens and dozens of diplomats who do this kind of work day after day and and really get no no no notoriety for what they do. And if if in my reporting I can sort of give a little bit of a human face to some of these people. I think that that is something that is that is worthwhile. There was another us Diplomat John cornyn. Who succeeded Richard Holbrooke is assistant Secretary of State for Europe who had the job of negotiating get this he wasn't here to negotiate the color of the Bosnian currency with the Muslim servant leaders. He had to negotiate the design of their flag and headed to negotiate the shape of the license plates that they use. This is a assistant secretary of state in the United States state department of very high-level Diplomat who would literally stay up all night in in in terrible circumstances negotiating with these hard-headed stubborn Balkan leaders about very detailed narrow issues. Cuz that's the only way that you could move forward in that in that peace process and I think people like John Kornblum deserve credit and they barely really get it and I actually think it's it's really unjust when these generalizations are made about about you know, fat cat State Department of people because a lot of them are very much like these guys who Who really worked tirelessly for the cause of of peace now the the textbook for anyone that's interested genuinely and what it's like to be a diplomat and how diplomacy works is Richard Holbrooke new book to end the war. I just I know it very well cuz I just reviewed it for the Washington Post. It's just it's just a tremendous book very well written as a blow-by-blow account of the peace negotiations in and what went into it now, he has a lot of detractors he and it's an understatement to say that he elevates his own rolling in this book. I know somebody told me that the book should not be titled to end a war. It should be titled. The War II ended. I'm afraid that this is this is the this is the true. He has a very high sense of his own role in this in this world. The truth is that he did have a very important role in ending at and Writes about diplomacy in a very interesting a clever and instructive way and I just wanted mentioned some things from this because I think that they give some good insight into what what diplomacy is liking in this day and age he emphasizes for example, the importance of improvisation. He said in a speech recently at the national Press Club that being a peace negotiator is a lot like being a jazz musician because you have a certain theme and the whole trick is to improvise on the theme in sort of constantly look for new ways to sort of get back to what you're going to He writes in this respect. He he he writes about the the sort of the what goes on and what was going on in his mind as he was as he was going after this this goal. Is that a great deal of any good negotiation is improvisation within the framework of a general goal after the tumultuous events of the last 3 days and concept of how we shouldn't go she ate have begun to form in my mind other Washington wanted us to get to 3 Balkan presents together as quickly as possible. It was far too early to do this, but it was worth trying to reduce the huge differences between the parties with a series of limited interim agreements, which we could attempt to negotiate through shuttle diplomacy and then unveil in a series of quick one day meetings at the foreign Ministry level. This might create a sense of momentum toward peace and narrow the differences to the point where we could bring the three presidents together. They see there's an almost an orchestration the process here. It's not just a matter of working through the issues. It's thinking about the psychology of it. How do you how do you get these? Positive thinking how do you build momentum and and Holbrook was brilliant at that. In fact, you know, you've heard a lot about these 20 days in Dayton Ohio when he negotiated the peace agreement, but there were five agreements that had to be negotiated before they even got there. He had to get Slobodan milosevic to present is Serbia to agree to represent the Bosnian serbs. He had to negotiate an agreement the governed the conditions under which Native would stop bombing Sarajevo the story of who are you going to go? She ate a separate agreement in Geneva another agreement in New York about the makeup of the central government? He had to negotiate a cease-fire agreement 5 inch rim agreements before they even got to Dayton. He says negotiations have a certain pathology a kind of a life cycle almost like living organisms at a certain point which one might not recognize until later the focus and the momentum needed to get an agreement could disappear. He said that there is almost a kind of a living aspecting you have to worry that you keep the process. Why because literally the process can die if you're not careful something could happen to break or single-minded commitment either endless squabbles over small details would replace the largest search for peace or the Europeans would leave publicly signaling an impending failure. We worried that if we were still at Wright-Patterson does the Air Force base with a did this if we were still at Wright-Patterson over the Thanksgiving holiday only a few days away. It would create the impression that we had stayed too long in a compass to little he has to worry about what impressions are created by by his process. So I get to is the indicate the art of diplomacy in this day and age as I said, he says it's like jazz. He also another place in the book said it's like a combination of chest and mountain climbing. So that's one thing to keep in mind. Another thing to keep in mind is how closely diplomacy and force work together, which is something we've heard from our our leaders a lot in her books book. He gives a very detailed and interesting examples about this. He's very forthcoming about how important the NATO bombing raids were to his negotiating effort and about the offensive by the Croatian Army against serbs in the cranial region, which US diplomats in u.s. Did Mike McCurry the White House Press Secretary was in fact condemning in his press briefings We Now find out from reading her books book that he was secretly encouraging them to continue because he he had calculated that this was going to increase his negotiating leverage. He said Tony Lake wanted us to convene an International Peace conference right away others began to support him, but I resisted we needed to allow the Federation offencive to continue. So Holbrook is talking here about how for supports diplomacy he as a diplomat was a strong believer in force and he was hard with a soon that the state department is the side of a government that Advocates diplomacy in the Pentagon is the side of the government that Advocates the use of force in practice. We have found Martha is the Pentagon reporter and I as a state department for to have found it much more often. It's exactly the opposite. That's the state department people who are advocating the use of force is the Pentagon that's advocating diplomacy and if you think about it, it's it's like it's kind of passing the buck. I mean the diplomats think that if you know, maybe the Pentagon do some more Bamiyan make their work easier Pentagon does not want to get involved in that they want the diplomats to keep on trying because you know, military offensives are are dangerous and expensive. So the truth is that The Advocates of force are the state department The Advocates of diplomacy are in the Pentagon. In this book is actually very critical of the US military for being reluctant to use for more often. Another thing that talks about their makes clear is how important ones personal stylist. He is a very Charming but also aggressive person who and there are examples of both a size of his personality in his book. He talks about when he was trying to get Andreas papandreou the prime minister of Greece to agree to settle during Passover the name of Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. There was a decision by Holbrook and company that this was a very important issue for the purposes of larger piece in the Balkans. He went to Athens and met with papandreou and was getting nowhere papandreou wouldn't agree popping Bill's foreign minister Palmdale by this point is 76 years old. He's the kind of weak as foreign minister is very aggressive and his foreign minister was kept pushing Pop & Beyond not to agree to what hole I was asking finally. Finally Holbrook rights. Sympathetic but he no longer possesses the strength with which he has you no longer possess the strength with which he had so long dominated the Greek scene. I decided to make one last effort addressing and highly personal terms this proud man's long and complex love-hate relationship with the United States. What occurred to Holbrook in that moment was talk about Adlai Stevenson's quest for the presidency in 1952. He said, you know Mister papandreou you worked for it. Cuz Pop & Beer at that point was the u.s. Working United States is an economist. You said you were on Stephenson steam as an is a economic adviser. I is an 11 year old was Distributing campaign buttons for Stevenson. We both believe very much in Stevenson. We grew up despising Richard Nixon and yet let's admit it. It was Richard Nixon who went to China. It's Richard Nixon who will be remembered for making this great diplomatic achievement and history will remember That history will remember that on my set. It took an Anwar Sadat to make peace with Israel today. You can do the same thing for peace and papandreou immediately fell into line and and and agreed to what Holbrook was was was asking what this the shows start of the Brilliance in a sense as many critics, but he is a brilliant Diplomat in his ability to start of play the the Charming guy when it needs to it. Also the bully there is a good examples in his book. We almost got in a fist fight worth with the Mohammed sacher Bay the Bosnian foreign minister who kept demanding that the United States take the body inside in the negotiations Holbrook didn't want to do it there other examples in the book when he stood up to ride him and carriage when riding in carriages try to invoke the name of President Carter Holbrook said I knew Jimmy Carter because in fact Holbrook was an assistant Secretary of State under President Carter and it said you don't tell me anything of a President Carter. He's a great man great president. But he's a private citizen. I work for President Clinton is President Clinton that matters now and was Jimmy Carter says is irrelevant and it shut carriage ride up. So you follow this stuff and you gain some sense of of what it takes to be a successful diplomat. It doesn't mean that that you have to be charming and you have to be a bully there are different personal Styles Warren Christopher was in many ways the opposite of Richard Holbrooke some would call him a Meek man. He was I wouldn't say Meek, but he was certainly not an aggressive man. He was infinitely patient and an always a gentleman and he innocence took the exact opposite tack in in his diplomacy. I I covered the buzz the Dayton peace negotiations. I saw both of them at work Richard Holbrooke would go in and be the bull Warren Christopher wood been in Tokyo flew all night coming back from Tokyo a 12-hour flight. Remember when Chris cruises seven is 71 years old. This is not an easy thing. He went your ride went directly into negotiations with Melissa bitching to Richmond and so forth and stayed up all night long basically just outlasted them until they came around to some small agreement and I talked to people who in the room with him and they said that weren't Christopher 71 years old just off an 11-hour flight from Tokyo. Not only did he never take off his jacket all night long. You didn't even lose his tie. Where is Richard Holbrooke? You know, it's like this and he's very gentlemanly approach to great success being really needs to have a personal style and use it effectively to be a great diplomat. Now in general since the end of the post the end of the Cold War diplomacy has become a lot more important than you on the old days. It was really much more simple. All we really had to do was stand up to the Soviet Union stand up to the Russians and US diplomacy in those days was much more about power projection. It was a matter of Defending and a steadfast where us interest and sort of not blinking and Ronald Reagan of course was the best example of that now that things are much more complicated. There. Are there conflicts going on all over the world us interests are sort of at stake. Maybe not at stake. It's not clear what we should do. Obviously these things need to be resolved and what it takes now much more than it did in the cold war. Is really skilled diplomacy Holbrook has since been re-enlisted to to negotiate a peace settlement in Kosovo. He's also the special Envoy to the president to negotiate in Cypress. Are there others Robert gallucci was now the dean of the Foreign Service Institute of Georgetown University negotiated the Korea the peace deal that's going to diffuse. The nuclear threat in North Korea is a very important agreement. I mentioned Thomas Pickering a consummate us Diplomat who is Ben Ambassador everywhere. You can name just about who just was in Nigeria and do we need these are the professional diplomats who have spent their whole career basically in the Foreign Service. And for whom this is a career the many of them have served under Republican and Democratic administrations both and they just are professional and if my if my reporting can give some sense of what it's like for these guys to do this work. I think it's it's contributing something some people look at this situation and say, well, you know now it's just a matter of finding the right formula and we can avert crises we can stop Wars before they before they happened. There's a very popular is a very popular concept now called Give diplomacy and the idea of that is that you can figure out what can be done before crisis happens to keep it from happening conflict prevention experts are making getting a lot of fundation money to to study this right now actually might my sense from from studying this from a far is is I don't I don't have a lot of faith in that. I think one of the best examples of this was in Kosovo. We had a deployment 500 us and Scandinavian troops were deployed along the border between Macedonia and Kosovo for the last several years. And the idea was that as long as they were deployed along that border. Nothing was going to happen in Kosovo with a kind of a preventive deployment. Well truth is we didn't have warned coaster all those years but had nothing to do with those guys being stationed there. It was because milosevic did not find it in his interest to start something in the Albanian side did not find it in their interest to provoke anything. And so we had Peace once both sides decided that it was time to fight the fact that they were 500 peacekeepers along the border with with as they don't really make very little difference covering. These events is the what really counts is the political will of the United States and other other great Powers. It's not a matter of how to stop something from happening. It's a matter of whether you really want to stop it from happening in the case of in the case of Bosnia and Croatia, you know, it's very easy to look back in hindsight and see what could have been done in 1990 wooden 1991-1992. And the truth of it is even though people will tell you differently is that they knew that and 1990-1991. They knew what could be done to stop the war. It probably would have taken some combination of a very high-level diplomatic pressure a reluctance to recognize the secession of some republics Croatia and Slovenia, maybe maybe some military limited Military intervention, but the truth wasn't nobody really wanted to do it. It was a Lack of will not a lack of knowledge about what could be done but a lack of will right now in Kosovo. It's a far more complicated situation having seen what happened in Bosnia. I think countries are more including the United States are more willing to to do something. They do have more political will to to act in Kosovo than they did at the beginning of Bosnia, but unfortunately for them Coast was not nearly as as straightforward as either the wars in Croatia or Bosnia at work. It's very very difficult to know what to do in in Coatesville right now to to keep this conflict from getting worse. So, I mean there was serious talk about a NATO intervention then it became very clear that I need are the two types of NATO intervention would either help the serbs or help the Indians disproportionately if they put a peacekeeping force along the Albanian border between Kosovo and Albania, we're all the arms were being smuggled in it would basically stop the weapons from getting to the Albanian Rebels and leave. Defenseless against the Yugoslav Army the Serbian police on the other hand if you bomb the serving police and Yugoslav Army installations, it would be basically a giving your natal might be to the benefit of the Albanian Fighters and NATO for very understandable reasons didn't want to do either of that others there. They didn't the United States and other countries do not support the aims of the Kosovo Liberation Army and they and the coast of are albanians in general which is at the create an independent Albania. They don't on the other hand support the Serbian policy of Hearts repression. So they really don't know what to do because it seems like no matter what they do. They're going to be lending their forced to to somebody with whom they don't entirely agree. I'll probably the only there has been some interest in some kind of protectorate situation and caused her with the International Community just comes in and start of imposes a settlement that makes sense from a logical political diplomatic point of view. I probably that is the only solution that does make sense. Unfortunately, that is very difficult. I think it's at eilean likely that the United States and other countries would be willing to do that. It's very expensive and would involve thousands and thousands of men. Of troops finally just didn't in conclusion conclusion is one other point that I want to make in his kind of a kind of a closing a comment in that is there is something unique about us diplomacy that having lived abroad for 10 years a cruise to me. And that is that the United States For Better or Worse actually has a moralistic view of the world that we may be we send you can argue that we sometimes our most moral compasses is wrong. Maybe we sort of overemphasize the the threat of Communism represented to the world. Maybe we under emphasize the the threat that the right-wing dictatorships to the world. But if you look if you look back in the second World War and Vietnam and and in Central America and in Bosnia For Better or Worse there actually was this sense of some they were good guys and bad guys, and we noted to sort of be on the on the side of the good and I actually don't have a problem with that is that it's an it's dangerous in some ways and yet I think there's something sort of refreshing about taking a immoral view of the world because having covered some some really terrible things. I actually do think that there. There is evil in the world and I think it makes sense to sort of to call it what it is Holbrook begins a chapter of the very dark months before the peace negotiation in Bosnia begin with a quote from Carl Jung We Stand face-to-face with the terrible question of evil and do not even know what is before us. Let alone what to pit against it Holbrook is heard of a loan among Diplomat certainly European diplomats do not have this attitude European diplomats been brought up in the realpolitik. That's the influence that continent for 200 years. Do not draw these distinctions between good and evil Holbrook got involved in this because he really believed that what was going on there was wrong and he wanted to he really wanted to do something about it and they say I find some I find that refreshing and so does David reiff was an old friend of mine who I was in Boston with wrote a great book called slaughterhouse. He reviewed Bo Brooks book for the new Republic. He says this was holbrooks great accomplishment. He gave the lie to the assertion that only by being completely impartial could the diplomats. Hope to bring the wars of Yugoslavia succession to a close with every gesture Holbrook seem to be ramming home the point that what was going on in Bosnia was disgusting and unacceptable and that this the forthright assertion of a moral standpoint on this great crime was not a travesty of diplomacy, but the only standpoint from which diplomacy could be effectively pursued Holbrook really did bring to his diplomacy in in in Bosnia sense that he was actually fighting to stop evil and to support the forces of good and as they say, I think that there is something refreshing about that particularly and I think it's also something that that applies to us journalists. We have to be of course a very careful but as a reporter who has covered a lot of terrible things. I am also convinced that there is evil in the world and that You as well as lister's when you hear my reports or read our stories. You should you should get wound up. You should have a sense of outrage when when we report things that are going on that are evil or when we report inspiring stories about people that are acting heroically that's that's the way the world is and I think that for us to approach our reporting in this totally sort of cold-hearted way. I'm just giving you a sort of fears that one side said he was with another side siding and really not giving you any sense of the what's actually going on the passions that maybe beyond that is in a sense of irresponsible. Now, it's a lot more difficult for me to do that covering the moon press briefings at the state department and it was covering floors. But still I still actually do try to get behind the scene a little bit get behind the story. I try to identify the times when this government Is not sort of acting up to its responsibilities for one reason or another I try to point that out. I also try to point out when the United States is taking a stand for which it deserves credit. I don't I don't make those pronouncements. But I hope that when you listen to my stories you do if you are able to distinguish between those actions of the government the ones that really are sort of weak and and sort of politically motivated and the ones that are strong and assertive and and courageous as they say it's a lot more complicated now than it used to be. But that's just it just makes it more challenging. National Public Radio State Department correspondent Tom gjelten speaking last month if he Macalester College Chapel in Saint Paul is appearance was part of Minnesota public radio's continuing broadcast journalist series. Following you speech Tom gjelten had time to take a few questions from the audience including this question about Russia. Now that the Cold War is Over, I'd appreciate your commenting on Russia. Is it still a superpower? What do you see as its prospects for stability? And what do you think the u.s. Roll out to be? Well, I am very I can I still cover US foreign policy. So I always avoid questions about what I think that us should do in a situation. That's really not for me to to come in on Russia is a super power for one reason which is it has a huge nuclear Arsenal. That's all it takes to be a superpower. No matter how poor it is. No matter how disorganized is fighting forces are no matter how much the government is in shambles as long as it has a huge nuclear Arsenal. It is by definition of superpower one that has to be dealt with very very carefully and the negative costs of some kind of political or economic collapse of the Soviet Union and former former Soviet Union will be so devastating to us as well as to it to other countries that the United States really needs to work carefully honest relationship with Russia right now. The big question is is a bailout. I think that There are two questions here one is what United States can do for to financially the other is what the United States can do politically there is still a sin sin in the US state department that Yeltsin is the best hope for the west or for the forces of democracy or whatever and that therefore whatever they do economically also has to be thought through politically cuz they want to support his position as against the nationalists and so forth who are his adversaries but this Administration has from the very beginning put Russia policy very high. In fact, I think one of the main reasons why the United States was so slow to act and Bosnia was because Russia its relationship with Russia was actually considered to be a a more urgent issue, you know people argue with that. I'm not going to comment on it, but that this Administration unquestionably with strobe Talbott the deputy secretary of state in Old Russia hand has paid very close attention to Russia National Public Radio. Alton speaking last month that the Macalester College Chapel in St. Paul gjelten was in the Twin Cities as part of Minnesota public radio's broadcast journalist series. Well that does it for a midday program today glad you could tune in if you missed part of Tom Shelton speech will be re broadcasting it at 9 tonight here on Minnesota Public Radio so I can chance to hear what he had to say rebroadcast.