Washington, D.C., 2006
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The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project Women Ambassadors Series
AMBASSADOR JEANE JORDAN KIRKPATRICK
Interviewed by: Ann Miller Morin
Initial interview date: May 28, 1987
Copyright Ann Miller Morin (used with permission)
Q: What did you perceive as the principal goal of your mission when you went to the U.N.?
KIRKPATRICK: Oh, to represent the United States in the United Nations, which is more controversial than it sounds. I learned rather quickly, because when I said that in response to questions, it was often suggested to me that the job of the U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations was more appropriately conceived as representing the United Nations to the United States. I stuck rather staunchly to my own conception, which happened also to be the president's.
Q: That's a nice distinction. Were you given any special training by the State Department before you went?
KIRKPATRICK: No. I wasn't given any. I was given some briefings. I did spend quite a bit of time actually with staff, for example, in the Bureau of IO (Bureau of International Organizations). And I did some talking on my own initiative to former U.N. permanent representatives. And I spent a day in New York with Don McHenry [US permanent representative to the U.N., 1979-81], who was very helpful, and with Bill Den Heuvel and the team of ambassadors who were with the mission then. I wouldn't say I was given any special training by the department, but where I asked for briefings, I got them. Okay?
Q: Yes. Now there is a difference. There is, as you know, a course for ambassadors, but you did not take it?
KIRKPATRICK: No, I didn't even know that until this minute.
Q: You did not know that?
KIRKPATRICK: No.
Q: It's a course mainly for bilateral ambassadors, but Jean Gerard [US ambassador to UNESCO, 1981 - 1985] took it, for example.
KIRKPATRICK: Did she really? I didn't even know there was one.
Q: Do you think there should be one before people go to multi-lateral places?
KIRKPATRICK: I don't know. I don't think the department's much good on multilateral diplomacy. And, quite frankly, unless they know more than I think they generally show evidence of, I'm not sure it would be very helpful. Now, having said that, I do believe that it would have been very useful to have some training—a course, a short course—on what might be called the sort of routine functions of running a mission. That, I think, could have been helpful. I really think that the FSI [training], for example, and most of the training in the department on multi-lateral diplomacy is quite poor. I think it ought to be improved; could be improved and, I hope will be improved.
Q: Yes. You're not the first to have said that.
KIRKPATRICK: I'm sure. No, I think there ought to be a cone on multi-lateral diplomacy, in fact. A formal recommendation.
Q: It's quite distinct, isn't it?
KIRKPATRICK: It's very different; it's really very different.
Q: Even the way you proceed is totally different.
KIRKPATRICK: It's very different, really. I think that there are some aspects of running a mission that clearly are in common among all heads of mission; and it would have been useful, sure, to have that—to have a short course on that.
Q: Yes, which you could have done in a couple of weeks or so.
KIRKPATRICK: Or even a week, as a matter of fact, would have been helpful.
Q: Now, did you believe that your gender would be an asset or a liability? You were the first woman.
KIRKPATRICK: It might. I had no notion what a shock my gender would be. Let me tell you how much the first woman I was. I was not only the first woman to head the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. I was the first woman to ever represent a major power at the U.N. I was the first woman to ever represent a western government at the United Nations. Western—broadly interpreted, that means a European government; Eastern Europe or Western Europe. There had only been about three or four women to head missions at the United Nations before I got there. There had been a Guyanese, there had been a Sri Lankan, Mrs. Bandaranaike headed their mission briefly. There had been a Liberian; that's about all. Such a big shock.
Q: Were there none from South America?
KIRKPATRICK: No, I don't think so. I didn't really know the extent to which the diplomatic corps of the world and the diplomatic profession are an exclusive male preserve. I also was the first woman—think about this: I was the first woman to sit in the National Security Council on a regular basis, much less in what I sat in, which was the inner circle of the NSPG (National Security Planning Group), of which I was a member of in a, not ex-officio, but personal capacity. I didn't think there'd ever been a woman in those councils on a regular basis at the table.
There are a few women who have made their way into the background; not even many of those, though. So I think my appointment was a big shock to my colleagues at the United Nations. It was a bigger shock than I realized it was going to be. I hadn't thought much about it before I accepted, quite frankly. I had grown accustomed to being the only woman in a lot of rooms that I was in. I was the first woman on the Rank and Tenure Committee at the University, the first woman to be a Senior Scholar here at the American Enterprise Institute. But even so, I didn't think much about it; I didn't give much thought to it. And it turned out to be a bigger shock to my colleagues than I'd dreamed.
Q: Yes. It rocked the world.
KIRKPATRICK: It rocked them. I think that's fair to say; it rocked them. I mean, it would have been strange enough for a woman—for any western country to send a woman; but for the United States to send a woman. By the way, when I said, not only was there no woman head of mission, there weren't any women, you know, as ambassadors. The Soviets have 11 ambassadors; not one is a woman. The United States had five ambassadors; well, there was one woman ambassador there, Joan Spiro. But there are very, very few senior women around the U.N. system, in any role whatsoever.
Q: How are they perceived at the U.N.—these other women who are in the background?
KIRKPATRICK: After my appointment, two other women were appointed by western nations. The Belgians appointed Edmonde DeVer as permanent representative, where she has performed extremely well, let me say; and today admits to more consciousness about being a woman in that role than she would admit when she got there. She's undergone a little consciousness-raising herself, so's she's a little franker about it. She's a career officer, very highly regarded. The Swiss appointed a woman to head their mission. Now they're observers, but still they participate quite a lot. Nobody believes that those women would have been appointed if I hadn't been appointed. But, by the way, I left, Edmonde is leaving this week, the Swiss has already left. Once again, there is no woman at the top of any western mission. I don't know whether we made any permanent impact.
Q: Well, I'm sure it will be easier for the next one who will eventually go.
KIRKPATRICK: Eventually.
Q: But they were perceived as—
KIRKPATRICK: As competent.
Q: As competent. I guess you took most of the flak.
KIRKPATRICK: Well, they came about, oh, a year-and-a-half to two years after I was there. I think the shock was past then. But I have no doubt that my appointment and survival of those first two years, which was very tough, in fact opened doors for women in career foreign service positions in those two countries.
Q: I'm sure it did, because not only did you survive, but you survived a lot longer than many men.
KIRKPATRICK: That's right. I stayed longer than anybody since Adlai Stevenson.
Q: And were perceived as successful. Now did events prove that your gender was a plus or a minus?
KIRKPATRICK: I don't know. You know, in the beginning, I think it was definitely a minus. I have no doubt that it was. That's an extremely complicated, difficult, frustrating job, which is the big reason that the turnover is so rapid in it. Don McHenry said to me, for example, that I had to be ready to be criticized for not being adequately accessible. “Because,” he said, “no matter how much time you spend with representatives of all of the other countries represented here, it will never be as much as people think you should.” You're dealing with 159 countries, and it's enormously complicated and difficult. They all want to see the Permanent Representative. If they're an ambassador, they want to see the Permanent Representative, in spite of the fact that you've got five other ambassadors there who are very competent. The demands are fantastic. So it's a very difficult job for anybody.
I think there was also quite a lot of deep scepticism and concern about the Reagan administration. That was also a problem, I think. In the beginning, nobody knew what kind of people Reagan appointees were going to be. And on top of it, I was a woman. I think it was a problem—it just made me a little more strange than I already would have been as a Reagan appointee, or as a political appointee, because probably 80% of the U.N. perm reps are career officers.
Q: Eighty percent are career officers?
KIRKPATRICK: Well, I don't know. Seventy-five percent. It's a high percentage. By the way, most of the ones who aren't are academics, which is kind of interesting; professors of constitutional law and so forth. I think with some of the Europeans, the Asians, at least as much as the Africans and the Arabs, I sensed some sort of sex-related reticences—static, I would say. I think they just regarded me as a very odd creature. Now, since nobody ever gave me any training in how to be an ambassador, maybe I was a pretty odd creature. (Laughter) This was maybe a little true, though I was, of course, very serious from the very beginning, and I worked prodigiously. And I did something else that most of Americans haven't done, namely, I spoke a couple of languages well enough to do business in them, which is very important.
Q: French is one?
KIRKPATRICK: French and Spanish. Those are two very useful languages at the U.N. It is very useful at the U.N. to speak other languages, to be able to really function in them. I am told that I was the first U.S. perm rep who could actually function in other languages. Now, of course, Dick Walters [US permanent representative to the U.N., 1985-89] functions in nine.
Q: I know it.
KIRKPATRICK: But that helped. Once I established myself, demonstrated to my colleagues that I was serious and I did my work, and that I was business-like, I think in fact that I probably profited as much from being a woman as I had ever suffered. I do believe that there are whole cultures in which men, like ambassadors and foreign ministers, and even heads of state, may find it a little easier to deal with a woman than with another man. I think in macho cultures, like both Latin and Arab—and somebody said African—they're much less likely to regard a woman as a competitor. And I think women are generally, including me, trained to be good listeners. I did an awful lot of listening and a lot of seeking of advice, and my colleagues liked that. So I think that I probably had some advantages overall, once I got over the original sort of shock of being a woman in there.
Q: Did you find that you could “get away” with saying things directly to a man that another man couldn't say?
KIRKPATRICK: I don't know.
Q: Millicent Fenwick [US ambassador to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, 1983-86] has reported that from her job. She said, “I can say the most outrageous things, and because I'm a woman they accept this.” And I wondered if that would hold true with the U.N., or maybe they're more sensitive there.
KIRKPATRICK: There's an interesting culture at the U.N.; it's an interesting mix of informality and highly stylized diplomatic communication. Everybody's on a first-name basis almost immediately; and I mean everybody, except the Vietnamese, the Khmer Rouge, the PLO, the people we don't speak to at all. My Soviet colleague and I were on a first-name basis from within the first two or three weeks I was there. On the other hand, everybody is very polite, and relatively formal; I mean, formal in the conduct of business in a context of informal salutations.
Q: That's curious.
KIRKPATRICK: It's an interesting mix. That's observed by almost everybody. I think I adapted, frankly, my own style of communication to that of my colleagues that I observed around me, especially the British, the French and the Dutch. When I was with Latins, I talked like the Latins talk to each other—as “the ambassadors,” you know. I didn't associate with anybody but ambassadors; of course, there are so many ambassadors at the U.N. I don't think I said many outrageous things. I will say this: maybe I was more outrageous than I realized. I developed very quickly a reputation for extraordinary and often shocking candor. Now, I never thought of myself as particularly candid. Nobody ever called me particularly candid before I went to the U.N., so I think I must have been speaking in a way that made me seem shockingly frank.
Q: Was it one of your desires, ambitions, goals when you went there to elevate the status of the United States at the UN, where we have been kicked around for so long?
KIRKPATRICK: I don't think it was one of my desires when I went there, but it rapidly became my principal goal. (Laughter) When I fully realized our condition there, then it became an almost obsessive goal, frankly. Not just to elevate the status either; but to secure decent treatment for the United States. I always said that my goal for the U.S. at the U.N. was that we should be treated with as much fundamental respect and consideration as any small third world country, which we were not. And we probably still are not. I didn't deliberately say shocking things. When I was shocking I think it was largely inadvertent.
I do agree with Millicent Fenwick about one thing, though. I think women tend to communicate more directly than men. I know Millicent thinks this because I've heard her say it with a little laugh. When I was trying to be as formal and diplomatic as I possibly could, I was probably being more direct than most of my colleagues. Americans would tend to be more direct, anyway.
Q: When you began your duty, what was your perception of the career diplomats and of the State Department?
KIRKPATRICK: You know, I never thought about the State Department, to tell you the truth, before I went in. I worked for the State Department once. My first job ever was in the State Department and he (pointing to her husband) was my boss. He was not my teacher, but he was my boss. I decided, after one year's experience, that I didn't want to work at the State Department, but my problem was not with the State Department, it was with big bureaucracies. I simply thought I didn't want to work in a big organization. That was my only personal reflection.
I thought that the State Department had done an absolutely miserable job in Central America, if I may say so. I thought that because I started following U.S. policy toward Central America, particularly both El Salvador and Nicaragua, in about 1978, and I followed it unusually closely. I read all the hearings. I became convinced this part of the world was terribly important to us strategically, and the decisions we were making there were terribly important to us. I did very close analysis of predictions. When I say a “bad job,” a “lousy job,” I mean to say that the predictions that were made turned out to be not true; and all those standard kinds of objective criteria about the adequacy of analysis. So I guess I had a poor opinion of the group. But I mainly attributed it to the Carter Administration, frankly, rather than the Foreign Service. I didn't have any generalizations about the Foreign Service. I developed some views about what I took to be some biases—policy biases—in the Foreign Service rather early on, especially concerning the Middle East. And I think I discerned those famous State Department Arabists rather early on. I became aware of this because we were continually dealing with attacks on Israel at the United Nations. It was the first issue I dealt with, and then obsessively through time, we were dealing with complaints against Israel. I also was dealing with the IO Bureau and the Secretary of State.
One of the crazy things about the job of perm rep is that you have to operate on many different levels. Any perm rep has to, in fact. I found that the NEA Bureau was, in those days, out of step with the administration; by which I mean the secretary of state, with whom they should have been in step, and the national security advisor, and the president, and me. It was difficult; it was much harder than it should have been to get support and staffing to implement decisions made by the heads of government—the U.S. government. That's sort of the first, of what might be called “opinion” about the Foreign Service, and it wasn't about the Foreign Service; it was about a particular group of Foreign Service officers located in a particular place in the department. But when I came in, I didn't really have any views about the State Department. I mean, I assumed they were competent professionals.
Q: Before you had Ambassador Sherman, you had somebody else with whom you just did not click. But that was a personality thing, wasn't it?
KIRKPATRICK: I hope so. It didn't have anything to do with Foreign Service, I don't think. It may have had something to do with sex roles. I chose him, by the way. I take responsibility. But the problem was one which, I am told, the women political ambassadors have rather more frequently than others. And the problem was basically—
Q: The DCM syndrome?
KIRKPATRICK: The DCM syndrome. He literally proposed to me the first week that I went to New York, that in order to learn something about the way the U.N. system works, perhaps I would like to take a trip around the world, observing missions and all that. He assumed I was not going to be interested in the running of the mission; he assumed I was not going to be interested in policy, he assumed I wasn't going to be interested in administration, and he assumed that it was going to be his job to do it all. And I felt very strongly that he systematically, not only cut me out, but cut me out and simultaneously took charge of the mission and the relationships in Washington and the process, in a way that was going to be incompatible with my functioning. I hate letting people go, firing people; I really hate it. In my life, generally, I hate it. I keep people a long time because I hate it so much, and I have fired very few people. He was the only person I ever let go at the U.N. the whole time I was there, out of a lot of people. But I concluded, and all the other [US] ambassadors up there concluded, by the way, that we were not going to be able to function without getting rid of him. And so, feeling a real sense of personal failure about having chosen the wrong person, I went to Joan Clark [director general of the Foreign Service]. Or maybe I told Al Haig first. But very early on, I went to Joan Clark and told her my problem; I confessed my problem, and said basically I wanted some help about getting rid of him. I understand Anne Armstrong [US ambassador to Britain, 1976-77] has had a very similar experience in Britain.
Q: Well, she did with Ron Spiers [deputy chief of mission, American Embassy, London] until they finally sat down and talked it out. And then it was all right. But they were on the point of positively blowing up. The one who had—well, there are several. Ruth Farkas [US ambassador to Luxembourg, 1973-76] had bad trouble.
KIRKPATRICK: Yes, I heard that, too.
Q: And Anne Cox Chambers [US ambassador to Belgium 1977-81] had a very bad time. As you say, it happens.
KIRKPATRICK: And Geri Joseph [US ambassador to the Netherlands, 1978-81], I think.
Q: I have not interviewed Geri Joseph. I'll be interested in that.
KIRKPATRICK: She's very good; she did a super job.
Q: But that is definitely a theme that runs through this. It's an arrogance in a certain age Foreign Service officer.
KIRKPATRICK: Would he have treated a man as he treated me? I'm not sure.
Q: I don't think so; no. I don't think so. But a political man might have been given a rough time.
KIRKPATRICK: Uh-hmm, uh-hmm.
Q: But never as bad as the women are; I don't think. And I have talked to a couple of hundred people on this subject. But it seems to be a certain generation, and thank goodness it's not the entire generation.
KIRKPATRICK: That's great. I'm happy to hear that.
Q: Was that man, perhaps, in his 50s?
KIRKPATRICK: Yes.
Q: Well, there you are. It's the “old” Foreign Service, and it runs right through.
KIRKPATRICK: Very smart, very competent guy. I told him, when I told him that I was going to let him go, request his transfer, I told him I didn't want to destroy him; I didn't want to destroy his career. I believed he would, in fact, do well for the United States as an ambassador some place else. And I felt that. And he did as a matter of fact. But not with me.
Q: Well, of course, there is a question of personality.
KIRKPATRICK: I don't think it was personality. I don't think we had a problem in personality. I think, actually, we were sort of the people who would have enjoyed each other as dinner partners, you know.
Q: So it was a matter of his attitude, really, more than anything else?
KIRKPATRICK: It really was. It was really a work-related attitude.
Q: What I don't understand is how these men, and it happens over and over, can be so stupid, when they don't have the strong cards in their hands.
KIRKPATRICK: That's right. You'd think they'd be a little more cautious.
Q: Well, wouldn't you? Especially when it's their career.
KIRKPATRICK: He was totally surprised, by the way, by my decision.
Q: Was he really? Had no idea that you—
KIRKPATRICK: Totally.
Q: How long did you keep him? I did not know that.
KIRKPATRICK: Two months maybe. I made the decision early.
Q: I presume you hadn't know him very well, just had no idea.
KIRKPATRICK: No, I had not. I had not. I had decided myself that I wanted to get a Foreign Service officer as a deputy because I had no experience in the State Department, and I just thought it would make sense to do that. But I didn't do it after I let him go, by the way. I didn't do it again.
Q: That's when you took Adelman [senior political analyst, Stanford Research Institute, Arlington, Va.]?
KIRKPATRICK: I took Adelman.
Q: And he was somebody you had known?
KIRKPATRICK: Yes, though I hadn't known him well. But I had known him somewhat. And I decided I didn't want a Foreign Service officer there. I was so stung and so burned by that experience, quite frankly. I was determined to try to take charge of this job and to try to do it, and I didn't want somebody else—I feared that a Foreign Service officer in that job—. It's a potentially very influential job, and I just didn't want somebody else trying to use the job to take over. By the way, I love Bill Sherman, of course.
Q: Yes. Isn't he nice?
KIRKPATRICK: With Bill Sherman, we were able to do some very good things vis-�-vis the Foreign Service.
Q: Yes, I know you got them some—
KIRKPATRICK: We got them some housing allowances, which had become very controversial, but it was very important to do. And we did a lot of sort of upgrading. We did a lot of support—we inaugurated a lot of support services, which enabled us to upgrade the quality of the Foreign Service also. I learned some things about staffing in the Foreign Service at the U.N. I don't know if you know this, but I learned, for example, that it was considered one of the least desirable posts in the system. And that it was a dumping ground. And I established a rule which—I established it for myself—that nobody could come to the U.S. Mission—nobody could be assigned to the U.S. Mission unless I had personally interviewed them and okayed them.
Q: Which made them feel selected.
KIRKPATRICK: Exactly.
Q: Which is psychologically very good. Had you interviewed this other gentleman before?
KIRKPATRICK: Yes, I had. I interviewed him; I had lunch with him; I talked to my friends about him; I talked to mutual friends about him. I did all the things that one should have done. He had, moreover, the kinds of skills that I particularly respect. He was very carefully chosen; I had given it a lot of thought. And so all of the reasons—you notice the first thing I said to you was, “I chose him myself.” (Laughter) You know, I was devastated by the mistake I made, but I had to face the fact that I had made a real mistake. And I think I was dead right in making the decision of cutting very early on.
Q: Well, in Steering the Elephant [Rector, Robert & Sanera, Michael, editors, Steering the Elephant: How Washington Works, New York: Universe Books, 1987.], this book about managing—
KIRKPATRICK: Oh, yes, right, Steering the Elephant.
Q: You list six different steps to take—
KIRKPATRICK: Do I? I don't even remember.
Q: Well, actually, you do. And I notice one of them—the first thing you say is to “select your key players, who have professional knowledge, who are professionals.” And then you talk about “mastering the problems,” “digging in yourself,” and “having control of things.” And then “selecting good career staff.” Now, am I right in inferring from that that you would not put career people in any of the top slots?
KIRKPATRICK: No, that's not right.
Q: That is not so?
KIRKPATRICK: Right.
Q: All right. Let's go into that then. When you went into this business, how much opportunity did you have to choose your own people? How much of a free hand were you given?
KIRKPATRICK: I had a lot. I had very good support from the White House. Now, I didn't have a completely free hand. There was a kind of mystique, which—Dave Stockman [director, Office of Budget and Management] described it in his book, and I'm describing it in mine, too, of the administration in the very early days. Our most serious charge was that we were not to be taken over by the bureaucracy. This was really taken very seriously in the cabinet indoctrinations. I didn't go to any State Department indoctrinations, but I sure went to cabinet indoctrinations, and this was all taken very seriously. I took it sort of seriously, because we were told to, you know. That's what we were all supposed to be doing. We had some ideas, all of us, in the early days about some policy goals we really were very serious about accomplishing.
Nothing about this, however, prevented me from choosing a foreign service officer as my number one deputy, which is the best proof that I didn't mean I wouldn't go to a professional for that. I would. Except, that having made the mistake I made with him, I was simply scared to go back there twice. I didn't have the self-confidence, quite frankly. I would have a lot more self-confidence today. And I had a lot more self-confidence by the time I left. That was really a pretty traumatic experience for me.
Q: Well, it must have been. To have this huge job and all it involves, totally different from things you've done before, and not know the rules of the game, so to speak; and then to have this happen. I don't know how you survived it. (Laughter)
KIRKPATRICK: Well, you know, I don't know how I survived those first months either. And I've thought about that. I've said it to Kirk a good many times. And as I'm writing the book, I'm sort of reliving certain of those experiences. And, quite frankly, I'm a little surprised that I survived that first six months because there was so much I didn't know, and so many ways to go wrong. And I was taking several of them, I think. So many pitfalls that I wasn't even aware of.
Q: With everybody taking potshots at you.
KIRKPATRICK: That's right.
Q: How far down were you able to go in selecting staff? You selected the other four ambassadors, I presume?
KIRKPATRICK: Yes and no. I mean, remember that I was a Democrat, and so I was regarded with a lot of suspicion, actually, by, for example, the “kitchen cabinet.” They wanted me definitely to take some long-time Republican with me to the U.N., and I chose Chuck Lichtenstein [assistant to the president, Nixon White House; deputy counsel, Ford WhitHouse], who happens to be an old friend of ours as well as a long-time Republican. And there was this great sigh of relief, when I proposed Lichtenstein, from the White House group in the “kitchen cabinet,” because they think “good old Chuck,” because he had been in the Goldwater campaign and all those things. And so I had to take somebody like that, and Chuck fit that dandily. I wanted myself,—I had some views about area competence, area culture and language competence. I feel very deeply that that is one of our great strengths as a nation—our pluralism—and that we ought to utilize it. I had also talked to Don McHenry and I'd studied where we were, and it was clear to me—and Don agreed, by the way—that there was a big opportunity with Latin America. And so I thought about Jos� Sorzano [political scientist, Georgetown University]. Basically, I came to him out of a theory about what we needed. I tried to get Ted Briggs, just to give you another example of having attempted to get professionals—to bring in professionals at the top. The only reason I didn't get Ted Briggs is that he turned me down for reasons that seemed sensible to him, because he was offered a deputy assistant job in the department about the same time. And I understood perfectly. But I wanted somebody like that. I didn't get Ted Briggs; I did get Jos�, who was very sophisticated and good. Who else did I have? I don't even remember.
Q: Well, eventually, you had Sherman.
KIRKPATRICK: Yes.
Q: He was for running the nuts and bolts, wasn't he? Sort of an admin. counselor?
KIRKPATRICK: No, he was a lot more than that.
Q: Was he more than that?
KIRKPATRICK: Sure. He was an Asia specialist, too.
Q: Yes, I know that, but I meant how you used him.
KIRKPATRICK: I used him as an Asia specialist. Every one of our ambassadors had major area responsibilities. It was terribly important to us, and this is something I would like to teach the department about multi-lateral diplomacy and staffing for it. It made a big difference in our effectiveness to have at the ambassadorial level somebody who was genuinely expert in every major area of the world, and at home in the language and culture. Every one of them had assigned, as a serious part of their assignment, the development of close personal relations with people from their region, and following those regional problems, in addition to whatever functional responsibilities they had in the mission. Bill Sherman was our Asia specialist and did a lot with regard to all of the U.S. Mission's activities concerning Asia, and then had the political [work]. I mean, we'd function like ward heelers, too. When it came time to try to round up votes, then Bill worked the Asian constituency. But he regularly followed those issues and cultivated those people. He was not just a “nuts and bolts” man, by any means. He supervised the administrative counselor, and he knew how the bureaucracy worked. He's the man who did that, and he kept that all oiled. That's not a “nuts and bolts” job either; that's something more subtle in a complicated mission like we had, with complicated relations with the department. That's a lot more demanding, and a heck of a job, I think, frankly.
Q: Well, yes, and also the U.N. is different than any other mission because you have to worry about things like parking tickets. I mean, you have the whole weight of all those 158 other missions.
KIRKPATRICK: Sure. Now we put Liechtenstein in; that's host country relations. Are we going to be able to get the Mexican ambassador out of jail if he's punched New York cop? Which happened.
Q: Well now, did you take an area of Europe or something for yourself? Or did you sort of keep the team running?
KIRKPATRICK: I took the Security Council, and I took the special relations with the ambassadors in the Security Council, plus running the mission. But I was the only one who didn't have a geographical area.
Q: Did this division of expertise, division of responsibilities, enable you to concentrate on the substantive issues? You didn't have to worry much about the actual running of the mission?
KIRKPATRICK: I would say that—I had a very good team, let me say. And I tried very hard to allocate functions and responsibilities so that everybody was very clear about what they should do, and what they were responsible for. I had a lot of confidence in them. And so it is a fact that I delegated a lot. At any given time, however, I stayed in touch with everybody.
I stayed in touch whenever there were problems. We had particular problems regarding particular areas of operation. Obviously, I was in touch with those. I stayed in touch from time to time with everything, but I did a lot of delegating and I had confidence that the people who were in charge were doing it right. And they did, by and large. When I developed a concern about whether something was going right, then I focused very intensively on it until I became convinced that it was fixed, it was on track.
Q: Yes, but don't you think one of the reasons this worked so well is exactly what you did? You held them responsible.
KIRKPATRICK: I sure did.
Q: And if people know what they're responsible for—
KIRKPATRICK: I did, I did. I think that's terribly important; I think that's terribly, terribly important. You know, sometimes it was asserted that I was inaccessible by my own mission. And sometimes I was inaccessible, because I spent quite a bit of time traveling back and forth to Washington.
Q: I know you did, being in the cabinet.
KIRKPATRICK: And also because there are simply so many meetings, and especially the NSPG. The big thing that I participated in was the NSPG, which is really where it's been at in the Reagan administration and foreign policy. And much of the time, it met relatively frequently. This was absolutely essential, I think, for our effective functioning. I really believe that my direct contacts in the top levels of the administration were absolutely essential to our effective functioning in New York. I don't think that it can work the other way, either. It's just too complicated bureaucratically and you get too involved with too many departments. You can't function simply through the departmental structure, through the geographical bureaus and IO, because it's at too low a level. I realized, like lightning striking me at a certain moment, what had happened to Jimmy Carter and Don McHenry in that famous resolution, which Carter said cost him the election. You remember?
Q: Yes.
KIRKPATRICK: And Carter and Vance both sort of accused Don McHenry of having somehow misled them. There was a moment when I had been there, I don't know, two or three—six weeks maybe—when I realized what had happened on that. I understood that what had happened was that Don was dealing with the bureau, and the bureau was basically out of touch with Vance and Carter. And what everybody was saying was true. I mean, there was a disconnect. There are a number of potentially quite delicate—politically delicate—issues for any president, any secretary of state. Delicate to the United States, with a lot of maybe different departmental perspectives in which the bureau and the assistant secretary may not really be wholly informed, or wholly in touch and wholly reflective. And if you can't plug in at the top, then you're in very bad shape. You're operating in a very high-visibility role all the time to have that sort of thing happen. I believe something probably happened with Andy Young [US permanent representative to the U.N., 1977-79] and the PLO, if I may say so.
Q: Yes, it sounds like it, doesn't it?
KIRKPATRICK: But to keep those channels open takes time, and it meant doing a lot of delegating. I think I had strong people and I think they stayed in very close touch. I also had very good counselors—my political counselor, ECOSOC counselor, resource management counselor. We had first class people in those jobs. And so I think it worked.
Q: What was the impact on your ability to get things done from the fact that you were in the cabinet as well?
KIRKPATRICK: I think it was very important. What it did was give me access through those channels; that's what it did. It gave me access to authoritative decisions from the top level.
You know the U.N. is unique in the fact that it confronts us and other countries with continuous decisions. We have to make choices; they have to be public; you have to vote “yes” or “no.” You can't fuzz the issue because you have to act. We don't control this context in which we must act.
Q: That's right.
KIRKPATRICK: It's terribly important to be able to get it right. And to be able to get it right, it is often necessary to be able to go right to the top, and make really certain that you understand what the president and the secretary of state want out of this negotiation—and what they don't want. You just can't afford to run the risks of misunderstanding on some of the subtle and delicate issues, where we're about to have to take a very highly public position.
Q: Did you see any minuses out of being in the cabinet and the very fact that it took up so much of your time? You had to commute, for example.
KIRKPATRICK: Yes, sure, but I don't think that they're as important as the pluses. By the way, there's one other very important plus for the U.S. Government and for the functioning at the U.N., and that is that it gives one access to the ministers and even heads of states of other member states, and that's very important since there is a constant stream of ministerial level visitors to the U.N., and heads of states visitors. If you're a member of the cabinet, then you meet them—you develop relationships with them. You can call on those when you need their support. It makes a big difference for their ambassadors to know that you're on good terms with their foreign minister or even their head of state, and that you can call them if necessary. That's very useful in getting votes.
Q: I can see that would be.
KIRKPATRICK: I think it's also a useful listening— I think it enhances the value of the permanent representative as a listening post for the U.S. Government because it multiplies the number of ears that can give input on high-level views with foreign visitors. So I think it was very valuable. I think it is personally very tiring. And it was personally very tiring.
Q: It must be. Did you commute by plane?
KIRKPATRICK: Yes. Eastern Shuttle. I didn't “commute”, you know.
Q: But you must have come back quite often.
KIRKPATRICK: I think I probably—I made at least two round trips a week. Sometimes I made three.
Q: I'd call that “commuting.” [Laughs]
KIRKPATRICK: But they were very irregular. All of the principal bodies in which I participated met irregularly—Security Council, NSPG, cabinet—they all met irregularly.
Q: Yes, sure. Well, what about the social circuit? You have a 150 plus countries and that many national days. What did you do? How did you tackle that part of it?
KIRKPATRICK: I didn't go to most of the national days. I didn't because I just couldn't. I went to a few—just a few. I did a very great deal of socializing. The best way I know to tell you how much socializing I did is to tell you that the nature of my relationships were such that when I was leaving, for the last two months I was there, I went to a dinner in my honor every night. And the last month I was there, I went to a luncheon and a dinner in my honor. And I left a good many people without, you know, having turned down their urgings to let them have a dinner in my honor, because I didn't have time. It's just another way of saying that I became very deeply and thoroughly involved in the U.N. social circuit. But I never really got very much involved in the national days because I couldn't do it.
Q: Did you see that those were covered?
KIRKPATRICK: I saw that they were covered. They were always covered at the level of counselor or above—minister counselor or above. It's very important, by the way, for the United States to have multiple ambassadors at the U.N., too. The ambassadors who were responsible for the area were also responsible for the national days for that area. So Bill Sherman would cover all the Asian ones and Jose would cover the Latin ones.
Q: And that would come to be the expected thing.
KIRKPATRICK: Exactly. Precisely.
Q: Otherwise, you'd totally wear yourself out, I would think.
KIRKPATRICK: That's right. So we would have at least an ambassador and usually a counselor, and often then a political officer. We were very well covered at national days, but I didn't do much of the covering. I did very few receptions, frankly, except when there was a big one in honor of a head of state or something. Then I did those.
Q: Mostly dinner parties?
KIRKPATRICK: Mostly dinner parties. I did lots and lots and lots of them.
Q: Where you could discuss things.
KIRKPATRICK: Right; exactly. Dinners and lunches.
Q: Where you could actually sit and discuss things.
KIRKPATRICK: Lunches are very big for Security Council business. I've still not lost the weight I gained there.
Q: Now, you had no party backing. You've already said that the “kitchen cabinet” eyed you with a little bit of dismay.
KIRKPATRICK: Uh-hmm.
Q: Where did you get your clout? Was it from the fact that you were the in-house intellectual? Or was it because you knew the President, and he had picked you? You were a woman and a Democrat.
KIRKPATRICK: That's right. Well, I didn't have any clout that I didn't build after I was appointed. Let's put it that way.
Q: So you built it after you were appointed.
KIRKPATRICK: I had to have some, I guess, to be appointed. The President appointed me to his Senior Foreign Policy Advisory Group after he was elected and before he was inaugurated. That was headed by Gerald Ford, you may recall. I was, in fact, the only member of that who wasn't either a senator or a previous cabinet member.
Q: Is that so? This was the transition—
KIRKPATRICK: Yes, this was transition staff. Ronald Reagan and I sort of hit it off; that's the best way I know how to put that.
Q: Well, there's nothing like that, apparently.
KIRKPATRICK: That's right. And Bill Casey [director of the CIA] and I were also good friends. We hit it off too.
Q: Had you known him before?
KIRKPATRICK: No, never. Met him the same day I met Ronald Reagan. As a matter of fact, I met Ronald Reagan, Ed Meese [counselor to the President] and Bill Casey the same day. We did; you remember that? In 1980 was when I met them all. I think, frankly, I knew more about some issues than the other people.
Q: Yes. Well, he obviously had confidence in you, which would be an important thing.
KIRKPATRICK: And I knew Dick Allen [Richard Allen, national security advisor, 1981-82], too. I did know Dick Allen. I didn't know Judge Clark [William P. Clark, Judge, deputy secretary of state, national security advisor] until he was appointed.
Q: What about the problems that you had? You had successes, too, but, if you don't mind, let's discuss the problems for awhile. It turned out to be one of your great successes, when Israel bombed the Iraqis.
KIRKPATRICK: Well, until Alexander Haig made snide comments.
Q: Yes. Would you run over that?
KIRKPATRICK: Which aspect of it?
Q: The aspect of how did you decide what actions to take? Whom did you consult?
KIRKPATRICK: Oh gosh, I was in absolutely continuous contact with Walt Stoessel [Walter Stoessel, Jr., deputy secretary of state], who was acting secretary of state. And Dick Allen. And I was in intermittent contact with Ed Meese and the president. But I was in touch with Walt Stoessel and Dick Allen two or three times a day. I mean, every time there was a question, I was in touch with them. I had a conversation with the president in advance of my first meeting with Hammadi [Sa'dun Hammadi, Iraqi foreign minister], in which he made very clear what he hoped I could get, and there was perfect agreement.
This was a big, shocking traumatic experience for me too. My life was very traumatic in those days, and things were happening to me I couldn't dream would happen to anybody. There was perfect understanding between the president and Ed Meese, who in those days was involved with all the issues, and Dick Allen, and Walt Stoessel, about what they wanted, and my job, I thought, was to try to do my very best to get it, and Al Haig was out in the Pacific.
I stayed in very close touch with them. Every time a new possibility developed, I was in touch with them, and I finally achieved exactly what they wanted. The president couldn't have been more pleased and Walt couldn't have been more pleased. I must say, it never occurred to me that Alexander Haig wouldn't be pleased. We had tried to stay in touch with Haig, too, but we couldn't stay in touch with Haig because the telephone connection was so bad.
Q: With the time changes?
KIRKPATRICK: Well, no. It was telephone connections more than anything. He was in Beijing and then, eventually, in Manila. We just had terrible connections and the whole issue had sort of developed after he was gone and we were under very heavy time pressures, and so we just had to proceed.
I was totally shocked when the stories appeared in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, saying Haig's aides said that Kirkpatrick hadn't followed instructions. First he said I'd done unauthorized things and then he said he did it, really. That I shouldn't have gotten that agreement but that he really got it. Neither of which was true. I did what I was supposed to and I did follow instructions and he didn't do it.
As a matter of fact, this is an interesting thing; this is a sex thing, I think. Hammadi—the Iraqi Foreign Minister, who is thought around the U.N. to be one of the meanest, sourest people any place—I think this is a man for whom being a woman probably helped me. I think he was a little nicer with me than his reputation led me to believe that he was with anybody. And I was probably a little nicer to him than an American male diplomat might have been, including little things like writing him the letter when the elevator fell and offering him various kinds of reassurances about the president's views. I was in a position to do that, by the way; that helped too.
He had real dislike for Haig—Hammadi did, and he expressed that several times in the course of those negotiations. And then the last day, when we had finished—we had got an agreement; it had actually already been announced by Brian Urquhart [under secretary general of the UN]. I had a lot of witnesses to all of this—and about ten minutes later, Alexander Haig called Hammadi, feeling that he could, perhaps, help out in closing the deal. And Hammadi didn't even tell him that we had reached an agreement. He didn't tell him anything because he didn't like Alexander Haig. He just didn't respond to anything that Haig said to him, basically. This left Haig with the impression that the situation wasn't closed and, therefore, when he heard that there was an agreement, he thought he had done it. But anyway, it was very bad.
I learned from journalists on the plane, much to my shock, that Alexander Haig—well, that it was Rick Burt and whoever was press counselor in those days, Haig's spokesman; I've forgotten his name. Anyway, Haig had asked them to put the story out that appeared in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. And it was a fabrication. The president called me in France. (I left the day this happened.) The president called me to tell me how badly he felt about it and how pleased he was with my performance. And Haig called me, too, to apologize and say he had nothing to do with it. He would get to the bottom of it and somebody would pay. This was all lies. That was sort of an incredible experience.
Q: It must have been. You must have wondered if you were through the looking glass.
KIRKPATRICK: I did. I really did. Thank God, I'd had a lot of witnesses to all aspects of it. There were a lot of people involved, including Walt Stoessel, who I think is an extremely honorable man. When I said to Alexander Haig that Walt knew that I'd been in constant touch, he said, “Well, I've lost confidence in Walt Stoessel, too, out of this whole affair”.
Q: He sounds like a little boy, doesn't he? Stamping his foot.
KIRKPATRICK: I am told that Alexander Haig said to a friend of mine, who is a good witness—he'd never met me; he had been appointed secretary of state and I had already been appointed U.N. perm rep—and he said to him, “I don't know how anybody expects that I will work with that bitch.”
Q: Well, talk about bad judgment! You don't say things like that. Now, what about Argentina and the Falkland Islands? Did that happen because they thought we would back them against the British? What do you think is the background of that Argentinian episode?
KIRKPATRICK: I don't know what they thought. We'll never know what they thought for sure. The fact is, of course, that it never occurred to anybody in the whole US Government or the British Government that the Argentinians would dream of doing such a thing. When I went to Argentina, I went with a big brief, and I was supposed to tell them, and I did tell them, how we would never understand if they used force to settle the Beagle Channel dispute. Roger Fontaine and I had lunch with the Argentine ambassador, visiting somebody not long before the Falklands issue. They had made some sort of move on the Beagle Channel—and we made a big point to communicate the fact that our government would never understand if they used force on the Beagle Channel.
Nobody ever mentioned the Falkland Islands, because in the extremes of our minds it never occurred to anybody that they would do such a thing. By the way, Peter Carrington [Lord Carrington, British foreign secretary] says the same thing about himself and the British. And the fact is that it was so inconceivable to us, that we didn't even hear what later we clearly recognized, in hindsight, had been sort of clues. We missed them.
Q: I see. You missed the clues.
KIRKPATRICK: We missed the clues because it seemed so inconceivable. Who knows what the Argentinians thought? They had no reason to believe that the United States would in any way condone such an action. No reason at all.
Q: No, not against the British.
KIRKPATRICK: I can't conceive of why they would imagine that we would take a less serious attitude toward the Falklands than toward the Beagle Channel, which we talked to them a lot about. Unless they thought that our omission was significant, which is an interesting question.
Q: Yes. Or the fact that you didn't pick up on the clues, which you didn't recognize as clues.
KIRKPATRICK: That's right. But it came, you know, as a total shock. It was a shock to Tom Enders [Thomas Enders, assistant secretary, Bureau of Inter-American Affairs] and it was a shock to me. It was a shock to Peter Carrington; it was a shock to everybody. The disagreement between Haig and me was actually not even really about the Falklands.
By that time, Alexander Haig really didn't like me at all, and I don't even know why, frankly. I don't know why he disliked me as much as he did. Except that a friend said that he had been powerfully prejudiced against me before he'd even met me. There was a kind of disagreement between us, but, no more disagreement than there was between Cap Weinberger [Caspar Weinberger, secretary of defense] and I, who have been fast, good colleagues.
My position on the Falklands was that we ought to remain neutral. I very strongly supported Haig's mediation efforts. I carefully avoided any contact with the Argentinians of an informal sort from the time of the beginning of those mediation efforts until the end of them, and I never had any contact at all, except sort of the minimal necessary to do with the Security Council business at the U.N. And I had lots of people with me. I had learned a few basic self-protective practices by that time. That did not prevent Haig from spreading some sort of rumor that I was somehow sabotaging his negotiations. He says in his book that he heard this from the British. That's a very odd thing. But then, who knows?
Q: And who knows whom he means by “the British”? Well, obviously, he was trying to get you out. And you outlasted him by a good long time, didn't you? Which is a delightful thing for women.
KIRKPATRICK: No, there was a steady stream of unpleasant leaks.
Q: Little picks at you.
KIRKPATRICK: Well, and some very harsh ones.
Q: Oh, I know, the newspapers, especially, had a lot of fun with that. Would you say that your personal relationship with Ronald Reagan could be compared to the one Clare Boothe Luce [Clare Boothe Luce was U.S. ambassador to Italy at the time of the settlement of the Trieste issue in 1954] had with Eisenhower, when she was able to go to him at the time she was trying to settle the Trieste matter, and bring things to his attention so that he could then sort of push things in motion? Did you have that much access?
KIRKPATRICK: I had access to the president when I wanted.
Q: You did? Whenever you wanted?
KIRKPATRICK: Yes, I mean, if I wanted to see the president, I could call up and get an appointment with the president. If I wanted a half an hour, one-on-one, I could get half an hour one-on-one. I could call and say, “I'd like to see the president; I'm going to need half an hour, and I would like to see him one-on-one.” I could do that.
Q: I don't think people ever forgave Haig for what he did previously, when he said, “I am in charge,” but he wasn't in charge.
KIRKPATRICK: That's right. But that was his fantasy.
Q: He didn't know the order of succession.
KIRKPATRICK: What he did was share with the whole public his fantasy, his private fantasy. But he acted like that all the time, and it got on the president's nerves. There's no doubt about it. And that's what brought his downfall; it wasn't anybody else. He brought his downfall.
Q: Yes. Your relationship with the representatives from the major countries—Japan, NATO, ANZUS and so forth, you had close relationships?
KIRKPATRICK: Well, the Security Council was a very important center of our life—that's my life. My relationships with the Security Council were particularly close—the Security Council ambassadors. I worked most closely of all with the British and the French throughout my time there, but I also had good relations—reasonably good relations actually—even with the Chinese. And eventually, I developed a reasonably cordial relationship with the Soviet ambassador; not a close one, but a cordial one. He had a luncheon in my honor when I left, for example; invited all the NATO and the ANZUS ambassadors, which was nice. Nobody had done that for a U.S. ambassador in many years—in living memory—at the U.N. I went to their national day reception, by the way. That's the kind of exception I made, after we had permission to do it. In the beginning, we were banned, of course, because of Afghanistan. I'm trying to think who else I was particularly close to. Oh, several of the Latins; the Central Americans, the Costa Rican ambassador, for example; the Honduran, the El Salvadoran, the Ecuadoran ambassador was kind of a good man. One of the Colombian ambassadors I was very close to. Some of the Asians we worked very closely with, and I came to be on really quite personal terms with the Thai and the Singaporean and the Malaysian. You know, those kinds of people. I was never particularly close to the Japanese. I don't mean that I had a strained relation, but I just wasn't particularly close. Bill Sherman was, however. That's very important that you know this, very important that Bill was. Actually, I was very close to the Dutch and the Belgians. Of all the other NATO ambassadors, besides the British and the French, I was probably closest to the Dutch and the Belgians.
Q: I recently met a gentleman from Mauritania, Amadou Ould Abdallah [Mauritanian permanent representative to the UN].
KIRKPATRICK: Oh, yes, of course.
Q: And he just thinks you are absolutely marvelous.
KIRKPATRICK: Yes, yes, yes. He's a good man.
Q: He thought you were terrific.
KIRKPATRICK: Well, I had some friends among the Africans, too. I've helped promote some foreign ministers in Africa today, so to speak. They were permanent representatives whom we developed particularly good relations with and helped them in Washington, and helped them win promotions at home, as a matter of fact. The current Secretary General of the OAU and former Foreign Minister of Niger, Amarou, was a very good friend of mine. The Senegalese, Foreign Minister Niasse, and Sarr�, who's their perm rep in New York, is a very good friend of mine. The Togolese—by the way, these were also Security Council members. The Zairian Security Council member became a good friend of mine. I was able to work with the francophone Africans especially because of being comfortable in French.
Q: Which they take as a great compliment, don't they?
KIRKPATRICK: Yes, right, and since most of them are not comfortable in English, this is very important. French is more important, by far, for dealing with the francophone Africans than to dealing with French and the Belgians, most of whom speak English. What time is it?
Q: It's almost five o'clock.
KIRKPATRICK: Oh, okay. Ask one more question.
Q: Last question: How do you regard the U.N. now that you have been there? How do you regard its effectiveness in the world, and its usefulness?
KIRKPATRICK: It's very ineffective.
Q: Necessity for it, perhaps, is the word I wanted to use.
KIRKPATRICK: It's ineffective in relationship to its central responsibility, which is peaceful resolution of conflict, and peace-keeping and peace-making. Some of the independent agencies of the U.N. are quite effective—UNC, HCR, UNICEF, WHO—some of those agencies, I think, do very good work. But generally speaking, the U.N. is quite ineffective. It is a seriously bloated, overblown, international bureaucracy with a lot of the worst aspects of many national bureaucracies combined. The budget is basically out of control and so is personnel.
There are a lot of nice people there, whom I enjoyed knowing and working with, and whom I really not only respect, but like. I think the U.N. is basically negative in its effects on the United States and our role in the world. I think its impact on us, our values, our friends, is largely negative. [This was during the cold war. - J.K.]
We can, with maximum energy and intelligence and effort, control those negative effects and minimize them. But it's a colossal effort just to keep major damage from being done to us. Nonetheless, I don't advocate U.S. withdrawal from the U.N., because I think it's too important to many small, poor, third-world countries. I don't think it's objectively important to them, but it's subjectively. They think it's important. It's important because they think it's important, you know?
Q: Sure.
KIRKPATRICK: It's important for them to have some kind of place they can meet each other and meet representatives of the major countries and get some kind of hearing for their concerns, and have some kind of feeling that they have open channels.
Q: A place to blow off steam?
KIRKPATRICK: I strenuously object to the notion that the U.N. is a place to let off steam. I call that the “Turkish bath” conception of the United Nations, and I don't think we ought to tolerate becoming the target of cathartic exercises by third world countries. And I don't think that's necessary to their purposes, either. I think what's most important to the third-world countries is that there be a place—literally an arena—in which they can meet people. A lot of arenas, you know, in which different kinds of problems are discussed and in which they can speak. It's not necessarily blowing off steam, but get a hearing—just get a hearing. Oh, I think it would be a terrible shock to the sensibilities of almost everybody if we were to withdraw from the U.N., so I don't think we should, but, on the other hand, I don't think we should underestimate the damage that's done to our values, interests, and principles, and friends in the U.N., and that we need, therefore, to be very energetic and realistic about defending ourselves, and helping that body focus on more constructive enterprises.
Q: Yes. Well, you certainly did it by writing them letters and saying, “Why did you vote this way?”
KIRKPATRICK: Just once.
Q: Just the once?
KIRKPATRICK: Just once.
Q: Has it not been done again?
KIRKPATRICK: I don't think so. I did that in my first year.
Q: Again, that's the accountability idea.
KIRKPATRICK: Well, that's right. It's also the direct contact. I did some equivalents to writing letters. I did, for example, mention by name countries who spoke against us in the Nicaraguan debate, whom we had good reason to expect better behavior from. So I expressed explicitly our disappointment at the comments of Pakistan, Senegal, Sri Lanka, or China.
Q: And where did you do this?
KIRKPATRICK: In the U.N. Security Council on the record. I only did it once because I never had to do it again. Because not one of the countries that I mentioned ever again entered a complaint against the United States with that kind of language. It was very shocking. I mean, there were real shock tactics.
I didn't do it harshly. I just expressed our disappointment and surprise that Pakistan would say something like this about the United States in this context, or that China would engage in this kind of hyperbole, or make this kind of mistake. I took about five countries with whom we were closely associated. I didn't make a big point of them. I did it in one small piece of the speech. But it produced a lot of shock, and they didn't do it again.
Now, I mean, that's not too destructive a way of communicating that we really care and that there will be consequences. That we really do hold people responsible for what they say about us in official places on the record. I'm not sorry I did that.
Q: No, I shouldn't think so. Well, thank you very much.
End of interview