Former U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher died Friday after a fight with cancer. He was 85. He served as the nation's top diplomat during President Bill Clinton's first term. Among many other positions in his career, he had previously served as deputy secretary of state for President Jimmy Carter.
Hillary Rodham Clinton, the current secretary of state, issued a statement in which she praised the late diplomat. "The longer I spend in this job, the deeper my appreciation grows for the giants who came before," Clinton said. "Warren was a diplomat’s diplomat – talented, dedicated and exceptionally wise. As well as anyone in his generation, he understood the subtle interplay of national interests, fundamental values and personal dynamics that drive diplomacy. "
In February 2001, Christopher spoke to The Commonwealth Club of California. His topic, "Chances of a Lifetime," covered his long career in politics and government. You can read a transcript of the event here.
Commonwealth Club President and CEO Dr. Gloria Duffy, a veteran of international diplomacy during the Clinton Administration, will be on the Ronn Owens program this morning at 10 am to discuss North Korea and the return of the two journalists.
You can listen live to the program on KGO Newstalk AM810 here. If you miss it, you should be able to catch the archived audio here.
Duffy has also spoken about this topic to KGO TV news, KTVU Channel 2, and KCBS Radio.
In his private mission to North Korea today, former President Bill Clinton secured the release of the two American journalists arrested along the Chinese North Korean border in March. In this unpublicized visit, Clinton met with North Korean leader Kim Jong II and negotiated the release of Euna Lee and Laura ling, the reporters for former Vice President Al Gore’s Current TV. The two young women had been sentenced in June to 12 years of hard labor for illegal entry and allegedly committing “hostile acts.” It has now been reported that the two journalists are returning to the United States on Clinton’s plane.
The official Korean central news agency said that Clinton and the North Korean leader discussed a wide range of topics, including the release of Ling and Lee and the status of the North Korean nuclear weapons program.
The dramatic events come at a time of heightened international tensions. The Obama administration had voiced concern about North Korea’s recent testing of nuclear and ballistic missiles, which violates UN Security Council resolutions. In late May, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned North Korea that it could face “unspecified consequences for this aggressive behavior.” Meanwhile, for the past several months she had also been working to negotiate the release of the two journalists.
Senior North Korean officials greeted Clinton with a warm welcome and bouquet of flowers at the airport, after which he was treated to a banquet at the state guesthouse. Analysts say that, though Clinton is no longer president, the broad smile on Jong II’s face indicated a possible upturn of events in what seemed to have become a downward spiral of Western-North Korean relations.
Experts believe that Bill Clinton’s visit came at the behest of North Korean leaders, who had indicated they might release the two young women with a formal apology and a visit from a high-profile U.S. emissary.
When asked in a KCBS radio news interview for her reaction to Clinton’s success, Dr. Gloria Duffy, president and CEO of The Commonwealth Club, responded, “I not surprised. I am very pleased by the pardon. And I am wondering what this will lead to. What other topics were discussed? Why was North Korea so interested in opening the door to perhaps further positive developments?
Duffy, who worked with President Clinton as a nuclear arms negotiator during his first term in office, added, “The last successful agreement that was negotiated with North Korea about its nuclear program was under the Clinton administration. So there is a positive history there. That was the Agreed Framework negotiated in 1994 that was dispensed with some years later during the Bush administration. That’s important symbolism. The North Koreans have wanted to meet with a United States president for some time. Kim Jong Il has wanted to be seen as a world leader…, so the symbolism is very important to him being equated with a senior American leader –again, one [Clinton] who had a relatively positive relationship with North Korea. In fact under President Clinton’s leadership, many positive things happened.”
--Commonwealth Club Media and Public Relations Department
Robert Reich could have easily uttered this sentence within the last week. Instead, he used those words to describe the prospects for the economy during a September 2008 speech at The Commonwealth Club.
Of course, any cynic or chronic pessimist could have seen the worsening of the economy persisting into this year or longer, but the former labor secretary under President Clinton and current professor at Cal has been one of the few sounding the alarms over the economy for some time.
His assessment of the then-pending $700 billion bailout to Wall Street sounds dead on today. “The bailout will not ultimately do much," said Reich, "It will provide a one-shot shot of confidence. It will stop the bleeding, but it will not end the underlying problem.”
Indeed, today, many wonder what the initial half of the bailout money went toward. Without reliable accounting of the dollars, some wonder whether financial institutions are hoarding the relief money while credit markets still languish. Reich pointed out that the financial dilemma the country faces is actually a "crisis of trust" and, though the bailout in September was a message to investors that the government is willing to do something big to alleviate the problems, it will not fix the long-term problems with the economy without substantial oversight and a strong monetary policy.
He did focus on one interesting unintended consequence of the bailout: a resumption of avarice. “You take greed away from Wall Street and what you have is pavement,” he said to a round of guffaws.
Reich says corporate leaders and their earning are predicated on the short term. In this situation -- where the government has, in effect, subsidized the down side to investing -- he says the "risk is greater" that corporations will continue to dabble in seizing the quick buck.
Today, as President-elect Barack Obama attempts to push another large round of stimulus benefits through Congress, Reich's 2008 words are useful; he urged listeners not to view the next president's capacity to apply his agenda in Washington as being depressed.
Reich recounted how during the beginning of Clinton's term in 1993, the discovery of larger deficits forced the new president to pare back some of his campaign promises. Don't necessarily believe it this time around, said Reich, because the September bailout is technically not an expenditure. The money will be borrowed from Asian and Middle Eastern countries, he said, which are more than happy to invest in relatively safe Treasury bills, something that has indeed occurred.
Because many in the Obama administration believe expanding the deficit to stoke the poor economy falls in line with the Keynesian mantra of infrastructure spending, balancing the budget is far from the most important policy objective and should allow the incoming president to hold his campaign promises intact.
Robert Reich will try his hand again at making sense of the economy while peering into the future this Wednesday at The Commonwealth Club of California's Annual Bank of America-Walter E. Hoadley Economic Forecast. The event will be held at the Hotel Nikko at 222 Mason St. with lunch at 11:45 a.m. and the program starting at 12:30 p.m.
Here are the disturbing facts and figures behind today's announced rise in unemployment to 7.2 percent:
The economy shedded nearly 2.6 million jobs in 2008, according to the Labor Department. This many jobs have not been lost since the 2.75 million at the conclusion of World War II. Three quarters of the total has occurred just in the last quarter alone.
The 7.2 percent figure represents the highest total in 16 years. The 584,000 jobs lost comes after the economy lost 524,000 in November of last year. To see the raw numbers from the Department of Labor, click here.
The number of unemployed Americans now totals 11.1 million. The figure may actually be higher since the Labor Department only tracks those looking for work during the last four weeks and cannot account for those intimidated by the bleak job market.
The comparison between President Clinton's two terms in office and President Bush's is stark and puts even more pressure on the incoming Obama administration. By the end of Clinton's presidency, the economy generated nearly 23 million new jobs, while Bush is slated to have created just over 3 million in eight years.
Within the numbers lies one devastating insight: things are likely to get worse. According to a Los Angeles Times report, those gainfully employed are losing more hours than before.
The report was full of ill portents. Among them was a reported decline in the number of hours worked to 33.3 hours per worker -- the lowest number recorded since the Labor Department began keeping track in 1964. Businesses tend to cut hours before cutting workers, so the declines likely mean more layoffs are pending.
This fact cuts directly to real-world problems affecting all Americans. While times are difficult for those laid-off recently or fruitlessly attempting to find work, those with employment are hurting as well.
I believe he is an inspired choice. Why? What the intelligence community needs most at this time is a firm management hand and strong ethical guidance, and Mr. Panetta has both. Not only has he managed the Office of the President as Chief of Staff for President Clinton, but he managed the budget process for all federal agencies, including the CIA, as Director of the Office of Management and Budget in the 90s. His contacts in Congress are excellent, from his years representing the Monterey Peninsula in the House, including as Chairman of the House Budget Committee - which reviewed and approved the CIA's budget. All of these roles, and his membership in the recent Iraq Study Group, give him the capability to succeed with the management and budgetary issues facing the intelligence community.
More important, the intelligence community has suffered through some poor choices in recent years. These have included yielding to what was probably political pressure leading the agency to mistakenly conclude in 2002-2003 that WMD were present in Iraq, and the decisions to use interrogation techniques that have not gone down well in our democratic society, no matter how justified our cause in combating terrorism.
These problems require a leader with a strong ethical compass, who will use good judgment in making key choices for the intelligence community. In addition to his prior government service that met high standards for good judgment and ethics, Mr. Panetta has spent the past decade thinking about leadership and ethics, teaching and lecturing about these topics, and training young people to engage in ethical government service through the Panetta Institute at Cal State Monterey Bay. He has the qualities of high moral standards and good judgement that are essential for the intelligence community at this time.
Concerns have been expressed that Panetta would be viewed as an outsider by the personnel in the intelligence agencies. But most CIA Directors for the past several decades have come from outside the intelligence community. They have included professors, businessmen and diplomats. Panetta is more of an insider than most of these folks.
It is also perhaps not widely known that there has been a major change in the intelligence agencies' personnel since 9/11. Some 50% of intel community staffers have joined since 9/11. This is not the hardened group of veteran analysts and operatives that it might have been in previous years, who perhaps would have protested or undercut the effectiveness of a director who was not "one of them". Many of the current staff are young and relatively new to the intelligence profession.
In addition, the intelligence community is involved in a makeover in how information is gathered, bringing into its practices the major developments from the civilian economy that have increased capabilities for finding and organizing information. For example, the intelligence community now has an "intellipedia", like wikipedia, where analysts from different fields and agencies can post and access information that previously would have only been accessible to a narrow range of people in a limited field.
Given this change in makeup and in its work process, I believe the intelligence community will welcome a man of Mr. Panetta's stature and capabilities as the fine leader who will secure their budgets and continue to improve their capabilities, while providing the moral compass to keep them out of trouble.
Besides all of this, Mr. Panetta's son, James, is a naval intelligence officer just awarded the Bronze Star for his work locating Al Qaida targets in Afghanistan.
I commend the choice of Mr. Panetta for this role, and wish him great success.
Gloria Duffy President and CEO, The Commonwealth Club Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, 1993-1995
An anonymous former adviser to Sen. Hillary Clinton, speaking on the likelihood of her former boss's secretary of state ambitions, told the New York Times this weekend, “I can’t believe they would have her schlep out there with all this publicity unless they were real about it.”
It sounds logical until you consider that president-elect Barack Obama has an exit strategy in the name of Bill Clinton's potentially iffy post-presidential dealings around the world.
Alex Koppelman at the Salon's War Room blog writes that the Clinton's may be using their old, yet ineffective bullying tactics or riding a wave of inevitability into the State Department. That old wave did not quite reach the shores of the Potomac unfortunately
In the meantime, rumors and spin are swirling around whether Clinton is a shoo-in, somewhat interested or merely a trial balloon about to deflate.
The Washington Postreported yesterday that President Clinton is willing to cooperate in the vetting process of his financial dealing around the world and Bloomberg.com reported that Hillary may have to pay off $7.6 million owed to vendors from her failed presidential campaign before she could accept a place in Obama's administration.
Politico, though, reports that Hillary may not actually want the job and the New York Times published an even more peculiar article pointing toward Clinton withdrawing her name from consideration.
It was unclear if Sen. Clinton’s stated hesitation was part of a bargaining tactic as the Obama team weighs whether to appoint her secretary of state, a genuine moment of indecision or, perhaps, a signal that she was preparing to withdraw from consideration.
Both articles contain remarks about Clinton being "torn" between the cabinet position and finishing her work in the Senate. A bit of political posturing may well be going on between the Clintons and president-elect Obama, which leads to the question of who is next in line?
Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) was an early rumor. While his name has not dropped from the rumor mill, it also has not gain much momentum.
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson has gained a modicum of attention in the last week after taking a meeting with Obama last Friday. During the Democratic primaries, many pundits joked both Richardson and vice president-elect Joe Biden were running – not for president, but for secretary of state.
When Richardson visited the Commonwealth Club of California in June of 2007 to talk about his presidential campaign, he gave some insights into how he would handle foreign affairs. Calling himself a "little rough around the edges," Richardson said that "the essence of governing is diplomacy. It's talking. It's dialogue. It's mediation. It's not, first, seeking a military solution." (See video above.)
Nearly taking a page out of Biden's strategy of splitting Iraq into three separate countries, Richardson said he would use diplomacy to urge the Iraqis to form a coalition government that would split oil revenues. "I would tell them we are going to divide your country into three entities – not three states," Richardson said.
Mimicking Obama's plan to approach hostile nations in the Middle East, Richardson said he would try to find "common ground" with Iran and Syria, while proposing an all-Muslim peace-keeping force in Iraq.
As a former Ambassador to the United Nations under President Clinton, Richardson said he recognizes the usefulness of the U.N., but does not favor using it in issues pertaining to Israel. "I believe there are times when you shouldn't use the U.N. – [for example,] the Israeli-Palestinian issue – they just basically get in the way because Israel is outnumbered," said Richardson.
The prospect of Richardson as secretary of state has some backers and a few detractors, without mentioning the possibility of greatly expanding the rift caused between Richardson and the Clintons over his support for Obama in the primaries.
Robert Guttman, blogging at The Huffington Post, likes Richardson; though he would seem to like anybody but Clinton at State. Former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, though, has some really harsh words for Richardson. (Watch the video here.)
Eagleburger slammed Richardson Tuesday on MSNBC, "I don't want to beat everybody to death, but I have very little respect for his intelligence and his knowledge of foreign affairs."
How might Richardson perform as secretary of state? Maybe a bit more aggressive than you might imagine. Click here and here.
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