Vernon Walters, R.I.P.
Two-star general, all-star man.

By Michael Ledeen, NRO contributing editor & resident scholar in the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute. He is author, most recently, of Tocqueville on American Character
January 15, 2002 9:30 a.m.

eneral Vernon Walters has died, and a hell of a man he was. He never went to college, but he spoke 16 languages, many of them so perfectly that natives took him as one of their own. He enlisted in the Second World War, and worked his way up through the Army ranks to become a two-star general. He served as deputy director of Central Intelligence during Watergate, and emerged with honor. He became ambassador-at-large at the State Department, and always got the toughest missions, whether it was reading the riot act to difficult allies like, as he invariably put it, "the mad Mobuto" in Zaire or killer generals in Argentina. His last official post was ambassador to West Germany during the G. W. H. Bush years, and he was apparently the first American official to conclude that German unification was going to happen, and we'd better get on board.

Enough glory for five good men. And with Dick Walters you got a lot more. You got real comradeship, a rare quality in the best of times, and especially in recent years. You got someone who was willing to share his wisdom with younger colleagues. You got a religious man, a devout Catholic, who did not use the vulgarity typical of the military. And you got the greatest speaker I have ever seen in American public life.

A few years ago I heard him interviewed in front of a thousand businessmen and women in Melbourne, Australia, and the interviewer gave him a great question. "Tell me, General, in your diplomatic activities, did you ever use flattery? And if you did, how did it work"

Walters answered in a nanosecond: "Anyone who thinks flattery doesn't work obviously has never had any."

When Walters was ambassador-at-large, I was, so to speak, ambassador-at-small. He got the important missions, I got much less important ones. I had never been in government, and he made it as pleasant as he could. He found a proper secretary for me, one of those plain-speaking, uppity types who would tell me when my instincts were bad, and, so help me, refuse to type memos she thought would get me in trouble. And then, from time to time, he took me along with him, so that I could kibitz and learn how diplomacy could be done by one of its greatest practitioners.

It was a real treat, always.

He had enough stories to entertain you on the longest trip, and he was full of great advice, some of which has crept into others' now-celebrated guides to Washington life. My favorite, which every civil servant should have on his wall: There is no limit to what you can accomplish if you are willing to let someone else take credit for it.

One of the greatest members of a great generation, he deserved great honor, but got little of it. He was too down to earth to be impressed by the intellectuals, and yet too well read and too cultured to fit into the world of Joe Six-pack. He never married, but he took a young naval officer under his wing, and made him his personal assistant. Captain Lee Martini traveled the world with his general, thought deeply about what he'd learned...and became a Benedictine priest. And I'm sure that Father Martini will celebrate a most appropriate mass today in honor of his friend and mentor.