The Week

Maybe President Clinton really intended to fire Warren Christopher, but forgot his name.

Strobe Talbott was a natural candidate for high office in the Clinton State Department, especially in the area of Russian affairs, given his almost unbroken streak of wrong analysis and wrong prognostication on the subject during his many years as a journalist. When Ronald Reagan took a firm fine with the Soviets in arms control, Mr. Talbott predicted the end of arms control (if not of civilization); when the Soviets cried uncle, he gave Mikhail Gorbachev all the credit and thought President Reagan had only gotten in the way. But in the intellectual vacuum that is the Clinton State Department, Mr. Talbott has turned out to be a dominant figure. As ambassador-at-large for the former Soviet Union, he has been the intellectual force behind the Administration’s support for Boris Yeltsin (which we agree with) but also behind its reluctance to extend a security guarantee to the new East European democracies (which we like a lot less). Even our West European allies have been left on the sidelines, as we assiduously cultivate the Russian bear. So as Mr. Talbott moves to become Warren Christopher’s Number Two (and perhaps ultimately his successor), a man who is energetically wrong may replace someone who is lackadaisically so.

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Maybe President Clinton really intended to fire Warren Christopher, but forgot his name.

Strobe Talbott was a natural candidate for high office in the Clinton State Department, especially in the area of Russian affairs, given his almost unbroken streak of wrong analysis and wrong prognostication on the subject during his many years as a journalist. When Ronald Reagan took a firm fine with the Soviets in arms control, Mr. Talbott predicted the end of arms control (if not of civilization); when the Soviets cried uncle, he gave Mikhail Gorbachev all the credit and thought President Reagan had only gotten in the way. But in the intellectual vacuum that is the Clinton State Department, Mr. Talbott has turned out to be a dominant figure. As ambassador-at-large for the former Soviet Union, he has been the intellectual force behind the Administration’s support for Boris Yeltsin (which we agree with) but also behind its reluctance to extend a security guarantee to the new East European democracies (which we like a lot less). Even our West European allies have been left on the sidelines, as we assiduously cultivate the Russian bear. So as Mr. Talbott moves to become Warren Christopher’s Number Two (and perhaps ultimately his successor), a man who is energetically wrong may replace someone who is lackadaisically so.