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Holbrooke and UN Deal Holbrooke's U.N. Nomination
Is Reported Close to a DealBy Philip Shenon
New York Times
April 20, 1999Washington -- Senate leaders and the State Department said Monday that they were close to a deal that could rescue the long-delayed nomination of Richard C. Holbrooke to lead the American delegation to the United Nations. The deal would also at least raise the possibility that the United States would pay hundreds of millions of dollars in back dues to the organization.
But Holbrooke's chief Democratic backer in the Senate is warning that the longtime diplomat's nomination, sidetracked for eight months by a Justice Department investigation, could still be derailed by partisan debates in the Senate over policy in Kosovo or over Holbrooke's ethics. The lawmaker, Sen. Joseph R. Biden of Delaware, ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said in an interview that Holbrooke's nomination was "not a done deal." "I can flat out say it," Biden said.
He added that if Sen. Jesse Helms, the North Carolina Republican who is chairman of the committee, and other Senate Republicans do not agree to hold a confirmation hearing in several weeks, the nomination could effectively be dead. "If it's not done in the near term," Biden said, "it means they've made a judgment to kill it."
Holbrooke, a diplomat turned investment banker who is the architect of the Dayton peace agreement in 1995 that ended the war in Bosnia, has been active in shaping the policies that led to the NATO air strikes this spring against Yugoslavia.
His Senate confirmation has faced two major hurdles since President Clinton chose him for the post last June: the ethics investigation, which ended in February when Holbrooke agreed to pay $5,000 to settle civil charges that he had violated lobbying laws, and a dispute between the administration and Helms over a measure to repay the back dues to the United Nations.
Senate and administration officials said Helms had pledged to block Holbrooke's nomination unless the State Department agreed to support a bill he has proposed with Senator Biden to pay the dues. Under the deal between the Foreign Relations Committee and the State Department, the department would support the so-called Helms-Biden bill, which would allow the repayment of more than $900 million in back dues.
The administration agreed to support another provision, to reduce the overall contribution to the United Nations budget and require bureaucratic changes at the organization. The State Department had initially balked at several elements of the bill, including its requirement of a 20 percent cap, down from 25 percent today, on American contributions to the overall United Nations budget.
Administration officials said Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright was determined to hammer out a compromise with Helms, if only to rescue Holbrooke's nomination, which had been stalled since it was submitted in February. Officials said a compromise could be reached as early as this week.
The senator has refused to schedule a confirmation hearing, saying through a spokesman that the committee cannot hold the hearing until the Justice and State Departments have turned over documents gathered in the ethics inquiry. "Getting documents from State and Justice has been like pulling teeth," said the spokesman, Marc A. Thiessen. A spokeswoman for Holbrooke said he had no comment on the Senate and State Department talks.
An agreement between Helms and the administration over his version of the legislation might free up the nomination. But it would not guarantee final passage by Congress or a final decision by President Clinton to sign the legislation and allow the United States to pay the back dues. In previous years, House Republicans have saddled similar bills with anti-abortion provisions, leading to Presidential vetoes.
Clinton announced in June that he would nominate Holbrooke as the chief delegate to the United Nations, a post that carries Cabinet rank, replacing Bill Richardson, who became energy secretary. The nomination was quickly sidetracked as a result of anonymous allegations that Holbrooke had violated federal ethics laws after resigning from the State Department in 1996 to become an investment banker. The inquiry ended in February, when Holbrooke, without acknowledging wrongdoing, agreed to pay $5,000 to settle civil charges that he had violated the law when, within weeks of resigning, he asked the American Embassy in Seoul for help in meeting South Korean leaders.
Biden said he had reviewed that case. "Nothing I have seen at all, in any way, impugns his integrity or is any reason why he shouldn't be confirmed." But he said that might not stop Republicans on the Foreign Relations Committee from starting a full-scale review of "these bush-league ethics charges."
"As we all know," Biden said, "once you get into this ethical quagmire, it almost doesn't matter if you're totally innocent. If there's a desire on the part of anyone in the Republican establishment or on the part of even a single Republican to stop his nomination, this could be their starting point."
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