Tribal Politics February 3, 2008 In 1962, when we were
both young, I spent a good number of hours with Mwai Kibaki in Nairobi,
listening to him explain the complexities of Kenya tribal politics. He was an
official of the Kenya African National Union (KANU), the party that would lead
the colony of Kenya to independence a year later, and I was a Ford Foundation
fellow studying the new nations of Africa. I would drop by his office every week
or so and, if he was not busy, he would take time to reply to my questions. He
was polite, soft-spoken and matter-of-fact, not charismatic at all, and it never
dawned on me that he might become president of Kenya some day...
Blather about Iraq September 26, 2007 Recent weeks have brought us so much blather about the war in Iraq that it
is difficult to hold on to realities. But let’s try. The President gave us his
latest speech on Iraq in September. I often wonder who listens to him any more,
who believes him any more. Yet I can’t help finding a certain fascination with
his oratory. I am always astonished at what he will come up with next. He has a
new though clunky slogan: Return on Success. Since the success is imperceptible,
his pullback of troops is insignificant. But he does not say that, of course...
Letting Go of Iraq April 11, 2007 The enthusiasts who stormed into Iraq are incapable of letting go. It is not
so much that President Bush and Vice President Cheney cannot face defeat. Far
more important, they cannot face the enormity of the mindlessness that powered
them to war. So they are hanging on with a stubborn show of honor and even
political courage, persuaded that, despite their mistakes and misadventures,
history will absolve them. To keep on in the face of congressional harassment
and public discontent, they are spewing a lot of cant about terrorism,
micromanagement, chaos and patriotism. It is not easy to see the awful situation
clearly...
Transparency at Ban Ki-Moon’s
United Nations January 22, 2007
The last ten years have been the most transparent in the history of the United
Nations. Scholars, reporters and the public learned more about the machinations
behind UN scenes than they ever had before. But that openness may be difficult
for Ban Ki-Moon, the new Secretary-General, to maintain. Ban is a veteran South
Korean diplomat, and diplomats are notorious for their joy at working in secret
and commenting afterwards in words of mush. In one of his first interviews, Ban
boasted to Warren Hoge of the New York Times that the press in South Korea used
to call him "the slippery eel" because "they could never grab me..."
Kofi Annan at the UN:
An American Waste December 4, 2006 This is the
season for summing up the legacy of Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General whose
ten-year reign comes to an end on December 31. Just a few weeks ago, I attended
a day-long seminar at Georgetown University assessing his "legacy for Africa."
The forty scholars, diplomats and civil servants agreed that Africa had
benefited from his campaigns against AIDS and poverty, his hectoring against
military coups, his championing of peacekeeping missions, and his remarkable
doctrine asserting that the UN has the right to trump sovereignty and cross any
border to stop a government from abusing its peoples...
Defaming Kofi Annan
September 10, 2006 I was applying some last touches to my biography of Kofi Annan on August
10th when I was surprised to read an ad by the Anti-Defamation League on the
Op-Ed page of the New York Times. The ad had a simple and stark message. It
said: "UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan: How many more Israeli civilians must die
before you condemn Hezbollah? And when will you extend condolences to Israeli
victims." It was signed by the Anti-Defamation League’s national chair, Barbara
B. Balser, and by its national director, Abraham H. Foxman. The accusations were
scathing. The source, moreover, was dispiriting for any admirer of the
Secretary-General...
Bolton and History March 24, 2005 When Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced the nomination of John R.
Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations, she proclaimed that he would serve
in the tradition of our best ambassadors “with the strongest voices.” She cited
Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Jean Kirkpatrick as the models. But the Bolton
nomination hardly fits any historical tradition. It is a defiance of history...
Unidentified Sources February 5, 2005 While covering French President
Francois Mitterrand on a trip to Martinique in the 1980s, we in the press corps
were told he would meet us in his hotel suite for a conversation “à bâtons
rompus.” That French idiom — literally “with broken sticks” — meant that the
discussion could shift from one subject to another and that Mitterrand would be
less formal and more open than usual. But the aides cautioned, his replies would
be “off” — a new French journalistic expression that is an abbreviated
form of the English “off the record.” In short, Mitterrand could not be quoted...
Inaugural Fog January 31, 2005 I have finally read the complete text of our 43rd President’s Second
Inaugural Address. Although I had not seen the ceremony on television, I had
tried to read the speech a couple of times the day after but found it impossible
to penetrate the fog of glitter that enveloped his words. I was put off, I
think, by the gnawing conviction that I must be reading the valedictory speech
of some high school senior. The words were highfalutin, the themes were lofty,
and the concoction bore no relation to the world around us. Each paragraph
vanished in my mind as I tried the next. So I gave up...
Bitter Returns
November 3, 2004 In 1952, the
first time I ever voted, I cast my ballot for Adlai Stevenson. Since then my
presidential choice, always a Democrat, has lost more often than not. But no
loss has been as dispiriting and bitter as this one. It is hard to take. The Iraq
adventure is a catastrophic failure, launched on arrogance and faith, managed
with ham hands and closed minds. The cost has been awful. Yet the know-nothings
who launched and managed it have received a resounding endorsement. Bush and his
ideologues will face no accounting for failure and stupidity...
Removing Tyrants
October 4, 2004 More than 30 years ago, during the dark days of
the despicable Idi Amin, I would yearn for some way for the world to rid itself
of tyrants. As a foreign correspondent covering Africa for the Los Angeles
Times, the injustice of it all would torment me. Why should innocent people be
forced to endure the terror and poverty inflicted upon them by the cruel whims
of Idi Amin? Why should they be condemned because of their accidental birth in
an unwieldy country put together by European colonial pooh-bahs in the 19th
century? Could not some international entity like the United Nations be
empowered to pluck him away?
The Chaos of Iraq June 7, 2004 So much wonderful critique of the Bushites, the foolish war, the botched
occupation and the torture scandal has come forth recently (especially the
articles by Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker, the daily news coverage in the New
York Times and the Washington Post, and the extraordinary book of James Mann on
Bush’s Vulcans) that there is no need to add comment. But I would like to
summarize a little...
United Nations in
Crisis: The American Challenge May 7, 2004 A case can be
made that the American and British invasion of Iraq a little more than a year
ago enhanced the moral force and international standing of the United Nations.
The Security Council, after all, had refused to be bullied. Most of its members,
even the weak ones, had stood up to the United States and made it clear they
would not pass a resolution authorizing the invasion. The American failure to
obtain UN authorization galvanized demonstrations throughout Europe and
elsewhere against the invasion. As far as the rest of the world was concerned,
the United States had no right to topple a tyrant, no matter how evil and
dangerous, if the UN did not agree. The UN was clearly the world’s only anointed
keeper of peace and war...
Fact-checking and The Da Vinci Code December 23, 2003 The editors of Doubleday,
headquartered at 1745 Broadway in New York, would surely have raised their
eyebrows and grabbed their red pencils if a best-selling novelist had submitted
a manuscript that placed the Empire State Building on Central Park West, the
United Nations on Broadway and Yankee Stadium on Fifth Avenue. Yet Doubleday has
published a novel - number one on the best-selling lists for a good many weeks -
rife with so much confusion about the sites of Paris that it is hard not to
wince. This might be excusable if Paris played a minor role in the book. But the
main setting of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code is Paris. Someone should
have supplied him with a map...
Democracy: One Man, One Vote, Once November 14, 2003 More than 40 years ago, I sat
in the Western Nigeria House of Assembly in Ibadan and marveled at how well the
British colonial government had implanted its democratic parliamentary system
into this new African country. An African page in blue knee breeches and red
stockings walked into the chamber carrying a mace. “The Speak-uh,” he cried. The
Speaker, a tall African in white wig and black robes, entered, strode across the
chamber and sat in his enormous chair. The page carefully put the mace on its
stand on the table below the Speaker and saluted him...
Dismantling the Art of the Irascible
Doctor Barnes November 14, 2003 Dr. Albert C. Barnes, the patent
medicine man who amassed the greatest private collection of paintings in America
during the first half of the 20th century, behaved so outlandishly that it was
always hard to write about his hoard of art without writing an awful lot about
him. Now that his collection is in dire danger of losing its special and
wonderful character by moving to a cold modern museum in downtown Philadelphia,
he and his wishes have few defenders...
A Few Memories of Benny Carter August 13, 2003 Both John Wilson in the New
York Times and Jon Thurber in the Los Angeles Times wrote ample and thoughtful
obituaries of Benny Carter after he died July 12 at the age of 95, and there is
no need here for me to try to embellish their accounts of his long and
incredibly versatile musical career. But I have a few memories of Benny as a
gentle and gracious man, and I would like to set them down. Wilson and Thurber
caught this side of him a little, but it was overwhelmed, of course, by their
first-rate accounts of his greatness as a musician, composer, arranger and
bandleader...
Depressing Thoughts on Our Victory April 29, 2003 Those of us who opposed the war were probably right. Iraq posed no danger to
Americans. It had few, if any, prohibited weapons ready to strike. No link with
terrorism was ever proven. No doubt Saddam Hussein was a despicable tyrant but
we have always tolerated - and still do - a globe full of them. But none of this
really matters. We might as well, like Lear, rail at the wind and storms.
History belongs to the victors. Only they can gloat...
Badgering the United
Nations March 2, 2003 The United Nations has been castigated by critics for weeks as a toothless organization loaded with appeasers and weasels, as a throwback to the League of Nations, as a cracked body tottering on the brink of irrelevance. George F. Will, the erudite conservative columnist, even suggested it was heading the way of the medieval Hanseatic League. Yet the current Iraq crisis may actually prove one of the UN's finest hours...
A Frightening Performance on Iraq
October 16, 2002 We have seen a frightening performance in the last few weeks. President George W. Bush has shown us the ease with which a relentless and obsessed president, wielding simplistic language, exaggerating dangers, distorting history, invoking patriotism, churning fear and nightmarish memories, can smother debate and take almost all of us along for his ride...
Some
Tentative Reflections on the War in Afghanistan January 14, 2002 To make cold sense out of the events of last year, I have been trying to order some of my thoughts. The situation is so complex that it spawns at least a dozen issues: 1. The destruction of the World Trade Center was a despicable, incredible act that can not be justified in any way. Americans have the right to feel fury and contempt for the perpetrators and those who gloat over their deed. Their deed was so foul that I turn away from the television screen whenever the events of September 11th are replayed. I feel too drained, at least so far, to spend time at Ground Zero when in New York...
(click aquí para versión en
español)
Traces of the French in Hanoi November 25, 2001 There was a time -- romantic in French history -- when French Indochina with its capital of Hanoi shimmered as one of the jewels of the French colonial empire. Thousands of French administrators and teachers and merchants and police lived in Hanoi. The brightest and richest Vietnamese studied at elite French schools there. French law, French bureaucracy and French communications dominated life in the colony. And a visitor could taste a little bit of France and its elegance in the best hotels and restaurants...
Kofi Annan and the Nobel Peace Prize October 30, 2001 Kofi Annan, soft in speech, clear and plain in meaning, scrupulously honest with words, is the second United Nations Secretary-General to win the Nobel Peace Prize. The Nobel committee in Oslo awarded the prize posthumously to Dag Hammarskjöld in 1961 for his leadership in the bloody Congo crisis that took his life. There can hardly be two statesmen of molds so different. And the mood and power of the U.N. then and now contrast as much as the personalities of the two men...
Rhetoric
and War September 25, 2001 An all-out American war against
terrorism is unprecedented. But much of the rhetoric by our politicians has a
familiar ring. The president says we are in a "crusade" against
"a new kind of evil" and that each nation must decide whether
"you are with us or you are with the terrorists." ... These words echo
from the past in an eerie way. I heard these kind of arguments from American
politicians and diplomats often as a foreign and Washington correspondent for
more than 30 years during the Cold War...
The Hidden Bush August 10, 2001 I have been reading No Ordinary Time lately, Doris Kearns Goodwin's marvelous history of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt during World War II. There are so many reminders of my childhood, so many names of long forgotten officials like War Production Board chief Donald Nelson that we used to memorize from My Weekly Reader. Goodwin describes the remarkable ability of President Roosevelt to unify the nation and mold public opinion...
Reflections
on the Election of George W. Bush December 18, 2000 I'm hesitant about adding to the cacophony over the elections, but I do have a few reflections. These bear no hallmark of objectivity. I do not like the strutting George W. Bush and can not conceive of him growing into greatness à la Truman. What if? I have toyed with this a lot. What if Governor Jeb Bush of Florida and his henchlady Katherine Harris had announced from the beginning that, in view of the closeness of the machine recount, they had ordered a hand recount of all the votes of Florida...
Reflections
on Pierre Trudeau October 5, 2000 Pierre
Trudeau, who died last week, was well served by an engaging obituary in the New
York Times written by Mike Kaufman, who covered Canada a couple of decades ago
while I covered it for the Los Angeles Times. Trudeau was prime minister then
and his style, pronouncements, policies and antics dominated our stories in
those days. Mike's obituary delineates Trudeau's greatness as a leader, his
dominance in elections, his sophistication and wit, and his mastery of both
French and English Canadian cultures. The admiring account was written with care
and superb craftsmanship...
The Star-Crossed
Basques March 15, 2000 I spent a few days in Bilbao a year or so ago and found the Basques more optimistic than ever before about peace and prosperity in their little nub of Spain. It was easy to share that optimism. Not only did the glorious Guggenheim Museum of Frank Gehry now hover over a once-nondescript city. But a truce declared by ETA, the murderous Basque separatist movement, was holding...
The
Return of Otis November 12, 1999 The moment brims with high drama. Riding his motorcycle through the Ojai Valley, Otis Chandler, now 71, suddenly knows he must break years of silence about the fate of his Los Angeles Times. The moment has finally come to speak out and berate the stupidity of the people who now run the paper he
loves...
The Revenge of
Boutros Boutros-Ghali July 21, 1999 Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the former Secretary-General of the United Nations, has just published
Unvanquished:
A U.S. - U.N. Saga, his memoir of five years in office, and the account amounts to what the French would call un réglement de compte: his revenge against Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. As U.N. ambassador in 1996, she cast the veto that overrode the affirmative votes of all 14 other members of the Security Council, preventing Boutros from a second term...
Madeleine June 14, 1999 I have just finished reading
Madeleine
Albright: A Twentieth Century Odyssey by Michael Dobbs, the second Albright biography
that I have read in a year. The other was Seasons
of Her Life by Ann Blackman.
That's a lot of biography for a secretary of state in office.
I don't believe anyone ever wrote one about Warren
Christopher, and I haven't heard of any publishing house
hawking a Christopher bio now that he's out of office. But
Madeline Albright is a secretary of state with pizzazz, sort
of like a rock star...
Madeleine's
War? April 11, 1999 The backbiting and ass-covering erupted in Washington soon after the bombs began pounding Yugoslavia in March. The rush to escape and stamp blame was clear evidence that something had gone awry. The powers in the capital had obviously hoped and expected Slobodan Milosevic to put up no more than a show of resistance before signing with shaking hands any damn paper we would set before him. His defiance and the terrible fury hurled at the Kosovo Albanians surprised President Clinton and his foreign policy mavens. No matter how loud NATO and Washington may trumpet victory at the end, there is no doubt that a grievous miscalculation occurred at the beginning. And most people are blaming Secretary of State Madeleine Albright...
Words, Words, Words February 9, 1999 In Washington a few weeks ago, David Howard, a
white gay man serving as the city's ombudsman, bemoaned the paucity of his
budget. "I will have to be niggardly with this fund," he told coworkers,
"because it's not going to be a lot of money." One of his listeners was shocked
by the sound of the word and spread the news quickly that Howard had used an
expression rooted in the hated epithet nigger. Blacks, who make up a majority of
the capital's population, expressed their alarm and dismay...
Some Reflections on
Impeachment January 1, 1999 I covered the House of Representatives for the Associated Press for a year or so during the 1960s and left with profound respect and affection for what is really a unique American institution. For years as a foreign correspondent I would extol the genius of our House against the lap dog role played by Houses in the parliamentary system used by democratic countries in Europe and former British dominions like Canada...
Impasse in Iraq December 11, 1998 The American impasse on Iraq derives from two American faults: sound-bite thinking and too much empty bombast. For almost a decade, American policy towards Saddam Hussein has been based on the assumption that he can't last very long. This has produced a lot of threats and blather without too much thought about what would happen if someone didn't rescue us from our threats...
The Monica Affair September 28, 1998 Since I usually write about foreign affairs, I have not covered much of the Monica story. I did have to whip out color on the first day she showed up at the federal courthouse to testify in secret before the grand jury. The frenzy of the photographers and the glee of the television performers and the gawks of the tourists made the story feel even more unwholesome than usual...
Some Reflections on the
Congo May 23, 1997 In the "good old days" of the late 1960s, when Zaire was known as the Congo and its leader did not yet call himself Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu waza Banga (the all-conquering warrior who, because of his endurance and inflexible will to win, will go from conquest to conquest leaving fire in his wake), the United States proudly had the huge, unwieldy, volatile country wrapped around its little finger...
The Pizzazz of
Madeleine Albright April 27, 1997 When Secretary of State Madeleine Albright showed up for a breakfast session with the Washington bureau of the Los Angeles Times recently (an event carried live on C-Span television), she began by chiding the reporters: "It is a sign of my undying affection for the Los Angeles Times that I'm here, but I don't know why I came, because you're the only paper in the United States that did not put my picture on the front page, my brilliant performance throwing out the ball..."
Saints and Presidents:
A Commentary on Julius Nyerere December 17, 1996 At a Korea University conference in Seoul a few months ago, I was placed next to Julius Nyerere of Tanzania at dinner. For those of us who covered Africa more than a quarter of a century ago, Nyerere was like a saint. Incorruptible,
frank, good-humored, intellectual, he could charm the most suspicious and doubtful questioners into following the flow of his logic as he expounded the need in Africa for socialism, one-party democracy, self-reliance, non-alignment...
Getting Rid of
Boutros-Ghali October 18, 1996 In the 1970s, when Kurt Waldheim was Secretary-General, reporters at the United Nations used to call him The Headwaiter. "He always stood there," recalled Don Shannon, the U.N. correspondent for the Los Angeles Times in those days, "as if he were wringing his hands on a towel, asking what he could do for the powerful countries." That kind of a scene would warm the hearts of American officials these days...
