Virginia’s Democratic Sen. Charles Robb-“Chuck” to us capital insiders-gaveled himself to order Tuesday afternoon.
Technically speaking, the man who may confront Republican Oliver North in this year was gaveling the esteemed U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee into session.
But since none of his committee colleagues showed up-not Jesse Helms, St. Paul Simon, Joseph Biden or Richard Lugar, among others-it was just Robb, whose shiny jet-black hair resembles a thin layer of newly laid asphalt.
Inexplicably, his chums were missing the joint confirmation hearing for two presidential nominees: our ambassador-designate for Micronesia and our ambassador-designate for New Zealand and Western Samoa.
“I don’t expect a crowd, and that’s always good news,” Robb said.
His expectation was correct. I had the press table all to myself (my profound isolation ended only with the later appearance of Radio New Zealand).
More telling, Josiah Beeman and March Fong Eu had what the boys in Vegas would call a lock, a sure thing.
Don’t know those names? There’s a reason, and it’s not because they’ve toiled hard, if anonymously, in our foreign service or exhibited expertise in international affairs, perhaps at a think tank, university or, at least, as a contestant on “Jeopardy.”
Candidate Clinton’s calls for merit-based appointments and his bashing of political insiders apparently has not prompted President Clinton to ditch a patronage tradition: paying off little-known chums or friends of friends, be they decent folks or hacks, with cozy ambassadorships.
Take Micronesia. Please.
What’s officially called the Federated States of Micronesia comprise four island states in the western Pacific, totaling 271 square miles and with a population of about 100,000. The average temperature is 81 degrees. There are many coconut palms and breadfruit and mango trees. A Boston Globe travel story called it an “unspoiled paradise.” The scuba diving is excellent.
It was colonized by Spain, ruled for a long time by Japan and taken over by the U.S. during World War II. It’s a self-governing federation, with the U.S. in charge of internal security. We also give them about $10 million a year in grants, chump change to us, but about 70 percent of their entire gross national product. Again, the scuba diving is excellent.
The nominee is Eu, 71, whose credentials for the job, other than being Asian-American, seem to be having served as a low-impact Democratic secretary of state for California for the last 20 years. Her prime accomplishment arguably is having instituted mail voter registration.
Otherwise, there doesn’t seem much, other than having once initiated a drive to abolish pay toilets for women, which explained her use of a sledgehammer to bash a toilet on the Capitol steps in Sacramento; not running for the U.S. Senate in 1988 because her husband wouldn’t disclose his financial interests; and having a son who’s a Republican.
At her side was Rep. Howard Berman, a California Democrat, whose cameo appearance was a twofer: He was there to support Eu, but also said nice things about Beeman, whose wife has been employed by Berman.
Robb brought up a 1992 State Department inspector’s general report. The report found big problems in Micronesia, especially in jurisdictional feuding between the U.S. Interior and Defense departments. It also indicated there was a mess when it came to sending confidential cables back to Washington.
“Have you read this report?” Robb asked Eu.
“No,” she replied.
Reading it would be a good idea, Robb said, diplomatically.
As for Beeman, 58, he’s a consummate Democratic Party insider; a political consultant who in 1967 was appointed to fill a vacancy on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, and promptly lost the election for a full term 10 months later.
He worked for a big union as its legislative director and has been both top aide to a congressman and staff director for the Democratic Caucus in the House. The opening statement he read to Robb made much of his service to the Presbyterian Church, which is big in New Zealand. But then, lizards, frogs and bats abound there too.
The statement did not mention the reason he was profiled last fall in the Washington Post’s Home section: he and his wife collect ivory-, bone-handle and glass canes. Beeman even organized the first International Cane Collectors’ Conference to be held in this country, last year in Rockport, Maine.
He’s never been to New Zealand.
But it looks like he’ll soon be on his way to a job that, as is true for the Micronesia posting, pays $115,700. The really spiffy ambassadorships, like France and Great Britain, bring $123,100. (It’s too bad that what amounts to the more than $1-a-citizen pay for the Micronesia job can’t be the standard ratio. Imagine what our guy in Beijing or New Delhi would reap.)
We’ve had rotten relations with New Zealand since a 1987 break due to an anti-nuclear policy adopted by New Zealand that banned visits by nuclear warships. We’ve just decided to restore high-level contacts.
Since the nuclear tiff, no secretary of state has visited New Zealand. That’s why Robb asked Beeman if he thought it would be a good idea for Warren Christopher to do so on an upcoming visit to the Far East.
Beeman said he’d look into that.
Robb asked if it would be a good idea for New Zealand to join American and Australian military in the upcoming Kangaroo Exercises.
Beeman said he didn’t have a view.
Robb asked how Beeman came to be a nominee for an ambassadorship. It was a pro forma query, not meant to elicit an “Oh, Senator, I electronically transferred $50,000 to a bank account in Little Rock, then had Donna Shalala, Jackie Onassis and Barbra Streisand put in the fix with Hillary.”
“I’d like to think it was a merit appointment,” Beeman said. But, he conceded, he had made his interest known to the White House Personnel Office. Clearly, he lobbied for it and relied on connections.
Fifty minutes after the hearing began, it was over, with Robb hoping that Eu and Beeman “can be on your way to your new assignments in the not-too-distant future.”
As for New Zealand, I was assured by journalist Connie Lawn that it could do far, far worse than Beeman. She’s a longtime free-lance reporter whose clients include Radio New Zealand. She was greeted effusively at the hearing by New Zealand’s ambassador to the U.S., a gregarious older man whose toothy grin resembles that of the late comic Terry-Thomas.
Lawn recalled one American ambassador to New Zealand studying coffee table books on the country and concluding that “everybody is white and Christian, like me.” Another didn’t know the prime minister’s name.
“He (Beeman) looks like a fast learner to me,” Lawn said. “I think he’ll be big.”
Poverty-stricken
The Senate confirmation hearing for Strobe Talbott (remember, it’s pronounced TALL-but), the new deputy secretary of state, disclosed that, as a Time magazine “editor at large,” he made $294,100 in 1992 and took home $567,575 in Time Warner stock options last year. He’ll now have to struggle on just over $125,000, the Washington Post notes.
Discriminating viewer
“I hate Court TV,” the Washingtonian said last week. The person then railed against the cable channel for somehow degrading the law and turning serious matters into “entertainment.”
The speaker?
A justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Sorry, I’m not allowed to pass along the name.
