Until the administration’s recent successes in Haiti and the Middle East, foreign policy had become an embarrassment for Clinton. His advisers were unable to agree on where and when America should intervene. National-security adviser Tony Lake, a self-described ““neo-Wilsonian,’’ spun lofty notions about ““engagement’’ and ““enlargement,’’ but he never broke through the post-cold-war muddle. Christopher is regarded as a cautious lawyer, and Defense Secretary Bill Perry as a technocrat. Behind the scenes, however, Gore was telling Clinton he had to pay more attention to foreign policy, act decisively – and accept the consequences. Most important, the vice president has projected an air of confidence – about himself and America’s global role – that the others lacked.
Gore is a hybrid of past and future: Dean Acheson meets the New Age. He is a throwback to the liberal interventionists of the pre-Vietnam era. Some White House aides scoff that both the president and Lake suffer from the ““Somalia syndrome,’’ a fear that American intervention will be deplored the moment the first body bag comes home. Gore, by contrast, ““thinks that arms and armies are there to be used,’’ says his longtime counselor, New Republic owner Martin Peretz. Gore has been a hawk on Bosnia, pushing for airstrikes to punish Serbian atrocities. When Clinton seemed to waver on Haiti, Gore braced him by saying that the United States must be willing to use force at the right moment.
At the same time, says a White House aide, Gore is a ““futurist,’’ a space-age Green who wants America to roll down the Infobahn to the 21st century. His best-selling book on the environment, ““Earth in the Balance,’’ was full of visionary prescriptions (not all of them practical) like a ““Global Marshall Plan’’ to require wealthy nations to send ““environmentally helpful’’ technology to the Third World.
Some national-security staffers think all this is ““globaloney’’ and that Gore talks too much at White House meetings. But Clinton listens. Unlike most other policymakers of his generation, Gore served in Vietnam. As a congressman, Gore traveled widely and took tutorials on policy arcana from his ubiquitous adviser, Leon Fuerth, a former Foreign Service officer and an arms-control expert. As vice president, Gore has forged back channels to Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin and South African Deputy President Thabo Mbeki. And he knows how to cut through the diplospeak: when Clinton politely asked Russia’s Boris Yeltsin for his views on a Caspian Sea gas deal proposed by Chevron Oil, Gore interjected, ““You guys will get a 10 percent cut. That’s not such a bad deal. And it’s a way to get Azerbaijan off the Russian dole.''
Unlike his boss, Gore knows how to say no. When Jimmy Carter wanted to help out with the Cuban-refugee crisis last summer, Gore took on the job of firmly telling him to stay in Atlanta. At the world conference on population in Cairo last summer, the United States was pushed by women’s groups to hold out for an international right to abortion. The Vatican and Muslim nations were vehemently opposed. Gore finessed the conflict by insisting only on a right to birth control. When he returned to the White House and walked into the Cabinet Room, Clinton and his aides applauded.
Gore can be headstrong. He pushed Clinton to eliminate outright the ban on gays in the military, a step that would have created an even greater furor in Congress and the Pentagon. And Christopher grumbled to his advisers that Gore seemed determined to get the United States caught in a war in Bosnia. But Gore has been shrewd not to pick any public fights with the president – or to upstage him. Polls show him with a higher approval rating than Clinton (56 percent to 47 percent), and some anxious Democrats are inevitably suggesting that the party’s only hope in 1996 is to have Gore at the top of the ticket. Gore nonetheless continues to joke that his job is ““to stand behind the president motionless and keep my mouth shut.’’ Asked by a reporter how a basketball injury that left him on crutches would affect his duties, Gore replied, ““It takes me twice as long to walk Socks.’’ All very self-deprecating, for a man who is clearly practicing for the presidency.
The vice president has been an all-purpose counselor and troubleshooter for Clinton:
Gore set up a back channel with Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin to handle investment, trade, environment, technology and healthcare issues with America’s former foe.
Pushed to keep up the pressure on the junta–by invading if necessary.
Longtime advocate for lifting arms embargo on Bosnia and punishing Serbs with airstrikes.
Gore’s passion. Persuaded Ukraine to give up its missile arsenal.
