Beyond the Call of Duty

When Marxist rebels from Zaire threatened last May to kill three kidnaped students in Tanzania--two of them Americans from Stanford University and the third Dutch--U.S. Ambassador W. Beverly Carter decided to bend a few of the State Department rules that forbid diplomats to get involved in negotiations with terrorists. He put embassy facilities in Tanzania at the disposal of the students' parents, helped them to get in touch with the kidnapers, and did what he could to assist the negotiations, which ended with the release of all of the students by July 25 in exchange for about $40,000. As a result of that happy ending, Carter, who is black, got a commendation from the State Department; his impending promotion to Ambassador to Denmark seemed assured.

Bitter Controversy. Last week Carter's Foreign Service career appeared shattered, and his actions in helping to free the students were the subject of a bitter controversy in Washington. The reason: Zaire's touchy President Mobutu Sese Seko, who recently expelled U.S. Ambassador Deane Hinton on charges that he was plotting to overthrow the government, had complained heatedly about Carter's having been in direct contact with the rebels. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger reviewed the record and according to an associate, flew into a "towering rage."

Kissinger concluded that Carter had violated the State Department's ironclad nonnegotiation policy on three counts. He had 1) given temporary diplomatic protection to two rebel representatives who arrived unexpectedly at the embassy; 2) allowed an embassy communications officer from Nairobi to accompany the students' parents to a rendezvous with the terrorists near Kigoma, Tanzania; and 3) allowed the ransom money to be shipped from London to Dar es Salaam by diplomatic pouch. Kissinger wanted to fire Carter outright, but aides persuaded him to soften the punishment. Summoned to Washington for "consultations," Carter was told to forget about going to Copenhagen.

By the unwritten rules of the Foreign Service, Carter, now 54, should also have forgotten about continuing his brief but successful diplomatic career. A former editor and publisher of several black newspapers in Pennsylvania, the lanky, balding Carter joined the U.S. Information Service in 1965 and was put in charge of the American embassy's press relations in Kenya. Four years later he became Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs. Dar es Salaam was his first post as ambassador (he is one of only five blacks among the nation's 120 ambassadors), but in three years he has become known as one of the best U.S. diplomats in black Africa.

Kissinger had not reckoned with Carter's influential friends in journalism and Congress. At first, Carter asked them to do nothing for fear of further infuriating the Secretary. Then the New York Times broke the silence with an editorial praising Carter and urging Kissinger to back down. Columnist Carl T. Rowan followed with a blast blaming Carter's punishment on Kissinger's "monumental ego" and "tough-guy complex." Members of the congressional Black Caucus requested a meeting with the Secretary.

At a press conference last week, Kissinger defended the nonnegotiation policy as the most effective way to discourage terrorists from kidnaping Americans. With considerable justification, he said: "If terrorist groups get the impression that they can force a negotiation with the United States and an acquiescence in their demands, then we may save lives in one place at the risk of hundreds of lives everywhere else." But to calm the controversy, he later assured leaders of the congressional Black Caucus that nothing would be done to impede Carter's career. Nonetheless, Carter's future in the Foreign Service is not bright (Kissinger also complained of his "engaging in an independent publicity campaign"). Now representing the U.S. at a United Nations conference on human rights in Geneva, Carter is scheduled to return to Dar es Salaam in mid-September. After the flap dies down, he probably will be offered a distinctly unprestigious, perhaps nondiplomatic job where he will be kept out of trouble.

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