A Proper Perch for the Dove

For weeks Jimmy Carter has been trying to find precisely the right job for the special talents of Paul Warnke, 57, a bright, able veteran of several Pentagon jobs. But Warnke is also damned by his critics as the superdove of the foreign policy Establishment. Warnke's ideology was certainly a problem when he was passed over for the No. 1 posts at State, Defense and the CIA. Last week President Carter finally made the matchup. He nominated Warnke (pronounced Warn-key) to be both director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and chief negotiator at the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks with the Soviet Union.

It seemed almost the perfect job for the savvy Washington lawyer. Carter has made nuclear arms reduction one of the top goals of his Administration, and Warnke is certainly a leading champion of that cause. But for a number of congressional hawks, the nomination was anything but ideal. They fear that Warnke is too soft to deal with the Soviets. Democratic Senator Henry Jackson, for example, said he was concerned "about what I have seen and heard of Mr. Warnke's position," while Democratic Senator Sam Nunn complained that Warnke has opposed many of those U.S. weapons systems (e.g., MIRVed missiles and the nuclear-armed Trident submarine) that have given the Soviets the incentive to come to the negotiating table.

The harshest indictment of the nominee was a four-page, unsigned memo being passed from hand to hand on the Hill that charged Warnke had proposed "unilateral abandonment by the U.S. of every weapons system that is subject to negotiation at the SALT talks." The memo was the work of the Coalition for a Democratic Majority, a Washington-based group of moderate Democrats headed by Ben Wallenberg, who has often served as an adviser to Jackson. The organization prepared the criticism of Warnke more than a month ago, when he was mentioned as a possible choice for Secretary of Defense.

Budget Baiter. Although the memo's charges are untrue, Warnke has offered some questionable proposals in his time. In the spring 1975 issue of Foreign Policy, for instance, he urged that the U.S. temporarily suspend further development of some of its advanced weapons in order to set an example the Soviets could emulate. His assumption that "the chances are good that highly advertised restraint on our part will be reciprocated" by the Russians can be challenged, since they failed to respond in kind to the U.S. reduction in real military spending from 1968 to 1975.

Warnke's opponents on the Hill are also angered by his unrelenting criticism of the Pentagon. In 1968, while serving as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs under President Lyndon Johnson, he urged a reduction in the level of U.S. fighting in Viet Nam and a halt to U.S. bombing of North Viet Nam. Since then, Warnke has constantly criticized the size of the defense budget He has even scathingly attacked SALT, declaring that except for the ban on anti-ballistic missiles, "the rest of SALT is crap." He argued, correctly, that the talks have done little to reduce the number of U.S. or Soviet nuclear arms.

Ironically, Warnke's critics may be unnecessarily worried about his future role in arms talks. If past experience is any guide, the key SALT decisions will not be made by the Iwo negotiating learns but by top-ranking U.S. and Soviet officials, usually in Moscow or Washington, using the so-called back channel. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, however, has pledged that Warnke will conduct "real negotiations" on disarmament. Warnke's strength is the fact that he is so solidly plugged into the Washington power structure. He is now a senior partner in Clark Clifford's law office, and spent 18 years with the late Dean Acheson's firm. Warnke, moreover, has kept his close personal relations with Iwo men he previously worked with in the Pentagon and who now occupy top national security posts: Vance and Defense Secretary Harold Brown.

Hill Hawks. In an interview last week with TIME Correspondent Christopher Ogden, Warnke look pains to toughen up his image as an arms negotiator. He stressed that in the SALT negotiations he would Iry "to reduce the nuclear armaments on both sides in a fashion which preserves stability rather than adding any element of instability. It requires that you do not allow a situation to develop in which the Soviets acquire any sort of superiority over us." Said he: "As long as we preserve our deterrent, there will be no nuclear war. [That means] you've got to have the kind of perceived equality that eliminates any possibility of misjudgment."

The opposition to Warnke's nomination by the hawks on the Hill has stirred echoes of the recent fight the conservatives put up to block Carter's choice of Theodore Sorensen to head the CIA. Bul Warnke has the strong backing of the liberals, who failed to rally to the support of Sorensen. Democratic Whip Alan Cranston began leading the fight for Warnke's confirmation in the Senate, and Hubert Humphrey declared that the nominee "will be a tough negotiator. He's no patsy. He's no softy."

Most important of all, of course, Carter--who stepped aside when Sorensen got in trouble--has let it be known that this time he will fight for his man. To head off trouble, Carter invited Senator Jackson to a While House breakfast to talk over the nomination. Later, Presidential Press Secretary Jody Powell said Carter fell that Senate confirmation of Warnke was "crucial" to his Administration. Reported Powell: "The President said he fell Mr. Warnke was the best man in the country for the job."

When Warnke's confirmation hearings begin this week, he is likely to be "scarred up a bit" by the process, in Humphrey's phrase, bul he is expected to be approved by the Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate. If so, one of his first jobs could be to accompany his good friend Vance to Moscow in March to discuss, among other topics, the resumption of the stalled SALT talks and the possibility of starting discussions about reducing conventional arms.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.