Diplomacy A Man for All Nations

By BONNIE ANGELO +

For the United Nations' African bloc, the election last week of Egyptian diplomat Boutros Boutros Ghali as the new Secretary-General to succeed the retiring Javier Perez de Cuellar was a semisweet victory. The Africans had engineered their continent's first turn at the helm of the world organization -- and had outmaneuvered the big guns of the U.S. and Britain to achieve it. But Ghali was the "least African" candidate put forward by a bloc that dearly wanted to see the job go to a sub-Saharan black.

American and British officials privately disdained all the candidates as lacking stature and experience for the top spot at the U.N. in the post-cold war era and regarded Ghali, 69, as too old. To the surprise of Security Council members, his victory came on the first official ballot. The last straw poll had given the edge to the leading black African candidate, Zimbabwean Finance Minister Bernard Chidzero. But on the first tally, 11 members selected Ghali and none of the five permanent members of the Security Council vetoed him. Among the other candidates, including Chidzero and early favorite Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, a veteran U.N. figure who had his eye on the job for 20 years, no one had enough votes to force a runoff. The four Europeans on the ballot, including the first woman to be considered, Norway's Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, trailed badly.

The Egyptian Deputy Prime Minister who will lead the U.N. into the new world order defies categorization. He won under the African banner, but he is not black. He is an Arab who is a Coptic Christian with a Jewish wife. He represents the Third World with the stamp of Paris-honed sophistication; he is the son of a wealthy family, the grandson of a Prime Minister. He was widely considered old for the demanding job but was criticized for campaigning for it too vigorously.

But Ghali brings strong qualifications to the $202,346-a-year post. He is an expert in international law and comes with a 21-page curriculum vitae replete with degrees, decorations and scholarly writings in three languages. After Anwar Sadat brought him into political life in 1974, Ghali became a key negotiator in the Camp David peace process, and he has helped mediate many quarrels among African nations.

Those ties helped, since it was largely the determination of the Africans that won him the job. Last June the Organization of African Unity, meeting in Nigeria, agreed to go all out to demand its turn in power and drew up a list of six candidates, all except Ghali from sub-Saharan nations. He was added almost by chance, to meet France's demand for a French-speaking candidate. In drawing up the list, President Mobutu of Zaire looked about the room, fixed his eye on Ghali and declared, "Vous!" China quickly pledged its support for an African, and France endorsed Ghali.

The U.S. has always resisted the notion of a rotating regional claim to the job -- a concept not mentioned in the U.N. charter -- but it did not counter with a serious candidate of its own. A State Department official insisted that "that would be the kiss of death," and an American diplomat at the U.N. agreed it would be impolitic for the U.S. to use its big-power muscle: "We weren't going to be the 900-lb. gorilla."

Instead Washington quietly dithered as Perez de Cuellar's second five-year term neared its Dec. 31 end. A proposal to extend his tenure, floated by the Soviet Union and France, was knocked down by the U.S. and Britain, which wanted a man with new energy and attitude to stir up the sluggish U.N. bureaucracy. Famous names like Margaret Thatcher and Eduard Shevardnadze were suggested but never taken seriously.

As months slid by with little sense of urgency about choosing a leader for the next five and possibly 10 years, the Africans hardened their position. They warned that if the Security Council bypassed their nominees, they would flout precedent and take the fight to the floor of the General Assembly, which must formally approve the council's recommendation. Were they bluffing? Possibly, but more likely not. "What we didn't want," said an American diplomat, "was a Clarence Thomas situation, with a deeply divided vote."

Meanwhile, Ghali was breaking the first rule of U.N. politics: don't appear to seek the job and don't get out front. He traveled to every crucial capital pressing his view of a revitalized U.N. After meeting with a noncommittal President Bush in September, he checked into the National Naval Medical Center at Bethesda, Md., and emerged with a clean bill of health to counter objections to his age. Both Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Saudi Arabian Ambassador to Washington Prince Bandar bin Sultan personally called Bush.

( As the Security Council assembled late Thursday, rumors persisted that the U.S. and Britain would somehow craft an eleventh hour surprise. But by then Washington had decided that if it came to a choice between Ghali and Chidzero, the U.S. would vote for Ghali.

The victor will be expected to inject new life into a bloated U.N. bureaucracy. Can Ghali do it? A Western analyst in Cairo calls him "a man of vision and integrity, not anybody's pushover." But with only five years to make his mark, the incoming Secretary-General must work fast. He takes over a U.N. facing a devastating financial crisis, increasing demands for peacekeeping operations and humanitarian aid, and a whole new global agenda -- an awesome challenge for an untried man.

With reporting by Dean Fischer/Cairo