Jesse at the Helm

...Not that he will care, of course, any more than he does now, when he says of his critics: "They're not going to run my foreign policy, and they're not going to run me...

...Once Helms became Foreign Relations Committee chairman, however, the administration, which had been mostly mum about narcotics for its first two years, escalated its rhetoric...

...leadership in the world...

...Thus, Clinton vetoed a proposal that he confessed to liking and that key figures on his foreign policy team favored in principle, in order to deprive Helms of another triumph...

...The bill proposed authorizing $50 million for the international fund and another $50 million for equipment and services from the Defense Department...

...In February 1995, testifying before Helms's committee, Secretary Christopher said that in 1994 Colombia "did not meet our expectations, and frankly we were disappointed...

...I never saw such a disorganized group," he says...

...allies in Europe wouldn't like it, and it would leave the cash-strapped and inadequately trained Bosnians vulnerable to the Serbs...

...After a few days of fevered negotiations in which Clinton aides repeatedly caved in to Senate Republican positions, Clinton embraced the Helms legislation, calling it "a strong, bipartisan response" to the shootdown...

...The State Department announced on May 29 that the Bosnian government had selected Military Professional Resources, Inc., of Alexandria, Va., to lead the effort...

...That's not the Clinton administration's approach to changing Cuba...

...A Pentagon official, Jim Pardew, has been assigned to the State Department to coordinate international fund-raising for the Bosnian-Croat federation...

...Connie Mack of Florida to decertify Colombia if it failed to crack down on drugs, and he charged that Colombia's president, Ernesto Samper, had "sold his soul to the devil" by taking money from the Cal...

...But the United States has traditionally taken a soft line on Colombia, reluctant to jeopardize roughly $7 billion in trade...

...Secretary of State Warren Christopher, traveling in South Korea the day after the election, nervously pledged to America's allies that U.S...

...The goal, said Helms, was to "ensure that, upon the withdrawal of the failed United Nations mission, the Serb military will be unable to take advantage of any lag in the arming of the Bosnian people...

...Pressure from Helms forced the administration to pay closer attention to the pace of democratization in Nicaragua...

...Helms kept up the pressure for the next year...

...Henry Kissinger, a frequent target of Helms in the past, has been sufficiently impressed to contribute $1,000 to the senator's reelection campaign...

...The legislation directly challenged the administration's policy, and in late April 1995 the State Department spelled out its objections in a six-page letter to Congress...

...This time, the White House didn't cave in...

...STATE DEPARTMENT REORGANIZATION: Last year, Helms proposed a massive restructuring of the foreign policy apparatus that would move the functions of three agencies-the Agency for International Development, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and the United States Information Agency- into the State Department...

...The practical effect of decertifying a country is to cut off its U.S...

...foreign policy would "go forward in the spirit of bipartisanship and continuity...

...Democrats still won't say anything positive about him in an election year, but there is a consensus that Helms has made the Foreign Relations Committee relevant again after the lackluster chairmanship of Claiborne Pell...

...To this end he introduced the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act, known as "Libertad...

...Yet the administration immediately panned "arm-and-train" as misguided...

...Clinton administration officials would only consent to this orally, and "on the strength of that commitment the agreement was signed by the Bosnians," says Richard Perle, an adviser to the Bosnians at Dayton...

...Says Eagleburger, "He's put the committee back in a thoughtful role . . . forcing debate on issues that otherwise wouldn't be debated...

...Suddenly, Clinton was describing Cuba as "repressive, violent, scornful of international law"-terms that were unprecedented for his administration...

...He introduced legislation with Sen...

...troop deployment to Bosnia, did President Clinton formally declare his support for the arm-and-train effort...

...Thus, drug czar Lee Brown and Vice President Al Gore praised Samper for the Cal...

...On February 29, Helms released a staff report citing "compelling evidence" that top officials in Bogot...

...The thinking behind the legislation was that the Bosnian Muslims were "freedom fighters" akin to the Nicaraguan contras and the Afghan mujahadeen, and Helms believed the United States should treat them the same way: Supply arms, provide military training, offer financial assistance, share intelligence, and exert diplomatic pressure in their behalf...

...Now, seven months after Dayton, the essence of Helms's policy is being carried out, albeit slowly...

...A heavy administration lobbying effort against Libertad followed, but Helms responded with a blizzard of op-eds, speeches on Radio Mart?, and congressional testimony-all of it blasting Castro and the administration's whispers of appeasement...

...As long as I am chairman," said Helms the day after the 1994 election, "there will be no vindictiveness...

...More than anything else Helms has done as Foreign Relations Committee chairman, the State Department reorganization plan captured the attention of the foreign policy establishment and forced it to acknowledge that Helms was proposing something substantive, if unglamorous, and long overdue...

...By nearly all accounts, the administration's shift over 18 months from being blind to Colombia's transgressions to lumping it in with countries like Iran and Burma was the result of relentless pressure from Helms...

...arrests...

...aid, in Colombia's case about $35 million a year...

...In July 1994, at a time when no one else in the Senate was talking about Colombia, Helms attached an amendment to a foreign aid bill proposing to "decertify" the country unless it beefed up its anti-drug investigations...

...Indeed, one of the least-remarked developments of this Congress is the emergence of Helms as a major influence on Clinton foreign policy...

...mission fails...

...This was led by Brian Atwood, head of AID, who repeatedly tagged Helms as an isolationist and a demagogue...

...Even the press has been complimentary...

...In October 1995 the Helms legislation passed the Senate with 74 votes...

...Helms lambasted this decision in a Wall Street Journal op-ed coauthored with Bush drug czar William Bennett...

...He will also keep giving fits to the foreign policy mandarins-his State Department reorganization will be back-and he will remain a figure of scorn in diplomatic circles...

...cartel were arrested in the summer of 1995...

...No getting even...

...Helms, a longtime critic of foreign aid, responded by introducing legislation in August 1995 to establish an international fund to arm and train the Bosnian Muslims...

...Moreover, in the absence of Helms's bill, says Mark Falcoff of the American Enterprise Institute, "the administration wouldn't have had the energy or the initiative to do this...

...For all his success at influencing Clinton foreign policy, Helms is still scathing about the administration...

...After Helms and his staff presented the proposal to the president in August 1995, Clinton turned to the senator and asked, "Who could be against that...

...A White House spokesman, David Johnson, acknowledges that Helms "clearly played a strong and almost unique role" in the Cuba debate...

...The Helms drumbeat had two effects: In Colombia, it prompted President Samper to crack down on trafficking...

...Among other things, the legislation proposed beefing up sanctions against Cuba, punishing any former Soviet state providing aid to Castro, and denying entry into the United States to any person benefiting from American-owned property confiscated by Havana...

...As soon as the Republican victories of November 1994 made clear that Jesse Helms, fire-breathing senator from North Carolina, would be the next chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, there were dire predictions: Helms would impair U.S...

...The report helped confirm suspicions about Samper, and the White House announced the next day it was decertifying Colombia...

...The administration continued to oppose Helms's bill until the Dayton conference in November but modified its opposition upon discovering the Bosnians would support the peace plan only in exchange for a written commitment to a Helms-style arm-and-train effort...

...And the legislation forced the Clinton administration to pay closer attention to Colombia...

...The Helms proposal, wrote Wendy Sherman, an assistant secretary of state, "would not effectively advance the United States' ability to further our shared goals of promoting a peaceful, rapid transition to democracy...

...Then a few weeks after the election the senator confirmed his critics' fears by remarking that Bill Clinton wasn't up to the job of commander in chief and that he "better have a bodyguard" on his next trip to North Carolina...

...More important is the symbolism of decertification, since it relegates a country to the same class as scofflaw states like Burma, Iran, Nigeria, Syria, and Afghanistan...

...Despite this moment of apparent concord, the administration was determined to reject whatever Helms proposed...

...Enter Helms, who the day after the 1994 election signaled a desire to tighten the noose around Castro's neck...

...Only in December, during negotiations with Senate majority leader Bob Dole over the U.S...

...So when the amendment passed 94-0, the State Department and the Colombian government lobbied furiously-and successfully-to have it struck from the conference committee report...

...Marshall Harris, executive director of the Washington-based Action Council for Peace in the Balkans, says Helms, unlike many other senators, "understands the need for aid when it can be used effectively to promote U.S...

...their foreign policy framework is "a mess...

...A former administration official who handled narcotics matters points out that because of Helms, the center of gravity within the administration on the issue of decertifying Colombia shifted from the State Department, where top officials opposed it, to the Justice Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration, which both favored it...

...cocaine cartel...

...Evidence that Samper was in cahoots with the drug lords accumulated throughout 1995, and pressure on the administration mounted as a March 1 deadline neared...

...He would spur the trend toward isolationism...

...He's done this while retaining his legendary obstinacy-he prevented all ambassadors from being confirmed for four months last year while Senate Democrats filibustered his State Department reorganization plan-though he signaled early on that he would not fit the caricature his opponents had painted of him...

...White House spokesman Michael McCurry asked senators to "explain where the money comes from, where the arms come from, how they will get them to the Bosnian Muslims...

...Lawrence Eagleburger, secretary of state at the end of the Bush administration and once another frequent target, compares Helms favorably with William Fulbright, the celebrated Foreign Relations chairman during the Vietnam war...

...Soon after he introduced his bill in March 1995, the administration began an intensive lobbying campaign against it...

...The plan reflected the belief of Helms and many others that the government's foreign policy structure needed to be streamlined in the absence of a Soviet threat...

...President Clinton vetoed the legislation in April, saying he objected to the requirement (watered down from the original bill) that at least one of the three agencies be merged into the State Department...

...If he wins, however, and if the Republicans maintain control of the Senate, Helms can be trusted to keep using his Foreign Relations perch to highlight sensitive issues ranging from human rights in China to nuclear proliferation to waste at the United Nations...

...Helms brushes off the accolades, saying, "I've been successful because of the awkwardness of Bill Clinton," and, "There's nothing complex about foreign policy...

...At the White House signing ceremony on March 12, Clinton made no reference to Helms's leading role, but in a friendly aside he thanked the senator for his help...

...At the time, the chief White House adviser on Cuba, Richard Nuccio, expressed the administration's opposition this way: "Many of the people who are supporters of the legislation have told me that their view of what is needed in Cuba is a pressure-cooker, that you need to screw down the lid, turn up the fire, and watch what happens when the pot boils over...

...The day after Helms introduced his legislation, Clinton said he opposed it...

...Even so, the administration opted not to decertify Colombia, granting it a "national interest waiver...

...Soon the press was dredging up Helms's more outlandish statements-he once compared Jean-Bertrand Aristide to Hitler-and the bureaucrats at the State Department were aghast...

...diplomacy...

...Some have argued that Clinton never would have signed the legislation in the absence of the shootdown, thus negating Helms's key role, but this misses the point: Cuba's decision to shoot down two Americans confirmed Helms's view of Castro as a tyrant-a view not previously espoused by the White House...

...The article, which drew wide comment in the Colombian press, also blasted Bogot...

...Helms emerged with the embargo codified (it had been created by executive order), which means it can only be undone by an act of Congress...

...six of the top seven leaders of the Cal...

...Carla Anne Robbins, diplomatic correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, noted in a profile last year that Helms had "changed his substance, if not his style...

...for failing to rein in the traffickers...

...But the apocalyptic predictions haven't come true...

...On the day Helms first broached the idea in June 1995 in the Wall Street Journal, the then-prime minister of Bosnia, Haris Silajdzic, gave him a bear hug as he emerged from a Senate hearing room and profusely thanked him for his concern...

...While Helms was not alone in pushing arm-and-train, he gave it the visibility that enabled the Bosnians to use it as a bargaining chip at Dayton and eventually forced the administration to drop its opposition...

...COLOMBIA: For years Colombia has been a major source of narcotics entering the United States, largely because its government refuses to crack down on the drug cartels...

...Yet these successes pale beside Helms's achievements in four important areas...

...This modesty masks real accomplishments...

...had taken bribes from the cartels...

...Luckily for the White House, Helms will be consumed with his own reelection fight for the rest of this year...

...The effect has been striking: Time and again Helms has forced the administration to modify, if not reverse, its stance on foreign policy concerns...

...In other words, Helms's view of Castro was borne out by events, and the administration opted to follow his path...

...Then on February 24, two American civilian planes were shot down in international airspace by Cuban fighter pilots...

...Whether Castro leaves Cuba in a vertical or horizontal position is up to him and the Cuban people," intoned Helms, "but he must-and will-leave Cuba...

...The plan was sufficiently serious to win the support of five former secretaries of state, and the only Democrat willing to testify against it was McGeorge Bundy...

...While publicly supporting the embargo, the White House privately labored with Cuban-Americans who could provide cover for a policy of d?tente...

...he would be for selling arms to the Bosnians "if the U.N...

...BOSNIA: Throughout congressional deliberations on how to respond to Serbian aggression, the administration argued there were two obstacles to lifting the United Nations arms embargo unilaterally: U.S...

...Consider the following: CUBA: In 1993 and 1994, the Clinton administration had a de facto policy of rapprochement with Fidel Castro...

...And his opposition to any promotion for Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott all but guaranteed that Christopher would stay in the top job...