Hanging Tough Was Not Enough

By KURT ANDERSEN

For the proud Secretary of State, Lebanon is a personal defeat

When President Reagan appointed George Shultz his second Secretary of State almost two years ago, the reaction was generally quite favorable.

Shultz was supposed to be everything his volatile predecessor, Alexander Haig, had not been: calm, collegial, steady. Unlike Haig, he would avoid squandering his clout on bureaucratic spats. A former business-school professor, Treasury Secretary and president of an international corporation, Shultz came to the job with a thorough knowledge of world economics and a feel for Middle East affairs.

At times his areas of expertise have served him well. Shultz persuaded the President to abandon an ill-conceived embargo on parts for the Soviet pipeline; he also shaped Reagan's ambitious 1982 Middle East peace initiative, which envisioned self-government for the Palestinians in association with Jordan. On arms control and relations with the Soviet Union, he has been able to moderate some of the President's rigidity.

But critics are now saying with increasing sharpness that Shultz has not lived up to expectations. His methodical approach to problems has at times seemed merely flat-footed and unimaginative. He has never taken charge of Central America policy, choosing instead to focus almost single-mindedly on the Middle East, especially Lebanon. While he is by no means wholly to blame for the failure of U.S. policy there, his refusal to admit mistakes and change course let a bad situation get much worse.

For most of Shultz's first year in office, he seemed low-key to the point of passivity. "He refused to inject himself," says an Administration colleague. "He waited and waited until he had to be pushed in." Once pushed, however, Shultz went in head over heels, particularly on the Middle East. He spent two weeks last spring in the region, mediating between Israel and Lebanon. Suddenly his stake in the success of the U.S. policy became a matter of personal pride.

The result of his shuttle diplomacy was a vague document, the May 17 agreement, calling for withdrawal of Israeli and Syrian troops from Lebanon. Syria, however, rejected the accord, claiming it rewarded Israel politically for invading Lebanon. Despite strong warnings from his own State Department experts, Shultz assumed incorrectly that Syria would go along.

Even with the Lebanese government falling apart in recent weeks, Shultz continued to insist that the May 17 agreement was workable. "He was the midwife," says one of his aides, "so it was not easy for him to rip up an agreement he had helped deliver." Even now Shultz is convinced that simple political expediency led the White House to renege on an important U.S. commitment.

All along, Shultz neglected the advice he was getting about Lebanon from the Pentagon, which has never been happy about the Marine deployment or the New Jersey's heavy shelling, which Shultz had demanded. Furthermore, General John Vessey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned for months at National Security Council meetings that the U.S. was relying too heavily on the precariously constituted Lebanese Army.

Shultz's disregard for the Pentagon may have stemmed partly from his personal animus toward Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger. The men have been warily circling each other for years. In the Nixon Administration, Weinberger worked as deputy to Budget Director Shultz, then succeeded him. In 1975, Shultz was named president of the Bechtel Group Inc. (1982 sales: $13.6 billion), a construction and engineering firm; Weinberger followed Shultz there as a vice president. But Weinberger's service to Governor Reagan in California put him ahead of Shultz when the President picked his original Cabinet. After Shultz replaced Haig, he and Weinberger soon began fencing, regularly taking opposite sides in policy debates.

"Shultz still thinks this place should run like Bechtel," says a State Department official. "When he gives an order and it doesn't get carried out, he can't accept it."

Moreover, Shultz's familiarity with the Middle East, which he gained through Bechtel's business contacts with Arab countries, may have edged him toward hubris. The unraveling of his Lebanon policy has led Shultz to resent everyone else, including the White House "pragmatists," his erstwhile political allies. "George Shultz is ticked off at us," concedes a White House aide.

"We're trying to calm things down." The President, says the aide, likes Shultz and does not want to lose another Secretary of State.

Since his flashes of pique began a year or so ago, Shultz has grown ever more peevish. In Venezuela earlier this month for President Jaime Lusinchi's inauguration, he ran into Richard Stone, Reagan's Central American envoy. "Fancy meeting you here, Dick. Don't you have enough funerals to go to?"

Shultz said, alluding to Stone's mainly symbolic duties. (Stone handed in his resignation last week, complaining of personality clashes with other officials at State.) Shultz's crankiness may have serious consequences: when he found Syrian President Hafez Assad personally intractable, Shultz refused to hold further talks with him.

Throughout his career, Shultz has been known for his perfect corporate cool, his poker-faced steadiness. But last Wednesday, as he read a defensive statement about Lebanon to reporters, his face was ashen and puffy, his voice trembled. He stuck by the now irrelevant May 17 agreement. He referred to "the explosive flow of current events" as if it were an imposition, something beyond the call of duty for a Secretary of State. Next day, his 38th wedding anniversary, Shultz took off with his wife for the Bahamas, seeking some needed rest far from that explosive flow. --By Kurt Andersen Reported by Laurence I. Barrett and Johanna McGeary/Washington

With reporting by Laurence I. Barrett, Johanna McGeary/Washington