HOW CLINTON DECIDED ON NATO EXPANSION

By DOUGLAS WALLER

Clinton Administration officials will soon fan out across the U.S. to convince Americans that NATO should be expanded. But left out of the sales pitch will be the fact that the President's proposal was one his aides fought over bitterly in the beginning.

The idea was first planted with Clinton in April 1993 during a Washington ceremony to open the Holocaust Museum. With time on their hands before the speechmaking, Vaclav Havel and Lech Walesa, the Presidents of the Czech Republic and Poland, cornered Clinton to urge that NATO admit East European countries. Havel and Walesa had got nowhere with George Bush on the idea, but Clinton, in office only three months, was intrigued.

At that point National Security Adviser Anthony Lake and Secretary of State Warren Christopher also favored expansion. But the Pentagon wanted no part of a larger, more costly alliance, and Strobe Talbott, Christopher's top Russia expert and now Deputy Secretary of State, feared that a rush to admit new members would anger Moscow. After months of wrangling, the advisers agreed to proceed cautiously, and Clinton announced in a Prague speech in January 1994 that the question was no longer if NATO would expand but when.

The Pentagon instead pushed a plan called Partnership for Peace, which allowed East European nations to join in NATO military exercises but not be full members. Finally, in September 1994, senior Defense officials gathered in Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke's office for what turned into a shouting match. "The President has made the decision, and you're being insubordinate!" Holbrooke accused them. The Pentagon eventually fell into line.

Ethnic lobbying groups such as the Polish American Congress had already begun flooding the White House and Capitol Hill with telegrams demanding that NATO enlarge. Bob Dole and the House Republican Contract with America backed expansion. But White House polls during the 1996 campaign showed that enlargement wasn't a litmus test for the 21 million Americans of East European descent. The poll Clinton paid more attention to showed that foreign policy successes improved his re-election chances. "The idea that Reagan brought down the Berlin Wall, Bush unified Germany, and Clinton will unite Europe sounded good at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue," says an aide.

--By Douglas Waller. With reporting by J.F.O. McAllister/Washington

With reporting by J.F.O. McAllister/Washington