Half-Bakered

As George Bush packs up for Kennebunkport, Houston or wherever he claims to live, the future for many of his top advisers is foggy. Among these officials is James A. Baker III--the Cabinet member who seemed to stand above the others. While some suspect that he is eyeing a 1996 run for his boss's office, Baker himself is far from certain of his 1993 job description.

James Baker's role in the Bush administration was so great that many speculated about which of the two long-time Texas buddies was really running the presidency. On the cover of its November 2, 1992 issue, The New Republic featured Baker taking the inaugural oath underneath the banner "President Baker {Four More Years?}."

Baker served as secretary of state, a position which is never easy, during a period in which the East Bloc crumbled, an international coalition was assembled to liberate Kuwait and the delicate task of bringing Arabs and Israelis to peace negotiations was arranged.

Bush valued Baker so much that the president brought him out of the State Department to serve as chief of staff during the campaign. During the second presidential debate, Bush made it clear that, if he were elected to a second term, Baker would serve as some sort of "domestic policy czar. Baker enjoyed his role in the State Department, but he was also the one person Bush could trust to prevent disaster in important situations.

Partisan Democrats don't hold the same antagonism toward Baker that they do toward other key Cabinet members of the Reagan/Bush era. Baker was much less of an ideologue than many of the others (his views on abortion, for example, are still not certain). Therefore, the spite directed toward, for example, Edwin Meese III and John H. Sununu never really hit the same level with Baker. In addition, the international developments for which the State Department takes credit (deservedly or undeservedly) during the Bush presidency are ones which merit praise on both sides of the political spectrum.

Such subdued opposition will inevitably have an effect on the way history treats Baker. It is very possible that he will be viewed as a brilliant, underappreciated public servant who was brought down in 1992 by his loyalty to the turkey at the top of the ticket.

But such a view of Baker, forwarded by many, is not the accurate one. Baker may be universally respected as a fantastic administrator, but much of his success at State resulted from being in the right place at the right time. For example, his foreign policies had little if any contribution to the crumbling of the Berlin Wall.

Baker can be criticized for being nothing more than a passive observer of dramatic international events. But he also can be criticized for his handling of events that he now touts as his greatest accomplishments.

Baker earned great admiration for assembling, along with Bush, the coalition against Saddam Hussein. A crucial component of Baker's diplomatic maneuvering was bringing Syrian dictator Hafez Asaad on board with a token force. Baker placed great importance on gaining Damascus' support to emphasize the international nature of opposition to Iraq's belligerency.

However, it is questionable whether the allied cause became more legitimate with Assad's approval. Assad is often described as a smarter, slier version of Saddam Hussein--with a record that includes the massacre of 20,000 of his own subjects in the city of Hama in 1982.

Bringing Syrian forces into the allied coalition was no dramatic coup for the secretary of state. Hussein had long been Asaad's archenemy and the demise of the Soviet Union had left Syria badly in need of an arms supplier. Syrian involvement in the coalition reaped two billion dollars for Asaad's regime, most of which was promptly spent on North Korean scud missiles.

Though "we could have made [Asaad] pay to join [the coalition]," according to Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Barbara Lerner, Baker and the State Department "gave him a cynical, senseless and deadly bribe, winking at his annexation of Lebanon, turning a blind eye to the terrorist networks he controls and letting him export Bekaa Valley opium with impunity."

Baker should also be criticized for the way he brought about the current Arab-Israeli peace negotiations. This seemingly impossible task was accomplished not through some magical force in Baker's personality. He simply won Arab confidence by repeatedly utilizing the cheap ploy of wringing concessions from one party (Israel) while asking none of any substance from the other.

Baker's policy was to bully Israel by threatening to withhold loan guarantees unless the Jewish state stopped building settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, land won after an Arab invasion of Israel in 1967.

Withholding loan guarantees made little sense. Israel has never defaulted on a loan and in any case, conditions had never been placed on loan guarantees given to a long list of other countries (including Iraq in the late 1980s). However, the Machiavellian Baker threatened to withhold the guarantees while demanding no major concessions from Arab countries regarding human rights, the Arab boycott of companies that do business with Israel or even recognition of the Jewish state's right to exist.

The State Department, under Baker, even managed to botch relations with newlydemocratic Russia. For a long time, under Baker's advice, the Bush administration regarded Boris N. Yeltsin as a coarse, drunken fool. The White House waited to embrace Yeltsin until it was no longer politically possible not to do so.

The Bush administration reaped much criticism, including comments by Richard M. Nixon, for not responding quickly and effectively enough to the challenges facing Russia. Thirty-five other countries recognized the independence of the Baltic countries before Bush and Baker finally acted. State Department foot-dragging on providing economic aid has contributed to Russia's current financial woes. Economic uncertainties have made the threat of a nationalist coup to topple Yeltsin very real.

Baker, during the Bush presidency, has carefully managed to avoid blame for his mishandlings of situations. This is nothing new for him. He was the only major Reagan administration official not to be tied to the Iran-Contra scandal. Few people seem to recall that he was secretary of the treasury during the time in which the savings and loan problems mushroomed. And he presided over the precipitous fall of the dollar that culminated in the 1987 stock market crash.

It is interesting that many who discuss Baker's potential run in 1996 are Democrats. Republicans tend to consider his chance to garner the nomination unrealistic.

Few rank-and-file GOP members owe Baker any loyalty. Baker is closely and perhaps irredeemably tied to Bush, hardly the most popular man in prominent Republican circles these days. His fuzzy stand on abortion and lack of any clear ideology offend the party's more partisan members. Besides, many moderate Republicans are so busy counting down the days until Jack F. Kemp's Presidential Inauguration to take Baker very seriously.

So what will become of Baker? For a while, it seemed as if President-elect Clinton might carve out a special Middle East envoy position for Baker. There is speculation that Baker may become Commissioner of Major League Baseball. (Working in the final months of the Bush administration was excellent preparation to deal with baseball's chaos, petty politics and sheer lack of direction.) Most likely, though, Baker will spend most of his time in the near future sitting on a lot of prestigious corporate boards.

Whatever the case, it will be interesting to see what the future holds for Baker. It will be even more interesting to see how history treats him.