CENTER WELCOMES HALPERIN’S DEPARTURE FROM D.O.D., COUNSELS AGAINST INFLICTING HIM ON ANOTHER AGENCY

(Washington, D.C.): The Center for
Security Policy today welcomed the report
in this morning’s New York Times
that Morton Halperin would imminently be
asking President Clinton to withdraw his
nomination to a senior Pentagon post. It
also served notice that those opposed to
entrusting a sensitive government
position to a person of Dr. Halperin’s
demonstrably flawed judgment would be no
less concerned were he now to be given a
consolation prize — e.g., a top job in
the State Department or National Security
Council, albeit one that did not require
Senate confirmation.

The Center’s director, Frank J.
Gaffney, Jr., said today:

“It is most gratifying that
the strong reservations about the
Halperin nomination expressed over
the past six months by senior members
of the Senate Armed Services
Committee, former Secretary of
Defense Caspar Weinberger, other
national security experts and leading
commentators have now been
vindicated. Clearly, Dr. Halperin
could not have been confirmed — even
if his patron, Secretary of Defense
Les Aspin, had not been obliged to
resign.

“After all, Dr. Halperin’s
past record of poor judgment
concerning sensitive national
security matters and his lack of
integrity in connection with that
record during nine hours of testimony
before the Armed Services Committee
made this outcome inevitable. The
President, the Senate and the nominee
himself have, however, been spared
further pain by allowing the
withdrawal of his nomination to come
about in this manner.”

The Center is concerned, however,
about reports that Dr. Halperin is being
promoted as a candidate for other
influential positions elsewhere in the
Clinton Administration. According to
press accounts, for example, the
erstwhile Defense Department nominee is
now a candidate for the job of director
of the State Department’s Policy Planning
Staff. Evidently, the thinking in some
Administration quarters is that, through
such an appointment, Dr. Halperin could
continue to exercise a powerful influence
over U.S. security policy while finessing
the lack of confidence in him evident in
his hearing before the Armed Services
Committee.

Gaffney observed:

“The initial decision to
appoint Morton Halperin to a key
position in the Defense Department
was an early indicator of the kinds
of trouble the Clinton Administration
would encounter in its stewardship of
foreign and defense policy. Even as
Morton Halperin personified the
Administration’s notions of mindless
multilateralism and its contempt for
military and intelligence personnel,
so his nomination became a vehicle to
debate, and ultimately repudiate,
them. He would clearly be no less a
liability or lightning rod for
criticism were he to be situated
elsewhere.”

Gaffney added:

“At the very least, myriad
questions are currently hanging fire
about Dr. Halperin’s misleading —
and in some cases downright dishonest
— testimony before the Armed
Services Committee. These questions
would dog him and any Cabinet
officer willing to assume a
burden that Secretary of
Defense-designate Bobby Ray Inman
wisely declined to pick up.”