Were Senate Foreign Relations to Get to the Bottom of Adm. Prueher’s Stint as CINCPAC, It Might Sink his Posting to Beijing

(Washington, D.C.): The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is scheduled to hold hearings
today on the nomination of Admiral Joseph Prueher (USN Ret.), the former
Commander-in-Chief, Pacific (CINCPAC), to become the next U.S. ambassador to Communist
China. It was
highly ironic, given the extraordinary lengths to which Admiral Prueher went in his previous
capacity to endear himself to the Chinese, that Beijing delayed this posting for many months as
part of its retaliation for the bombing of its embassy in Belgrade. If the Committee is
doing its
job, it will put the Prueher nomination on hold for a bit longer in order to permit a
close
examination of evidence that may suggest the Admiral’s demonstrated determination to
please the PRC make him unsuited to represent U.S. interests there.

Just the Facts, Ma’am

Specifically, the Center has learned that there may be a number of documents — many, if not
all
of them, classified — that could shed light on this question. If so, the Foreign Relations
Committee ought to have an opportunity to examine and evaluate them prior to acting
on this
nominee. These are said to include:

• A cable describing a meeting between Taiwan’s highest military leader Tang Fei and
  Admiral
  Prueher in his office in Pacific Command in Honolulu.

• Documentation concerning the changes Admiral Prueher made in the planning for the
  defense
  of Taiwan in the spring of 1996, soon after he assumed command of the Pacific Command.

• The U.S. Air Force’s written objections to such changes.

• The Strategic Command’s written objections (not to be confused with those expressed by
  the
  Air Force) when Adm. Prueher reportedly refused to accept any nuclear targeting experts at
  Pacific Command.

• Documentation of Adm. Prueher’s decision that no nuclear target planners would be
  assigned
  to the Pacific Command staff, a dramatic departure from previous practice.

• Documentation of the reported decision by the JCS Chairman to remove Taiwan planning
  from Adm. Prueher’s Pacific Command in Honolulu and transferred it to the JCS instead.

• Documentation reflecting Adm. Prueher’s reported objections to various arms sales requests
  made by Taiwan.

• Evidence that Adm. Prueher did obtain the necessary permission from the Defense
  Department for either a tour for People’s Liberation Army officers of a U.S. nuclear attack
  submarine or for sending the PLA naval delegation to sensitive U.S. Navy training facilities in
  California during the visit of several ships of the Chinese navy to San Diego.

• Materials bearing on Adm. Prueher’s conduct with the PLA and the lengths to which he
  went
  to become the first CINCPAC to be received by the President of China in Beijing, actions that
  may also bear on the issue of unauthorized military-to-military contacts between the two
  countries.

The Bottom Line

Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms (R-NC) has
provided immensely
important leadership throughout his career in resisting efforts to curry favor with Communist
despots at the expense of U.S. national security and other interests. Most recently, he has joined
forces with Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-NJ) to sponsor the very valuable
Taiwan Security
Enhancement Act (TSEA) ¹ of 1999 — an act
strenuously opposed by the Chinese and by their
friends in the Clinton Administration.

Given Adm. Prueher’s track record it seems certain that, even without instructions, he will be
a
forceful new critic of this important legislation. That fact alone might justify delaying action on
his nomination until after action on the TSEA — which was adopted in a modified
form by an
overwhelming, bipartisan vote in the House International Relations Committee earlier this week
— is completed, hopefully before the congressional recess this fall.

At the very least, the principle that Sen. Helms has established in his committee’s
consideration
of the Holbrooke and Mosely-Braun nominations — namely, that Senators are entitled, before
acting on controversial (if not deeply flawed) nominations, to be privy to relevant information in
the hands of the executive branch that bears upon the candidate’s ethics, judgment and
professional conduct — should be observed in this case. No action should be taken on his
nomination until all such information has been supplied and properly considered by the
Committee. As Sen. Bob Smith (I-NH) notes in today’s Washington Times (see the
attached),
Adm. Preuher should be the first to seek the prompt release of these documents to the committee
allowing the Senate to complete its duties as expeditiously and as fully as possible.

¹ See the Center’s National Security
Alerts (No. 99-A 28, 30 July 1999) and (No. 99-A 38, 22
October 1999).