Holbrooke seen as top Kerry foreign policy pick

By Ronald Brownstein
Los Angeles Times

	Richard Holbrooke
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WASHINGTON — No one is picking out their curtains yet, but speculation about who might fill the top foreign-policy positions in a John Kerry presidency already is intense.

Early handicapping on a Kerry secretary of state focuses primarily on three names. For many, the top two contenders are Richard Holbrooke, a veteran diplomat who served as President Clinton's ambassador to the United Nations, and Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., who has worked with Kerry on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for two decades.

Several Democrats close to Kerry place Holbrooke, 62, now vice chairman in the same private-investment firm as James Johnson, the director of Kerry's vice-presidential search, as the foreign-policy thinker the Massachusetts senator looks to first.

	Joe Biden

"I somehow would make him the first among equals in all of this," said one source familiar with Kerry's thinking.

Even Holbrooke's critics consider him brilliant, creative and energetic. But supporters acknowledge that, based on his dealings with colleagues inside government, he may be one of the least-diplomatic diplomats in recent times.

"You can have a dynamism with Holbrooke that is quite remarkable," said one official who worked with him in the Clinton administration. "But the real problem with Holbrooke is he would forget who is president."

	Sandy Berger

Biden, 61, could be another strong contender for secretary of state.

He is considered closer to Kerry on foreign policy than any other senator, and over the past decade has helped lead Democrats away from their post-Vietnam reluctance to use military force.

His biggest downside might be a tendency toward free association in speeches and interviews that could cause more ripples as secretary of state than as a senator from Delaware.

Also in the competition is Sandy Berger, the 58-year-old former national-security adviser for Clinton.

Berger built his connections with Kerry initially around the senator's work to normalize American relations with Vietnam.

"Berger has no enemies," one Democratic foreign-policy insider said, "which is a singular gift in this town."

	George Mitchell

Former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell of Maine, often speculated for the job under Clinton, also turns up on early lists. But Mitchell, now a corporate lawyer in Washington who recently agreed to serve as chairman of Disney, hasn't been heavily involved in the Kerry campaign and some believe his age, 70, could work against him.

A dark horse could be Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb. Like Kerry, Hagel, 57, is a Vietnam veteran. He serves with Kerry on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, matches most Democrats in his commitment to international alliances, and would allow a new president to send a powerful message of bipartisanship.

	Chuck Hagel

Most Democratic observers say Kerry is more likely to consider Hagel as a potential secretary of defense, a position for which others tout another Republican senator who served in Vietnam: John McCain of Arizona.

One close Kerry adviser says Hagel might offer many of the same benefits without the risks associated with the fiercely independent and iconoclastic McCain.

Many Democrats believe that Rand Beers, another Vietnam veteran and former counter-terrorism director for President Bush, has positioned himself as a competitor for national-security adviser with a smooth performance as the Kerry campaign's foreign-policy coordinator. But others say Beers' foreign-policy experience may not be broad enough for that position.

Ashton Carter, an assistant secretary of defense under Clinton who now teaches at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School, is considered another potential contender, with especially respected credentials on proliferation issues.

Longtime Kerry Senate aide Nancy Stetson and James Rubin, the State Department's chief spokesman under Madeleine Albright, also appear on track for high-level posts.

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