Jeane Kirkpatrick, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, rejected charges today that the reported differences between Secretary of State Alexander Haig and Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger over the Middle East are harmful to the Reagan Administration’s foreign policy.
She told reporters at a Newsmakers Breakfast at the National Press Club that while it is easy to “exaggerate” the desirability of an “absolutely, unanimously kind of stated foreign or domestic policy, ” such a situation, if it occurred, would result in a Cabinet of “absolute clones.”
“What kind of policy would we get if we all thought exactly the same about everything all the time?” Kirkpatrick asked in response to questions. She noted that Haig, Weinberger and herself all have different responsibilities, answer to different demands and thus have “differences in emphasis” on particular issues.
Kirkpatrick said “there is more danger of exaggerating the negative effects of that cacophony” that comes from differences of views in the Administration than in “living with it. Living with it is the price of having strong people, distinctive points of views, examining our policies and trying to hammer out policies that make sense. It is the price of freedom,” she said.
BASIS FOR MIDEAST PEACE
On the question of peace in the Middle East, Kirkpatrick said everybody says they want peace in the area but on their “own terms.” She said the difficulty is to find peace “on terms that are compatible with the security of all nations in the Middle East.”
She deplored what she said was a tendency of the Arab states to “de-emphasize” UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. She said those resolutions which call for Israel’s withdrawal from occupied territories, secure borders for Israel and negotiations, are still the best basis for reaching peace in the area. Kirkpatrick said in the UN the purpose seems to be the “isolation, humiliation, delegitimation of Israel and to a lesser extent … of the U.S.”
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