Can this person negotiate? Diplomacy may be a get-along business but success within it requires a balance of forceful persuasion: ability to persevere as well as willingness to say no and walk away. In a negotiation, both are necessary. Great U.S. secretaries of state have tended to be great negotiators. Henry Kissinger and Mr. Baker were two of the best; notice that both were tough, and at times even threatening, yet also patient and determined. Mr. Kissinger spent 33 days in the Middle East in 1974 brokering an Israeli-Syrian disengagement agreement–the longest period a secretary of state was outside the U.S. since Robert Lansing’s attendance at the Versailles peace conference in 1919. Mr. Baker spent nine months negotiating the terms of the 1991 Madrid conference between Israel and the Palestinians.
Does this person have the right temperament? Secretaries of state have been lawyers, generals, academics, and former Cabinet officials. The common factor among the best is not their previous occupations but their temperament and whether they have the capacity to play many roles. The nation’s top diplomat needs to be an actor, teacher, tactician, confidant–and able to intimidate. Most of these qualities are natural and instinctive, rather than learned. At one point in the negotiations leading to the Madrid conference, I watched Mr. Baker walk out on the Palestinian delegation because it rejected a proposal of his and then, less than an hour later, huddle with its members like football coach after he had persuaded them to reconsider.
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