The Boston Globe: on Foreign Policy


Colin Powell: State Dept shakeup: More funds; more career officers

As part of a State Department shake-up, Secretary-designate Colin Powell is leaning toward abolishing about 70 special envoy positions as well as the War Crimes Bureau, according to department officials. The possible changes, among several to be instituted by Powell, are based on his belief that career foreign service officers have been under-appreciated and underused for many years. US diplomats have high expectations that Powell not only will give them better jobs but will bring more funds into the State Department, which now receives 1/16th as much as the Defense Department.

Powell and a small team of close advisers have settled into the labyrinthine State Department building, quietly holding dozens of meetings during the last two weeks with foreign service officers representing nearly every bureau. He first met with those specializing in Africa, a surprise to many given the lack of attention by Bush during the campaign.

Source: John Donnelly, Boston Globe, p. A5 on Bush Cabinet Jan 6, 2001

Dick Cheney: Cuba: replace sanctions with free trade enclave

Cheney has raised the notion, heretical in GOP circles, of revisiting the wisdom of American sanctions against Cuba. Cheney also has said that unilateral sanctions against other countries are “unwise.” Speaking at the libertarian Cato Institute in 1988, Cheney broached a possible loosening of the trade embargo against Cuba, suggesting a free trade enclave could be established. Cheney also declared that unilateral economic sanctions “almost never work.”
Source: Michael Kranish and Walter Robinson, Boston Globe, p. A11 Jul 26, 2000

John McCain: $1M political donations by Chinese Army should not be legal