Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!enterpoop.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Woman in Brzezinski circle likely to lead NSC transition Date: Tue, 24 Nov 92 14:12:10 EST Message-ID: Lines: 76 \SE A;WORLD \HD Woman in Brzezinski circle likely to lead NSC transition \BY Martin Sieff \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES Madeleine Albright, a disciple of former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, is a frontrunner to head the transition team for the National Security Council, sources in the incoming and outgoing administrations said yesterday. J. Brian Atwood, head of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs and a former State Department official, is expected to head the State Department transition team, the sources said. Mrs. Albright, president of the Center for National Policy - set up in 1981 to counter policies generated by the Reagan administration - declined through a spokeswoman to comment. She has said she will not comment on matters concerning President-elect Bill Clinton's transition team. A former professor at Georgetown University, Mrs. Albright is a strongly committed Democrat and was the top foreign policy adviser to Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis in 1988. She was a foreign policy coordinator for Walter Mondale's 1984 presidential campaign. Mr. Dukakis' most influential foreign policy advisers were drawn from the relatively hawkish Brzezinski circle, whereas Mr. Clinton has reached out to hawks and doves alike. Mr. Brzezinski was President Carter's national security adviser. If Mrs. Albright heads the NSC transition team, it could increase the chances that Michael Mandelbaum, a professor at Johns Hopkins University and an old friend of Mr. Clinton's since they were Rhodes Scholars in Britain together 23 years ago, could be appointed to a senior NSC slot, some of the sources said. Mr. Mandelbaum and Mrs. Albright are both Brzezinski disciples and allies on most foreign policy issues, the sources said. One scenario circulating in both the Bush administration and the Clinton team has Adm. William Crowe, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, being appointed national security adviser, with Mr. Mandelbaum as his deputy. Adm. Crowe publicly supported Mr. Clinton during the campaign. Some of the sources expressed concern that a Clinton administration could repeat the two-headed deadlock of the Carter years, when foreign and security issues were fractured by feuds between hawks and doves. The Carter hawks were led by Mr. Brzezinski and the doves by then-secretary of state Cyrus Vance and his deputies, undersecretary Warren Christopher, who heads the overall Clinton transition team, and Anthony Lake, State Department director of policy planning under Mr. Carter. Mr. Lake is also close to Mr. Clinton and is expected to hold an influential post in the new administration. Mrs. Albright was a member of Mr. Brzezinski's NSC staff and is widely respected by Republicans as well as Democrats for her professional expertise, chiefly on Eastern European affairs. She is a friend of former Czechoslovak President Vaclav Havel's. "She is an extremely talented and capable woman," said Dov S. Zakheim, former deputy undersecretary of defense in the Reagan administration and now a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Heritage Foundation. "She has the right combination of smarts and has great experience," Mr. Zakheim said. "She would be an excellent addition to the NSC senior staff herself." This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM