Wolfowitz has goal of improving world

But for the twist of fate that determines the direction of many a Washington career, it would not be John Bolton facing scrutiny in the U.S. Senate for the post of ambassador to the United Nations but Paul Wolfowitz.

Wolfowitz reportedly was offered that post at the beginning of the Bush presidency but turned it down, electing instead to become deputy secretary of defense under Don Rumsfeld. Probably he was more attracted to the idea of helping formulate policy in Washington rather than articulating it at the United Nations.

When President Bush reshuffled his top team after winning re-election to another term, Wolfowitz could likely have gotten the again-vacant ambassadorship to the United Nations had he wanted it. Instead he has become president of the World Bank, gliding relatively easily to confirmation by its board of directors despite the predictable European voices of dismay at the installation of a key Bush lieutenant.

Whether Wolfowitz would have had an easier time of it than Bolton before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is debatable. He would certainly have come under as sharp criticism from the Democrats for his ideological stands. But nobody could have faulted him for the abrasiveness or bullying tactics of which Bolton has been accused.

I am puzzled by the vilification of Wolfowitz in his Pentagon role as a kind of insensitive neo-con with a lust for bloody warfare. As an assistant secretary of state in the Reagan administration, I worked closely with fellow Assistant Secretary Wolfowitz for several years at the State Department. We traveled together with Secretary of State George Shultz, our boss, or President Reagan, when they visited Asia, which was then Wolfowitz's special area of responsibility. We suffered together through innumerable cocktail parties and state dinners and time changes in foreign capitals, gently prodding each other to keep awake and thus avoid any embarrassing gaucheries of protocol.

Far from exhibiting any boorish tendencies, Wolfowitz was a rather shy, sometimes absent-minded intellectual amid the bureaucratic thickets of the State Department. Once, when we were standing next to each other in an early morning receiving line in Tokyo, Wolfowitz whispered to me: "Do you happen to have a spare pair of black socks on you?" Bemusedly, I answered, "No, but why?" Wolfowitz gently lifted black pants leg above black shoes to exhibit a band of white flesh. Packing his bag for early morning pickup by Marine guards the night before, he had neglected to keep out a pair of socks for the day's events.