Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage — who passed away this week at the age of 79 — was no ideologue. In fact, he couldn’t stand them.
He was a realist, but his realism was not based on academic theories. Instead, he operated on the basis of his instinctive understanding of the national interests of his foreign interlocutors and, inevitably, his ability get along well with them even as he negotiated to protect America’s interests.
I first met Rich when I joined the Department of Defense in 1981 and he was the deputy assistant secretary for Asian affairs. He had been Sen. Bob Dole’s staffer and was widely respected on Capitol Hill.
Rich was powerfully built, so muscular that his entire surname was stitched on the upper arm of his shirtsleeve. And he was blunt; indeed, it was his very bluntness, and his colorful vocabulary, that made him so effective with even the most staid foreign diplomats.
It not merely that he was effective; he was trusted. He earned the trust of leaders in both Beijing and Taipei, which was why he played a major role in the negotiation of the 1982 third Shanghai communique, which reaffirmed America’s commitment to sell arms to Taiwan while deepening cultural, economic and scientific relations with China. He maintained excellent relationships throughout East Asia, but was especially close to the leaders of Japan and Singapore.
Deputy assistant secretaries are the most senior of mid-level officials; their power depends on the trust that their superiors place in them. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger trusted Rich implicitly; it came as no surprise to anyone that when Bing West, the assistant secretary of Defense for international security affairs — that is, the world apart from NATO, Europe and arms control — departed the Pentagon, Weinberger appointed Rich in his place. Rich was also exceedingly close Weinberger’s senior military attaché, Lt. Gen. Colin Powell. They would serve together years later when Powell became secretary of State.
Shortly after he took over his new position, which included the always troublesome Middle East, Rich told me, “I don’t know shit about the Middle East; I don’t know the Israelis, and I don’t know the Arabs, but I won’t take sides.”
He was exaggerating his ignorance, but he was dead serious about not taking sides. He always called them as he saw them. And for that reason, however hostile their relations, the Israelis and the Arabs both trusted him. He was especially close to Jordan’s King Hussein as well as to Maj. Gen. Amos Yaron, the Israeli attaché who years later became director general of the country’s ministry of defense and again worked with Rich when he was deputy secretary of State.
Rich was fiercely protective of his staff. Anyone who dressed down one of his people would then have to face Rich’s wrath, a most unpleasant experience. He also hated to be blindsided, and he applied the same to his staff. When I was asked to lead the American effort to block Israeli production of the Lavi fighter, an issue that Rich normally might have dealt with given his purview, he nevertheless was extremely supportive — as long as I kept him and his staff informed, which I did religiously.
Rich and I were among Gov. George W. Bush’s national security and foreign policy advisors, “the Vulcans,” so named because of the statue of the Roman god in Condoleezza Rice’s hometown of Birmingham, Alabama. Like everyone else, Bush took a strong liking to Rich. For his part, Rich hoped to be named deputy secretary of Defense. Unfortunately, that was not the job Donald Rumsfeld offered him when they met. Instead, Rumsfeld offered him a service secretaryship. For a variety of personal reasons, Rich declined, somewhat to Rumsfeld’s surprise, and instead accepted Powell’s offer to a serve as his deputy at the State Department.
The rifts between Rumsfeld and Powell, and their respective policy staffs (as comptroller I avoided what was virtually a civil war) have been well documented. Armitage was deeply affected by Powell’s frustration and could not hide his anger. He once said to me of a senior Defense official, “if I ever meet him in a dark alley, I’ll crush his balls.” One did not want to meet Rich in a dark alley.
Rich Armitage served his country with devotion almost his entire life, beginning with his years at the Naval Academy and his service in Vietnam, especially when he heroically rescued thousands of Vietnamese people as the war effort collapsed. Yet despite his tough appearance, and tougher language, Rich was the most decent of men. He rarely mentioned the fact that he and his wife foster parented numerous children of color. My own children took to him when he welcomed them in his Pentagon office. Forty years later, they still talk about that day.
May his memory be a blessing and an inspiration for all.
Dov S. Zakheim is a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and vice chairman of the board for the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He was undersecretary of Defense (comptroller) and chief financial officer for the Department of Defense from 2001 to 2004 and a deputy undersecretary of Defense from 1985 to 1987.
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