The Foreign Service Journal, September 2006

22 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 6 n choosing officials to serve as our ambassador to the United Nations, presidents over the last 30 years or so have alternated between professional diplomats, like Thomas Pickering (Bush I) or Richard Holbrooke (Clinton), and activists or dogmatists, including Daniel Patrick Moynihan (Nixon), Andrew Young (Carter) and Jeane Kirkpatrick (Reagan). Presidents send doctrinaire figures to the U.N. not only to work with the organization but to say something to it — either “we’re with you,” in Young’s case; or “we’re not with you,” as was true of Moynihan F O C U S O N U.N. R E F O R M J OHN B OLTON : O UR UN-D IPLOMAT A FTER HIS FIRST YEAR AT THE U NITED N ATIONS , IT SEEMS THAT J OHN B OLTON IS NOT SO MUCH AN INEFFECTIVE DIPLOMAT AS AN UNWILLING ONE . B Y J AMES T RAUB I Poul Hans Lange