As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, his vote may determine whether John Bolton becomes the U.S. envoy to the United Nations.

01:00 AM EDT on Friday, April 8, 2005

BY SCOTT MacKAY
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee says he will vote to confirm John Bolton -- a staunch conservative and President Bush's choice -- as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations unless some significant new anti-Bolton information surfaces during a Senate hearing next week.

Chafee, who acknowledged in an interview that opinion among Rhode Islanders who have contacted his office is running "overwhelmingly" against Bolton, said Mr. Bush nonetheless deserves to have his choice ratified by the Senate.

While the U.N. ambassadorship may be a high-profile position, the person who occupies the post does not forge U.S. foreign policy, Chafee said. "Ultimately, policy is going to be made at the White House and the State Department," Chafee said in a telephone interview.

Chafee said he met with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice over Bolton's nomination and Rice assured him that Bolton would be representing administration policy, not deciding it.

"Doctor Rice made it very clear that he will be working for her," Chafee said. "And she made it clear that we [U.S.] are going to be more respectful of these international institutions than maybe we were in the past."

Bolton, 56, is a veteran Republican State Department official who served in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He has been undersecretary of state for arms control and international security affairs.

A blunt-talking conservative known for his skepticism of the U.N. and international diplomacy, Bolton is a Yale-educated lawyer and onetime protégé of former Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina, a famous U.N.-basher.

In a 1994 interview, Bolton disparaged the U.N., saying,"The Secretariat building in New York has 38 stories. If it lost 10 stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference." Bolton also once told National Public Radio that the U.N. Security Council would need only one permanent member, the United States, "because that's the real reflection of the distribution of power in the world."

Chafee is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which is slated to hold a confirmation hearing Monday on Bolton's appointment. Senate Democrats have united in opposition to Bolton, so a Chafee vote against him could prove pivotal on the committee, which has 10 Republicans and 8 Democrats. The defection of one GOP senator would hold up Bolton's nomination.

Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry has been a chief critic of Bolton, saying recently, "this is just about the most inexplicable appointment the president could make."

Rhode Islanders who have contacted Chafee's office concerning Bolton have mostly been against his confirmation. Opposition to Bolton has been spearheaded by a group called Citizens for Global Solutions, which has spent $20,000 on media advertising in Rhode Island to generate messages to Chafee urging him to vote against Bolton's confirmation.

Citizens for Global Solutions is a nonpartisan group that works for international cooperation, according to Harpinder Athwal, spokeswoman for the organization.

Athwal said Citizens for Global Solutions, based in Washington, D.C., has purchased radio spots on WPRO-AM and WSNE-FM, and TV ads on Channel 10, Channel 12 and Channel 64, the NBC, CBS and Fox affiliates in the state. And the group has set up a special Web site to push opposition to Bolton.

"We've had a pretty amazing response," said Athwal. "We have a lot of activists up in that area."

Chafee called the opposition "organized" and said he has received many telephone calls, e-mail messages and letters. "You take every phone call and e-mail and letter seriously," Chafee said. "I don't want to minimize how Rhode Islanders feel about this. I'm listening."

Citizens for Global Solutions, Athwal said, is not reflexively anti-Bush. The group has cheered Bush administration policy on Darfur, where the U.S. government was the first major power to identify the genocide in that nation and to send humanitarian aid. The group also took no stance on U.S. policy in Iraq because members were divided over the Bush administration's military invasion.

"We are not against the Bush administration on everything they do, just this nomination," Athwal said. "On the genocide in Darfur, we don't think the U.N. has done anything. The U.S. has."

With the 2006 election cycle under way, Democrats are viewing all of Chafee's major votes between now and next year's election through the prism of Rhode Island politics.

A spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee said the fact that Chafee is leaning toward supporting Bolton is evidence of the distance between the moderate Republican and his Rhode Island constituents.

"This is another case of Chafee clearly contradicting himself, saying one thing to Rhode Islanders and another in D.C.," said Phil Singer, spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the campaign arm of Senate Democrats. "He tries to cozy up to the Republican leadership in the Senate on the backs of his Rhode Island constituents . . . who he acknowledges are against this nomination."

Two Democrats so far have announced candidacies for their party's Senate nomination -- Secretary of State Matthew Brown and former attorney general and U.S. Attorney Sheldon Whitehouse.

While leaning toward support for Bolton, Chafee said he reserves the right to change his mind if Monday's hearing reveals new information that is not favorable to Bolton.

"The hearing is going to be important. The hearing is going to be very, very critical in this decision-making process" Chafee said. "I suspect there is going to be a lot of stuff we haven't heard before aired at the hearing."