tion earlier and on a larger scale. Afterrnthe United States did step in, GOP criticismrnwas confined to faulting the administrationrnfor not establishing an “exitrnstrategy” for American troops, and it wasrnthat line that Cohen followed when hernstated at his confirmation hearings that,rnwith him at the helm of the Defense Department,rnthe United States would notrn”make an unlimited commitment tornthat region.”rnNow that he’s been confirmed, hernmight want to check with his partners onrnthe beat before he repeats that promise.rnWhile Madeleine Albright seems willingrnto intervene anywhere she can get awayrnwith it, she seems to have a special fondnessrnfor (or a pathological obsessionrnwith) the Balkans. Of course, even if itrnwasn’t spelled out when he was offeredrnthe job, Cohen knows full well what thernadministration expects from him, and inrnthe fall of 1998, when American troopsrnare supposed to leave the Balkans, he’llrnblithely explain to Congress and therncountry why he was wrong and Clintonrnand Albright are right. Me has alreadyrnproved his willingness to play the tokenrnRepublican, providing cover while thernPresident calls for bipartisanship (read,rn”one-party-ship”) and proclaims thatrnsome of his best friends are Republicans.rnBut while Cohen may have beenrnpicked in part for his eventual usefulnessrnon the Balkans, on one importantrnissue—the use of the military as a laboratoryrnfor social reconstruction—he’srnclearly in line with Bill Clinton. He supportsrnthe “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy onrnhomosexuals in the military. He believesrnin the complete integration of womenrninto the Armed Forces, even in combatrnsituations. And just in case such integrationrnleads to another “Love Boat,” suchrnas the Navy ship in the Persian Gulf onrnwhich ten percent of the female sailorsrnmysteriously became pregnant, he supportsrnperforming abortions in militaryrnfacilities, at taxpayer expense.rnUnlike Cohen, Anthony Lake, Clinton’srnfirst choice for director of the CIA,rnhas been around the block a time or two.rnHis career in public service began whenrnhe arrived in Saigon with the ForeignrnService in 1963 as an aide to HenryrnCabot Lodge, at the very time Lodgernwas conspiring with the CIA to arrangernthe assassination of our ally, Diem. DuringrnClinton’s first term. Lake served asrnNational Security Advisor, a post that hisrndeputy, Samuel Berger, has inherited.rnHe is the person most responsible for thernadministration’s cover-up of its Iran-rnBosnia policy, and Lake admitted lyingrnto both Congress and the CIA about thernefforts to arm the Bosnian Muslims.rnWhile that admission should have beenrnenough to prevent him from becomingrnCIA director, it was ultimately his involvementrnin the White House’s Chinesernfundraising scandal that forced himrnto withdraw his nomination. But hisrnlegacy will live on. At Lake’s urging. PresidentrnClinton has nominated GeorgernTenet, the acting director of the CIA, asrnthe permanent director of the agency.rnTenet served as Lake’s aide for intelligencernmatters at the National SecurityrnCouncil from 1995 until 1995. WithrnTenet at CIA and Berger at NSC, Lake’srnproteges will control most of the country’srnintelligence resources.rnBut if William Cohen is the willingrndupe, set up to take the fall, and Lake’srnproteges will provide the “noble lie” onrnwhich to found the Clinton administration’srnversion of the “New Worid Order,”rnit’s clear that the new Secretary of State,rnMadeleine Albright, will be the one tornwield the nightstick. Bill Clinton likesrnhis women to be men, and in Mrs. Albright,rnhe’s found someone who canrnoutmatch both Hillarv and Janet Reno.rnWhen the First Lady rhapsodizes aboutrnthe welfare of children, she exhibitsrnsome feminine and maternal feelingrn(albeit severely misplaced), but SecretaryrnAlbright is too tough for that.rnWhen the butcher of Mount Carmelrnsent 82 people—18 of them children underrnthe age of 10—to their deaths, shernclaimed that she did it to protect thosernvery children from child abuse, a faternapparently worse than death itself. Byrncontrast, Mrs. Albright, when asked onrn60 Minutes (May 12, 1996) about therndeaths of a half-million Iraqi childrenrnresulting from American sanctions afterrnthe Gulf War, exhibited no compunction:rn”I think this is a ery hard choice,rnbut the price, we think, is worth it.”rnIt is that attitude which led OwenrnHarries, the editor of The National Interest,rnto declare in a New York Times editorialrnthat Albright, “More than any otherrnleading foreign policy player since thernend of the cold war. . . epitomizes a beliefrnin the virtue of uninhibited Americanrninterventionism.” And it’s that attitudernwhich provoked her infamousrnconfrontation with Colin Powell, whenrnhe was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs ofrnStaff, in which she demanded to know,rn”What’s the point of having this superbrnmilitary that you’re always talking aboutrnif we can’t use it?”rnWhile Harries took her question tornmean that Albright doesn’t understandrnthe concept of military deterrence,rnthere’s a more fundamental problem.rnAmerican troops have been deployed—rnjust in this decade—in Kuwait, Iraq, Somalia,rnHaiti, Bosnia, Macedonia, thernstraits of Taiwan, Rwanda, and Zaire—tornsay nothing of our continued militaryrnpresence in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Okinawa,rnalong the border of a dividedrnKorea, and in the middle of a unitedrnGermany. But for Secretary Albright,rnthis is not enough. What, then, wouldrnconstitute a reasonable level of use?rnThough we may shudder at the thoughtrnof Madeleine Albright as Secretary ofrnState, perhaps we should offer a prayer ofrngratitude that Bill Clinton didn’t taprnher as Secretary of Defense.rnBy now, everyone—even Albright herselfrn—knows that the mayor of Letohrad,rnher hometown in Czechoslovakia, sentrnher a message, through diplomatic channels,rnin February 1994, informing her ofrnher family’s background and of the factrnthat her grandparents had died in Nazirnconcentration camps. In case that messagernsomehow slipped past her, however,rnChristopher Hitchens, in a column entitledrn”Not a Jew—^Just Jewish . . . ” in thernMarch 3 issue of the Nation, establishesrnthat December 5—the day Albright wasrnnominated as Secretary of State—”is thernvery latest possible date on which sherncould have learned of her family heritage.”rnHe recounts a telephone conversationrnthat he had that week withrnMichael Zantovsky, the retiring ambassadorrnof the Czech Republic:rnHitchens: “Let mc quickly ask yournan odd question. Is Madeleine AlbrightrnJewish?”rnZantovsky: “Yes, she certainly is.rnHer father was a Czechoslovakrndiplomat in Belgrade just beforernthe last war, and we’ve looked uprnthe cables between him and thernForeign Ministry. There werernsome nasty people who wanted tornmake an issue of him being a Jew.rnIt was around the time of Munich.rnAnyway, we’ve made a present ofrnthese cables to Madeleine.”rnThe American media gushed over thernwrenching human drama of Albrightrn”discovering” her Jewish roots, but out ofrn44/CHRONICLESrnrnrn