ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, March 26, 1997 TAG: 9703260048
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WINGATE, N.C.
SOURCE: LAURA MYERS ASSOCIATED PRESS
Armed with diplomatic savvy, the new secretary of state reaches out to a nontraditional audience - including "Senator No."
Call it a goodwill visit to the lion's den. Or maybe the domestic version of a State Department engagement with a potential foreign foe.
While Vice President Al Gore was in Beijing meeting national leaders and encouraging good relations, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright did much the same thing Tuesday with Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Jesse Helms, R-N.C., on his own political turf.
In her domestic diplomacy, Albright was addressing students at Wingate University, which Helms once attended, visiting the Jesse Helms Center and generally being nice to ``Senator No.''
While Albright held academic salons and then gained acclaim as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Helms spent the past couple of decades questioning the value of contributions to the U.N., challenging ambassadorial nominations and griping about America throwing money ``down foreign rat holes.''
But by all accounts, the odd couple of U.S. foreign affairs get along.
``While Helms still holds strong views, he's mellowed a bit. He's no longer throwing bombs,'' said Thad Beyle, a professor of American government at the University of North Carolina.
As for the secretary, Beyle said, ``The most impressive thing about Albright is she speaks so many languages. She can talk to anybody.''
On Tuesday, Albright focused on the language of North Carolina, a state of tobacco growers, textile workers and Southern business people a world away from Washington, although only an hour by air.
As the United States' first female secretary of state, she was making a direct appeal in Helms' back yard for Senate ratification of a 1979 U.N. convention that condemns discrimination against women. Helms opposes the treaty signed by President Carter.
``She believes it's very important to travel around the United States and speak to the American people about foreign policy,'' State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said. ``And she thinks it's a very good display of bipartisanship.''
In Albright's first trip outside Washington as secretary of state, she met with former Republican President Bush in Texas. He urged support for U.S. ratification of the chemical weapons treaty, which must be approved in Congress by April 29 or it will go into effect without U.S. participation.
Helms has been the primary roadblock for the women's-discrimination treaty. He says it is unenforceable, and he wants U.N. reform and the trimming of several agencies at the State Department in exchange.
At the same time, Helms is a leading Albright booster in the GOP.
``She's a strong lady. She's a courageous lady,'' Helms told his fellow senators at her confirmation. But he added this caveat, ``My support for this nominee should in no way be misconstrued as an endorsement of President Clinton's conduct of foreign policy.''
She won the admiration of Helms - a Fidel Castro foe - last year when she criticized the Cubans who shot down two unarmed planes outside their territorial waters. In vivid language, she accused them of cowardice.
As ambassador to the U.N., she also earned points for her key role in ousting Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali.
Even Albright's personal history plays well with Helms. Born in the former Czechoslovakia, Albright and her family twice fled - from the Nazis, then the Communists. Once dubbed the ``right knight,'' Helms sharpened his political teeth gnawing on Communism and its follower nations.
``In that sense, Helms may feel slightly more kinship with Albright than with some members of the Democratic establishment,'' said Philip Zelikow, professor of public policy at Harvard University.
``Albright clearly wants to reach a nontraditional audience, and one of the people in that audience is Senator Helms,'' Zelikow said. ``This is pretty shrewd. I think she's already endeared herself to Helms.''
ASSOCIATED PRESS Accompanied by Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., Secretary of State Madeleine Albright arrives for a speaking engagement at Wingate University in North Carolina.
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