AS HE ROUNDED OUT HIS CABINET ON THE DAY BEfore Christmas, Bill Clinton proved how hard it is to please all of the people all of the time. First he ran afoul of women’s organizations, which complained that females were underrepresented in Clinton’s Cabinet. The criticism — coming just as he named African- American Hazel O’Leary, 55, to be Energy Secretary — provoked an angry response from the President-elect, who accused women’s groups of “playing quota games and math games.” Clinton had barely finished fending off the feminists when some environmentalists inveighed against O’Leary, a utility executive Clinton had met only days earlier.
A day later, Clinton won better marks for the experience and depth of his foreign policy and defense team:
Secretary of State-designate Warren Christopher, 67, is the wise elder of the group, a colorless but painstaking negotiator who directs Clinton’s transition and served as Jimmy Carter’s Deputy Secretary of State. Clinton named business executive Clifton Wharton, who is 66 and black, to be Christopher’s deputy.
Defense Secretary-designate Les Aspin, 54, is a former whiz kid from Robert McNamara’s Pentagon. He earned a reputation on Capitol Hill as a Pentagon gadfly but is now one of Washington’s wisest military hands.
National Security Adviser Tony Lake, 53, is a Mount Holyoke College professor who once worked in the Nixon National Security Council under Henry Kissinger. A conceptual thinker, Lake is expected to emerge as the architect of Clinton’s foreign policy. Clinton named Washington lawyer Sandy Berger, another former Carter State Department official, to be Lake’s deputy.
CIA Director-designate R. James Woolsey, 51, is a Rhodes scholar, a Bush conventional-arms negotiator and the most conservative of the group. Clinton also named Madeleine Albright to be delegate to the United Nations and announced that he would elevate the job to Cabinet rank.
On Christmas Eve, Clinton announced the last five:
Attorney General-designate Zoe Baird, 40, a legal counsel in the Carter White House, now a senior executive of the Aetna Life and Casualty Co.;
Secretary of the Interior-designate Bruce Babbitt, 54, a former Governor of Arizona;
Secretary of Agriculture-designate Mike Espy, 39, a Democratic Congressman from Mississippi;
Secretary of Transportation-designate Federico Pena, 45, a former mayor of Denver;
U.S. Trade Representative-designate Mickey Kantor, 53, the Los Angeles attorney who chaired Clinton’s campaign.
For the benefit of the scorekeepers and quota wonks out there, here are the stats for the designated Cabinet: eight white males, four women, four African Americans, two Hispanics.
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