Senior Diplomat Resigns to Protest Albright's Action

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23860-2000Dec4.html

By Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 5, 2000 ; Page A02


J. Stapleton Roy, one of the nation's two most senior foreign service
officers and a three-time U.S. ambassador, has resigned in protest
after Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright suspended his deputy
without pay and fired two other long-time State Department officials
over a missing top-secret laptop computer.

Albright last week suspended Donald Keyser, Roy's deputy at the Bureau
of Intelligence and Research, for 30 days without pay and reassigned
him to the State Department director general's office, which is not
involved in making policy. Sources said Albright had quarrelled with
Keyser over a plan to strip some of the bureau's responsibilities in
the wake of the laptop fiasco, and she informed Keyser last week that
he had "lost her confidence."

Roy, who had worked closely with Keyser several times during their
careers, then told Albright he would resign in protest, effective
today. A State Department official said Roy was scheduled to retire in
January and was leaving early "out of a sense of responsibility and
honor." Friends of Roy said that resigning was the strongest way to
signal his displeasure with Albright.

The high-level turmoil in the department reveals a festering dispute
over how to react to security lapses, and it left some foreign service
officers fuming about what they view as an excessive and uneven
crackdown by Albright.

"The secretary of state decided to pursue her crusade against what she
deems to be weak security inside the State Department," said Robert
Oakley, former ambassador to Somalia and Pakistan. "Stape Roy says it
is unjustified and said, 'If you've lost confidence in my deputy, then
you've lost confidence in me.' "

Since the disappearance of the laptop in January, Albright has vowed
to hold State Department officials accountable for security lapses and
to change the department's lax attitude toward security matters. She
has also moved to enhance the power of her diplomatic security chief,
David Carpenter, a former Secret Service agent.

"Let's remember that this laptop had some of the highest classified
material we have," said a State Department official, defending
Albright. "The secretary has a responsibility to leave the bureau in
the best possible position as it goes through transition to ensure
that it will serve the next secretary well."

Albright has now disciplined six people, including Keyser, in the
Bureau of Intelligence and Research as a result of the disappearance
of the laptop computer. It held thousands of pages of "codeword"
information about weapons proliferation issues and was reported
missing from a supposedly secure conference room at the State
Department's headquarters.

Early last month, she dismissed two people: Allen W. Locke, a 34-year
civil servant in the senior executive service, and Nancy C. May.
Sources said Locke, who also has worked in the White House and
intelligence agencies, denies wrongdoing and will fight the dismissal.
May could not be reached for comment.

Keyser plans to file a grievance in regard to his suspension.

An inquiry into the laptop's disappearance revealed procedural lapses
such as leaving the door propped open to the conference room and the
failure to escort contractors lacking security clearances in the area.
But the inquiry failed to link any lapse or individual to the
disappearance of the laptop, which was never recovered.

While Albright has cracked down on the intelligence bureau, known by
the initials INR, some foreign service officers complain that she has
not taken measures against those closest to her and contend that she
is scapegoating INR for other unsolved security breaches in recent
years.

Those breaches include the planting of an eavesdropping device in a
seventh-floor conference room and the removal of classified papers
from the secretary's outer office by a mysterious man in a tweed coat
who went unquestioned and unapprehended. An unclassified laptop signed
out to Albright confidante Morton Halperin also disappeared, and no
disciplinary action was taken.

The departure of Roy and the reassignment of Keyser will rob the
department of two of its top China experts. The son of a missionary,
Roy grew up in China, returned to the United States to go to Princeton
University, then joined the foreign service. He later served as
ambassador to China, Indonesia and Singapore. Keyser had served in
Beijing three times, had been the State Department's director of
Chinese and Mongolian affairs, and most recently held the rank of
ambassador as a special negotiator for conflicts in Nagorno-Karabakh
and former Soviet republics.

"That's a lot of brainpower suddenly removed from the State
Department," said William C. McCahill, a recently retired foreign
service officer who served as the deputy chief of mission in Beijing.
"Keyser is a brilliant analyst and a person of great intellectual
honesty and rigor. Stape is the kind of person you want in INR,
someone who can think beyond today and tomorrow, who can think beyond
established policy."

Current and former foreign service officers interviewed yesterday were
almost unanimous in their condemnation of Albright, who is scheduled
to depart tomorrow on a trip to Botswana, South Africa and Mauritius,
an Indian Ocean island nation known for its beaches.

"She's devouring her children all for the sake of maintaining an image
of being a tough lady," said a former senior State Department
official.

"These are the best and brightest of the foreign service," said a
current State Department officer. "As she starts to head for the door,
Albright and her team are probably the least-loved team ever to run
that building."

Roy carries unusual stature in the State Department. He is one of two
active foreign service officers with the rank of "career ambassador."
The other is Thomas Pickering, undersecretary of state for political
affairs. Since the rank of career ambassador was created in 1955, only
37 people have held it.

Roy did not return calls for comment yesterday.

Albright's dispute with Roy follows a move last week that angered the
American Foreign Service Association, which represents foreign service
officers on labor issues. On Nov. 30, Albright became the first
secretary of state ever to reject a recommendation of the Foreign
Service Grievance Board, refusing to replace a civil servant she had
named as deputy chief of mission in Peru, a post normally reserved for
foreign service officers.

In a letter, Albright said that removing her appointee would
"adversely affect the foreign policy or national security of the
United States" in view of "the particular circumstances of this case,
including the fast-breaking situation in Peru" and the fact that the
official in Peru "enjoys the ambassador's full confidence."

Albright agreed to curtail the individual's assignment in the summer
of 2002, one year earlier than originally planned. But the appointment
broke an agreement dating back to the Reagan administration over the
appointment of foreign service officers to State Department posts.

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