Nation: People Want to See Coonskins

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The Secretary talks candidly about some of his biggest problems, his strongest hopes

Before leaving Washington for Africa and the Soviet Union, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance sat down over breakfast with TIME Correspondents Strobe Talbott and Christopher Ogden to talk about himself and the Carter Administration's foreign policy. The two-hour interview in the antiques-filled James Madison Room atop the State Department Building ended when Vance had to rush off for a final pre-Moscow meeting with Soviet Ambassador Anatoli Dobrynin. Excerpts:

His role as Carter's foreign policy formulator. I am very much at the center of the formulation of policy. Each President sets up [his] mechanisms. Some Presidents have turned this over almost totally to the Secretary of State. Other Presidents want to play a very active part in foreign policy. President Carter is closer to the second approach. He fairly regards the Secretary of State as the principal adviser on the development and certainly the implementation of policy. There has never been any major question in which he has not fully considered my views and given me all the access and time that were required. We have worked extremely closely together.

Vance's reputation for being excessively cautious. I realize that carries with it negative consequences, but the dangers of not being careful are much greater. I'm willing to take the negative consequences. I have seen too many serious things happen over the years when people spoke without being careful and then that changed the situation or it took a hell of a long time to get things back on the track again. [Saying too much] is much more dangerous, no question about it. Often I think I could have said things better. Being terribly cautious about how I phrase things sometimes [means] it has less impact than if I were more freewheeling. You have to balance the two, and I find it a little easier as I go along to be a little freer without being careless. I come to this from my training as a lawyer. You have to be damn careful. If you're loose with what you say, you may have lost the case. I am dealing with a lot of nations who are watching. Don't think they don't dissect every word. Every time you vary one word or one clause from the standard formulation, you get a rocket from each of the parties saying you've changed the position of the U.S.

On criticisms of the Carter foreign policy. The problem is that the problems we're dealing with are so immensely complex. Quick solutions are not possible. People expect immediate successes and when that doesn't happen, criticism is bound to follow. People have got to recognize that these are terribly difficult, long-term problems. You've got to give necessary time to work through them and not stick down a thermometer each week and say: What in hell have you done this week? This is true on Panama. I think we are going to get a Panama Canal treaty, but this has been a long, arduous process. You couldn't accelerate it. That takes time. The Middle East is another case. Although it may look like a stalemate at this point, really a great deal of progress has been made in the past year, and we will move forward. SALT—again, a long, arduous process, a tough row to hoe. But bit by bit, we have chipped away at the problems.