18 Ambassadors Approved After Months Of Wrangling Helms Brought Process To Halt To Force Foreign-Policy Cutback

The Senate Thursday confirmed 18 ambassadorial nominations that were stalled for months in a bitter fight over an effort by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms, R-N.C., to revamp, consolidate and shrink the government’s foreign-policy apparatus.

The 18 “hostage” ambassadors were given final approval by the Senate when it approved a scaled-back version of Helms’ reorganization bill under an accord that was laboriously negotiated over the past few weeks by Helms and Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass.

The vote was 82 to 16, with only Democrats in dissent. Several of them bitterly protested spending cuts that would be required by the bill, claiming they would cripple the country’s diplomatic capacities. Helms disagreed, saying savings contemplated by the bill were too low and vowing to continue his campaign to overhaul the nation’s foreign-policy machinery.

The Senate bill goes to a potentially difficult conference with the House, which has voted to save money by abolishing three foreign-policy agencies as Helms originally had wanted.

The ambassadorial confirmations included President Clinton’s choices to represent the United States in several strategically important countries stretching from South Africa to China, Pakistan and Indonesia.

While the compromise was characterized by Kerry as “fair” and “sensible,” it was lambasted by several Foreign Relations Committee Democrats, who also criticized Helms for holding up the ambassadors and treaties as leverage to force the consolidation and downsizing of foreign-policy agencies.