The path to success for Heather Nauert at the UN

Those of us of a certain age can actually remember the high drama as America's Ambassador to the United Nations Adlai Stevenson confronted the Soviets with photographic evidence of their missiles in Cuba.

Through the years, some of America's most distinguished statesmen - from George Ball, to Tom Pickering, to Daniel Patrick Moynihan - have held the post of America's Ambassador to the United Nations.

So, how should we think about President Donald Trump's announced intention to nominate State Department spokesperson and former Fox News presenter Heather Nauert as America's next envoy to the UN?

Critics have dismissed her as lacking the experience and gravitas to take on that position, while the president's supporters have noted - correctly - that Nauert has generally performed well as spokesperson and that presidents are generally given wide latitude in making ambassadorial appointments.

An ambassador is the personal representative of the president and serves at his pleasure. About one third of America's ambassadors are political appointees and a great many of those, through both Republican and Democratic administrations, brought precious little foreign policy experience to their jobs. They were there because they were generous donors.

One parallel to the Nauert nomination would be former ABC News correspondent John Scali, who served as America's ambassador to the UN at the end of the Nixon administration and the beginning of the Ford administration. Scali, however, was a seasoned foreign correspondent and famously was the back channel to the Russian government during the Cuban missile crisis.

I believe Nauert's nomination reflects three factors. First, many establishment Republicans shun this administration and refuse to work for this president. Second, the president has demonstrated that he prefers people who look the part. Nauert, blonde and attractive, looks good on television and that is important to the former reality TV host.

Third, the president has shown great disregard for multinational organizations. His transactional foreign policy prefers bilateral to multilateral. He believes when it is the United States one-on-one with another country that America will always have the upper hand, whereas American power becomes diluted in a multilateral forum like the United Nations.

This disregards the fact that there are many problems in the world that cannot be solved by one or two countries alone. An example is the success of the United States in getting the UN to agree to strong sanctions against North Korea to compel it to stop missile and nuclear testing. That was an important early success for the U.S. at the UN.

Much of the credit for that has, justifiably, gone to UN Ambassador Niki Haley, who is stepping down. As observers have noted, Haley was seen at the UN as someone with political skills and potentially an important political future. Many believe she could be president some day.

In addition, it was not lost on her UN colleagues that she had her own voice, that from time to time, she contradicted the president and that this did not provoke a tweet storm from the Oval Office.

Nauert does not have her own political base, and it is unclear if the president will have her back. The administration has tried to quiet criticism by saying that Nauert initially will rely heavily on the professional staff at the U.S. Mission to the UN.

In considering her nomination, the Senate would do well to not only question her carefully on her readiness for the position, but also question the administration as to why so many key ambassadorships and senior positions remain vacant.

A Republican-controlled Senate will undoubtedly confirm Nauert and, once at the UN, she will be listened to because she represents the United States and because she was the president's choice. Whether she can operate effectively will depend on how fast she can grow into the job and how strongly the president supports her.

Keith Peterson, of Lake Barrington, served 29 years as a press and cultural officer for the United States Information Agency and Department of State. He was chief editorial writer of the Daily Herald 1984-86.