PHILIP HABIB
A Remembrance

Philip C. Habib died in France on May 25 of a heart attack. His extraordinary service to the United States included extensive work as acting head of delegation at the Paris Peace Talks, ambassador to Korea, assistant

secretary for East Asian and Pacific affairs, under secretary for political affairs, presidential envoy to the Middle East, and a number of other important diplomatic missions, including to the Philippines, Central America, and the Caribbean.

Following are reminiscences by friends and colleagues of Phil Habib.

I met Phil Habib when I was invited by Ambassador Lodge to Vietnam to write a report on the situation as I saw it. I went into his office, and he said, "I bet you are one of these Harvard smart-alecks who think they know everything. I won't talk to you until you visit a number of the provinces, and then I may talk to you." Phil was irreverent, he was dedicated, he was the ideal Foreign Service officer.

The foreign policy of the United States does not depend on any one administration. The national interest and the basic values of the United States are permanent, though our political system encapsulates them into brief periods, and it is the Foreign Service that has to provide continuity, analysis, and integrity to the permanence of our foreign policy. I know no one who embodied these values better than Phil Habib.

He believed that there was some relationship between the views he held and the decibels with which he expressed them, and so, no respecter of personalities, he would present his views in a seemingly truculent manner. But those of us who loved him knew that he was our conscience. After he had his say, he would execute the decisions efficiently, loyally, and without any attempt to reverse them with the usual Washington methods. He was an idealist who knew that foreign policy must deal with necessities, but in the end, its dilemmas can be resolved only by the compass course of strong moral convictions.

I saw him 24 hours before he died, at the Bilderberg Conference. I was sitting

with a friend, and Phil came up to me to say goodbye, and he said, "Boss, you're getting too fat. You know, when you've had a heart problem, you've got to take care of yourself." And I said to my friend, "Phil was my conscience, even if he brutalized me from time to time in pursuit of our foreign policy." And Phil replied, "What I am really proud of is not the policies we did together, but that, after you left, I saw to it that Secretary Vance and you remained in close and frequent contact."

To Phil, foreign policy and the Foreign Service represented the meaning of his life, never to be identified with any one person, but with the values of our country and the ideals of our society.

— HENRY KISSINGER, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE

10 • FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL • JULY 1992