Curt Weldon: The Troublemaker

Diplomat without portfolio
Weldon gave Bullard his thumbnail biography. How he grew up one of nine children, in the working-class borough of Marcus Hook between Philadelphia and Wilmington, Del. How his poor eyesight kept him out of the military. (He has had five eye surgeries.) How he has honed his reputation as a globe-trotter, a kind of diplomat without portfolio.

"I go to all the problem areas," Weldon said. Aside from Iraq, he traveled to the Balkans during the war in 1997, to try to broker a peace settlement. He has also made a number of visits to North Korea, where he met with senior officials to discuss the country's nuclear ambitions. Those trips are a source of unabated annoyance for the Bush White House.

In 2003, Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser, tried to scuttle Weldon's first foray to North Korea. It was Memorial Day weekend, and Weldon called Secretary of State Colin Powell and White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card at a picnic and had Rice overruled. In Rice, Weldon has found a competitive nemesis. He noted, with satisfaction, "I'm the only member of Congress to be inducted into the Russian Academy of Social Sciences. I'm sure that didn't make Condi Rice" -- herself a formidable Soviet scholar -- "too happy." Once, aboard Air Force One, Weldon said that the president asked him, "You don't like Condi, do you?"

"I said, 'Mr. President, I've never met the woman. But sometimes, I don't think you're well served.'" Weldon offered that the president has "some good advisers," but that he is surrounded by "people who keep him too tightly controlled."

As he drove, Weldon told Bullard, "This system doesn't always take to people who push. The best way to succeed is to go to all the social events," to go along. "That's not what I'm about.

"A lot of people tell you B.S.," he said. "You've got to give it to them straight. I can read people. I can see their eyes. In the end, they know I want to do the right thing. And they want to do the right thing."

For Weldon, it was the right thing to meet with the North Koreans about their quest to build long-range nuclear missiles -- absent any executive branch officials -- because so few people seemed to take the matter seriously. In June 2005, the North Korean military was preparing to test-fire a long-range missile, raising the question of whether the regime would target the United States. In response, Weldon put out a press release reminding people of a statement he made on the House floor a decade earlier.

"This [Clinton] administration has chosen to ignore the ballistic missile threat," he complained. "CIA testimony confirms that long-range missiles -- the Taepodong-2 -- now under development by North Korea may pose a threat ... by the year 2000 or shortly thereafter." Weldon overwhelms naysayers with an abundance of facts. He makes bold claims -- "ignoring the ballistic missile threat" -- and then exhausts them with details: missile types, ready dates. If subsequent events prove him right, he comes close to gloating. Referring to the 2005 planned missile test, Weldon wrote, "North Korea's long-range ballistic missile threat to the United States has been known for some time, yet today the world acts surprised."

On a trip to North Korea, Weldon lay awake one night in his hotel room, too restless to sleep. He got up, took out an envelope, and jotted down "10 conclusions," outcomes that he figured both sides wanted. The next day, he read them to Kim Kye Gwan, who's now North Korea's chief negotiator in the six-nation talks. "He said, 'That's exactly what we want,' " Weldon recalled.

Weldon's approach to foreign policy could be called basely humanist. Having learned to fight for everything, including sustenance -- "When you're the youngest of nine kids at the table, you learn to grab your food first, or you don't eat" -- he seems to recognize that people's needs drive their actions. "It's common sense," he said of his bullet-point approach to meeting the North Koreans. "They want respect."

MORE FROM NATIONAL JOURNAL

National Journal Section Front

Walter: GOP can break negative cycle Mercurio: Gunning for a new RNC Cook: How will Democrats govern? Brownstein: The GOP's dangerous imbalance Blumenthal: Pollsters pretty accurate National Journal Section Front