Berger: Pragmatist, Skilled Supervisor, Friend of Bill

WASHINGTON — Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger and Bill Clinton have known each other, as the president said Thursday, “since we were about half our present age,” putting the newly named White House national security advisor into the forefront of the fraternity known as “friends of Bill.”

But it is more than a friendship--started when both men were working in the failed presidential campaign of Sen. George S. McGovern in 1972--that prompted Clinton to promote Berger to the top staff job on the National Security Council.

Berger is described by colleagues as a consensus-builder and a pragmatist who is skilled in getting the best out of subordinates.

With the articulate Madeleine Albright about to reassert the traditional role of the secretary of State as the government’s chief foreign policy spokesman, Berger is expected to function as the behind-the-scenes coordinator responsible for keeping everyone reading from the same page.

“He is not one who will stand on top of the process and say: ‘I know the answer here and you will do what I want,’ ” said a White House official who knows Berger well. “He is extraordinary at placing trust in individuals and drawing everything out of them.”

Berger, 51, sports a classic Washington political-and-policy profile, a staff member in every Democratic presidential campaign over the last quarter-century. Between elections, he managed to establish a successful practice as a foreign trade lawyer in one of the city’s prestigious and politically connected firms.

Although Berger seems to enjoy the public spotlight more than the reserved and scholarly Lake, the difference is marginal. Neither the incoming nor the outgoing national security advisor could be described as flamboyant.

Unlike Lake, who made his reputation as an idea man, Berger’s emphasis is on process. White House officials who have worked with him find it difficult to describe his ideology. In a sharp departure from his specialization on foreign policy, Berger wrote a book on American rural politics, “Dollar Harvest.”

The son of a small-town merchant in upstate New York, Berger graduated from Cornell University and Harvard Law School.

In 1972, a year after completing law school, he signed on as a speech writer for McGovern’s presidential campaign. Clinton was McGovern’s Texas campaign director.

When Jimmy Carter won the presidency four years later, Berger served as deputy director of policy planning at the State Department--under Lake, the director.

Later, Berger worked in the foreign policy section of Michael S. Dukakis’ 1988 presidential campaign. His boss in that job was Albright.

He also has experience on Capitol Hill, where he worked for Sen. Harold Hughes (D-Iowa) and Rep. Joseph Resnick (D-N.Y.). And he worked briefly as a special assistant to former New York Mayor John Lindsay.

Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee who has been the bane of secretaries of State of both parties over the years, issued a statement praising the selection of Berger as well as Clinton’s other foreign policy appointments.

Berger and his wife, Susan, have three children.