The new decision-makers

By David North

THERE w ill be a number of new island focussed decision-makers as a result of Bill Clinton’s election as President of the US Ol particular interest to the US flag islands and Palau, and to some extent FSM and the Marshalls, will be the Assistant Secretary of Interior for Terri torial and International Affairs. This is a presidential appointment, and is cur rently held by Stella Guerra.

Washington speculation is that it is highly unlikely that the Clintons will do what the Republicans have done for over a decade give that job to a deserving Mainland Hispanic politician with no previous contact with the region.

Pedro San Juan (a one-time John Kennedy appointee who switched to Reagan), Rick Montoya, a New’ Mex ican, and Stella Guerra, a Texan, had some good Washington connections, all wanted to be an assistant secretary of something, and none knew much about the Pacific when they were appointed. (There is some speculation the personnel people at the Republican White House thought the job dealt with Puerto Rico, and its Hispanic residents; it does not, but that did not prevent successive appointments of the Hispanics. It was also regarded as a position in which little harm could be done.) In contrast, the Clintons might very well appoint someone who actually know's the territory. The principal name discussed currently in Washington, for the Assistant Secretaryship, is that of Muliufi (Mufi) Hanneman. Of Samoan descent, he holds a degree from Harvard, won a prestigious White House Fellow ship (there are about a dozen a year), and twice sought the Democratic nomi nation for Congress from Hawaii. Cur rently he holds a Cabinet post in the administration of a Clinton ally, Governor John D. Waihee 111 of Hawaii, w'ho is a native Hawaiian and and has himself been mentioned for Secretary of Interior.

Another name heard is that of Jeff Farrow, once the Chairman of the Democratic Party in the US Virgin Islands (in the Caribbean), a one-time staffer to the late, legendary Congress man Phil Burton (D - California and currently staff director of the House Sub committee on Insular Affairs. Farrow managed, among other things, the recent hearings in which the Marianas w r ere politely dragged over the coals for the treatment of alien garment workers.

As the Clinton administration prepares to settle in, speculation is rife on who will succeed Stella Guerra.

Hanneman, however, is said to prefer a comparable job in the Department of Commerce, because of his background in business, and Farrow has irked some people in Washington, so the race is still open. It is highly unlikely to be settled until the new' Secretary of Interior makes his or her recommendation, and no one has been named to that spot at this writing.

It has been a lonely four years for Guerra. Although she had enough politi cal connections to secure the appoint ment 'being both a woman and a Hispanic helped she did not have enough allies elsewhere in town (on Capitol Hill, at the White House, and in the other departments) to help her win the inevitable battles. Further, the pos ition of the Bush Administration, or at least that of its budget people, was often at odds with the interests of the islands, so she had scratchy work to do while on business in the Pacific. Back at the department she had a laid-back and not terribly-supportivc boss, Secretary Manuel Lujan, and she had a reputation of giving her subordinates little freedom of operation.

The Interior jobs are worth struggling for. The assistant secretaryship pays SI 12,000 a year, while the pay of the politically-appointed deputies varies; Houston was paid 568,000 and the other deputy 598,000. And one is obligated, of course, to travel to the islands from time to time, a pleasant duty during Washing ton’s long, cold, and wet winter.

Washington-based salaries are much higher than those in the islands; the Governor of Guam is paid 575,000 a year, and in American Samoa the governor's salary is 550,000 a year. Both

also occupy territorially-provided guber

natorial mansions.

There will be other personnel shifts as by-products of the November elections.

There is some possibility that the del egate from American Samoa, Eni F. H.

Faleomavaega, although he has only two terms under his belt, may, just may have enough seniority and luck to move into a sub-committee chairmanship on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, if

several of the longer-termed Democratic members of the Committee choose to accept other sub-committee chairs in other committees. (In the House one cannot hold more than one sub committee chair.) Falemovaega had been deputy sub committee chair to Congressman Stephen Solarz (D - New York who was essentially redistricted out of a chance to return to the House. Solarz, who knows a lot about the South Pacific, and who is regarded as very competent, may get a major position in the State Depart ment.

The elections will, indirectly and ultimately, probably remove from the government several old Pacific hands now working at the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC). The agency provides insurance to US com panies investing in what they regard as risky foreign environments. While OPIC, per se, has only a minor role to play in the Pacific, its President, Fred Zeder, had been the Reagan Administration’s am bassador in charge of working out the Associated States’ relationships with FSM and the Marshalls.

Working with Zeder on the Micro nesian arrangements were Jim Berg and Howard Hills, both now ranking officers of OPIC.

Unaffected by the election, at least directly, is Zeder’s son, Fred Jr., who runs the Marshall’s successful effort to license giant tankers. Both the Marshalls and Vanuatu have entered the ship licensing business, once the specialty of Panama and Liberia (both recently racked with revolutions and invasions.' Another Republican about to lose his government job is Grover J. Rees 111. currently general counsel to the US Immigration and Naturalisation Service, in the Justice Department. Young, brilliant and very conservative, his first job in the Pacific was as Chief Justice of the High Court of American Samoa, to which he was appointed by Interior Secretary Lujan. (A lawyer, Rees’ pre vious job for Ronald Reagan’s Justice Department had been finding staunch conservatives to serve as federal judges.) j