When the administration of US President George W. Bush decided last spring to select Douglas Paal as the next head of the Taipei office of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), a clash between Paal's opponents and supporters in Washington delayed the final decision by months and exposed deep divisions in the capital over US policy toward Taiwan and China.
According to sources in Washington, it was Paal's friends who won, aided by a giant assist from former president George Bush, for whom Paal worked as the top Asia and China expert on the National Security Council.
The White House and the State Department would not comment for this report.
The sources said a group of Washington conservatives had long been leery of Paal in view of public statements he had made over the years which they felt called into question his commitment to Taiwan.
At a June 1998 Washington conference, for instance, Paal reportedly called for a moratorium on arms sales, claiming Taiwan did not know how to use the weapons it already had.
And a Wall Street Journal article in March 2000 on Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) election as President quotes Paal as urging the then administration of president Bill Clinton to delay an arms sale planned for the following month.
"This isn't the time for Taiwan to make new purchases," Paal told reporter Eduardo Lachica.
"A big arms sale could cause complications during this transition period, and it would be inappropriate for the Clinton administration to make a big decision like this."
Opposition to Paal
Paal's opponents saw red in May last year when a transcript circulated of a speech Paal made to a conference in Shanghai via audio hookup from his Washington office that month.
In the transcript, Paal said US President George W. Bush "misspoke" the previous month when he told a television interviewer his administration would do "whatever it took" to defend Taiwan against a Chinese attack.
The speech also praised Beijing for adopting a "moderate" stance in the EP-3 spy plane incident and in its response to the arms package to Taiwan Bush agreed to in April.
"The transcript," as the speech became known, was brought to the attention to Karl Rove, Bush's key political advisor, who Paal's opponents saw as a kindred spirit.
At the time, the White House was in the process of selecting a replacement to head AIT's Taipei office in advance of plans to appoint then-representative Raymond Burghardt as ambassador to Vietnam.
At that time Paal was the leading candidate for the post, which was to become vacant in September when Burghardt was set to leave Taipei.
The campaign to derail Paal's selection peaked in late June, when writers Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough brought it into the open with an article in the Washington Times.
They wrote that Paal's selection was "in trouble with congressional Republicans," in both the House and Senate, and said that Paal "has a reputation for being pro-Beijing in the dispute over Taiwan."
Failed bid
Paal had reportedly earlier wanted the post of Ambassador to South Korea, but was turned down. After Paal failed to secure another ambassadorship, former president Bush came to his aid.
"Then `41' intervened and sent him to Taipei," is how one congressional Republican described it to the Taipei Times.
"Forty-one" is a nickname Washington Republicans use when referring to the elder Bush, the 41st US president, to distinguish him with his son, the 43rd president.
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