Leading from Behind: Third Time a Charm

A Washington adage holds that someone commits a “gaffe” when he inadvertently tells the truth. This seemed to be what a U.S. policymaker did two decades ago when he mused about the limits to U.S. power in the post-Cold War era. On May 25, 1993, just four months into the Clinton Administration, a certain senior government official—the new Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs and a former president of the Council on Foreign Relations—spoke freely to about fifty journalists on condition that they refer to him only as a “senior State Department official.” Gaffe or no gaffe, Peter Tarnoff’s frank remarks at the Overseas Writers Club luncheon set off serious political turbulence in the foreign policy establishment.