"I had been approached several times over the years to consider being nominated as Director-General, even before there was a WTO. Back in the old days of the GATT I'd always refused, suggesting better people. I saw my own future in New Zealand politics. The people thought otherwise and although I'd come to within a few hundred votes and a handful of seats of winning the 1993 election, there's only one winner in first-past-the-post politics. I was replaced as Labour Leader and returned, grumpy, to the parliamentary back benches, but determined to do my duty.
A suggestion that I consider standing as a candidate to head the WTO came again in 1999, led by Ambassador Carlos de Perez del Castillo of Uruguay. I had strong support from Latin America and agricultural developing countries, so this time I expressed interest...
...The New Zealand Conservative National Party Prime Minister Jenny Shipley was very supportive, as was Trade Minister Lockwood Smith and retired Trade Minister Philip Burdon.
I left home on a two-week trip to see where my support lay, which turned into a three-month odyssey. The toughest part physically? A non-stop series of flights from The Hague to London, Singapore, Sydney, Canberra, Sydney, Los Angeles, Miami, Buenos Aires and Montevideo in Uruguay, without stopping to sleep, meeting ministers in most cities.
The WTO's General Council, mainly ambassadors, had decided the selection would be based on three general criteria: volume of support (codeword for numbers); depth of support (codeword for trade weight); distribution of support (codeword for general geographic distribution of support). The process was overseen by two previous Chairmen of the Council, one from a developing country and one from a developed, Tanzania's Ali Said Mchumo and Switzerland's William Rossier.
The campaign turned very ugly as other nominees - good candidates all of them - fell out through lack of support. The choice finally came down to Dr. Supachai Panitchpakdi of Thailand and myself. Supachai was an old colleague, but sometimes it's over-enthusiastic supporters in campaigns who take the battle to extremes. I could only laugh when a television personality in Thailand called on viewers to write my name on a piece of paper and pound it with a stone, the better to advance the prospects of their favorite son. Much more damaging, though, was learning from the Thai media - much to my surprise - not only that I had a brain tumour, but that I was a Labour union leader. Although both accusations were false, the latter was infinitely more dangerous, given the sensitivity of labour issues in the WTO. When protestors marched on the US embassy in Bangkok, it became very ugly.
The USA, Sweden, France, Germany and evenutally most of the Europeans, Africans, South Americans, Economies in Transition and small island states in the Caribbean and Pacific indicated support. Some Asians privately supported me. The British, Dutch, Japanese and ASEAN were Supachai's main supporters. I was tarred as the American candidate, bringing my impartiality into question.
I was very happy to get support from Bill Clinton's Democratic administration. Originally they were divided, with the Treasury supporting Supachai, and the US Trade Representative (USTR) and then the State Department backing me. Several Republican USTRs from earlier administrations also voiced direct and unpublicised support to those who matter. WTO Ambassador Rita Hayes from South Carolina, a skilful politician and diplomat, with strong contacts in the Senate and White House, became very supportive and a good friend. I believe I would not have gained either full US backing or the job without her.
However, I had been branded. I was never a Labour union leader. Rather I was a corporal in the movement who wished he had been a union leader, but my political life took a different road. I'm still described as a Union, US nominee. While that is literally true, I was never described as a Lesotho, Gabon, Mongolian, Papua New Guinea, French, Swedish, German, or Uruguayan candidtate, which was of course equally the case. Such is politics. But it didn't get my term off to a good start.
When the final decision was to be made, I found I'd won on all three criteria. I was never sure of the numbers, but knew I had the weight of support from the major trading nations and enjoyed better geographic support than Supachai. Had I lost, I'd have been on an economy flight home that night. My wife Yvonne and I had spent our modest savings. Then, to my surprise, WTO rules being what they are in what is, above all, a Member-driven institution, the minority vetoed the majority. If the campaign had not become so personal, I would not have been so determiend to win. I guess that's the Irish in me. The atmosphere in Geneva was poisonous. This deadlock could have enabled a new compromise candidate, several of who were waiting in the wings, to enter the ring.
I've been a politician since first getting elected to Parliament at the age of twenty-three. I have been deeply committed to the ideals of the multilateral trading regime for decades. Rather than having my opportunity to contribute, at a pivotal moment in the evolution of the global trading environment, written off completely, I cheerfully agreed to a slightly sordid deal to split the term with Supachai. Each of us agreed to take three years each."
