The Climber : Bill Richardson's glorious career.(Sec. of Energy)

Bill Richardson is a political climber who may become Al Gore's vice-presidential running mate in 2000. Richard has moved from the position of US ambassador to the United Nations to head of the Dept of Energy, where he has tried to take all the credit for solving the espionage problem. His life and political career are profiled.

Just a minute or two into his Senate testimony on June 9, secretary of energy Bill Richardson began scolding members of the intelligence committee sitting before him. "This amendment would undermine my authority," he said of a plan to enhance weapons-lab security in the wake of the China spy revelations. "I understand that some modifications have been made to the amendment in the last day, which I think shows that the amendment was not carefully drafted."

That brash comment raised eyebrows throughout the room. The changes had actually been made at Richardson's own request. Republican senator Jon Kyl of Arizona shot back, "I'm really astonished at your testimony." Democratic senator Bob Kerrey of Nebraska also returned fire: "We're a nation of laws. You referred to [the Energy Department] as yours several times . . . You are the secretary of energy for the moment, and, you know, at some point you're not secretary of energy and somebody else is."

Richardson is surely thinking of that moment, when he's no longer secretary of energy. Ever since he came to Washington as a junior aide in Richard Nixon's State Department, he has been a climber, contemplating his next move. He launched his political career as a carpetbagger in New Mexico, and throughout his 14 years in the House he constantly pondered running for senator or governor. He took a series of much-publicized trips to negotiate hostage releases, in Iraq, Kashmir, North Korea, and elsewhere, often with success. In 1996, President Clinton asked him to replace Madeleine Albright as ambassador to the United Nations. Last summer, Richardson moved again, this time to head the Department of Energy. Earlier this year, that became unexpectedly one of the most high-profile jobs in Washington.

Already there is speculation that Al Gore may tap Richardson to join the Democratic presidential ticket next year. The choice could make sense: Depending on how successfully Richardson handles the current spy scandal-early signs are mixed-he could inoculate Gore against what may be one of the GOP's most effective avenues of attack. He's also the most prominent Hispanic politician in the country at a time when Republicans appear eager to nominate George W. Bush, a Texan who polls surprisingly well among Hispanics, a vital Democratic constituency.

Actually, Richardson, a 51- year-old who looks like John Belushi, is only half Hispanic. His late father was a Citibank executive from Boston working in Mexico City, his mother a well-to-do Mexican socialite. Richardson was born in Pasadena, Calif., but spent his early years south of the border. He later jetted off to an exclusive boarding school in Massachusetts and went to college at his father's alma mater, Tufts. (He was drafted by the Kansas City Athletics baseball team, but a bum elbow forced him to quit the sport.) After graduation, Richardson held several minor political jobs in Washington, but what he really wanted to do was run for office himself. Without a real hometown in the United States, however, he had nowhere to go. Or, to look at it another way, a lot of options.

He selected New Mexico, taking a position there with the state Democratic party in 1978. As a Spanish-speaker, he had a natural rapport with many of the state's voters. More important, New Mexico stood to gain an additional seat in Congress following the 1980 census. To make a name for himself, Richardson challenged Rep. Manuel Lujan (later interior secretary in the Bush administration) and displayed the remarkable energy that he is famous for even today. During the campaign, he set a goal of shaking 1,000 hands per day and wound up in the Guinness Book of World Records for gripping 8,551 of them in a single 24-hour period (the previous recordholder was Teddy Roosevelt). He lost to Lujan, but barely.

And he never stopped campaigning. By 1982, New Mexico had its third House seat, and Richardson was the favorite to win. That year, however, he faced his first serious ethical questions. His campaign literature claimed he had spent "three years working as Hubert Humphrey's top foreign affairs aide on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff." In reality, he had worked only two years for Humphrey, had served on a subcommittee rather than the full committee, and hadn't even headed the subcommittee staff. Richardson was forced to admit that his boasts were "incorrect." He also appeared to lack the financial resources to obtain a $100,000 campaign loan he signed for, generating complaints from Common Cause and a federal probe. It turned out that his mother, still living in Mexico City, had helped him secure a certificate of deposit- calling unwelcome attention to his privileged upbringing. He won anyway.

Once in Washington, Richardson earned a reputation for taunting or trying to intimidate his opponents, often in handwritten notes-a practice he keeps up today, according to recent recipients. Last April, he played the race card to fend off uncomfortable inquiries into the Chinese spy scandal, absurdly hinting that something akin to Japanese internment loomed on the horizon if "those who have questioned the patriotism of Asian-Pacific Americans" didn't hush up. He never pointed out who was doing the questioning. (Answer: No one.) And he had played the race card before. "I represent a minority within my own country, as you do," he told Sudanese warlord Kerubino Kwanyin Bol in 1996 on a trip to negotiate the release of three Red Cross workers. (He succeeded, by promising to deliver four jeeps, five tons of rice, several radios, and medical assistance to the hostage-taking guerrilla leader.)

Many Republicans give Richardson good marks for his performance as energy secretary. He merely inherited the spy scandal, they say. Since April, Richardson has initiated a series of security reviews and work stoppages. He has imposed an 18-month moratorium on the further declassification of Cold War-era documents (a policy started in 1993 by a predecessor, Hazel O'Leary, that may have done more to aid the Chinese than anything their agents actually stole). And he has ordered about 5,000 employees to undergo lie-detector tests.

He has also done everything possible to take sole credit for fixing the espionage problem, often jumping the gun and refusing to work with Congress. "Americans can be reassured: Our nation's nuclear secrets are today safe and secure," he said in May. A few weeks later, Clinton's own Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board said Richardson had spoken too soon. The White House has tried to blame most of the espionage damage on previous administrations, and it has an interest in Richardson as white knight, come in to save the day. So does Richardson himself. He has tried to keep Congress from reforming Energy all along. He vehemently opposed an effort by GOP senators to create a special agency overseeing the nuclear-weapons labs. According to Republican staffers, Richardson made angry phone calls to the Hill, threatening to cancel contracts with weapons-assembly plants in South Carolina and Texas. His efforts failed. "Making this personal was a big mistake," says one Senate aide. When defeat appeared likely, Richardson wound up reluctantly endorsing reform, which passed the Senate in July. Then, in August, he privately urged Clinton to veto the bill.

Richardson may not have fared well in that particular dustup, but some of his enemies aren't doing so well themselves. Victor Reis, an assistant energy secretary in charge of security, met with Richardson's wrath for supporting the Republican-backed reorganization plan. He was forced to resign in June. And in April, another top security official who had been highly critical of the administration's handling of the Chinese-espionage charges, Edward J. McCallum, was placed on administrative leave three days after the intelligence advisory board asked him to testify. McCallum, who has since been given a 90- day detail at the Defense Department, is charged with violating security procedures-"an obvious act of retaliation against the individual and the office that has tried to bring an increasingly distressing message of failed security at the laboratories forward," he says.

When it comes to controversial personnel decisions, Richardson may be best known for his role in the Monica Lewinsky scandal. He held a job open at the United Nations for Lewinsky nearly two years ago. On the Tripp tapes, Lewinsky quotes Clinton as saying that Richardson is "willing to kind of create a position." Richardson denied any political dealmaking, but phone records revealed he had been in frequent contact with Vernon Jordan and that at least one call had been made from his extension to Lewinsky. (Richardson said his secretary often uses the extension, and she backed him up.) Aside from one article in The American Spectator, Richardson's role in the affair has received little scrutiny.

The energy secretary can expect plenty more scrutiny if he winds up on the national ticket. On a trip to Iraq in 1995, Richardson posed for a photo with Saddam Hussein. "This picture is going to cost me votes," said Richardson. Replied Saddam: "And you think I look good posing with you?" Al Gore may wonder the same thing next summer.