Ex-Envoy is Expected to Succeed Wolfowitz Officials Say Zoellick Has Europe’s Backing to Lead World Bank

By Steven R. Weisman

Robert Zoellick, a former deputy secretary of state and the former top trade envoy under President George W. Bush, is expected to be named president of the World Bank, administration officials and others said Tuesday, explaining that he was the top choice of Europeans as well as critics of bank practices. Administration officials indicated that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Jr., in conducting a worldwide consultation process, found that many financial and development officials favored Zoellick but that he also won backing from those who supported some of the initiatives begun under Paul Wolfowitz, the outgoing president of the bank.

European diplomats said they had the impression that Zoellick would probably get the nod after a final interview with Bush, which he apparently rushed home to have over the weekend. He was in Europe doing business and giving speeches.

Zoellick, who last year left the Bush administration to become a managingvg director of Goldman Sachs, would also continue the tradition of Goldman executives joining the Bush administration. Paulson was the top Goldman Sachs executive and played a role in hiring Zoellick after he left the State Department a year ago. Another former Goldman Sachs executive working for the administration is Joshua Bolten, the White House chief of staff.

“It’s a very tight network, this Goldman one,” said a European official. “Even though Zoellick is new to Goldman, Paulson helped recruit him. If you’re going to limit your search to an inner circle of people trusted by the Bush administration who are also acceptable to the Europeans, Zoellick is going to score very well.”

Zoellick has spent 20 years in various government posts and developed a worldwide circle of contacts at the state and treasury departments, and at the U.S. trade representative’s office, where he began the current round of global trade talks.

Those talks, which began in late 2001, were aimed at lowering trade barriers to help the poor countries of the world.

As a result, administration officials said, Zoellick got strong support in their search from Africans, Latin Americans and Asians.

The Germans, who led the charge against Wolfowitz, remain grateful to Zoellick because of his role in helping to negotiate German reunification with the Russians and others in 1991 under Secretary of State James Baker 3rd.

Treasury officials said that it had been hard to find someone who would both be acceptable to the Europeans and who would also continue Wolfowitz’s policies of combating corruption and making the bank’s lending more accountable by producing results that can be measured.

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