In the days after World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz admitted his mistake in arranging a generous payment package for his girlfriend, angry employees at the bank launched an impromptu campaign. Blue ribbons started cropping up on lapels, taped to doors and as an image in e-mails - a symbol of support for the bank's ideals of good governance and transparency.
The curls of fabric were seen by many of the more than 7,000 staffers in Washington as a silent call for their leader to resign. Then Wolfowitz was seen wearing one.
For employees chafing against his leadership, that blunder became a vivid example of Wolfowitz's isolation from the bank's employees - a remoteness that has left him with few allies at the bank as he battled to keep his job.
A political scientist and former Pentagon official known for his analytical skills and predilection for visionary ideas, Wolfowitz also has a reputation for remaining aloof from day-to-day management decisions. At the bank, he brought in a tight-knit cadre of aides - all one-time Republican political operatives with no experience in development projects - who limited the access of bank veterans to the new president.
These aides, according to more than a dozen staffers who spoke anonymously, showed little patience for practices, excluded experts from negotiations over development plans for countries and went around managers to quiz staff about their work.
"When he arrived, he began by listening very carefully," said Sebastian Mallaby, author of a book on the World Bank. "But it emerged after six months or so that all of this would go in one ear and out the other. When it really came time to do something, he appeared to fall back on the advice of three people he had brought with him from the outside."
Wolfowitz has apologised to his staff for the arrangements for his companion, a World Bank employee on loan to the US state department, and he has promised a management shake-up. One aide has resigned, and another was recently moved to an office farther away from Wolfowitz.
Wolfowitz declined to comment, but he has previously criticised bank staff for what he called "a conscious campaign to undermine my effectiveness as president and derail important programmes". Former Wolfowitz colleagues argue that bank staff were inclined to dislike him, regardless of whom he brought with him. Wolfowitz is seen as a principal architect of the war in Iraq, which many bank staff oppose.
Fred C Ikle, a friend and former undersecretary for defence policy in the Reagan administration, is perplexed by criticism of Wolfowitz. "He was very open to looking for outside advice; he reached out to different people," he said.
But Ikle also acknowledged Wolfowitz faced a greater challenge at the World Bank, with its 185 member countries and more than $23 billion (€17 billion) in grants and loans worldwide. "That was a different job. It requires a different style if you're the top guy," Ikle said. - (LA Times service)
