WASHINGTON - US media on Sunday reported new accusations against John Bolton, the controversial nominee to become the US ambassador to the United Nations who faces allegations of bullying staff and trying to tailor intelligence to suit his political agenda.
One former woman staff member said Bolton tried to sack her in the 1980s after they disagreed over US policy on infant formula in developing nations, the Boston Globe reported.
Time magazine said Bolton rejected advice from the ambassador to South Korea in 2003 to tone down a speech condemning the Stalinist North which it said almost scuppered the start of international talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons programme.
President George W. Bush's candidate for the sensitive UN post has become a major political battle in Washington. Bolton's position has become more difficult since the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week postponed a vote on his nomination to allow more time into various allegations against him.
Past intelligence officials have said Bolton tried to have them fired or reassigned when they disagreed with him.
A foreign aid worker has said Bolton, currently under secretary of state for arms control and international security, chased her in a Moscow hotel hallway in 1994 to intimidate her.
The Boston Globe said Lynne Finney, who worked under Bolton in the 1980s, wrote to the senate committee on Friday saying Bolton mistreated her when they worked in the General Counsel's Office at the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
Finney said she was working on policies involving the UN Development Program when Bolton called her into his office and asked her to persuade delegates from other countries to vote with the United States to weaken World Health Organization restrictions on marketing infant formula in the developing world.
Finney said she refused because improper use of the formula can be deadly. For example, mothers in the developing world sometimes mix it with contaminated water or dilute it to make it last longer, humanitarian groups say.
Finney said that Bolton ''shouted that Nestle was an important company and that he was giving me a direct order from President Reagan." The Swiss company is among the top makers of formula.
"He yelled that if I didn't obey him, he would fire me," she wrote. "I said I could not live with myself if even one baby died because of something I did. He screamed that I was fired."
Time magazine said that the former US ambassador to Seoul, Thomas Hubbard, had also contacted the committee to say Bolton had misrepresented his views during his testimony to the committee last week.
Bolton gave a speech in July 2003 virulently condemning North Korea and its leader Kim Jong-Il. It came just days before the first round of six nation talks on the North's nuclear programme. According to Time, US diplomats said the speech nearly "torpedoed" the talks.
But Bolton told senators it had been cleared by relevant officials and that Hubbard had personally thanked him for it. Time said Hubbard contacted the committee to say he had opposed the speech and had thanked Bolton only for making some minor changes to it.
It quoted a memo on Hubbard's interview with committee Republicans as saying the former ambassador "says he strongly disagreed with the tone of the speech, especially at the sensitive time in the negotiating process, and asked Mr. Bolton to tone it down. He did not."
Retired ambassador Charles Pritchard, who was a special envoy for negotiations with North Korea, told Time he saw the speech in advance and also "refused to clear it."
04/24/2005 13:58 GMT