Schmaltzy Charm Has Taken Strauss From Poverty to Power : Career: Newly named envoy to Moscow has built up a network of relationships in key institutions. He is known for trenchant humor.

WASHINGTON —  “The first thing I’m going to do is go to Israel and court Premier (Menachem) Begin’s wife like she was an 18-year-old schoolgirl,” Robert S. Strauss told a friend in 1979 when President Jimmy Carter named him special envoy to the Mideast.

“Then, I’ll go to Egypt and court President (Anwar) Sadat’s wife the same way.”

Before long, Strauss predicted, “one of those ladies is going to turn around in bed to her husband and say: ‘You know, that little Bobby Strauss is not such a bad guy. Why don’t you do something nice for him?’ ”

Of course, even Strauss’ relentless congeniality left more than a few Arab-Israeli conflicts unresolved. But his own particular brand of charm, composed of equal parts gruffness and schmaltz, has brought him a long way in life--from his self-described origins “as a poor Jewish kid in West Texas” to the national chairmanship of the Democratic Party, a senior partnership in a powerful law firm, a place at the right hand of presidents of both parties, and now, as a career capper at 72, ambassador to Moscow, the most sensitive post in the U.S. diplomatic service.

Although Strauss’ selection was a surprise--he has been to the the Soviet Union only once--it is not hard to understand why the appointment appealed to Bush.

As a prominent Democrat, Strauss will help provide a bipartisan front for policies that are bound to be controversial. Moreover, for a President whose own brand of diplomacy is heavily based on the contacts he has fostered over a lifetime, as he demonstrated by his direction of the Persian Gulf War, it was only logical to select someone who operates the same way to occupy the ambassador’s residence in Spasso House.

In asking him to take the job, Strauss said in a telephone interview, Bush referred to the network of relationships Strauss had built up, as a Washington lawyer and as Carter’s special trade representative, in such potent institutions as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and Congress.

“You know economics, you’ve been successful in business and the law, and nobody can do it like you can,” Strauss said Bush told him. “A career diplomat doesn’t have those skills, and I need your skills now.”

Over the years, personal relationships have helped bring Strauss’ skills to the fore. Former Texas Gov. John B. Connally, for whose campaigns Strauss raised money, helped Strauss break into national politics by getting him appointed to the Democratic National Committee.

And another old Texas crony, Secretary of State James A. Baker III, with whom Strauss lunches almost every week, helped bolster Strauss’ relationship with adopted Texan Bush.

Strauss has also aided his own rise by his vigorous cultivation of the Washington press corps, select members of which he used to entertain annually at elaborate parties featuring his own homemade chili, and, more important, whom he used to provide with telling and colorful anecdotes about the city’s high and mighty.

Among the press corps on Capitol Hill and in other influential precincts of Washington, Strauss cemented his relationships with trenchant humor, which he used to disarm critics by caricaturing his own faults.

When asked during his tenure with the Carter Administration, after Carter had ordered White House personnel to fly in the coach section of airplanes, whether he would continue to travel first class, Strauss replied: “Yes, unless there is something better.”

For some people, though, Strauss’ charm was overshadowed by his boundless ambition and what they considered his arrogance. One Democratic consultant recalls encountering Strauss in an elevator early in the 1988 campaign and being told, “A lot of people are putting pressure on me to run for President.”

“Name three,” the consultant demanded, and Strauss fell silent.

Some foreign policy experts saw the appointment as a hopeful sign for U.S.-Soviet relations. “I think it’s a signal that Bush’s interest is in earnest,” said Helmut Sonnenfeldt, former State Department counselor and aide to Henry A. Kissinger. But Sonnenfeldt added that the President is sending a politically savvy ambassador who would prevail on the Soviets to demonstrate good faith, particularly in terms of economic reforms, before the United States reciprocates in a significant way.

Rozanne Ridgway, who was assistant secretary of state for European affairs in the Ronald Reagan Administration, said Strauss’ appointment reflected the fact that U.S.-Soviet relations have entered an “intensely political atmosphere,” which gives Strauss potential advantages over a career diplomat.

“Strauss knows politics, he has style, is courteous but direct, has experience in trade negotiations, knows that world,” she said.

But some were skeptical that Strauss’ performance would live up to the advance billing. “On policy matters, I don’t think anyone there outside the Texas delegation takes him seriously,” said Ten Van Dyk, a strategist for Democratic presidential campaigns going back to the 1960s.

Strauss himself exhibited no such worries. By early Tuesday afternoon, he said he had received more than 40 phone calls from House and Senate members, all of them “pretty enthusiastic.”

As for the future in Spasso House, “All I can do is my best,” he said.

Staff writers Doyle McManus and Robert Toth contributed to this story.

Profile: Robert S. Strauss

Born: Oct. 19, 1918

Hometown: Lockhart, Tex.

Education: LL.B., University of Texas, 1941

Career highlights: 1941-45, special agent, FBI; 1945-77, lawyer, Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, Dallas; 1968-72, Democratic national committeeman, Texas; 1970-72, treasurer, Democratic National Committee; 1972-77, chairman, Democratic National Committee; 1977-79, special U.S. trade representative; 1979-81, chairman, President Carter’s reelection campaign; 1979-81, President’s personal representative for Middle East negotiations; since 1981, partner, Akin, Gump.

Interests: Politics.