Treasury’s prized persuader

The refrain rises immediately to the lips of anyone who is asked about David H. McCormick, the undersecretary of the Treasury for international affairs.

He is good with people.

It’s a nice sentiment, but it’s a mystifying way to explain why he is, after a little more than a year at Treasury, “a star,” to quote Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez.

Turns out that some of the biggest moves made by Treasury as it has responded to the financial crisis have moved along tracks greased by Mr. McCormick’s relational network.

“David has developed strong relationships so that, when necessary, the Treasury had relationships at the right places in the financial institutions,” said Robert E. Diamond Jr., president of Barclays PLC, one of the top global financial institutions.

At a time when other nations have been clamoring to knock the United States down a notch in the wake of the crisis, Mr. McCormick has been an able persuader and representative of U.S. interests and opinion.

“He’s got a real strong presence,” Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. said in an interview.

The global nature of the crisis has required Mr. McCormick’s involvement in both the domestic and worldwide response.

“This is a guy that he’s operated, virtually acted like a Cabinet officer because he’s needed to,” Mr. Paulson said.

“He’s an undersecretary, but when he goes to China, he meets with [vice premier and Treasury secretary equivalent] Wang Qishan,” Mr. Paulson said. “When he goes to France or Germany or the UK, he meets with the finance minister, so he deals at the principal level.”

At 43, Mr. McCormick is something of a phenom, having graduated from West Point and served as an Army officer in the 1991 Gulf War, then gone on to get his doctorate from Princeton, after which he struck it rich as a tech company chief executive.

Mr. McCormick, during an interview in the large and historic Andrew Johnson suite that serves as his office, where President Lincoln’s vice president worked for six weeks as commander in chief following Lincoln’s assassination, admitted the past year has been a wearying one.

“This job’s an ager … it’s been really a challenging time to be here,” he said.

“I think we’ve largely done the right thing. I’m sure there’s mistakes that were made, but I think we’ve been on the right side of most of these decisions,” he said, expressing enthusiasm at the opportunity to “be working in such a historic period.”

Mr. McCormick’s negotiating skills have been critical in pushing China over the past year to more fully participate in the global economy and in prodding the International Monetary Fund to more accurately report on Beijing’s currency manipulations.

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