BROWN LEAVES BIG VOID : COMMERCE LEADER REDEFINED POSITION.

Byline: Martin Crutsinger Associated Press 

When Ron Brown died in a plane crash, American capitalism lost its staunchest ally in the Clinton administration. Now business executives wonder who will champion their cause the next time commercial interests clash with other priorities.

On a whole range of diverse issues, from fighting Japanese trade barriers to supporting high-tech research to pushing sales of U.S. products around the world, Brown was a forceful advocate.

``Ron Brown was the first commerce secretary to operate in the post-Cold War global economy. He understood it,'' said Willard Workman, head of international affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. ``He knew you can't sit at home and wait for business to come to you. You have to go out and get the contracts.''

It was on one such effort - his 15th overseas trade mission - that Brown and a group of U.S. executives lost their lives Wednesday in Croatia.

While Brown was not the first commerce secretary to carry business executives on trade missions, none did it more aggressively, bringing the trademark intensity he honed as chairman of the Democratic Party to bear in the hunt for multimillion-dollar foreign contracts.

Brown's skills in this area will not be easily replaced, business executives said.

``No other commerce secretary has been as active in promoting American products and services in the global marketplace,'' said Jerry Jasinowski, president of the National Association of Manufacturers.

While the trade missions were high profile, they were only a part of his effort to transform the Commerce Department, long a backwater Cabinet agency, into a major player in economic debates.

With the Cold War over, Brown believed the United States no longer should sacrifice economic interests to other foreign policy goals and he used his close friendship with Clinton to push a business agenda inside the administration.

He forged alliances with U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor to overcome objections from officials at the State and Treasury departments to a hard-nosed bargaining stance that forced the Japanese, Chinese and Europeans to accept market-opening deals under the threat of U.S. sanctions.