The senior foreign policy advisor to Vice President Al Gore '69 last night defended his candidate's national security proposals, labeling Republican efforts to solve pressing world problems as "tragic."

In a speech to a group of 40 policy experts and professors affiliated with the Kennedy School of Government, Ambassador Richard N. Gardner '48 said Gore's agenda best addresses the foreign policy problems facing the country.

"Multilateral engagement--that is what I have cared about for half a century," Gardner said to begin his 30- minute speech.

The term, which is a buzzword of theoretical debates about foreign policy, refers to the practice of solving a country's internal problems before they become crises.

In recent speeches, Gore has contrasted what he terms a traditional national security agenda--which deals primarily with defense concerns and arms control--with his own, which emphasizes solutions to poverty, population growth, environmental destruction and pandemics such as AIDS.

Gardner labeled recent Republican efforts to alleviate such problems as "tragic."

'To me," Gardner said, "challenge number one is getting the resources we need to do the job."

He said diplomacy is under-funded--a mere $20 billion, or about 1 percent of the federal budget, is currently spent on foreign affairs.