Never was Joaquin Navarro-Valls' clout more evident than at the nine-day, United Nations-sponsored International Conference on Population and Development last September in Cairo.

Navarro is the director of the Vatican press office, so even before the Cairo conference began, he briefed the Vatican press corps on the Pope's objections to the manner in which abortion was treated in the "draft programme of action" that the United States was expected to support at the conference.

On Aug. 8, a month before the conference opened, the New York Times published a Page 1 story about Navarro's statement that the Pope thought the Cairo proposals on such matters as "fertility regulation" and "reproductive health" would "legitimize abortion."

"Maybe one hour after the New York Times appeared, our representative in the United States . . . got a telephone call from the White House (asking), 'Could you send down the text of what Navarro has been saying,' " an obviously pleased Navarro said in a recent interview in his Rome office across from St. Peter's Square.

President Clinton didn't go to Cairo. Vice President Al Gore did. Pope John Paul II didn't go to Cairo either. But Navarro did.

Despite Gore's presence--and despite the designation of Archbishop Renato Martin as the chief Vatican delegate in Cairo--"Navarro was the most important person at the conference," says Alessandro Magister, who has covered the Vatican for 25 years for the Italian news weekly L'Espresso.

Wherever Navarro went, Magister says, "the world press would follow him."

Kim Murphy, who covered the conference for the Los Angeles Times, says Navarro was probably no more important than other major delegates in shaping the final language of the document, but she agrees that in media terms, he was "the most interesting, the most watched, the most quoted, the most followed person" there.

Navarro's active presence in Cairo--making statements, criticizing Gore, answering questions, even writing an Op-Ed page piece for the Wall Street Journal--shows just how media-savvy John Paul II is.

By sending Navarro to Cairo, the Pope ensured that his position would be forcefully and publicly articulated. Navarro says this increased pressure on delegates from some other countries to "change their position, not because of a moral consideration but maybe because they are fearing the press."