Bush Sneaks In Appointment of Controversial Hard-liner

by Jim Lobe

Reich, who became notorious for his role in running a secret propaganda campaign on behalf of the Nicaraguan contras in the administration of President Ronald Reagan, has been lobbying hard for the appointment.

President George W. Bush formally nominated him last July. Democrats, notably the chairman of the Senate Western Hemisphere Subcommittee, Christopher Dodd, refused to hold a confirmation hearing, effectively blocking the nomination from going forward.

That has left Bush with the option of either dropping the nomination, as publicly urged by Dodd, other Democrats, and at least one Republican senator, or making a recess appointment, a rarely invoked presidential prerogative that permits him to appoint a nominee without Senate ratification.

The appointment, however, lasts only as long as the life of the Congress. Thus, if the Senate again refuses to act on the nomination next year, Reich would be out of a job, and the post once again would fall vacant.

Such an appointment would also undermine Reich's political authority, according to Congressional aides, because of clear opposition to his nomination from top Democrats, who constitute a majority in the Senate.

Even some Republicans have privately urged Bush to withdraw the nomination, according to these aides. Republican Senator Mike Enzi has publicly released a letter to the president warning that Reich "does not have the support of the United States Senate."

"Sticking with Reich is a sign that shows that Latin America is not considered the highest priority (by this administration)," said Michael Shifter, vice president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based think tank of North and Latin American executives, former government officials, and academics.

"Given what's going on in the hemisphere, it's terribly important to get that post filled with someone with a real mandate," he added.

Still, the betting here is that Bush will go ahead with the appointment before Congress formally reconvenes from its Christmas recess Jan. 23 and probably before Jan. 16, when he must decide whether to waive for another six months the enforcement of Title III of the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, a provision which would impose tough sanctions against foreign companies that acquire an interest in property expropriated by the Cuban government after the 1959 revolution.

"I think Otto will get the appointment as part of a package designed to compensate anti-Castro Cuban-Americans for their disappointment over waiving Title III," said Bill Goodfellow of the Center for International Policy (CIP), one of the leaders of the anti-Reich effort.

Title III, which was designed to choke off the supply of mainly Canadian and West European capital flowing to Cuba, permits U.S. corporations and citizens to sue foreign companies which use their expropriated property for profit. It also permits the president, however, to deny them access to the courts for periods of six months at a time if he finds that such a waiver serves the national interest.

This is precisely what former President Bill Clinton did over ten successive six-month periods, to the anger of right-wing Republicans and other anti-Castro forces. But Bush decided to do the same last July in order to avoid irritating U.S. allies in the European Union (EU), which has vowed to complain to the World Trade Organization (WTO) if Washington decides to impose sanctions under Title III.

Significantly, Bush nominated Reich during the same week that he announced the Title III waiver, noted Goodfellow, who predicted a similar scenario for next week.

In 1987, the General Accounting Office (GAO), Congress' investigative arm, described the unit's operations as "prohibited, covert propaganda activities" that included writing and disseminating columns and other material in the name of contra leaders for publication in U.S. newspapers.

At one point, five intelligence experts from the Army's psychological operations unit, as well as veteran CIA officers, were working with Reich on propaganda and related activities -- all of which was banned under U.S. law, according to another Congressional report.

He also was known in media circles for his angry and bullying calls to editors to complain about reporting which reflected negatively on the contras. At one point, he accused National Public Radio (NPR) here of acting like "Radio Havana on the Potomac."

At the end of his tenure, however, Reich was rewarded with the ambassadorship to Venezuela -- just as the Iran-contra investigation was gaining momentum.

While his three-year tenure in Caracas was less controversial, subsequently declassified State Department cables showed an abiding interest by Reich in the release from Venezuelan prison of Cuban-American exile Orlando Bosch, who was charged with masterminding the bombing of a Cuban airliner over Barbados, which killed all 73 people aboard.

Upon his release and deportation to the United States in 1990, then-President George Bush pardoned Bosch for terrorist acts of which he was convicted in a U.S. court in the late 1960s.

After leaving government, Reich became a high-paid lobbyist for several big multinational corporations, including British American Tobacco (BAT); Lockheed-Martin, which two years ago persuaded Clinton to lift a 24-year-old U.S. ban on introducing advanced warplanes into Latin America; and Bacardi-Martini, the rum maker and major beneficiary of the Helms-Burton Act, key sections of which were drafted by Reich.

Reich's advocates, who include the current president's brother, Florida Governor Jeb Bush, insist Reich is a seasoned diplomat and have gathered endorsements on his behalf from a number of top Reagan and Bush officials, including former secretaries of state George Shultz and James Baker.

They also have charged that he is a victim of a political vendetta by Dodd, a major foe of the contra war. Denying Reich a hearing amounted to "petty political payback," according to the Wall Street Journal, which has championed Reich's cause.

Dodd is not alone in his opposition. "Appointing someone of Reich's ideological stripe and experience would be a setback for hemispheric cooperation," according to Oscar Arias Sanchez, the Nobel peace laureate who was president of Costa Rica during Reich's tenure at the State Department and in Caracas.

Editorials in the New York Times, among other newspapers, have argued that Reich is not the best man for the job, while the Los Angeles Times said yesterday Bush's nomination "caused people here and abroad to shudder, their memories flooding with images from the bad old days of the Cold War."

Even Secretary of State Colin Powell, who reportedly opposed Reich's nomination when it was first rumored last March, has been less than wholehearted in subsequent endorsement. Asked about Reich recently, Powell called him an "honorable man" and assured reporters that he had "looked at everything (Reich) has done and found nothing untoward."

At the same time, the State Department reported last week it had lost the original and only copy of an internal report on Reich's work in the Public Diplomacy Office that had been requested by Dodd. Apparently, it said, the document was sent during the recent anthrax scare.