Growing up in Texas, becoming a businessman during the Reagan revolution, serving as a governor of a southern state, Bush is the product of the changing times. "He's modernized the Reagan model," said GOP strategist Scott Reed. But perhaps the most significant reason the new Bush admin has eclipsed Reagan's in conservatism is the absence of moderate dissent. There is no equivalent to Richard Darman, Reagan's former budget chief, a New England moderate who had no patience for conservatives' ideas. "The Reagan administration was wracked by quarrels between people who had strong ideological commitment to the president's campaign positions who generally lacked expertise, and people who had expertise who, by and large, didn't respect the president's campaign positions," said a philosophical conservative working for Bush. Now, they're one and the same. There is a danger that the lack of competing views in the famously tight WHouse could cause Bush's advisers to become stale & insular, but there is no concern about that yet. "There isn't a lot of competition in the policy arena," a Bush official said with satisfaction.
Bush seems to care about hiring more than Reagan did, accepting the idea that "personnel is policy." The new president also seems determined to avoid the ways of his father, who preferred businesslike managers. "They tended to be the moderates, the people who had gone to the prestige prep schools and disproportionately tended to have Roman numerals behind their names," said conservative Morton C. Blackwell, first term Reagan adviser & longtime GOP National Committee member. Bush & aides appear to have concurred with the advice sent in November by Hudson's Horowitz in memos to the transition team. He wrote that Bush should "assign greater weight to intellectual capital & moral credibility than to management skills. … The close vote & contested election sharply increases the value of appointees able to finesse the 'no mandate' pressures that will be placed on the governor."

Ideological conservatives haven't won every influential position in the Bush admin. SecState Colin L. Powell & EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman have moderate credentials. And Transportation Sec Norman Y. Mineta is a Democrat. If there is one weak link in the administration for some movement conservatives, it is Treasury Sec Paul H. O'Neill, who has been advocating reductions in carbon dioxide emissions for years and supported the imposition of an energy tax in 1993. Another disappointment for conservatives is Tom Scully, chosen to head Health Care Finance Admin at Health & Human Services Dept. But social conservatives cheer Bush's pick of Claude A. Allen for deputy secretary. As Virginia's health secretary, Allen, former press secretary to Sen. Jesse Helms R-NC and a foe of right-to-die legislation, drew fire from health care advocates who charged he would cut services to women & children.
Movement conservatives are generally delighted as many of their own take positions of power. The recent hirings go far beyond the early naming of conservatives such as John D. Ashcroft to head Justice Dept and Gale A. Norton to lead Interior Dept. In virtually every instance where moderate candidates have vied with conservatives for key jobs, a conservative has won. Ashcroft, for example, was selected over former Montana governor Marc Racicot; & J. Steven Griles, a coal mining lobbyist, was selected over the more moderate John Turner as the No. 2 at Interior. Conservatives are particularly pleased with Office of Mgmnt & Budget. There, Jay Lefkowitz, former law partner of Kenneth W. Starr, is chief counsel, joined by strong conservatives Sean O'Keefe & Director Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. This gives conservatives sway over most regulatory decisions.

Justice Dept is another favorite location. Michael Chertoff, who advised Sen. Alfonse M. D'Amato R-NY during Whitewater investigation, was named criminal division head. Larry Thompson, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas ally, is nominee for deputy atty general. In WHouse, Timothy Goeglein, former religious conservative Gary Bauer and Sen. Dan Coats R-IN aide, serves as liaison to conservative leaders. The speechwriting office features writers from the Weekly Standard & National Review, and former advisers to Wm Bennett, Jack Kemp & Quayle. WHouse counsel's office is staffed with former clerks to Justices William H. Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy & Thomas, and members of the conservative Federalist Society. The group has been successful beyond the counsel's office; it counts as members Olson, Norton, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham and his counsel, Lee Liberman Otis, among others.
Several Bush nominees were endorsed by Heritage Foundation, leading conservative think tank that has full-time staffer devoted to helping the administration with its appts, and who is in contact with WHouse every day. Labor Sec Elaine L. Chao comes from Heritage, as does Cheney adviser Nina Rees. Paula Dobriansky, conservative causes champion recommended by Heritage, was nominated to undersecretary of state for global affairs. American Enterprise Institute, with which VP & wife Lynne V. Cheney have been affiliated, also claims John R. Bolton, nominated to be State Dept undersecretary for arms control & intl security. Bolton is foe of intl organizations and is a man with whom, Helms has said, "I would want to stand at Armageddon." The institute also can claim Lawrence B. Lindsey, Bush's top economic adviser, and Diana Furchgott-Roth, staff chief to Council of Economic Advisers.

Most of the sub-Cabinet & WHouse appointees are unknown to public and will remain unknown throughout their terms. But they have extraordinary influence, and in some cases foes fear them more than Cabinet officers. A case in point is John D. Graham, named to head little-known Office of Information & Regulatory Affairs, which vets all significant or controversial regulations. Graham is founder of Harvard Ctr for Risk Analysis, which is funded by more than 100 large corporations & trade groups, incl Dow, 3M, Dupont, Monsanto, Exxon & American Petroleum Institute. He is leading proponent of "comparative risk analysis" to balance the need for regulation against risk of the event, and he was prominent in the 1995 regulatory reform battles. "John Graham has a long history of opposing even the most broadly accepted public health protection measures, incl the measure to reduce drinking water contamination," said Greg Wetstone, Natural Resources Defense Council spokesman. Graham's nomination, Wetstone said, "is arguably the single sharpest stick in the eye of the public interest community yet."

Bush LatinAm advisers' IranContra roles
Colin Powell, Sec.State
Sec.Defense military asst (known as "filter"). Autobio: Pentagon's "point man" for U.S. Contra support. Key role funding Contras via illegal arms sales to Iran.

John Maisto, Natl Security Council Adviser Inter-American affairs, hence cohort of  Narc czar J.P. Walters
Nicaragua ambassador during U.S. backed guerrilla war against Sandinista govt.

John Negroponte, U.S. UN ambassador   FIPF
Honduras ambassador 1981-85   Oversaw military buildup of country into anti-Sandinista contras' refuge

A Carefully Crafted Deception
6.18.95   Ginger Thompson & Gary Cohn Baltimore Sun pA1

A 14-month investigation by The Sun, which included interviews with U.S. & Honduran officials who could not have spoken freely at the time, shows that Negroponte learned from numerous sources about the crimes of the unit called Battalion 316. The Honduran press was full of reports about military abuses, including hundreds of newspaper stories in 1982 alone. There were also direct pleas from Honduran officials to U.S. officials, including Negroponte. A disgruntled former Honduran intelligence chief publicly denounced Battalion 316. Relatives of the battalion's victims demonstrated in the streets and appealed to U.S. officials for intervention, including once in an open letter to President Reagan's presidential envoy to Central America. Rick Chidester, then jr political officer in Tegucigalpa U.S. Embassy, told The Sun that he compiled substantial evidence of abuses by the Honduran military in 1982, but was ordered to delete most of it from the annual human rights report prepared for the State Dept to deliver to Congress. Those reports consistently misled Congress & the public. "There are no political prisoners in Honduras,'' the State Dept asserted falsely in its 1983 human rights report.
Reports to Congress were crafted to convey Honduran govt & military as committed to democratic ideals. It was important not to confront Congress with evidence that the military was trampling on civil liberties & murdering dissidents. The truth could have triggered congressional action under the Foreign Assistance Act, which generally prohibits military aid to any govt that "engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.''

Fact vs. fiction
A comparison of the annual human rights reports prepared while Negroponte was ambassador with the facts as they were then known shows that Congress was deliberately misled.

Assertion   "Student, worker, peasant and other interest groups have full freedom to organize & hold frequent public demonstrations without interference. … Trade unions are not hindered by the govt.''

State Dept Country Reports on HRts 1982

• Saul Godinez, elementary school teacher & union activist, abducted 7.22.82;
• Eduardo Lanza, medical student & general secretary of Honduran Federation of University Students, kidnapped 8.1.82;
• German Perez Aleman, leader of an airport maintenance workers union, abducted 8.18.82;
• Hector Hernandez, president of a textile workers union, abducted 12.24.82

Assertion   "Legal guarantees exist against arbitrary arrest or imprisonment, and against torture or degrading treatment. Habeas corpus is guaranteed by the Constitution, and Honduran law provides for arraignment within 24 hours of arrest. This appears to be the standard practice.''

State Dept Country Reports on HRts 1982

Assertion   "There have been reports in the press & by local sources of the use of torture by local police forces during interrogation. Honduran officials assert that it is a common practice for persons held in connection with politically motivated crimes to allege that they were tortured during the investigation & interrogation process.''
"The Honduran armed forces chief, Gustavo Alvarez, recently issued a public statement denying that the govt used torture and specifically stated that torture was not to be used on prisoners.''

State Dept Country Reports on HRts 1982

Assertion   "Access to prisoners is generally not a problem for relatives, attorneys, consular officers or international humanitarian organizations.''

State Dept Country Reports on HRts 1982

Assertion   "Sanctity of the home is guaranteed by the Constitution and generally observed.''

State Dept Country Reports on HRts 1982

Assertion   "In rare cases in which members of the security forces have been accused of murder, the govt has brought the perpetrators to justice.''

State Dept Country Reports on HRts 1983

Assertion   "There are no political prisoners in Honduras. Individuals are prosecuted not for their political beliefs but rather for criminal acts defined in the penal code.''

State Dept Country Reports on HRts 1983

Negroponte replies
Negroponte, now U.S. ambassador to the Philippines, has declined repeated phone requests & in writing since July for interviews about this report. However, on Thursday, after publication of 3 parts of The Sun's series, he issued a written statement:
"Under my leadership, the embassy worked to promote the restoration and consolidation of democracy in Honduras, including the advancement of human rights.'' He added, "At no time during my tenure in Honduras did the embassy condone or conceal human rights violations. To the contrary, the embassy & the State Dept cooperated with the Honduras govt to help remedy recognized deficiencies in the administration of justice.''
Negroponte's arrival in Honduras coincided with the Reagan administration's decision to reduce the emphasis that the Carter administration had put on rights issues in dealings with allies. The new policy had been made clear to Negroponte's predecessor, Ambassador Binns, a Carter appointee, after he repeatedly warned of human rights abuses by the Honduran military. In a June 1981 cable obtained by The Sun, Binns reported:
"I am deeply concerned at increasing evidence of officially sponsored/sanctioned assassinations of political and criminal targets, which clearly indicate [Govt of Honduras] repression has built up a head of steam much faster than we had anticipated.''

The reaction was swift & unexpected. Binns was summoned to Washington by Thomas O. Enders, new assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs. "I was told to stop human rights reporting except in back channel. The fear was that if it came into the State Dept, it will leak,'' Binns recalled. "They wanted to keep assistance flowing. Increased violations by the Honduran military would prejudice that.'' "Back channel'' messages are unofficial or informal communications, often in code, sent outside the usual distribution system to restrict circulation of information. Enders confirmed the 1981 meeting with Binns. "I told him that whereas human rights violations had been the single most important focus of the previous administration's policy in Latin America, the Reagan administration had broader interests,'' Enders said. "It believed that the most effective way to overcome civil conflicts & human rights violations was to promote democratically elected govts and that should be his point of focus.''

Ample evidence of abuses
There was nothing rare or vague about the evidence of military abuses that confronted Negroponte from the time he took over as ambassador Nov. 1981. In 1982, his first full year in Honduras, more than 300 articles in the local press included:

• An account in Feb. of the discovery of 5 bodies in a makeshift grave in Las Montanitas, 15 miles outside Tegucigalpa.
• An account in April of the illegal arrest of 6 university students.
• A story in Sept. about union members marching through Tegucigalpa to demand the release of one of their leaders abducted a month earlier.
• Another story in Sept. about dozens of children protesting the disappearances outside the Honduran Congress as it considered forming a committee to investigate military abuses.

Evidence came from other sources.
Efrain Diaz Arrivillaga, then a delegate in the Honduran Congress and a voice of dissent in the prevailing atmosphere of intimidation, said he spoke several times to Negroponte about the military's human rights abuses. Diaz said that in meetings at the U.S. Embassy and at social occasions, he rebuked Negroponte for the U.S. govt's refusal to take a stand against the repression. The Honduran legislator said Negroponte reproached him for refusing to take a strong stand against Communists who were trying to seize control of Honduras. "I remember Negroponte told me, 'You and others, what you are proposing is to let communism take over this country & over the region,' " Diaz said. "The most important thing to him was to win public support for the presence of the U.S. military in Honduras,'' Diaz said. "Their [the U.S.] attitude was one of tolerance and silence. They needed Honduras to loan its territory more than they were concerned about innocent people being killed.''
Accusations against the military also came from former insiders. Aug. 1982, Col. Leonidas Torres Arias, ousted chief of intelligence for the Honduran military, issued a public warning about Battalion 316. In a news conference in Mexico City, he told reporters about "a death squad operating in Honduras led by armed forces chief General Gustavo Alvarez.'' The story made headlines in Mexico and across Central America. A reporter from the Honduran newspaper El Tiempo asked Negroponte about the colonel's allegations. Said Negroponte in an article that appeared 10.16.82 "Democracy is being consolidated in this country. The armed forces have supported that process. It was the armed forces that turned over power to the civilian constitutional leaders of Honduras. So, I have a lot of difficulty taking those kinds of accusations seriously.''

The evidence was also to be found in the streets of Tegucigalpa. Each week, hundreds marched through the streets of the capital demanding the release of the disappeared. Sometimes they marched past the U.S. Embassy, a hulking concrete complex on La Paz Avenue. The Committee of the Relatives of the Disappeared in Honduras (COFADEH) turned to the U.S. govt for help. 6.13.83, COFADEH addressed an open letter to Richard Stone, President Reagan's special envoy to Central America, complaining that the Honduran military was holding dissidents in clandestine jails. "More than 40 people have been illegally arrested & tortured,'' the letter said. "Some have never been heard from since their arrest.'' The letter was published in El Tiempo, one of the largest newspapers in Honduras. The U.S. govt never responded to the committee's pleas. In an interview, Stone said that he did not recall the letter.

Spurned at the embassy
Oct. 1983, members of COFADEH visited the U.S. Embassy to ask for help. They said they met with Scott Thayer, a junior political officer assigned to monitor human rights. Among the relatives who attended was Bertha Oliva, whose husband, Tomas Nativi, had been missing for more than 2 years. Also there was Zenaida Velasquez, whose brother, Manfredo, had been missing for more than 2 years. The parents of Eduardo Lanza attended. Lanza, a medical student, had been a prominent student leader when he was kidnapped by Battalion 316 Aug. 1982. The group told Thayer that they had searched jails & hospitals across Honduras for their missing relatives, that military officials only laughed at them and that judges were too afraid to help. They begged the embassy to use its influence with Honduran officials to win their relatives' freedom.
Zenaida Velasquez remembers that Thayer listened politely, then dismissed their allegations. "He said he knew Honduras had a democratic govt and [that] those kinds of practices were not going on,'' Velasquez said. "They were such a bunch of liars it was disgusting.''
Thayer, now a political officer at the U.S. Embassy in Madrid, Spain, said that meeting with Hondurans about human rights abuses "was part of my job. I recall having meetings like that, but I can't recall that specific meeting.'' Oliva still fumes over the meeting. In an interview in Tegucigalpa, she said that the embassy official acted as if they were fabricating the disappearances of their relatives. "He was very cold, very cold,'' she said, pursing her lips. "Any kindness was gone. He did not even smile at us.'' Roberto Becerra, father of the student Eduardo Lanza, said he came away from the meeting with a hopeless feeling. "We felt like we were screaming in the desert. No one heard us. No one would help us.''

In at least one case, Negroponte was confronted with evidence of abuse that he could not ignore, arrest & torture in July 1982 of journalist Oscar Reyes and his wife, Gloria. Reyes, founder of the journalism school at the National Autonomous University of Honduras, was openly sympathetic to Marxist Sandinistas in Nicaragua and had written numerous newspaper columns criticizing the Honduran military. The abduction of the Reyeses sparked newspaper stories & raucous student protests. The Reyeses said they were locked in a secret cell for a week, and beaten & tortured with electric shocks. At the U.S. Embassy, there was fear that if the story got to the U.S. it might damage carefully assembled public support for the Central America program operating out of Honduras. Cresencio S. Arcos, then the embassy press spokesman, alerted Negroponte that the Honduran military had abducted the Reyeses.
"If they do this guy, then we're in trouble,'' Arcos warned. "We cannot let this guy get hurt. … It would be a disaster for our policy. "The ambassador did approach [General] Alvarez about this to manifest his concern,'' Arcos said. The case clearly shows that Negroponte knew of the Reyeses' abduction and that the ambassador acted in such cases when he felt compelled to do so. Reyes & his wife were released from the clandestine jail after a week. They were taken before a public court and sentenced to 6 months in prison. Two weeks before their sentences ended, they were allowed to leave for the U.S. on condition that they keep quiet about the torture they endured. That condition was laid down personally by Alvarez, said the Reyeses, who now live in Vienna, Va.
The U.S. Embassy also kept quiet publicly about the Reyes case. It was not mentioned in the human rights report for 1982, even though it was widely covered in the Honduran press and illustrated the Honduran military's violation of human rights on several counts: illegal abduction, secret incarceration, torture and suppression of press freedom. Instead, the 1982 report asserted: "No incident of official interference with the media has been recorded for several years.''

Inside the embassy
Negroponte's aides at the embassy told The Sun that they knew about serious human rights abuses by the Honduran military, and that the violence was a subject of constant discussion. One of those aides was a junior political officer, Rick Chidester, who was assigned in 1982 to gather information for the embassy's annual report on human rights, a task that usually fell to a junior officer. Chidester, now 43 & a private businessman, said that while in Honduras, he interviewed human rights advocates & journalists who provided him with information that the Honduran military was illegally detaining, torturing & executing people. "I had allegations about vans coming up to police cells and taking out people they [the Honduran military] didn't want … and shooting them,'' Chidester said. "`I had allegations that, as part of the interrogation techniques, torture was being used.'' He said he included the allegations in his draft of the 1982 report.
A supervisor, who Chidester will not name, demanded proof, sworn testimony or photographs of torture victims. Chidester said he was admonished for basing his report on rumors when he was unable to produce such evidence. Chidester said he argued that while he had not interviewed torture victims, the allegations came from too many credible sources to be ignored, and that the reports were not supposed to be limited to provable facts. "While the State Dept is not an investigative body, we're supposed to analyze political events & identify trends,'' Chidester said. "Our analysis is valuable, even if based on opinion and not admissible as proof in a court of law.'' His arguments failed.
By the time the report reached the U.S. Congress, the serious accusations against the Honduran military had been removed. Allegations that remained were described as unsubstantiated or as isolated abuses that had been dealt with swiftly by the Honduran government. Overall, the report portrayed Honduras as an emerging democracy where the civilian govt & military respected human rights. The report was such a misrepresentation of the facts that Chidester recalls joking with others in the embassy: "What is this, the human rights report for Norway?''

An official explanation
While Negroponte has refused to be interviewed by The Sun, his boss at the time of his appointment to Honduras described the priorities on human rights. Thomas Enders, the asst secretary of state who told Negroponte's predecessor to stop reporting rights violations through normal channels, said it was crucial to keep U.S. aid flowing to Honduras. "What we were attempting to do was, on the one hand, to maintain our ability to act in Central America. That is, our congressional authority to send economic & military aid, so we avoided direct public confrontations against the military in El Salvador & Honduras,'' he said. "And at the same time, privately we were spending an enormous amount of effort in order to change the way they looked at how they behaved. There was endless jawboning.''
Instead of telling Congress what was going on in Central America, the Reagan administration employed the State Dept human rights reports as instruments to advance policy objectives. Consequently, the human rights reports differed sharply in tone, depending on whether the govt was a friend or foe. The 1982 report on Nicaragua, where the U.S. was trying to topple the Marxist Sandinista regime, made strong charges against that govt.
[ That govt brought literacy & universal health care to majority of population for first time in national history while fighting for independence against U.S. mercenaries ]

A section titled "Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including Freedom from Killing'' said: "There is credible evidence that security forces have been responsible for the death of a number of detained persons in 1982.'' In the same section of the Honduras report for 1982, the State Department said: "Allegations that death squads have made their appearance in Honduras have not been substantiated.'' Cresencio Arcos, press spokes-man in the U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa from June 1980 to July 1985 and U.S. ambassador from Dec. 1989 to July 1993, explained the difference:
"Invariably, the result in this process was to magnify your enemies' misdeeds and minimize your friends' misdeeds,'' he said. Amb. Negroponte also made numerous public statements praising Honduran military for supporting civilian govt and for respecting the rights of its people. In a letter to NYTimes, published 9.12.82, he wrote: "Honduras' increasingly professional armed forces are dedicated to defending the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country, and they are publicly committed to civilian constitutional rule.'' In Oct. 1982, he wrote to The Economist: "Honduras' increasingly professional armed forces are fully supportive of this country's constitutional system.'' That was the same year journalist Oscar Reyes and his wife were abducted & tortured by the Honduran military for a week because of articles he had written.
8.12.83, the LATimes published a Negroponte column in which he acknowledged that there were "credible allegations of some disappearances.'' However, he added: "There is no indication that the infrequent human rights violations that do occur are part of deliberate govt policy."
[ CIA torture trainers instructed the military, not the civil govt. The torture was practice, not policy. ]
"Indeed, disciplinary action has been taken against members of the police & military (including officers) who have abused their authority.''

That year, in a case that gained notoriety, 24yr old leftist Ines Consuelo Murillo was held for more than 11 weeks naked, beaten, suffocated, shocked, fondled & threatened with rape. To this day, none of her torturers has been punished. Arcos said that Negroponte privately expressed concerns about abuses to Honduran officials. "The ambassador did pressure the Hondurans. Not publicly. Quietly,'' Arcos said. "We were concerned by the issue. Reports [of human rights abuses] were increasing.'' Even years after he left Honduras, Negroponte would not publicly acknowledge the crimes of kidnapping, torture and murder that were committed by the Honduran military.
During his Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing as ambassador to Mexico in 1989, Negroponte was asked about Battalion 316 and its abuses. "I have never seen any convincing substantiation that they were involved in death squad-type activities,'' he said.

Otto Juan Reich, Asst Sec.State W.Hem.Affairs   FIPF
First State Dept Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America & Caribbean dir. 1983-86. Engaged in "prohibited, covert propaganda activities" to promote Reagan policies toward Nicaragua. Maintained private network of individuals & organizations coordinated with & sometimes directed by Col.Oliver North as well as other NSC officials that raised & spent funds for influencing congressional votes & U.S. domestic news media.
Right-wing Cuban American & former Venezuela ambassador. Dallas Morning News Bush depending heavily on Cuban-Americans for key foreign policy advice. §
Ideology Triumphs Ctr for Intl Policy GAO rpt

Dems Criticize Apparent Bush Choice
3.9.01   CAROLYN SKORNECK AP

Senators John Kerry D-MA & Christopher Dodd D-CT are trying to squelch nomination of the staunchly anti-Castro businessman & lobbyist by publicly criticizing Reich before he is named. "The issue is not his conservative politics", Kerry said Friday. It was his central part in "deeply divisive'' policies and domestic propaganda his office allegedly generated to support Reagan administration C.Am policies in 1980s. Kerry & Dodd are influential members of the evenly divided Senate Foreign Relations Committee which would handle the nomination if Pres. GWBush selects Reich as asst sec of state for Western Hemisphere affairs. Marc Thiessen, spokesman for committee chair Jesse Helms R-NC, dismissed the criticism, saying, "This is all about Cuba'' & Reich's adamant opposition to Castro. If Reich gets the job, Thiessen said, "he would probably be one of the most qualified people ever to hold the post.''
[ Qualified is no assurance of trustworthy. He aided violation of Boland Amendment & abetted South Central L.A. crack; Freeway Rick=O.Blandon=O.North=O.Reich ]

Support for the former ambassador to Venezuela is also strong among fellow Cuban-Americans in Congress. "Otto is a good fit with the president and is a good team player as well as a person who has forward-thinking, innovative ideas on how to revamp U.S.-Latin American policy,'' Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said Friday in phone interview from Miami. The Democrats' concerns over Reich focus on his leadership of the State Dept's one-time Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America & Caribbean. The office, which Reich led from its inception in June 1983 until January 1986, was accused of illegal, covert domestic propaganda against Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista govt and in favor of Contra rebels. Reich denied any wrongdoing. The office "was one of the most open operations the State Dept had,'' he said in 1987. Reich did not respond Friday to calls to his RMA Intl office in suburban Alexandria VA
Kerry, who led early investigations in the 1980s into whether the U.S. govt was secretly arming the Contras, remains unconvinced. "Revelations that his office was the genesis of acts of propaganda not just prohibited in this country, but which reflect a kind of carelessness about the truth, ought to be of concern to any lawmaker,'' Kerry said.
[ Propaganda & carelessness with truth is a federal govt sine qua non. Indict them all. ]

Eric Olson of liberal Washington Office on Latin America said Reich's background makes him "hugely controversial in Latin America'' and "not a good choice'' given Bush's desire to establish closer relations there. When Reich arrived in Caracas in 1986, he encountered official hostility because he was thought to be a right-wing extremist. Before he left in 1989, however, the country had given him its highest decoration. Critics also questioned Reich's lobbying work. He has lobbied for Bacardi-Martini, whose competitors can be sued for doing business in Cuba under Helms-Burton Act, which Reich played a role in writing. And his firm has lobbied to sell Lockheed-made F-16 fighters to Chile.

Otto Reich, WRAP Star   "Feature Story   Special Report "
4.17.01   Alec Dubro The Nation   greenwash
We prefer links but The Nation removes articles so we copy this one

• Its board is dominated by industry representatives.
• It has no provision for public disclosure of any problems found in factories, or even where the factories are located.
• Its labor code is similar to antiunion right-to-work legislation in some US states.
• It only encourages manufacturers to apply self-imposed "environmentally conscious" practices.

AIFLD has been disbanded by the current AFL-CIO leadership, largely because of its compromised cold war mission. Otero, for instance, was identified by renegade CIA agent Philip Agee as a onetime CIA operative. And the Doherty family is also linked to the agency. William Doherty Sr., grandfather of WRAP director Lawrence, was a early labor leader associated with the CIA in the 1940s. And Bill worked with the CIA in Latin America. Reich, too, worked with the CIA on Central American during his tenure at OPD. But what can a professional anticommunist do these days other than denounce Cuba? Apparently, there's prosweatshop work, where the three adventurers now find themselves. If there's an any more precise explanation for Reich in the rag trade, he's keeping it to himself. Actually he's keeping everything to himself these days-he's not speaking to the press. Perhaps WRAP is no more than a corporate PR effort, but if that's so, why is it staffed with cold war relics like Otero, Doherty and Reich? And, if the former "labor guys" are running WRAP, why do they espouse an essentially unionbusting line? There may be as much ideology here as profiteering, but we don't yet know.
In any case, Otto Reich shows that he is indeed not merely focused on preserving the Cuba boycott. He is willing to link himself with other retrograde causes, including an implicitly antilabor, antienvironment, prosweatshop organization. Just the man we need to run US hemisphere policy.

Sen. John McCain's CFR minder & NSC rep
Around the Agencies
4.7.01   People §, National Journal

§UPPLEMENT   including

• McCain Rocks the Vote
  2.9.00   Christine Stone British Helsinki HRts Group   cryptoSerb agitprop?
  Sen. McCain … one of his most significant foreign policy roles, chairman of directors of Intl Republican Institute, founded in 1983 "to promote democracy, strengthen free markets & the rule of law … a global campaign against tyranny & totalitarianism". … Since collapse of Communism, IRI has concentrated activity in former Soviet bloc, and on elections in particular. … IRI, which had an office in the Albanian capital, parroted all the accusations against Berisha's party. An IRI official in Washington called the hero of the anti-Communist forces, Azem Haijdari, "a pig" in an interview in 1998 while supporting bona fides of ex-Communist Socialist Party of Albania.
• Craner HIRC Testimony
  10.2.98   HIRC E.Asian & Pacific Affairs subcomm   re election monitoring
  [ GOP Selection2K counting strategy from 1998 Cambodia election ]
• USAID Supports Election Observers in Mexico
  7.6.97   John Murphy IRI LatinAm pgm officer Global Ctr for Democracy & Governance
  [ putting Fox in charge with Mexico Cong. prelims using U.S. tax$ ]
• POWs and Truth Held Ransom
  1.24.94   Wm P. Hoar The New American
  review The Men We Left Behind Henry Kissinger, Politics of Deceit & Tragic Fate of POWs After Vietnam War, Mark Sauter & Jim Sanders National Press Books, Bethesda, MD 1993
  re father USAF pilot Robert Craner, Nam POW

Aetna's Ex-CEO to Work With Kissinger, McLarty 3.14.01   Bus.News Hartford Courant … Richard L. Huber, ousted as Aetna's chief executive just over a year ago, is joining an investment group focused on Latin America and will serve in a firm headed by former Sec.State Kissenger. Huber named chief executive, managing dir. & principal in Norte-Sur Partners headed by former WhiteHouse Chief of Staff Thos.F.McLarty III with Jerry Jones, Dallas Cowboys owner.   [ NTFAA NAFTA expanison to entire W.Hemisphere]

O'Neill urges economic 'perspective'   7.8.01   AP ROME   An upbeat U.S. Treasury Sec. Paul O'Neill insisted that the gloomy global economy is poised for a rebound, telling his counterparts from the world's richest countries Saturday that people must have ``some perspective'' about growth. Gathering in a Renaissance villa on a hilltop overlooking Rome, the finance ministers hammered out broad plans to revive the economy and downplayed dismal economic data. "Higher is better, but this is not terrible,'' O'Neill assured his colleagues at the one-day G-7, meeting.¹

"There is some perspective required here as to where we are.'' The faltering U.S. economy should climb to growth rates above 2% in the fourth quarter of this year and above 3% next year, O'Neill predicted. The optimistic forecast contrasts with that of many economists who expect U.S. growth for the just-completed second quarter to come in below the first quarter's 1.2% rate. But O'Neill pointed to a list of recent economic figures that indicate the U.S. economy could be headed for a turnaround, including record car and truck sales, high levels of home buying and relatively low unemployment.

The U.S. economy, which is a major motor of global growth, will also get a boost from the Bush administration's $1.35 trillion tax cut and a series of interest rate reductions by the U.S. Federal Reserve. "The corrections that are taking place in the U.S. economy are putting us on a footing that will put us to higher rates of real growth fairly soon,'' O'Neill said. O'Neill declined to comment on whether Japan and Europe were doing enough to combat the global slowdown, saying: "We're not here to throw rocks at each other.'' At the gathering, the top finance officials from the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Canada were preparing the economics agenda for a July 20-22 summit of G-8 leaders in the northern Italian city of Genoa.
Russian officials were also there for bilateral talks on the sidelines of the main event. ¹ The G-7 ministers generally agreed that the global economy had slowed down more than expected, but remained confident that sound economic fundamentals and strong international cooperation could fuel renewed expansion. Among measures recommended by the ministers to bolster growth was a plan for economists to go through their countries region by region, identifying structural obstacles to growth there. The ministers also recommended launching a new round of World Trade Organization negotiations to open more borders to free trade, another action that could boost growth. To further shore up the economy, the ministers agreed to strengthen the international financial system, liberalize access to capital markets and discuss restructuring debt relief.

Japan's economic reform plans won high marks from the assembled ministers, with O'Neill winning a commitment from Japanese Finance Minister Masajuro Shiokawa that they will be in motion by this autumn. The Japanese economy shrank at an annual rate of 0.8% in the first quarter. The Japanese government has pledged to tackle a number of thorny issues, including measures to help banks write off huge sums of soured loans and steps to rein in wasteful public spending. The European Union was also optimistic, despite Germany & France, region's biggest economies, slashing growth forecasts in recent months. "The slowdown is sharper than we envisaged,'' EU Monetary Affairs Commissioner Pedro Solbes said. "But European growth figures are higher than those of the U.S. & Japan.'' EU economic growth is expected to come in between 2 and 2.5 percent this year, Solbes said, adding that various tax cut policies in some EU countries will help growth rates as well as stricter government spending. Earlier in the day, however, German Finance Minister Hans Eichel, stressed the euro zone's dependence on a quick U.S. rebound.

Asst.Sec. for Africa Walter H. Kansteiner III
confirms administration's focus likely be economic   FIPF   Google   NameBase

Forum for Intl Policy Sr.Assoc. Africa Pgm 202.237.5594

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Dems to challenge conservative nominees   FPIF   www.stopBolton.org
3.29.01   Bill Nichols USA TODAY p10A

State Dept is focus of Dem. outrage for now. These nominations raise ''concerns about the real commitment of the Bush administration to a bipartisan foreign policy,'' says Sen. John Kerry, D- MA. ''Never before have so many ideological choices been made to execute key elements of what a president argues will be a foreign policy beyond the ideological gridlock of the past.'' Although Kerry & other Democrats will raise a stink about Bush's nominees, they aren't showing any signs of trying to defeat the nominations, which Senate staffers privately say are virtually certain to win confirmation. Interest groups that oppose Bolton, Reich and Negroponte say many senators fear angering powerful Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Jesse Helms, R-N.C., avid supporter of all three. Senate Dem. staffers also say that their bosses believe the slim chance of winning a confirmation fight in an evenly divided Senate must be weighed carefully against the political risk of opposing a nomination & losing. In the 50-50 Senate, VP Cheney has a tie-breaking vote.
''No one is saying they won't oppose (Bolton),'' says John Isaacs, Council for a Livable World pres. of group that advocates arms control. ''Clearly, senators are uncomfortable with Bolton and his positions & his bkgd. The problem is that they're waiting for someone else to take the lead.'' WHouse officials say Bush stands behind his choices and is confident that they will be confirmed. ''If people have questions about their abilities or their qualifications, each of these nominees will have ample opportunities to address those questions,'' NSC spokeswoman Mary Ellen Countryman says. Democrats clearly have questions. Among them:
•   Critics of Bolton, currently vp at American Enterprise Inst. home to right-wing luminaries such as Newt Gingrich, Richard Perle, Jeane Kirkpatrick & Lynne Cheney, say abundant writings & speeches make him unfit to be Undersecretary of State for Arms Control, Non-Proliferation & Intl Security, State Dept #3 & top arms-control official. Among the arms-control accords he has opposed is the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which President Clinton signed in 1996 but the Senate refused to ratify. Bolton also has argued that Washington should recognize Taiwan, a move that would reverse U.S. policy & infuriate China. ''It's like putting the wolf in the hen's house,'' says Don Kraus, Campaign for U.N. Reform head [ Carl Nyberg
''This is a guy who, as best I can tell, has never seen a multilateral agreement that he liked.'' Helms, whose conservative foreign-policy views often rile Democrats, has called Bolton ''the kind of man with whom I would want to stand at Armageddon.''

•   As 1984-89 asst atty general, Bolton crossed swords with both parties. He angered Senate Democrats when he refused to provide requested documents during confirmation hearings of two Supreme Court nominees. And Reagan WHouse slapped him down for criticizing independent counsels investigating Reagan administration. Bolton also was president of the tax- exempt National Policy Forum, GOP subsidiary, but left the post shortly before a 1997 cong. probe into whether the group illegally took foreign donations during the 1996 election. No charges were filed.
•   Reich, former U.S. Venezuela ambassador, headed covert Reagan admin pgm to build public support for the Nicaraguan contras. Cong. watchdog agency GAO comptroller general, concluded in 1987 that Reich's office ''engaged in prohibited, covert propaganda activities.'' Reich, however, was never charged with any wrongdoing. The Cuban native, who emigrated to the USA when he was 15, has strong backing in Florida among Cuban-American leaders, who were energetic supporters of Bush's presidential bid last year.
•   Critics of Negroponte, career diplomat & close friend of SecState Colin Powell, contend he turned a blind eye to human rights abuses by Honduran military while he was ambassador. But Senate aides say Negroponte's confirmation is virtually assured because of his friendship with Powell and Senate's approval of his more recent stints as ambassador to Mexico and the Philippines.

THE ARMAGEDDON NOMINEE
4.2.01   Boston Globe editorial

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