Otto Reich

[Magda Hassan]

Otto Reich About to Slip into State Department Post Via Recess Appointment

• With Congress having adjourned without holding hearings on the controversial candidate, a likely White House recess appointment could broaden Senate opposition to the deeply-flawed candidate when a confirmation hearing comes up again a year from now
• According to the Washington Post, Secretary of State Powell says that Reich is an “honorable man” and that he had “‘looked at everything [Reich] has done’ and found nothing untoward;” such a phrase has an old soldier falling on his sword for the administration’s political desiderata, because Reich’s public record reveals him to be a dishonest and dishonorable master of chicanery who dismisses his derelictions with banter or weasel words
• An endless list of instances of ethical misconduct, acts of deception and an aversion against taking the straight path renders Reich a pathetically inappropriate candidate for the administration's foremost Latin American policy-making position
• White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card says that Reich’s critics are “misinformed opponents;” but has he bothered to look at the record, or are Reich’s major ethical lapses good enough for the White House?
• The recent State Department watershed launch of economic ties to Cuba, loosening the 40-year embargo to allow U.S. food and medicine exports to the island in the wake of Hurricane Michelle, likely would have been impossible if Reich was now in command of the Inter-American Bureau


According to the Bush administration's policy of not distinguishing between terrorists and those who aid them, Reich's own illegal actions, as well as his advocacy of impunity for Cuban exile reprobate Orlando Bosch — a convicted terrorist whose crime profile is as brutal, inhuman and psychopathic as Osama bin Laden — renders the nominee more qualified to serve time than to be nominated for a prominent State Department post
Since his name was first offered by President Bush on March 22 to be Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere affairs, Otto Juan Reich has been among the most contentious nominees of this administration. The long-stalled confirmation process for Reich began last July 12, and is likely to end in the next number of days as the nominee is almost certain to be named to the post by a White House recess appointment. But Reich’s future still will remain clouded because such an appointment would only last for a year and he will once again have to face a confirmation hearing in order for him to retain the position. In either situation, Reich would be vulnerable to disclosures relating to his many purportedly dubious involvements as well as to the prospective release of highly compromising documents that are now classified.
In spite of the spirit of bipartisanship bred by the September 11 terrorist attacks — an event that the administration was able to use to its advantage in pushing through controversial appointments such as John Negroponte as U.S. ambassador to the UN — several leading Democrats have expressed their steadfast opposition to the Reich nomination. These include the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, Joseph Biden (D-DE), as well as John Kerry (D-MA) and Christopher Dodd (D-CT). A broad coalition of NGOs also has organized a campaign to block Reich's confirmation by establishing how glaringly unqualified he is for the assistant secretary position.

The case against Reich
Reich’s public career reveals him as anything but an “honorable man” (as Secretary Powell says) who operates with high scruples and a balanced point of view and who is committed to upholding democratic principles. Quite to the contrary, he was appointed to such positions as head of the Latin America section of the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department’s Office of Public Diplomacy, as well as being later named the U.S. ambassador to Caracas, solely because of his unblemished rightwing credentials and the political clout behind him. In addition, it was not lost on three Republican administrations that his being given high jobs helped to deliver much of the million-member Cuban-American constituency on Election Day.
Reich’s appointments have been examples of affirmative action as played out by America’s ultra-rightwing when it comes to political patronage. He was chosen for a series of high positions not so much because of his innate talent or noticeable intelligence, but because he was an indefatigable gunslinger for extremist causes. He also is an adept self-promoter. His campaign for the State Department post has seen him mobilizing support among his ideological brethren, while tirelessly turning all stones to embarrass his adversaries. Almost two dozen career Foreign Service officers were encouraged to write letters endorsing the nominee. Reich also has drawn the praise not only of Chief of Staff Card, but also Secretary Powell, who recently praised him on a Sunday talk program as being “admirably suited for the job of Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America.” So why would several senior senators risk being denominated as being "divisive" by an enormously popular White House in a time of crisis, just to prevent one mid-level confirmation? What is so reprehensible about Otto Reich?

A shocking candidate
A close examination of Otto Reich’s CV reveals two decades of appalling professional, ethical and moral misconduct. Throughout his career, the Cuban-born immigrant repeatedly has proven to be driven by little else than opportunism and a fanatical loathing of the Castro regime. His immoderation and reckless judgment, as well as his single-issue adsorption, should be prima facie factors disqualifying him from the State Department post. These traits also make him dangerously unsuited for such a ranking policy-making position in an administration that is urgently in need of a consensus-builder with Latin America, which is going through a period of serious institutional instability and profound relational strain.
Just as was the case with his previous positions, Reich was not nominated to the assistant secretary position as a result of any confusion over who he was, but precisely because of his extremist point of view and the nature of his ideological backers. More specifically, the principal reasons for the current Reich nomination are not based on the strength of his experience or any noteworthy diplomatic skills — obviously, as each of his many past indiscretions should have instantly disqualified him for such prominent positions — but rather stem from the political clout of the ultra-conservative wing of the Cuban-American community. This is precisely the message that Gov. Jeb Bush was given after a meeting with one of Reich’s handlers (Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-FL)) and a senior member of Bush’s staff, in which the governor was informed that the local Cuban leadership wanted Reich to have the State Department job. Gov. Bush then dutifully transmitted the communication to his brother in the White House.
In defending the Reich nomination, editorials in rightwing outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, and also the Washington Times, the National Review and the Weekly Standard, have contended that opposition to Reich stems from a bunch of “sore losers” upset that Reagan's Central American policy "won [the Cold War] against their beloved Sandinista Revolution." A Journal columnist goes on to say that Reagan’s opponents are now trying to settle personal and ideological scores by "refighting Cold War battles." Such a grotesque misrepresentation of the opposition to Reich does a great disservice to the debate of crucial public policy issues, which in this case involves the compromised past of a candidate who appears predestined to commit the same unethical acts which were his modus operandi during the 1980s.

A contentious nomination
Despite a number of recent White House reaffirmations of confidence in Reich’s qualifications, earlier State Department actions — before Powell firmly committed himself to the candidate — presented a much more ambiguous signal. This gave some hope to Reich opponents that Powell would have enough respect for the office, as well as self-respect for his own reputation, to resist sullying his tenure by backing a patently inappropriate candidate. A September 12 State Department list of 16 nominees requiring rapid confirmation put Reich at the bottom of the column, as neither of the "highest" or "high" priority. Reports from Republican sources at the time indicated that Reich was only included on that list due to the White House’s personal intervention. But Powell’s apparent initial vacillation in his support for the nominee soon gave way to a full press campaign on his behalf, perhaps as the result of some heat triggered by Bush’s political operatives.
Powell’s early lukewarm attitude regarding Reich may have been in part due to his awareness of the rather contentious relationship Reich maintained with then-Secretary of State George Shultz during the 1980s. At that time, the latter protested Reich’s activities directly to President Reagan and challenged the president to choose between himself and Reich regarding responsibilities for Central American policy. In any event, in a letter sent from Powell to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on October 15, Reich’s name had ascended to the top of a list of nominations needing immediate attention, and Powell stated that he hoped this could be done before the Senate adjourned for the year.
Meanwhile, rumors began circulating before September 11 that Reich was considering withdrawing his nomination, due in part to the announced retirement of his principal Senate sponsor and protector, Jesse Helms (R-NC). A changing political climate in Florida also appeared to be draining Republican support for Reich, even among many Cuban-Americans, but by then, Rep. Diaz-Balart’s efforts had paid off in nurturing Reich’s prospects. In addition, since former Attorney General Janet Reno — who had raised the ire of Miami Cubans for her role in the Elián González raid — emerged as the likely Democratic candidate in the gubernatorial race, Jeb Bush's stature in the Cuban community firmed up. As a result, Reich reportedly changed his mind after September 11, perhaps deciding that he too could be swept into office on an anti-terrorist tide once he witnessed his equally controversial colleague from the Central American wars, John Negroponte, being rapidly confirmed as ambassador to the UN.

Democratic opposition
Although the Bush administration pressured the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to hold hearings on Reich, senior Democratic committee members were reluctant to do this. While their stated reason for denying Reich a hearing was that the candidate’s multiple failings made him undeserving of one, Republicans claim that it also may have been a result of concerns from the Democratic leadership that it lacked the necessary votes to block Reich's confirmation. If so, this would be due in no small part to the powerful Washington presence of many affluent Cuban-American leaders, and the strategic campaign contributions that they have made over the years to key legislators. But the Republican claim may not be all that accurate, because at least one Republican member of the Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Mike Enzi of Wyoming, appears to be opposed to the nomination, and only a minority of Republican committee members have spoken out on Reich’s behalf.
Responding to White House pressure by arguing that the Senate should not serve as a "rubber stamp" for Bush nominees even in a time of national emergency, Senator Dodd has become one of Reich's most vocal opponents. Although the senator long opposed Reagan's Central American policies, Dodd reiterated his recent Wall Street Journal response to a vitriolic Journal editorial directly attacking him, saying that his problem with Reich does not stem from “Cold War grudges,” but rather from the fact that the nominee "lacks good management skills, sound judgment, appropriate sensitivity to potential conflicts of interest, the confidence of other governments in the region and the ability to bridge partisan divisions in the Congress...all prerequisites for the job."
Starting several months ago, the unlikelihood of a hearing for Reich prompted rumors of a recess appointment. In such an event, Reich would assume the State Department post without being confirmed, and could serve for up to one year. Nonetheless, a recess appointment could further damage Reich's credibility and his effectiveness at the State Department, as well as cause considerable ill will among the Senate’s Democratic majority and members of his own party.

The terrorist’s landsman: Otto Reich’s support of Orlando Bosch
Otto Reich served as U.S. ambassador to Venezuela from 1986 to 1989, during the climax of the Iran-Contra scandal. His nomination to Caracas was opposed at that time by virtually all of Venezuela’s major media, as well as numerous officials in the Lusinchi administration (including the foreign minister), leading legislators and the country’s former president, Carlos Andres Perez. Nevertheless, Venezuelan authorities were unsuccessful in their efforts to thwart it. Once in Caracas, Reich's tenure was marred by Venezuelan press reports that he was converting the embassy into an informal base for the Panamanian Civic Crusade, a conservative group backed by the CIA, in opposition to their country’s strongman, General Manuel Noriega.
The most disturbing question related to Otto Reich's tenure in Caracas, however, stems from his relationship with a convicted terrorist, Orlando Bosch. While the paper trail is incomplete due the unavailability of still-classified documents that could shed more light on Bosch's terrorist connections, and Reich’s connection to him, declassified State Department cables already establish that Reich was intricately involved in the Bosch case. From his Caracas embassy, he sought to aid a man whose repeated violations of civil and criminal law could classify Reich as an apologist for a known terrorist.

The CV of a terrorist
A Cuban exile and pediatrician by training, Bosch was well known as a violence-prone fanatic who viewed terrorism as the most effective method to achieve his single-minded goal of removing Fidel Castro from power. Despite a record of at least 30 documented terrorist offenses, including repeated incidents on U.S. soil, Bosch (a former CIA asset) today is a revered figure in part of Miami’s Cuban community. His terrorist cells (Cuban Action, Cuban Power, CORU and Omega-7) perpetrated a laundry list of terrorist attacks on commercial, tourist and diplomatic targets, including the blowing up of a Japanese vessel in Miami waters and the bombing of eight offices in New York and Los Angeles, all of which had been selected for what Bosch saw as their pro-Cuba links. Bosch also sent threatening letters to the leaders of Mexico, France, Spain, Italy and Britain due to their Cuban ties. Reports have linked Bosch to assassination attempts on everyone from Castro to Henry Kissinger, to marginally collaborating with Lee Harvey Oswald's plan to assassinate President Kennedy. In 1968, Bosch was convicted of attacking a Polish freighter in the Miami harbor with a homemade bazooka and as a result was sentenced to ten years in federal prison. Four years later, Bosch was released, but violated the terms of his parole when, in 1974, he left the U.S. after being subpoenaed in connection with a murder investigation.
Wasting no time after his escape, Bosch was jailed in Venezuela on charges of masterminding the October 6, 1976 bombing of an Air Cubana flight in which all 73 civilians onboard were killed, including the entire Cuban Olympic fencing team. U.S. and Venezuelan intelligence officials considered Bosch to be the architect of the crime. Before the bombing, Washington intelligence officials had been suspecting a possible assault coordinated by Bosch due to a 'war communique' issued by Cuban Action stating that Cuban civilian planes would be attacked, and, as a result, had sought his extradition from Venezuela back to the U.S. on grounds of parole violation.

Reich's support of Bosch
Shortly after Reich presented his credentials in Venezuela in July of 1986, Bosch was absolved of the bombing in an extremely controversial action by a Venezuelan court system notorious for its venality, and was released from its jurisdiction. While former President Carlos Andres Perez has stated that there was no question that Bosch's file had been tampered with, there is no evidence directly implicating Reich in securing Bosch's exoneration. However, Reich did send numerous cables from the embassy to the State Department to try to ascertain whether it would be possible for Bosch to re-enter the U.S. To this end, Reich warned in a cable to the State Department that Bosch was a possible assassination target of some alleged Castro group, and sent a "clearance response" to the State Department in December 1987 seeking a visa for Bosch to enter the U.S., which the department promptly denied. A 1987 letter written by Bosch thanked "compatriot Otto Reich" for his support; once that letter was made public, Reich disingenuously disavowed it as "a case of Cuban-Soviet disinformation" in a September 1, 1987 cable to the State Department.

Bosch: Universal pariah
After over 30 countries refused to grant Bosch asylum because of the continued terrorist threat he posed, he managed to illegally enter the U.S. in February 1988. He was detained in Miami for parole violation and threatened with deportation by the Justice Department, which noted, "For 30 years Bosch has been resolute and unwavering in his advocacy of terrorist violence…he has repeatedly expressed and demonstrated a willingness to cause indiscriminate injury and death." Dick Thornburgh, the Republican Attorney General at the time, characterized Bosch as an "unreformed terrorist."
A crucial question still to be resolved if Reich eventually is granted a Senate hearing is why was he so involved with facilitating the entry of a convicted terrorist like Bosch into the U.S. If he continues to insist that he behaved in a thoroughly correct manner in the transaction and feels that he has nothing to hide, why does he not clear the air by soliciting the release by the State Department of germane classified documents that are likely to reveal the exact nature, if any, of his role in getting Bosch back into the U.S.? Given his dubious background, Bosch clearly presented a continued threat to this country’s national interests and security. After being released by the Venezuelans in 1987, he was on record as declaring that all of Castro's airplanes were warplanes, and that he was ready to "rejoin the struggle."
The Bosch case became a cause célèbre for the Miami Cuban-exile community, as well as the centerpiece of the election campaigns of far-right conservatives Senator Connie Mack (R-FL) and Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), whose campaign manager at that time was Jeb Bush. The New York Times reported on August 17, 1989 that Ros-Lehtinen met with President Bush to pressure him to overrule the Justice Department’s findings and secure Bosch's release. Through the maneuvering of his Miami lawyers and his pedigree political connections to extremist elements in the Miami leadership, Bosch managed to remain in the U.S. and was paroled by the Bush administration on July 18, 1990. To completely exonerate him, President Bush granted him a White House pardon just before leaving office.
While the City Commission of Miami found no problem in proclaiming an "Orlando Bosch day" in 1983, a July 20, 1990 New York Times editorial declared Bosch's release from U.S. detention "a startling example of political justice. The Justice Department, under no legal compulsion but conspicuous political pressure, has let him out, winning cheers from local politicians — and squandering American credibility on issues of terrorism." Since being released, Bosch defended the Air Cubana bombing as "a legitimate act of war," and called his sworn oath never again to engage in violence — given to the Justice Department as a condition for his release — "ridiculous" and "a farce," declaring, "They purchased the chain, but they don't have the monkey."
Reich must be made to clarify his association with this loathsome figure and help explain how Bosch strays from the metric definition of a terrorist.

The Contra dilemma: Otto Reich's hoodwinking of the American public
Otto Reich was a key player in the Iran-Contra affair as head of the Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America and the Caribbean (OPD) from 1983 until 1986. Essentially a front for the Reagan administration's propaganda campaign in Central America, the OPD employed CIA and Pentagon personnel to neutralize congressional and public opposition to the Contra war. At Reich's request, the Pentagon even provided the OPD with a detachment of specialists from the Army's Fourth Psychological Operations Group at Fort Bragg to be deployed in the propaganda war against the U.S. public. Although officially a bureau within the State Department, the OPD in reality was under the jurisdiction of Oliver North's office in the National Security Council (NSC). While Reich repeatedly has claimed that his office was in fact controlled by the State Department, and not the NSC, this allegation has been flatly contradicted by memos written by Oliver North, and by a 1985 communication to the Defense Department in which Reich described the OPD as "an inter-agency coordinating group located in the State Department, responding to NSC direction."
CIA propaganda specialist Walter Raymond had handpicked Reich in 1982 to head the OPD due to his lusty hard-line tendencies that had been well evidenced throughout his earlier career. For example, while heading the U.S. Agency for International Development's Latin American division, Reich had opposed the reopening of the University of San Salvador’s medical school in El Salvador in 1983 because it allegedly was a source of leftist political activity. Reich's refusal was in spite of a contemporary report in the New England Journal of Medicine describing a crisis in the Central American country's medical infrastructure as being due in large part to the high number of doctors who were being kidnapped and murdered by the incumbent right-wing government and its paramilitary forces.

Waging a war on public opinion
Walter Raymond had described the purpose of the OPD as "concentrat[ing] on gluing black hats on the Sandinistas and white hats on the [Contras]." The OPD, according to Raymond, was to sell the American public a "new product — Central America." In marketing their “product,” the OPD was to specialize in skullduggery, using tactics such as selectively leaking information that frequently was inaccurate (such as a bogus story portraying the Sandinistas as vehemently anti-Semitic), tarring reporters who did not convey a message clearly in favor of the Reagan administration’s area policies, and sending anti-Sandinista articles to over 1,500 college libraries and more than 100 editorial writers and religious organizations. Such an assiduously deceptive manipulation of public opinion was intended to paint the Contras as "freedom fighters," whitewashing their massive human rights abuses and the wave of terror that they were inflicting on Nicaraguan society.
According to a December 21, 1986 Miami Herald article, Reich's office was the conduit for Oliver North's dissemination of deceptive documents aimed at distorting the "Nicaraguan threat." The OPD also took advantage of a false story in 1984 about an alleged crated Soviet MiG fighter aircraft headed for Nicaragua aboard a Soviet freighter. Reich’s office staged over two dozen "background briefings" for reporters conveying the notion that MiGs were arriving in that country to support the Sandinistas. In fact, no such cargo was aboard.
One of the OPD's chief strategies for manipulating public opinion was the use of what was known as "white propaganda." Such tactics were revealed in a confidential letter entitled "white propaganda," dated March 13, 1985, from the desk of Reich deputy and confidante Jonathan Miller to Pat Buchanan, then-White House Communications Director. This letter described five recent OPD operations designed to manipulate public opinion, including plans to have Contra leader Alfonso Robelo visit with representatives of major U.S. media.
The Miller letter also details how the OPD helped prepare a segment for NBC News on the Contras that supported the administration's position and offered an example of how the office paid consultants to ghost-write op-eds and stories published in major media sources under the names of Contra leaders and various public figures. Specifically, Miller describes how an op-ed on Soviet military aid to Nicaragua, supposedly written by Professor John Guilmartin and published in the March 11, 1985 issue of The Wall Street Journal, failed to mention the fact that the author was a paid OPD consultant. The "white propaganda" letter states that Guilmartin "collaborated with our staff in the writing of this piece," but that "officially, this office had no role in its preparation." Reich later claimed in a 1989 interview that this memo was an "exaggeration," and also has stated that Miller was "just kidding" when he referred to OPD activities as "white propaganda."

Harassment of the press
Otto Reich also had a troubling history of berating reporters and editors of major media organizations, such as CBS News, when he felt they were not completely toeing the Reagan line on the Contra war. When National Public Radio's All Things Considered first investigated Contra human rights violations in 1985, Reich immediately demanded a meeting with members of NPR’s staff, informing them that his office was monitoring all of their programs and that he considered the network to be biased against the Contras and Reagan's Central American policy. Reich even went so far as to call NPR "Radio Havana on the Potomac." About this time, he also staged a meeting with U.S. journalists at the U.S. embassy in Honduras while John Negroponte was the ambassador there, and in the course of the gathering, whispered to one respected wire service journalist that the reason why the White House’s story on the Contras was not getting through to the American people was because of “communists like you.” Such vulgarizations accurately characterize the superficial and tawdry qualities of Reich’s thought processes and the arrogant, confrontational extremism of his personality.
Some of the more disturbing facets of Reich's questionable ethics are his persistent Stalinist-type contempt for press freedom, his prejudice in favor of disinformation, and his tendency to badmouth and invent compromising circumstances involving those who happen to disagree with him. For example, at a meeting that Reich had with Washington Post Nicaraguan correspondent John Lantigua and a Newsday reporter in Managua, the OPD chief accused the two journalists of having spread lies about the Contras; the reporters responded by questioning the veracity of the Reagan administration's claims to an increasingly envenomed Reich. Soon after the meeting, Lantigua was referred to as "Johnny Sandinista" in an article that appeared in the ultra-rightwing publication Accuracy in Media by Daniel James, a longtime contract propagandist for the CIA (although this little biographical tidbit about James’ background did not appear in his article).
A July 29, 1985 New York magazine story also carried the entirely concocted allegation that Lantigua was being supplied with sex slaves by the Sandinistas in exchange for his positive comments regarding the Managua authorities. At the time, Lantigua was, in reality, living with his American fiancé and was being coolly looked upon by the Sandinistas after he had written several critical stories on the FSLN. The U.S. ambassador in Nicaragua later told Lantigua that Reich had been responsible for the rumors. For his part, Reich insisted that "defectors from the Sandinista government" had been his sources for the sex slaves story, subsequently noting that "for gay reporters, there are Sandinista men…this thing is sordid," a thinly garbed reference to the Newsday reporter, who was openly gay.

Illegal business procedures
Reich’s connections to various members of Oliver North's illicit Iran-Contra network spotlight other disturbing aspects of Reich's stint at the OPD. One example involves numerous contracts the OPD signed with International Business Communications (IBC), worth almost half a million dollars. IBC was a tiny public relations and consulting organization which played a primary role in both illegally funneling money to the Contras through illicit weapon sales to Iran as well as running smear campaigns against the Reagan administration’s political adversaries, such as former Representative Michael Barnes (D-MD). Two senior officials of IBC were convicted in 1987 of defrauding the government through their fundraising work with the supposed non-profit organization, the National Endowment for the Preservation of Liberty (NEPL), which operated under Lieutenant Colonel North's guidance. The OPD was found guilty of contractual improprieties with IBC by the State Department's Inspector General, who charged Reich with failing to follow federal contracting procedures by not using competitive sealed bids, instead relying on secret, no-bid, sole source contracting.

Reich narrowly avoids incarceration
As the fallout from the Iran-Contra scandal began to accelerate, it became obvious that Reich was intricately involved in the illegal operation. An October 1987 General Accounting Office report found that the OPD had waged a covert and illegal propaganda campaign by spreading false and deceptive information designed to engender public support for the Contras. A 1987 review of the OPD by the independent Comptroller General also concluded that Reich's office had illegally utilized public funds to engage in "prohibited, covert propaganda activities designed to influence the media and the public to support the administration's Latin American policies…beyond the range of acceptable agency public information activities." The House Foreign Affairs Committee stated in a staff report, "Senior CIA officials with backgrounds in covert operations, as well as military intelligence and psychological operations specialists from the Department of Defense, were deeply involved in establishing and participating in a domestic political and propaganda operation run through an obscure bureau in the Department of State [Reich's OPD] which reported directly to the National Security Council…[and was] designed to lobby Congress, manipulate the media and influence domestic public opinion." In addition, a bipartisan report from the congressional Iran-Contra committee concluded, "in fact, 'public diplomacy' turned out to mean public relations lobbying, all at taxpayers' expense."
These various governmental reviews clearly establish that the OPD was a relatively small office in which Reich was on top of every facet of its work. In addition, the Inspector General directly cited him for disciplinary action related to his contracting procedures with IBC. Many documents that unquestionably connect Reich to illicit activities remain classified, including papers assembled by Iran-Contra special independent prosecutor Lawrence Welsh. Reich, who apparently has a sharp sense of gallows humor, has continued to deny any wrongdoing, claiming in 1987 that his office was "one of the most open operations" at the State Department. A professional investigator examining Reich's office, however, found that "there was nothing that seemed to be correct in terms of following rules and procedures."

The ethical dilemma: Otto Reich's inevitable conflict of interest
Another highly problematic aspect of the Otto Reich nomination stems from a likely conflict of interest wherein he will be unable to easily separate his role in interpreting, formulating and implementing Latin American policy from his longstanding business interests, which he previously has been handsomely paid to promote. In 1996, Reich and his OPD chum Jonathan Miller founded RMA International, a lobbying firm which came to represent corporations in the liquor, tobacco and arms industries, often with controversial products to vend in Latin America. RMA's clientele list included the British-American Tobacco Company, which has interests in reclaiming confiscated property in Cuba, and the Lockheed Martin Corporation, on behalf of which Reich successfully lobbied to end the 24-year old congressional ban on the transfer of high-technology arms to Latin America, so that his client could sell F-16 fighter aircrafts to Chile, despite protests from neighboring governments that this would ignite a regional arms race.
RMA's chief client remains the Bahamas-based Bacardi Martini, Inc., which is closely owned by an exile Cuban family whose distillery was expropriated by the Castro revolution and which has been single-mindedly involved in maintaining the 40-year old U.S. embargo against the island. According to the New York Times, Bacardi has paid RMA over $600,000 for lobbying efforts to maintain the U.S. embargo's stranglehold over the Cuban economy. While working on Bacardi’s behalf, Reich and RMA convinced Senator Mack to slip Section 211 into the 1998 Omnibus Appropriations Bill. This amendment stripped Cuba of trademark protection and allowed Bacardi to begin manufacturing Havana Club rum, which had been in production in Castro’s Cuba for years.
While Reich was able to reap a lucrative profit from his lobbying as a result of his success with Section 211, the amendment engendered fierce opposition from a number of European and Latin American nations, and led the EU to institute a proceeding against the U.S. at the WTO that could have resulted in fines to be ultimately paid by U.S. taxpayers.
Reich's recent activities outside of his RMA lobbying contract include serving as president of the U.S.-Cuba Business Council, a non-profit organization established with support from Bacardi in 1993. Since its founding, the council has received over $520,000 in USAID grants for its work in supporting the Cuban embargo, and has served as Reich's vehicle for communicating his extremist anti-Cuba stance on topics ranging from the Elián González affair to baseball. Reich also serves on the board of directors for the Center for a Free Cuba, which has received over $3 million in U.S. government funding to undermine Castro's government and to prepare for a post-Castro Cuba.
Reich played a definitive role in arranging for this raid on the U.S. treasury, and then went to work in order to press for the passage of the controversial 1996 Helms-Burton Act, which provided for grants directly benefiting his organizations. Reich is also the chairman of the Worldwide Responsible Apparel Program, widely seen as an OPD-style propaganda group which purports to be an independent sweatshop monitor, but is in reality an apparel industry front working to prevent public scrutiny of the notorious exploitation of workers employed in poor countries’ apparel industries.

Reich's role in Helms-Burton
Perhaps the most telling conflict of interest charge that Otto Reich would have to face in the assistant secretary position is related to his role in interpreting legislation which he earlier had helped to draft. Through the office of his long-time sponsor and then-Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Helms, Reich played a key part in drafting the Helms-Burton legislation, which dramatically tightened the embargo against Cuba. The controversial Title III of the act allows lawsuits by allegedly injured Cuban exile corporations to be brought against foreign companies now doing business with Cuba. While this section has become inoperative due to routine suspensions by the Bush and Clinton administrations so as not to provoke outrage from the international business community, Reich and his cronies directly profited from Helms-Burton via their lobbying connections to Bacardi. If his nomination is confirmed, Reich can be expected to aggressively lobby for the implementation of Title III, irrespective of the damage it would do to U.S. commercial relations abroad.

Otto Reich is not a consensus-builder
As the Bush administration's chief Latin American diplomat, Otto Reich would have enormous difficulties nurturing bipartisan relationships and constructing hemispheric coalitions on both trade and non-trade matters. His well-merited reputation as an unrepentant Cold War zealot would make it likely that he would try to formulate Latin American policy according to now-obsolete bipolar ideological paradigms, which are distinctly at odds with a new world order committed to building constructive coalitions of governments with differing points of view in order to deal with such banes as terrorism, environmental degradation and dramatic levels of inequality.
Issues such as Colombia's guerrilla and drug wars and the U.S. embargo on Cuba require a politically sensitive and well-nuanced approach that Reich repeatedly has demonstrated is completely alien to him. Under Reich, U.S. policy toward Colombia, for example, would likely emphasize the militarization of the war against the leftist FARC and ELN guerrillas, and be entirely unsympathetic to the torturously slow negotiation process advocated by the nation’s president. Meanwhile, it can be assumed that Reich will downplay the bloody role of the rightwing paramilitary AUC, which, in fact, has been responsible for 80 percent of all human rights violations in the country.
Reich's intransigent opposition to any loosening of economic sanctions against the Castro regime is widely seen by the international community, and even by many of his former Reagan-era colleagues, as anachronistic and increasingly at odds with the pro-normalization tendencies rapidly developing in Congress and throughout the U.S. The embargo is considered to be extremely detrimental to the Cuban people and an important reason for both the island’s economic underdevelopment and the failure of any significant evolution in the Castro government toward greater democratization.
The recent decision to relax the U.S. embargo on Cuba to permit the export of U.S. food and medicine to the hurricane-ravaged nation could have represented a dramatic step toward the normalization of relations between the two long-hostile nations. Reich's confirmation not only would indubitably harden the status quo but could also ignite a trade war with Cuba involving rum and AIDS drug patents, as Castro's understandable outrage over the Section 211 clause has culminated in the announcement that his nation will begin to produce these two products without regard to U.S. patents or copyrights.

Reich's confirmation would undermine U.S. legitimacy in the war against terrorism
Public debate on Otto Reich primarily should focus on whether he ought to be the subject of judiciary proceedings for past misdeeds, rather than the Bush administration’s nominee to be a ranking policy maker. The White House's insistence on such a divisive candidate threatens to undermine the current trend of bipartisan unity — not because of “Cold War grudges” on the part of liberal Democrats, as the White House and its media paladins insist is the case, but because of genuine concerns over Reich's profound ethical, moral and political shortcomings.
The Bush administration needs a senior Latin American policy leader in place, as pressing issues involving Colombia, Argentina, Cuba and terrorism elsewhere demand immediate attention. Given Reich’s relationship with Orlando Bosch, how can the former be looked upon as having the moral credentials to help lead the anti-terrorism effort throughout the hemisphere?
Given the repeated deceptions Reich has perpetuated against the American public, his support for a known terrorist, his multiple conflicts of interest and his extremist and confrontational nature, leading Senate Democrats are committing a patriotic act in challenging the president's nominee.

Jeremy Gans and Larry Birns, COHA research group
For additional information, see “Our Man in Little Havana” by Jason Vest in the May 25, 2001 issue of American Prospect, visit http://www.stopottoreich.org, or search http://www.coha.org for previous publications on Otto Reich.
Issued 07 January 2002

The Council on Hemispheric Affairs, founded in 1975, is an independent, non-profit, non-partisan, tax-exempt research and information organization. It has been described on the Senate floor as being “one of the nation’s most respected bodies of scholars and policy makers.” For more information, please see our web page at http://www.coha.org; or contact our Washington offices by phone (202) 216-9261, fax (202) 223-6035, or email coha@coha.org


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