June 29, 2004, 9:10 a.m.
Dirty Wars
The campaign against Reagan’s men — and W.’s — controversial nominations by President Bush.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This article appeared in the June 25, 2001, issue of National Review.

The Cold War in Central America will soon be refought in Congress, thanks to President Bush's selection of a slew of Reaganites for key foreign-policy positions. The refighting is already on, actually; certainly the Left, broadly defined, has been campaigning against these choices for several months. The arguments are much the same as they were in the 1980s: Did President Reagan act rightly in Central America? Did his men? Many of the players are the same as well: not only the Reaganites, but left-leaning senators such as Christopher Dodd and John Kerry, and leftist and leftish reporters and editorialists. The tactics are the same, too, with liberal smearing of the Reagan men, as lovers of war and enemies of human rights. Many in Washington are uttering the old line, "It's deja vu all over again." The battles in Congress will be, at base, battles over recent history: Who proved right in Central America?

The two nominations that will be most strongly contested are that of John Negroponte, to be U.N. ambassador, and that of Otto Reich, to be assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere. The betting is that the Left (again, broadly defined) will not be able to stop Negroponte; instead, they will Ashcroft him, roughing him up, tarnishing his reputation, sending a message. Reich is the nominee they really want to take down, the "human sacrifice," as one insider puts it, that they think is their due, particularly now that the Senate has gone Democratic. The administration is confident that both men will be confirmed, if after some pain. For one thing, Negroponte and Reich are competent and seasoned men. For another, they reflect precisely what the president wishes to do-a point the White House can be expected to stress.

Negroponte, of Greek descent, served almost 40 years in the Foreign Service, holding three ambassadorships in that period: In 1981, Reagan sent him to Honduras; in 1989, the first President Bush sent him to Mexico (and he was confirmed, by the way, unanimously); in 1993, President Clinton sent him to the Philippines. He also served as an assistant secretary to George Shultz at the State Department and as a deputy to Colin Powell on the National Security Council staff. Most of those who know him, or are familiar with his work, view him as-to use the favorite cliche-"the consummate professional," one with a particularly clear mind.

The trouble over Negroponte, of course, has to do with his tenure in Honduras. He stands accused of ignoring right-wing abuses, and even of abetting them, and covering them up. One of the nicer things that have been said about him is that he was "a zealous anti-Communist crusader." (This was a mot from In These Times.) An editor at the Los Angeles Times, which has been doing a good deal of crusading of its own, against both Negroponte and Otto Reich, has labeled Negroponte a "warmed-over Contra paymaster." The ex-ambassador's supporters, meanwhile, say that he made the best of an extraordinarily difficult situation, helping to pave the way for democracy and holding off both the Communists and the right-wingers. Honduras, like every other country in Central America, is now democratic-a prospect that not so long ago seemed dim. Negroponte defends Reagan policy in the region robustly.

Ex-secretary Shultz is one who is keenly interested in the success of this nomination. He wrote a letter to the L.A. Times in defense of Negroponte, which the paper declined to publish. Shultz feels that his old colleague is exactly what is needed at the U.N. now. Alluding to recent events there, he remarks, "You better believe that John Negroponte would not get blindsided by anybody. He's too smart for that. It's not a question of left, right, middle. It's whether we want someone skillful to represent the United States." And if the Democrats in Congress want to turn the nomination into a debate over Reagan's policy? "Let 'em," says Shultz. "There are a lot of positive things to be said. You go to a country and not everything that happens there is your fault, but you do your best and you work toward democracy, which John did, superbly. If this is a nomination they want to fight over, okay, let's fight. I think that Colin [Powell] and the president and everybody should be determined to take it all the way, to go to bat for the guy. Don't let it lie unattended for too long. Let's examine this, and let's do it promptly."

A spokesman for Sen. Joe Biden, incoming chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee (replacing Jesse Helms), says that the panel is waiting for additional materials concerning Negroponte to come from the executive branch. Sources inside the administration say that it is the committee that needs to get moving. Several Hill insiders speculate that the Democrats will sit on the nomination for as long as it is advantageous to them. Sources at the White House, meanwhile, say that the administration will stand by Negroponte, firmly, for as long as it takes.

They say exactly the same thing about Otto Reich. The Democrats are licking their chops over him, however, thinking him dead meat. They feel entitled to a kill, and this is it. But Republicans, both in the administration and on the Hill, are optimistic. They believe that once Reich has a chance to confront the antagonism against him, he will be confirmed. There are a bundle of phony charges against Reich-about which more in a moment-but the nub of it seems to be that he is a staunch Reaganite, and a Cuban-American one at that. The Boston Globe, in a typical comment, editorialized that Reich is "wedded to retrograde anti-Castro policies." In These Times headed a piece, "Yikes! It's Otto Reich." There is, inevitably, a "stopottoreich.org," sponsored by the hard-Left and utterly dishonest Institute for Policy Studies. The demonization of Reich is well under way.

So, who is this Cuban-American monster? What's more, if he is a Cuban-American, why is his name Otto Reich? Reich's father, Walter Reich, was an Austrian Jew who fled Nazism, fought in the French Foreign Legion, and eventually found haven in Cuba. He was unable to get his parents out; they met the usual fate. He soon married a Cuban girl, and, in 1959, the entire family cheered the fall of the Batista dictatorship and the triumph of the Castro-led revolution. Before long, however, Castro revealed his true colors and intentions, and Walter Reich felt that he had heard and seen it all before. He ran again, this time to the United States, with his family in tow. Otto Reich was 14. This background seems obviously the basis of his worldview, which is not merely anti-Communist but anti-tyranny. This ought to be remembered when Reich is tarred as a brown-shirted thug without regard for human rights. (Castro's propagandists have already had a little fun with his name: Reich.)

After Reagan's election, Reich was named Latin America director of the Agency for International Development. As the decade wore on, the Central American conflicts got hotter, and Reagan grew ever more frustrated that the United States was losing the "propaganda war." So he ordered the creation of an Office of Public Diplomacy in the State Department, whose mission was (in short) to counter misinformation and the more pernicious disinformation (ah, even the terms return). The head of this unit was Reich. While there, he tangled repeatedly with the media-National Public Radio, the New York Times, and CBS prominent among them — seeking to correct their mistakes. Many of the very reporters he tangled with, and embarrassed, are writing about him now, in a predictable vein. There seems to be an element of payback here.

In 1986, Reagan named Reich ambassador to Venezuela, where, by every reasonable account, he distinguished himself. Five years later, under the administration of Bush the Elder, he went to Geneva as a representative (unpaid) to the U.N. Human Rights Commission. Since that time, he has been a private consultant and lobbyist.

The charges against Reich are many and wild, and we will take from them the main ones. He is accused, for instance, of being an Iran-Contra figure. This is a stretch, to say the least. Controversy has been attached to his name because, at the Office of Public Diplomacy, a subordinate sent an unauthorized, uncleared, and untrue memo to White House communications director Patrick J. Buchanan. This memo was full of braggadocio about the office's doings; it claimed, among other things, that the office had "placed" three opinion pieces in major U.S. newspapers, a prohibited activity. This was nonsense — but it was embarrassing nonsense when the memo came to light during the Iran-Contra investigation. The General Accounting Office, without talking to Reich or any other senior person, declared that the public-diplomacy office had abused its trust. The Reich camp believes this problem is easily batted away.

Another charge is that Reich, while ambassador to Venezuela, acted to get the (right-wing) terrorist Orlando Bosch into the United States. In fact, Reich had nothing whatsoever to do with the Bosch case — except to protest the decision of Caracas to ship Bosch to Miami without consulting American officials, and to warn the Venezuelans that they should be prepared to accept Bosch back if Washington decided to extradite him.

It is further charged that Reich was a mover behind the Helms-Burton Act, for the purpose of benefiting his private clients, in particular Bacardi, the liquor company. (Helms-Burton allows U.S. nationals to sue those who profit from properties confiscated by the Castro regime.) The Boston Globe, among others, has even gone so far as to dub Reich "an architect" of Helms-Burton. In reality, Reich testified in favor of the act — many others testified too, both for and against — but he did not lobby for its passage, and played no role at all in its drafting. Moreover, Reich did not begin lobbying for Bacardi until after the legislation was passed. Beyond that, his lobbying was unrelated to Helms-Burton, but rather involved a trademark dispute. Beyond that, Bacardi actually declined an opportunity to take advantage of its rights under the new law, despite being asked by the State Department to do so.

Then there is the matter of Lockheed Martin and planes to Chile. Many different publications, including ones that should know better, have alleged that Reich had a hand in overturning a longstanding ban on the sale of advanced military aircraft to Latin American countries. Reich is said to have done so to benefit another client, Lockheed Martin. The truth is, President Clinton overturned this ban in 1997, without any help from Otto Reich — and it was not until the following year that Reich signed on as a consultant to Lockheed, which sought to sell aircraft to Chile and wanted advice on political conditions in that country.

The assault on Reich should be a scandal, but Democrats are hoping it will work its poison. A group of them on the Hill is meeting regularly to plot Reich's defeat. Some Democrats predict that Bush will have to withdraw Reich's nomination, or that it will be delayed for so long that the nominee himself, exasperated, will simply drop out. This looks unlikely. Reich supporters note the presence on the Foreign Relations Committee of two Democrats who may well back the nominee: Bill Nelson of Florida (because he is from Florida) and Bob Torricelli of New Jersey, whose state includes many Cuban-Americans and who throughout his career has been anti-Castro. But then there are Chris Dodd and John Kerry, whose opposition will probably be die-hard. They were known in the 1980s for their huddles with the Sandinistas and for their warnings that Reagan would turn Central America into a big Vietnam, with the United States hopelessly and immorally mired. The Negroponte and Reich nominations will certainly see a personal element, and the drama of revisionism.

Many conservatives, for their part, are amazed and dazzled at what George W. Bush has done, or is planning to do, on Latin America. When it comes to personnel, says one surprised and admiring insider, the administration is "showing no fear." It does not end with Negroponte and Reich — Elliott Abrams, a Reagan assistant secretary of state for Latin America (and a National Review contributing editor), is joining the National Security Council staff. Roger Noriega, Jesse Helms's chief aide on Latin America, is set to be ambassador to the Organization of American States. Daniel Fisk, who was Noriega's predecessor as Helms's Latin America aide, is expected to serve in the Defense or State Department. And then there is a man whose name is ripe for lowest mischief: Adolfo Franco. He is a Cuban-American who is to have Otto Reich's job of 20 years ago, Latin America director for AID.

All of these men are cut from the same cloth. They are, to use the most convenient shorthand, Reaganites. They believe that the Reagan approach in Central America was amply vindicated. The Left, obviously — at least publicly — disagrees. Resentment and self-justification linger. Which side of the American debate in fact proved correct? That, again, will be the underlying question as the battles over Reagan's, now George W. Bush's, men proceed.

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