CURRENT UPDATES: April 9, 2001

OTTO J. REICH: BAD FOR LATIN AMERICA

George W. Bush has chosen Otto J. Reich as Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs.

On the surface Reich is perfect for the job. His resume is impeccable. He has a long record of public service and extensive experience in Latin America. From 1981 to 1983, Reich worked with U.S. AID, in charge of economic assistance to Latin America and the Caribbean. Then, as a Special Advisor to the Secretary of State from 1983 to 1986, he established and managed the Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America. He spent the next three years as Ambassador to Venezuela. In 1991 to 1992, Reich served as the Deputy U.S. Representative to the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva. Moving back into the private sector, he established RMA International, a lobbying firm, and is currently a Director of the Center for a Free Cuba; a Trustee of Freedom House; and Vice Chairman of the Advisory Committee of the Americas Program and Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

But, a deeper look reveals that he is perfect for the job only if Bush wants to push U.S.-Latin American relations back into the murky pool of the Reagan era-- the Contra Wars, the demonization of Castro and a blank check for U.S. intervention.

When Reich ran the so-called Office of Public Diplomacy, his definition of diplomacy was telling lies and sending guns. In 1987, the General Accounting Office concluded that Reich had engaged in "prohibited covert propaganda activities" against the Sandinista government of Nicaragua while promoting the cause of the Contra rebels. In its first year alone, the office "booked more than 1,500 speaking engagements, including radio, television and editorial board interviews; published three books on Nicaragua; distributed material to 1,600 college libraries, 520 political science professors, 122 editorial writers and 107 religious organizations," according to their own report.

One example of the work of the Office of Public Diplomacy was an ad placed in newspapers around the country that showed a young man with a machine gun beneath the headline, "53 cents per day supports a freedom fighter." The ad, paid for by the College Republicans, featured a letter from a "Nicaraguan counter communist, a Contra, a freedom fighter," who wrote, "I have taken up arms against the Soviet Empire and its satellite government in Nicaragua and I need your help" and included a tear sheet to send money to "Send Democracy Around the World and Save the Contras."

Reich also spent a lot of time meeting with members of the press. In a memo to President Reagan, Secretary of State George Shultz recounts Reich's response to a CBS two part documentary on the Salvadoran guerrillas called "Behind Rebel Lines." Shultz described the documentary as presenting an "unfavorable" and "deceptive image" that was "favorable to the guerrillas and distorting of U.S. and El Salvadoran government goals and tactics" in the days leading up to the March 25, 1984 Salvadoran elections. Reich met with the producers and Washington Bureau Chief of CBS to tell them "they are not illustrating to the American people an accurate picture of what is happening in Central America."

Reich, a Cuban-American whose family fled when Castro came to power has been described as suffering from "doctrinal sclerosis." An ardent anti-Communist, he compared playing baseball in Cuba to "playing soccer in Auschwitz."

Reich would return to the State Department from a position as the president of an Arlington, VA based lobbying firm, RMA International, whose clients include liquor, tobacco and arms firms. Reich lobbies on behalf of F-16s sales to Chile for Lockheed Martin. Reich, the architect of the regressive 1998 Helms-Burton act, has also been rewarded with a $600,000 consulting fee by his client Barcardi-Martini, which can sue its competitors for doing business in Cuba under Helms-Burton.

Otto Reich, in his capacity as Co-Chair of the Center for Strategic and International Studies Americas Forum, recently released a report outlining Presidential Priorities and Opportunities in the Americas. This collection of free trade prognostications lays out U.S. policy towards Latin America. While it claims to be envisioning the coming "Century of the Americas" it is basically a reassertion of the Monroe Doctrine. And in the State Department, Reich will be well placed to carry it out.

George W. Bush has emphasized relations with Latin America, our "neighbors to the South." He drove that home by choosing Mexico as the site of his first international trip as President. In the last decade U.S. Cuban relations have enjoyed a considerable warming, and with a billion dollars in military aid to Colombia, Latin America is back on the front burner. This is a dangerous time for Cold War jingoism. As the Center for International Policy has noted, "Reich is the wrong man, with the wrong instincts, pursuing the wrong interests, at the wrong time."

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Center for International Policy Talking Points

The National Security Archive's Public Diplomacy and Covert Propaganda: The Declassified Record of Ambassador Otto J. Reich, March 2, 2001.

The Western Hemisphere: An American Policy Priority. Presidential Priorities and Opportunities in the Americas, a report from the Americas Forum, January 8, 2001. Co-Chaired by Senior Associate Otto J. Reich.

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