By Robert Novak Sun-Times Columnist.
Chicago Sun-Times, June 25, 2001.
Fidel Castro seldom gets involved in the U.S. Senate's confirmation process,
but he is this year. His target is the appointee of President Bush who is most
likely to be rejected. The imperiled nomination: Otto Reich to be assistant
secretary of state for inter-American affairs. Nobody questions Reich's
competence or experience, which includes Reagan administration service as head
of Latin American aid and ambassador to Venezuela. Castro, American leftists and
liberal Democratic senators all target him for the same reason. Reich is an
anti-Castro Cuban American and a doughty crusader against Marxist revolution in
the Western Hemisphere.
His fate poses opposite tests within Washington's divided government. Shall
the newly dominant Senate Democrats flex their muscles to rid themselves of
somebody they detest because of what he stands for? Shall the president throw
Reich overboard to appease the new masters of the Senate?
Reich's nomination set off alarm bells in Havana the moment it was
announced. Castro himself set the pattern, calling Reich ''a nasty person with a
fascist mentality.'' The Cuban dictator's hand-picked National Assembly
president, Ricardo Alarcon, played with words to accuse Bush of trying ''to
impose a kind of Third Reich in Latin America.'' Reich is ''a member of Miami's
anti-Castro Mafia,'' Alarcon added, and ''a notorious character throughout the
Iran-contra operation.''
The Cubans are not the only foreigners to interfere with Senate
confirmation. Oscar Arias, former Costa Rican president and Nobel Peace
laureate, delivered an assault on Reich in a Los Angeles Times article (''A
Nominee Who Stands for War''). This appointment, Arias contended, exalts
''hard-line ideology over flexibility and bipartisanship.'' He brazenly demanded
that Bush ''find another candidate for the job.''
Arias' bill of particulars against Reich is a watered-down version of wild
attacks by the Nation magazine and other left-wing sources on Capitol Hill.
Republican senators see the hand of Janice O'Connell, longtime foreign relations
aide to Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd (who is launching a campaign for better
U.S. relations with Castro).
Such disparate anti-Reich sources as Castro, Arias and O'Connell share a
common animosity. They cannot forgive Reich for his persistent Reagan
administration role in keeping the contras alive, assuring the ultimate fall of
Nicaragua's Marxist dictatorship. Arias specifically bemoans Reich's
''allegiance to the Reagan administration's hard-line policies toward Central
America.''
The assault by the Cuban Communists is particularly noxious in its fascist
and Nazi name-calling. Reich's father, an Austrian Jew, fled Hitler's Anschluss
in 1938 for Cuba, where Otto was born. His grandparents died in the Holocaust.
Arias was just as far off the mark. He said that Reich successfully lobbied
the Clinton administration on behalf of Lockheed Martin to permit the sale of
F-16 warplanes to Chile; in fact, Reich did not go to work for the company until
after the ban on high grade weaponry had been lifted. Contrary to Arias, Reich
never was even accused of wrongdoing in supporting the contras under Reagan.
The settling of old scores on Nicaragua also has targeted John Negroponte,
Bush's nominee as ambassador to the United Nations. While an active Contra
supporter as ambassador to Honduras in the '80s, Negroponte is a less inviting
target than Reich.
One influential conservative Republican senator thinks Reich may be the
sacrificial lamb to appease Senate Democrats. He notes that Secretary of State
Colin Powell, on Fox News June 17, lavishly praised Negroponte but said nothing
about Reich. The explanation may be that Powell was asked about Negroponte but
not Reich. A recent meeting between White House aides and Senate GOP staffers
agreed there should be a vigorous effort on Reich's behalf. Veteran Republican
operative Tom Korologos was asked last week to add Reich to the pack of Bush
nominees he is shepherding.
George W. Bush may be underestimated again, this time by his own
conservative base. Naming Reich to head Latin American policy was an act of
solidarity with Reaganism. That Castro targeted Reich validates the choice.
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