Dirty Wars: The campaign against Reagan's men - and W.'s - controversial nominations by President Bush

National Review, June 25, 2001 by Jay Nordlinger

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.