Who's Who - Secretary of Defense Bill Cohen - Brief Article

Washington Monthly, Jan, 2001 by Susan Threadgill

Does Secretary of Defense Bill Cohen have a yen to join his TV star wife in show business? Recently he hobnobbed with such Hollywood luminaries as Morgan Freeman, Glenn Close, Sydney Pollack, Donald Sutherland, and Sam Waterston at a party given by the American Film Institute's George Stevens. A few days earlier, Cohen hosted a party of his own to honor the Motion Picture Association president Jack Valenti. And what a swell party k was! There were 350 guests, and the check came to $218 per person. Ninety-four military musicians were flown to Beverly Hills for the event, at a cost of $165,000. The total bill for the taxpayer: $295,000.

Our sources suspect that Cohen has more than good fellowship in mind. Valenti, who is in his late 70s, is expected to retire soon. Cohen is said to be interested in the job, which not only offers one of the largest salaries in Washington but a private movie theater and free access to all the latest flicks.

Did you know that "Madame Butterfly," aka Theresa LePore, the designer of the Palm Beach ballot that confused elderly Jewish Democrats into voting for Pat Buchanan, was once a flight attendant on a private plane owned by Adnan Khashoggi? Khashoggi, you will recall, was the Saudi millionaire who served as a middleman in the Reagan Administration's arms sales to Iran. Our contributing editor and Slate's "Chatterbox" columnist, Timothy Noah, posits that Khashoggi is linked not only to the Iran Contra and Palm Beach scandals, but to Imelda Marcos, Wedtech, BCCI, Donald Trump, and the death of Princess Di. Noah, in his delicious tongue-in-cheek posting on December 4, even succeeds in connecting the Saudi millionaire to Katharine Hepburn's endorsement of Harris Wofford's candidacy for the U.S. Senate a decade ago. At least in that case, Khashoggi was on the right side.

Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering is typical of Washingtons top law firms. The average partner made $530,000 last year. To cover all bases, it has Democrats Like Lloyd Cutler and Republicans like C. Boyden Gray. And it is dedicated to Washington's most hallowed ritual: You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. An example was unearthed by The Washington Post's Lloyd Grove, who discovered that the firm had sent out the following letter: "In the spirit of the upcoming holiday season, we are asking some of our area restaurants and shops we frequent to consider donating a gift/prize to give during our holiday party."

Richard Mellon Scaife's dedication to objective reporting, perhaps most clearly demonstrated in his financing of the American Spectator's relentless search for skeletons in Bill Clinton's closet, was again on display during the fall political campaign. The Sunday before the election, according to The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz, he ordered the paper he owns, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, to pull all pictures of Al Gore.

Speaking of conservatives, the Weekly Standards William Kristol overcame his right-wing prejudices to predict that Al Gore would win the popular vote. Other conservatives were not so successful. Ben Stein and Tony Snow each predicted Bush would win by five percent. The ladies were even more bullish about Bush, with Mary Matalin predicting he would win by eight percent and Peggy Noonan by nine.

Joe Lockhart, the former Clinton White House press secretary, has been hired by the software giant Oracle. Larry Ellison, Oracle's CEO, says "he will help us clearly and broadly communicate the benefits of e-business and e-government." In Ellison's case, this involves getting him on the cover of magazines. According to a Monthly writer who wanted to talk to him about a story, Ellison will not do an interview unless he gets the cover. It seems possible that Lockhart will be the first former White House press secretary to go to work for someone with a bigger ego than his previous boss's.

Speaking of new jobs, former diplomat J. Stapleton Roy has become managing director of Kissinger Associates, a consulting firm led by the former secretary of state. Roy resigned from the State Department to protest the disciplining of six members of his bureau of intelligence and research staff over the loss of a laptop computer containing top-secret information. Kissinger didn't take such an indulgent view of security lapses during his service in the Nixon administration, where his constant bellyaching about leaks was one of the main reasons the White House Plumbers were formed.

James Rogan, the California Republican Congressman who was one of the leaders of the movement to impeach Bill Clinton and who was defeated in the November election, was recently observed by one of Al Kamen's sources lunching at McCormick & Schmick's restaurant with Edward Newberry, a partner at Patton Boggs, the firm of legendary Democratic lobbyist Tommy Boggs. "It's always terrific to get a good lawyer," says Newberry. And it's also good for a Democratic firm to have a well-connected Republican.

Two anecdotes from November 7 that may shed light on the objectivity of two important institutions, Fox News and the Supreme Court (curious, isn't it, how the two go together in one's mind?):