Published on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 by David Corn

John Bolton: Ally of CIA-linked Drugrunners

by David Corn John Bolton is a bad penny. He keeps coming back. As I've written before, there are plenty of reasons why he's a horrible pick to be US ambassador to the United Nations. Even if you believe the UN needs reform, you don't send a pyromaniac to fix a house of sticks. Beyond his UN-bashing, Bolton has not just been extreme in his foreign policy views, he has been wrong and reckless: accusing Cuba of developing biological weapons and Syria of posing a serious WMD threat without proof. (The CIA felt obliged to block him from testifying before Congress on Syria and WMDs.) He also has had his brushes with scandal, receiving money from a political slush fund in Taiwan and advocating for Taiwan in congressional testimony (when he was not in government) without revealing he was paid by a Taiwanese entity to write policy papers for it. (He might have even broken the law by failing to register as a foreign agent.) Recently 59 former US ambassadors signed a letter opposing Bolton's nomination as ambassador to the UN; fortysix of these ambassadors served in Republican administrations. (For a full text of the letter, click here.) Now, an alert reader has uncovered more information critical of Bolton. It just happens to be something I wrote with Jefferson Morley for The Nation sixteen years ago--a column which had totally escaped my aging mind. Readers over the age of 40 might recall that in the late 1980s, there was a fierce fight pitting the Reagan and Bush I administrations against a few gutsy Democrats in Congress--Senator John Kerry among them-who were trying to investigate allegations that supporters of the Reagan-backed contra rebels in Central America were involved in drugrunning. Rather than cooperate in the search for truth, Reagan and Bush I officials withheld documents from the Democrats. They also badmouthed the investigations and did all they could to marginalize these inquiries as nothing but partisan-driven efforts of conspiracy-minded wingnuts. And, to a degree, the GOP obstructionists succeeded. The Iran-contra committees stayed away from the matter. The report produced by Kerry's subcommittee--which concluded there was evidence that supporters of the CIA-assisted contras were drug smugglers--received little media attention. Yet years later, the CIA's own inspector general released two reports that acknowledged the CIA had knowingly worked with contra supporters suspected of drugrunning. Kerry and the others had been right. But the sly spinners of the Reagan-Bush administrations had succeeded in preventing the contra drug connection from becoming a full-blown scandal. And who was one of the Reagan/Bush officials who strove to thwart Kerry and other pursuers of this politically inconvenient truth? By now you have guessed it: John Bolton. Read on: From Meese to the UN; John Bolton, nominee for Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs The Nation, April 17, 1989 By David Corn and Jefferson Morley The Senate Foreign Relations Committee should take a good look at John Bolton, the nominee for Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs, a position in which he would, among other things, act as a liaison between the US government and the UN. Currently Assistant AG in the Justice Department's civil division, Bolton was known to be one of Edwin Meese 3rd's most loyal lieutenants. At Justice, Bolton developed a reputation for combativeness. When he attacked the independent counsel law, even a White House spokesman accused him of being intemperate. Bolton's record as Assistant AG for the Office of Legislative Affairs in 1986 and 1987 merits special scrutiny. He "tried to torpedo" Sen. John Kerry's inquiry into allegations of contra drug smuggling and gunrunning, a committee aide says. When Kerry requested information from the Justice Department,

Bolton's office gave it the long stall, a Kerry aide notes. In fact, says another Congressional aide, Bolton's staff worked actively with the Republican senators who opposed Kerry's efforts. In 1986 this chum of Meese also refused to give Peter Rodino, then chair of he House Judiciary Committee, documents concerning the Iran/contra scandal and Meese's involvement in it, Later, when Congressional investigators were probing charges that the Justice Department had delayed an inquiry into gunrunning to the contras, Bolton was again the spoiler. According to Hayden Gregory, chief counsel of a House Judiciary subcommittee on crime, Bolton blocked an arrangement by which his staff had agreed to let House investigators interview officials of the US Attorney's office in Miami. Bolton refused to speak to us on the subject. Last year Legal Times reported that Bolton, who earned $330,000 in 1984 as a partner at a blue-blood DC law firm, had contacted several private firms hoping to parlay his government experience into a lucrative lobbying job. None were interested in a tainted Meese disciple. Fortunately for him, George Bush and James Baker are less discriminating. That article is a blast from the past. But Bolton's truth-smothering endeavors back then are consistent with his subsequent career. He has been an ideological hatchet man, saying whatever he needs to say (whether it's true or not) to press forward his hawkish agenda. Back in the 1980s, he blocked inquiries into the CIA's involvement with drug runners. Now he complains about corruption at the UN and claims to be a force for truth and reform. As a cynical and partisan situationalist who poses as a frank and blunt idealist, he does indeed represent the Bush administration. But the nation deserves better representation at the UN. 2005 David Corn

Bolton involved in reagan drug running contras { March 9 2005 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active) http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12487881^2703,00.html http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12487881^2703,00.html Dismay as US sends hawk to UN David Nason, New York correspondent March 09, 2005 THE shock appointment of hardline neo-conservative John Bolton as US ambassador to the UN stunned the diplomatic community yesterday and raised questions about George W. Bush's

commitment to work constructively for reform of the world body in its 60th anniversary year. Known as a "hawk's hawk", Mr Bolton, the tough-on-terrorism undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, has been an architect of US policy in Iraq and is a notorious UNbasher. The Yale-educated lawyer has urged starving the UN of funds, led the fight against a UN-mandated international criminal court and once said "it wouldn't make a bit of difference" if the UN secretariat building in New York "lost" 10 of its 38 storeys. His appointment must be ratified by the US Senate, where there is sure to be some opposition. "Why would (President Bush) choose someone who has expressed such disdain for working with our allies?," said Senator John Kerry, who lost last year's election to Mr Bush. Announcing the appointment in Washington, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Mr Bolton, 56, was "personally committed" to the UN's success and had a "proven track record of effective multilateralism". "The President and I have asked John to do this work because he knows how to get things done," Dr Rice said. "He is a tough-minded diplomat (and) will be a strong voice for reform at a time when the UN has begun to reform itself to help meet the challenging agenda before the international community." The appointment was welcomed by Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, whom Mr Bolton reportedly wanted to recruit earlier this year to head the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Enegy Agency. "Mr Bolton is a good friend of Mr Downer's and a good friend of Australia," a spokesman said. "He is a highly competent and effective diplomat." But Mr Bolton, who keeps a model hand-grenade on a table in his office and who counts his work on the 1991 repeal of a UN General Assembly resolution equating Zionism with racism as a career highlight, did nothing yesterday to allay concerns about his aggressive, doctrinaire approach to diplomacy. The UN, he said, "requires American leadership to achieve successful reform". That aroused instant dismay at the UN, where negotiations are in progress for an ambitious program of reform to be put before a world leaders' summit in September. The specifics of the reform agenda will be spelt out in a report by Secretary-General Kofi Annan later this month.

But there are fears that any US attempt to bully the negotiations will encourage perceptions that the UN is an instrument of US foreign policy, and see the opportunity for reform slip away. Mr Annan is scheduled to mark this week's anniversary of the Madrid terrorist bombings with a speech calling for greater UN action in cracking down on terrorism. The speech now runs the risk of being seen as a direct response to Mr Bolton's appointment. But Mr Bolton will be less pleased with the UN Security Council, which will vote this week for a beefed-up presence in the Sudan, in a resolution expected to again raise the thorny issue of an international criminal court to prosecute those responsible for abuses in Darfur. Mr Bolton, whose reddish hair is offset by an unusual grey moustache, is a protege of Bush family ally James Baker, who was Ronald Reagan's secretary of state. During the Reagan years he supported the right-wing Nicaraguan contras and was involved in frustrating the efforts of Senator Kerry to investigate gun running to the contras.

John Bolton & the Battle for Reality By Robert Parry April 19, 2005 The John Bolton nomination battle is one of those rare moments when a window has opened onto how the U.S. public was rushed into war with Iraq and, in a larger sense, how conservatives seized control over the flow of information that shapes policy. Bolton may be as former State Department intelligence chief Carl Ford Jr. said a quintessential kissup, kick-down kind of guy who bullies those below him who come up with inconvenient facts. But Boltons abusive tendencies are not just a personality flaw; they are part of a broader political strategy. Since his early days as a protg of Sen. Jesse Helms, Bolton was part of a new aggressive breed of conservatives, who came of age during the Vietnam War and who thus understand the importance of keeping a lid on public dissent. In practical terms, that means influencing or controlling what the public perceives as reality, often exaggerating threats to stampede the people in a desired direction. That need to manage information, in turn, requires discrediting individuals who can effectively challenge the factual constraints. Switching Points

This concept of directing the national debate by controlling the switching points of information particularly in the intelligence community and the news media gained powerful momentum during Ronald Reagans presidency. Within the intelligence community, Reagans CIA Director William Casey oversaw the politicization of intelligence. He and his subordinates berated, demoted and fired analysts who didnt share Caseys conviction that Moscow was behind virtually all the worlds terrorism or who doubted the Rights certitude that the Soviet Union was a rapidly growing threat, not a nation in serious decline. [For details on these behind-the-scenes intelligence battles, see Robert Parrys Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq.] Meanwhile, Reagan authorized a parallel project that took aim at the national press corps. Called public diplomacy or perception management, this media strategy dispatched teams of government officials to news rooms around Washington to browbeat editors and bureau chiefs into reassigning or firing reporters who challenged administration claims about Central America and other hot spots. A key figure in those media operations of the 1980s was Cuban exile Otto Reich, who ran the State Departments public diplomacy office on Central America. In one memo, Reich said his office has played a key role in setting out the parameters and defining the terms of the public discussion on Central America policy. In another memo, Reich said he was taking a very aggressive posture vis--vis a sometimes hostile press and his office did not give the critics of the policy any quarter in the debate. The attacks on reporters included spreading rumors about their sex lives. [For details on this hardball media strategy, see Parrys Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & Project Truth.] Teamed with Bolton Reich has now reemerged as a figure in Boltons alleged bullying of subordinates over an intelligence assessment in 2002. Bolton, as an undersecretary of state, and Reich, as assistant secretary of state for Latin America, teamed up to pressure WMD intelligence analysts to sharpen or some might say, hype accusations that Cuba was developing biological weapons. In the post-Sept. 11 climate, this alarmist intelligence was a sure bet to raise Fidel Castros Cuba as a more urgent priority for regime change. But intelligence analysts objected to what they saw as Boltons exaggeration of the evidence, forcing Bolton to tone down his warnings. Furious at the interference, Bolton sought to have one CIA analyst, Fulton T. Armstrong, reassigned, according to Boltons Senate testimony. Bolton was joined in that effort by Otto Reich. In an interview with the New York Times, Reich justified the targeting of Armstrong on the grounds the analyst gave the benefit of the doubt on human rights violations and security issues to left-wing governments, such as those in Cuba and Venezuela. Reminiscent of the rhetoric used to discredit journalists in the 1980s, Reich now a private business consultant said Armstrongs supposedly leftist political views colored his intelligence judgment.

[NYT, April 17, 2005] Only the intervention of CIA deputy director John McLaughlin saved Armstrongs job, according to intelligence officials cited by the Times [NYT, April 16, 2005] Though Armstrong wasnt fired, his experience reminded the intelligence community of the career danger of challenging the administrations ideological judgments. Faced with this pressure, many intelligence analysts or journalists simply bend their assessments to fit with the administrations desires. On the surface, such compromises can be justified because often the available information is not entirely clear. So, its much safer to err on the side of the administrations preconceptions. But an honest analyst or reporter will only go so far, which is where the bullying starts. 'Serial Abuser' As Salon.com columnist Sidney Blumenthal noted, the Bolton hearings have finally given the American people a glimpse of how the Bush administrations political leadership has been systematically browbeating and threatening the intelligence community to drive ideological conclusions. [Salon.com, April 14, 2005] Testifying on Boltons nomination to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Carl Ford, a former assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Bolton was a serial abuser of intelligence analysts and stands out as someone who abuses his power with little people. Ford, himself a conservative Republican, said Boltons behavior was so extreme that it led Secretary of State Colin Powell to address the State Departments intelligence analysts and assure employees that they should continue to speak truth to power. [NYT, April 13, 2005] But the reality in government agencies, the news media and most other professions is that the vast majority of people will speak truth to power only if they have some confidence that they wont be punished. When lower-ranking officials see their protectors like Powell pushed out of government and the abusers like Bolton getting promoted, its only logical to expect that fewer and fewer intelligence analysts will put themselves in harms way. The consequence is almost certain to be more bad intelligence from the government. Bad information, in turn, leads to misguided policy and then innocent people get hurt. In the case of Iraq, the Bush administrations mistaken WMD judgments have led to the deaths of more than 1,500 U.S. soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis.

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His new book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.'