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Travels with Bill
W
hen I was in the White House President
Carter had charged me with finding ways to begin a dialogue with
the various countries with which the US did not have diplomatic
relations. In most instances, Cuba, Angola, Iraq, and South
Africa, this amounted to medical diplomacy initiating various
forms of medical collaboration. With Outer Mongolia we began a
dialogue about wild life management. With North Korea I was
unable to get them to collaborate on anything. This experience
prepared me well for a number of initiatives undertaken with
Congressman Bill Richardson in the mid-nineties during the
Clinton administration.
IRAQ
Bill Richardson, then a little known congressman, first contacted me
in 1995 to learn about the clandestine trip I had made to visit the
opium warlord, Khun Sa, in the Shan States of Burma. A few months
earlier he had met with Aung San Suu Kyi in Rangoon (Yangon). At a
time when it was hard to get anyone in the Clinton administration to
pay attention to Burma, we struck up a friendship. In the meantime
Bill Richardson had found himself in North Korea at a time when two
US helicopter pilots were shot down and captured. He skillfully
negotiated their release. Buoyed by this success he called to ask
whether, because my wife, Mary King, had been, prior to the first
Gulf War, executive director of the US-Iraq Business Forum, we could
help him negotiate the release of two Americans, David Daliberti and
Bill Barloon, who had crossed the border from Kuwait and were now in
the Abu Ghuraib prison near Baghdad. Mary had also worked during and
after the war for ABC television and knew most of the major leaders
in the country including Saddam Hussein. I discussed the situation
with Nizar Hamdoun, Iraq’s ambassador at the UN who had previously
been their man in Washington and with whom we had been friends for
ten years. Nizar was not optimistic, but as a personal favor to Mary
and me and because I stressed Richardson’s closeness to President
Bill Clinton, he agreed to float the notion in Baghdad. To our
surprise, and his, a few weeks later he was authorized to enter into
negotiations over the release of the two men. These discussions
dragged on for three months but eventually a deal was struck. As
part of the agreement the Iraqis insisted that Bill Richardson fly
to Baghdad to meet with Saddam Hussein and formally ask for the
prisoner release. Still somewhat dubious about Bill Richardson they
also wanted the reassurance of having Mary and me accompany him. The
fourth member of our team was Calvin Humphrey, staff member of the
House Intelligence Committee on which Richardson served.
We flew to Amman and then drove nine hours across the desert to
Baghdad (there was a no-fly zone in southern Iraq.) We met that
evening with Tariq Aziz, the deputy prime minister and someone Mary
and I had also known for several years. At ten o’clock the next
morning we were driven to one of the presidential palaces and
ushered past an array of guards and sentries dressed in flamboyant
traditional Iraqi costumes. Saddam Hussein and Tariq Aziz greeted us
along with eight to ten aides and security people most of whom sat
in a row against the wall while the meeting took place. We sat, not
at a table, but around a large carpeted area. A big man, Bill
Richardson overflowed the modest chair at the start of the meeting.
One arm was over the back and his legs were crossed. Suddenly Saddam
got up and left the room. A nervous aide quickly explained that this
was a formal audience. Bill’s lounging posture was disrespectful and
unacceptable. With Richardson’s feet firmly planted on the floor
Saddam returned. Bill’s charm and friendly style quickly melted
whatever offense Saddam had taken. The Iraqi leader then gave an
interesting and thoughtful thirty-minute review of US/Iraqi
relations over the previous twenty years, coming perilously close to
saying his invasion of Kuwait had been a mistake. At the crucial
moment he stopped and said “Well, that’s another story.”
Part of the deal for the prisoner release was that we would visit
the Saddam Hussein Children’s hospital to see the “terrible” impact
of the US embargo on the sick children of Iraq. Their hope was that
we would make a statement against the embargo that they could use.
The hospital was indeed short of supplies and equipment and many of
the children were badly malnourished. However, unlike the US embargo
including food and medicine against Cuba which for thirty years had
inflicted real suffering on the sick and disadvantaged of that
country, a provision of the embargo against Iraq allowed for oil
revenues to be used to purchase food and medicine for the people. If
they were not getting it, it was because the money was being
siphoned off by the regime for other purposes. We were not willing
to play along with their propaganda goals.
We went to what had been the US embassy now occupied by Ryszard
Krystosik, the Polish diplomat handling US affairs. He magically
produced two bottles of Veuve Clichot and sent out for pizza. A few
minutes later an Iraqi government car arrived and out stepped
Barloon and Daliberti. They had no idea what was happening to them
and had not a clue who we were. Richardson explained our role and
that he was a member of Congress. “You are now free and going back
to the US” he said to their astonishment. We were an interesting mix
celebrating with champagne and pizza.
Part of the deal we had worked out with the Iraqis was that the
White House would put out a press release generally expressing
gratitude for the release of the two prisoners. Bill and I carefully
wrote out the text of the release embodying various key elements and
phrases we had agreed to. We read it over the phone to the White
House. Within hours a statement was put out to the media that
differed sharply from what we had drafted. It was more contentious
and provocative without the key (and frankly quite benign) phrases
we had agreed with the Iraqis. Richardson angrily called the White
House to complain that they under cut him and made it seem he was
not a man of his word. “What do you care. You already have the
prisoners” was the response. I was astonished that the Clinton White
House was willing to let the word of the US mean so little. For no
possible benefit we had created a self-inflicted wound by sending
the message-America can not be trusted to honor an agreement. This
was and is something particularly sensitive in the Arab world where
a man’s word is his bond.
With the word out we found the news media had descended on our
hotel. We all ate a celebratory dinner paid for by Ryszard Krystosik
with a large paper bag of Iraq’s inflated currency. At 5:00am we set
out back across the desert hoping to beat the worst of the desert
heat. In Amman we had an audience with King Hussein and Queen Noor
so that Richardson could brief them on our mission. The king had
been trying through his own channels to secure the prisoners release
and we learned from him that there had been a third effort by Jimmy
Carter working with other major figures in the Arab world. That
night Mary and I had dinner at a local restaurant with Queen Noor
who seemed happy to escape the rigid protocol of the Palace and
relax with fellow Washingtonians. Bill Richardson flew back to
Washington with the prisoners. He invited us to go with him so we
could participate in his report to President Clinton but we
preferred to stay out of the limelight.
CUBA
Later in the year Richardson started talking to me about the
possibility of getting political prisoners released in Cuba. He had
clearly discovered that freeing prisoners was a sure-fire way to get
publicity, create an image of foreign policy expertise, and raise
himself above the anonymous herd in the Congress. He was always very
careful to say to any foreign leaders that he was speaking only for
himself and not for the administration, but at the same time leave
them in no doubt about his close personal relationship with
President Clinton. He was also able to use his position on the House
Intelligence Committee as a rationale for his activities. He was
very eager to make his overseas trips as fast as possible, usually
over a weekend, so he missed as few Congressional votes as possible.
On one occasion I asked him what his constituents in New Mexico felt
about his international forays that had little direct bearing on
their interests. He quoted an old man who was representative of his
supporters “Don’t fuck with my pick up truck or my gun. Other than
that you can do whatever you want.” He always voted against gun
control and any legislation that might raise gas prices.
Bill Richardson had never been to Cuba, but I had more than twenty
years of involvement there including writing a relatively successful
biography of Fidel Castro. I talked to Ambassador Fernando Remirez,
then the head of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington. He was
quite disparaging about Bill Richardson’s desire to get some
political prisoners released. He said they were tired of US
politicians using the prisoner issue as a publicity stunt. “We
release prisoners to them, they offer to do things in return and
once they are back in the States they do nothing,” he said citing in
particular a disappointing experience with Senator Ted Kennedy. I
stressed Bill’s close relationship with Clinton and we left it that
he would pass on my message to Havana.
A few weeks later I received a message from Ambassador Remirez that
President Fidel Castro was coming to the UN to make a speech. The
night before there would be a reception at the Cuban embassy at the
UN. If Bill Richardson came to the reception, I was told, Fidel
would take him off into a side room for a brief discussion. That is
how it worked out and Bill made the most of it. At his charming
best, Richardson impressed Castro with his fluent command of
Spanish, and his youthful accomplishments as a baseball pitcher
(something they had in common). Castro said he could not promise
anything with regard to a prisoner release but invited Bill to visit
him Havana.
A few weeks later Richardson went to Havana carrying a beautiful
Navajo pot from New Mexico as a gift for the Cuban leader. The
meetings went well. Bill and Fidel went to a baseball game together.
The key issue between the US and Cuba at that moment was the
so-called Brothers to the Rescue. This Florida based anti-Castro
group had been flying small planes in provocative raids into Cuban
air space and dropping propaganda leaflets on the Havana population.
Any foreign fliers violating US air space and dropping
anti-government leaflets in the same way on Miami would long since
have been blown out of the sky. In many respects the Cubans had
shown extraordinary restraint, instead using every formal and
informal diplomatic channel they could to get the flights curbed.
This included asking a delegation of retired US admirals and
generals to carry a message back to President Clinton asking him to
stop the flights.
When Bill raised the question of a prisoner release Castro said that
his top priority at that moment was the Brothers to the Rescue
over-flights. If he was as close to President Clinton as he said,
Castro told Richardson, he should go back to Washington and get an
assurance from Clinton that the flights would be stopped. If they
were then Castro said Richardson could come back in a month and two
political prisoners would be released to him. I did not accompany
Richardson to his meeting a few days later with Clinton, but he told
me Clinton had agreed with the idea of stopping the flights and in
his presence had called Secretary of Transportation, Federico Pena.
The FAA was under Pena and they would be responsible for the action
that needed to be taken. What happened in the chain of command
beyond that point I do not know.
A little over a month later and early in the new year Bill
Richardson went back to Havana. where he assured Castro that Clinton
had ordered the flights stopped or at least had totally disowned any
responsibility for their fate on behalf of the US government. Jose
Antonio Arbisu, a former Cuban ambassador in Washington later told
me that following Richardson’s visit Castro, at a cabinet meeting
informed his colleagues that he had assurances at the “highest
level” that the US government disavowed any support for the Brothers
to the Rescue and they were entirely on their own. Should they
return and violate Cuban air space, he said, the defense forces
should take any appropriate action. True to his word Castro released
three political prisoners (Carmen Julia Arias Iglesias, Luis Grave
de Peralta and Eduardo Ramon Prida) to Richardson, but they were
such unknowns that the event received little or no media coverage
even in Miami.
A few weeks later the Brothers to the Rescue flew back to Cuba on
Saturday afternoon, February 24th, 1996. Fidel Castro and Ricardo
Alarcon both of whom might have imposed some restraint were in the
countryside and not immediately available. So the standing orders
were applied and the planes were shot down. It was later argued that
this happened outside Cuban airspace, although it was clear the
planes had been in Cuban airspace and were probably fleeing from the
approaching fighter planes. The shooting down caused an uproar in
Washington with Clinton expressing outrage but saying nothing about
the message he had allowed Richardson to carry back to Havana.
Shortly thereafter I accompanied a group of Americans representing
the Arca Foundation on a trip to Havana. We were among the first
Americans to go to Cuba after the shoot-down and a Roberto
Dominguez, a senior representative of the Cuban Foreign Ministry
lost little time in expressing to me his government’s displeasure
with Richardson’s role. Fidel they told me was fuming and saying
Clinton was a man whose word meant nothing. They felt he had not
been honest with them. I explained that Richardson had met with
Clinton and he in turn had talked to Pena. But, of course, Clinton
acted after the event as though he had not been involved.
During this period a reporter, Carl Nagin, was working on a piece
about Richardson. It eventually ran in the New Yorker Magazine on
January 26th 1998 entitled “Annals of Diplomacy.” Richardson was not
happy about the article because it clearly stated that he had been
involved in a quid pro quo arrangement to secure the release of the
prisoners, something he always sought to hide in part because he was
not an official emissary of the administration. I also believed he
did not like the suggestion that without my involvement he could not
have accomplished anything in either Iraq or Cuba. He was always
someone who wanted exclusive credit. Subsequently the New Yorker
Magazine, reporting on the funeral of former Canadian prime minister
Pierre Trudeau cited a conversation between then prime minister Jean
Chretien and Fidel Castro. Chretien asked Castro what was the true
story on the shooting down of the Brother’s to the Rescue planes and
Castro replied that the most accurate account was that in the
January 28th, 1998 issue of the New Yorker.
A trivial but interesting foot note to the Cuba saga has to do with
“Winston Churchill” Romeo and Juliet cigars. On my subsequent trips
to Cuba Richardson asked me to buy him boxes of these long fat
cigars favored by Winston Churchill. He had told me that he and
Clinton enjoyed smoking cigars together and I was sure he shared the
Winston Churchills I brought from Cuba with the President. In fact,
I told him I did not mind him doing that but he should extract some
commitment to lift or modify the embargo in return. When the Monica
Lewinsky story broke with its graphic description of cigars being
used for other than smoking I was pretty sure which cigars were
involved. Some months later I was telling this to the Cuban
ambassador, Dagoberto Rodriguez, and he said “Oh, I can confirm
that.” He went on to say that at the height of the Lewinsky episode
an acquaintance in the White House called him and said “Watch the
evening news tonight there will be something of great interest to
you.” He thought it would be a major pronouncement on Cuba policy
but it was the revelation of the cigar story.
Bangladesh
For some time Bill
Richardson had been saying to me “There are people in my district
who want me to go to Bangladesh.” An organization called Results
which lobbied Congress to fund micro-credit projects in the Third
World had an active chapter in New Mexico. I was very familiar with
Results and knew that the model they advocated was the Grameen bank
in Bangladesh founded by Mohamed Younis. The Bangladesh ambassador
in Washington, Humayen Kabir, was someone I had known well for more
than 20 years since he first came to Washington as their number two
person in the embassy. He had also been his country’s ambassador in
Tehran during the period of the hostage taking at the US embassy. He
and I had worked by phone to try to secure the release of the
hostages, because he had a good relationship with the students
holding them. We were not successful, but it did strengthen our
personal relationship. Subsequently he had come to spend a weekend
with Mary and me in Wales. He did a four year stint as his country’s
ambassador to the UN and returned to Washington as his country’s top
diplomat.
In the fall of 1995 I arranged for Humayan Kabir to meet with me and
Bill Richardson to discuss a possible trip to Bangladesh. In the
meantime Bill had been contacted by the parents of a young woman
from Texas, Eliadeh McCord (Lia), who was serving a life sentence in
Bangladesh after being caught with seven pounds of heroin. (She was
nineteen when convicted and had already served four years.) Securing
her release became a top priority for him. The people from Results
had wanted him to take an entire Congressional delegation which I
strongly opposed in terms of Bill Richardson’s own personal
interests. I wanted him to be the exclusive focus of the leaders in
Bangladesh. In early 1996 Richardson made a brief initial trip to
Dhaka. While the government was willing to release the young woman,
they were reluctant to do so without a formal request from the State
Department. They in turn, because of the scale and nature of her
crime, did not want to make such a request. Bill did, however,
establish good relations with the prime minister Khaled Zia, leader
of the Bangladesh National Party and the opposition Awami League
leader, Sheikh Hosina.
There had been a longstanding and bitter conflict between these two
women. Shortly before Bill’s trip Khaled Zia had called for
elections and the Awami League, claiming they would be fixed, urged
their supporters to boycott it. Only 7 % of the electorate turned
out to vote. A state of incipient civil war was emerging with
escalating emotional demonstrations against the government. Both
leaders told Bill that they were desperate for a resolution to the
conflict but only on their own terms. Although a career foreign
service officer, Kabir’s long-time political loyalties were to the
Awami League so was he was happy to see Prime Minister Zia replaced
by Sheikh Hosina. The leadership (military, judiciary etc) in
Bangladesh felt that the crisis in the country and the conflict
between the two women could only be resolved by outside mediation.
Bill Richardson was acceptable in that role to all parties. However,
Bill (as he always stressed ) was not acting as part of the Clinton
administration and it was essential that the leadership in
Bangladesh formally invite him to come and play a mediating role.
Kabir eager to see Prime Minister Zia out was willing to orchestrate
such an invitation. Bill was invited to return, but to maintain some
degree of secrecy we asserted in public that he was returning there
to continue his efforts to secure the release of the heroin
smuggler.
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At a long late night meeting at
Ambassador Kabir’s residence we planned a strategy in which
Bill would try to convince Prime Minister Zia that she
should resign and turn over the country to an interim
government under the country’s president who would call for
new elections. It depended on Mrs Zia’s strong, but
erroneous conviction, that in any free and fair elections
she would be the inevitable winner. As sweeteners Bill was
also to offer the promise of an official visit to Washington
including a meeting with President Clinton, and attendance
at the National Prayer Breakfast, which Kabir, who
considered her very vain, said she had asked him to try to
arrange for her. So sure was she that she would be returned
to power, Kabir assured us, she would be asking also for a
meeting with the Pentagon to discuss the purchase of F 15
fighter jets.
Two quick trips were involved in which Bill skillfully got
both women to sign on to the idea of an interim government
and new elections. (As a Democratic whip in the House of
Representatives Bill could not afford to miss votes in the
House. He therefore often left Washington on a Thursday and
sometimes even on a Friday, flew to the other side of the
world, and rushed back to be in his office again by Monday
morning.) I do not know how much Bill assured Mrs Zia, in
order to get her to resign, that she would be easily
re-elected. She had, however, largely lost control of the
country and had little to lose. When the election was held
Sheikh Hosina won a convincing victory. Bill, during the
course of the earlier negotiations, extracted from her a
commitment that if she won the election the heroin smuggler,
Eliadeh McCord, would be released to him. He understood that
the American public had little interest in the political
machinations and “regime change” we had been involved in,
but a picture with the released American prisoner would get
him publicity all over the US. The plan nearly fell apart at
the last minute. When he rushed their right after the
election to have Eliadeh McCord turned over to him, the US
ambassador and other embassy staff attempted to have her
turned over to them which would have denied him the credit
he deserved not to mention the lost publicity.
North Korea
Three months after the elections in Bangladesh that made her
prime minister Sheikh Hosina came to New York to represent
her government at the annual meeting of the UN General
Assembly. Bill Richardson hosted a small dinner for her and
members of her family. At the end of the dinner he said “Do
you want to go with me to meet with the North Koreans. They
like to meet at night.” The North Koreans were exceptionally
cautious about meeting with and much less trusting anyone
from the US. However, because of Bill’s early experience
securing the release of the two US helicopter pilots he
enjoyed an exceptional degree of trust with the North Korean
foreign ministry. I was also aware that a 27 year-old young
man of mixed Asian-American origin, Evan Hunziker, had, a
few weeks earlier, crossed into North Korea from China and
was now in prison there accused of being a spy. The North
Koreans were, in effect, demanding ransom for him. Bill’s
mission that night was to convince them to release the young
man to his custody.
As we walked to the Manhattan apartment that served as the
residence of the North Korean ambassador to the UN I urged
Bill not to rush into the issue of the prisoner release.
While he could totally charm people and was a shrewd
negotiator he could also be a bit of a bull in a china shop
when it came to cultural sensitivities. Lets chat and make
small talk for half an hour then softly raise the issue of
the prisoner, I suggested. When we arrived, in addition to
the ambassador and a member of his staff, the senior
National Security Advisor of the North Korean government was
waiting for us. Also present was a Korean-American, Dr K.A.
Namkung, who enjoyed the trust of the North Koreans and had
been a key link to them for Bill Richardson. Bill produced
cigars that he passed out to everyone. We smoked and talked
for a while and finally Bill said tentatively, “I understand
you have this young US citizen who crossed your border.”
“He’s crazy” the National Security Advisor replied “You want
him, you can have him.” It emerged that the young man was
severely disturbed and the North Koreans did not know what
to do with him. Giving him to Bill Richardson was a happy
solution for them and it was a clear we could have raised
the issue the moment we walked into the apartment.
A week later Bill flew to Pyongyang and Evan Hunziker was
turned over to his custody. The young man said he wanted to
go to Seattle to spend Thanksgiving with his family. After a
few days there he moved into a motel and three weeks later
he sadly committed suicide. The whole event, however, served
to solidify Bill’s relationship with the North Koreans and
he became one of the few public figures in the US they
trusted. He would make several subsequent visits there even
serving as a diplomatic conduit during the Bush
administration.
Peru, the United Arab Emirates, and
Kenya
During this period we had brief and often abortive
encounters with several other countries.
A woman from New York named Lori Berenson was arrested in
Lima, Peru on November 30th, 1995. The 25 year-old
journalist-activist was charged under Peru’s anti-terrorism
laws with being a leader of a guerilla organization the MRTA.
Initially convicted by a hooded military tribunal the
conviction was subsequently overturned and she was retried,
under a new government, by a civilian court. She was again
sentenced to twenty years in prison. There was an activist
group set up in the US to lobby for her release and Bill
Richardson talked to her parents. In many ways she was an
ideal candidate for his attention. However, the State
Department obsessed with fear of left-wing movements in
Latin America and the Peruvian government which resented any
US government interference in their country were distinctly
unhelpful. Bill was eager to go to Peru, but he could not do
so without an invitation from the government or a re-cooked
deal for her release. I was serving at the time on the board
of the Hunger Project with Javier Perez de Cuellar, former
Secretary General of the United Nations. He was then running
for the presidency of Peru. He agreed to try to secure her
release and said that if he was elected I could count on his
help. Sadly his candidacy went down hill and he lost. As the
race was somewhat acrimonious he felt there was no way he
could seek any favors from his opponent who had defeated
him. Lori Berenson is still in prison now serving her
seventeenth year. Somehow she has managed to get pregnant
and is expecting her first child at age 39 years.
The McDonnell Douglas Corporation was in the middle of 1995
eager to sell 40-80 F-15 fighter jets to the United Arab
Emirates. Their president Harry Stonecipher had been
pursuing a conventional strategy through the State and
Defense Departments but wanted to get an extra leg up on his
competitors. He came to Bill Richardson to see if, based on
his growing reputation for international free-lancing, he
could help. Richardson in turn asked me what I could do. I
had a friend, Odeh Aburdene, a Palestinian-American who was
involved in investment banking in the Middle-East. Odeh knew
most of the leading political leaders in the region,
including members of the royal families. The ruler of the
UAE, Sheikh Zayed had three sons Khalifa, the crown prince,
Mohamed and Sultan. Sultan the youngest had as his primary
responsibility relations with the other Arab countries of
the Middle East, but in 1995 Sheikh Zayed sent him as the
country’s representative to the UN General Assembly,
instructing him to continue on from New York to make his
first visit to Washington. This was a signal to outsiders
that the aging leader was planning an enhanced role for his
youngest son. My friend, Odeh, who knew His Highness Sheikh
Sultan bin Zayed al-Nahyan (his full name) well convinced
him to meet with me and Bill Richardson. We met at the
Willard Hotel in Washington for an hour. While he listened
the matter of the F-15 sale was not resolved. He did,
however, invite the two of us to come to visit him in the
UAE even offering to pay my way (as I had no budget and was
not being paid anything for what I was doing for Bill
Richardson). Subsequently Bill did visit him on the way back
from a trip to Kenya. The sale of the fighter planes was
eventually made. What effect if any Bill’s involvement had I
do not know.
In Kenya the government of Daniel Arap Moi had imprisoned a
man named Koigi wa Wamwere. Koigi, as he was generally
known, was a journalist, politician and human rights
activist. He had been imprisoned several times and for two
years had lived in exile in Norway. In early 1995 the Moi
government sentenced him to a four year term on a trumped up
charge of “robbery and violence.” Bill Richardson had,
through the US State Department, sought an audience with Moi
to argue for Koigi’s release but had been turned down. Over
the years I had worked on several initiatives with Patrick
Orr, a London-based, partner in the public relations firm of
Rait-Orr and Associates. Patrick’s largest client for a
number of years had been the government of Kenya. In that
capacity he worked closely with the Kenyan foreign minister,
Sally Kosgei, who had previously been the High Commissioner
in London. She was able, as a favor to Patrick and myself,
to convince President Moi to meet with Bill. The meeting
occurred shortly before Christmas, 1995 and Bill returned to
the States to say that he had pressed Moi on both the
release of Koigi and human rights issue in general. He said
Moi had promised him he would release Koigi. Sally Kosgei,
who had been in the meeting reported to Patrick and myself,
that that was absolutely not the case. That in fact Moi had
said he could do nothing until Koigi had completed the
appeals process through the courts which might take a year
after which he would consider releasing him. In notes I made
at the time I suggested that in this instance Bill was far
less interested in getting publicity in the media than he
was in impressing President Clinton with his ability to
negotiate successfully with someone like Moi. Throughout the
next year Bill had me stay in contact with Patrick Orr and
Sally Kosgei to convey the message that whenever Moi might
be ready to release Koigi, he, Bill, be allowed to come to
Kenya, ostensibly to thank Moi and the Kenyan government for
the release, but really so he could be in the limelight and
claim some of the credit (at least in the US media.)
Eventually, in December of 1996. Moi released Koigi on
humanitarian grounds due to illness and he returned to Oslo.
I do not believe that, in this instance, Bill Richardson’s
intervention was, in any way, a factor in the release.
IRAN
Potentially the most
significant issue that Bill Richardson and I dealt with had
to do with Iran. From an early stage in our relationship he
talked to me about wanting to be the first US elected
official to go to Tehran since the hostage crisis of 1979
when diplomatic ties were severed. The Iranians were hard to
contact because they had no embassy in Washington and their
ambassador at the UN, Kamal Karrazi was almost entirely
unresponsive to any efforts by Americans to engage with him.
On one of his trips through London I had Bill Richardson
meet with a friend, Baroness Emma Nicholson. Emma, a member
of the British House of Lords and the European parliament
came from a wealthy background, and had personally funded a
several refugee camps for the marsh Arabs along the
Iraq/Iran border. She had as a result good relations in
Tehran. I asked her if following her meeting with Bill she
would put in a good word on his behalf there. The key,
however, was again Ambassador Humayan Kabir. He had known
Karrazi when he was the Bangladesh ambassador in Tehran, and
as a fellow Muslim dilpomat it was easy for him to intercede
on my behalf. As a result of his efforts Karrazi invited me
to lunch at his residence in New York. In the meantime, in
addition to wanting to be the first member of Congress to go
to Tehran since 1979, Bill was now interested in getting
Iranian help to secure the release of an Israeli pilot, Ron
Arad. Ron Arad had been shot down over Southern Lebanon in
1986 and was known to have survived. Initially captured by
the Shi’ite militia, Amal led by Nabil Berri he was taken to
Beirut where he was photographed and he wrote two letters
that were delivered to his parents. An effort was made to
exchange him for two prisoners being held by the Israeli’s.
Those negotiations failed and he was given or sold to
Hezbollah. The trail then became murky with rumors that Arad
was turned over to elements of the Iranian Revolutionary
Guard advising Hezbollah and even that he had been taken to
Tehran. After 1988 nothing definitive was heard from him or
about him. The Israelis, however, continued to argue that he
was alive and demanded his release. Bill and I knew that
before coming to the UN Karrazi had been the person in the
government with the responsibility for dealing with
Hezbollah. If anyone knew the truth he did. Bill, of course,
saw that it would be an enormous coup for him if he was the
one to secure Arad’s release.
It was an elegant lunch but a most difficult meeting. I
tried to carry the conversation, but Karrazi, infinitely
cautious if not suspicious, answered each topic I raised
with a brief sentence of a few words. He was quite skeptical
about entering into any discussions with Bill Richardson or
any other representative of the US. There were long
silences. Gradually we both relaxed and I raised the issue
of Ron Arad. He told me that Ron Arad was dead. He was being
held by Hezbollah in a house in Southern Lebanon that was
unknowingly attacked by the Israeli air force. Arad, he
said, was killed either in the attack itself or shot trying
to escape during the confusion following the hit on the
house. The Israeli’s knew that he said but were trying to
claim he was still alive for propaganda purposes. I found
Karrazi’s account quite convincing. As our relationship
warmed towards the end of the lunch I was in reach of my
primary goal which was to get him to agree to another lunch
including Bill Richardson. For that, he said, he would need
permission from Tehran.
Eventually he received that permission. The second lunch was
more relaxed and comfortable, partly because of Bill’s
ebullient style.The possibility of Bill visiting Iran was
clearly on the table. Karrazi was willing, at least
tentatively, to discussing the details of what Bill would
want to do in Tehran. I worried that Bill’s insistence on
meeting not just government officials but also the supreme
religious leader Ayatollah Komeini was going to create
problems. The lunch ended on a cordial note and an agreement
that Karrazi would put forward Bill’s plans for a visit to
his government. We also knew that the government was very
factionalized and that there would be an element strongly
opposed to letting him come. Over the next several weeks a
dialogue with Karrozi took place and we further refined the
plans for the trip.
The matter of Ron Arad remained uncertain so I urged Bill to
make a trip to Israel so he could try to get a definitive
answer to the question of whether he was alive from the
Israeli intelligence services. There was no point in going
to Tehran and demanding their help in getting his release if
he was truly dead. On his return from Israel, Bill was
evasive arguing the need to protect sensitive security
sources. (He was on the House Intelligence committee. I at
that point had no security clearance.)
I was pursuing another course. Through Palestinian
connections I had met a man named Samih Zein who was the
Vice President of a company, Technology Research
International Based in California. A Palestinian American he
also had strong ties in Lebanon including owning two radio
stations in the Southern part of the country. Samih Zein
offered to host Bill and myself in Lebanon. He said he could
arrange for us to meet the Secretary General of Hezbollah,
the religious leader Sheikh Fadlallah, Nabil Berri, head of
the Amal militia that had originally captured Ron Arad, and
the Prime Minister, Rafic Hariri. He also said he would then
take us to Southern Lebanon to meet with the various faction
leaders from whom the exact story on the fate of Ron Arad
could certainly be obtained. If nothing else it would
certainly show the Israelis that we were on the case. We
were forced to delay the trip because the discussions I had
with Samih Zein came in mid-October 1996 right before the US
presidential elections and Bill Richardson own race for
re-election.
In all of these ventures it was clear that Bill Richardson
had two audiences. One was the American public and the news
media. The other was Bill Clinton. He was very eager to
impress the President as an effective player in
international affairs. Shortly after Clinton was re-elected
he secured the release of three Red Cross workers in Sudan.
This he did working with the White House to maximize there
awareness of what he was doing. I was not involved at all.
He wanted to parlay these informal diplomatic activities,
especially in Iraq and Cuba, into a major appointment in the
second Clinton term. He discussed with me his hope that he
would be made Secretary of State counting on help in that
regard from Vice President Al Gore. I told him that I
thought it quite unrealistic to hope to be appointed
Secretary of State, but that UN ambassador was far more
within his grasp and he should invest his effort there. And
that is how it worked out.
The moment he was publicly nominated for the UN position he
felt he could no longer speak directly with any of the
representatives of other countries with whom we had dealt.
He asked me to notify them all of that fact and say that he
looked forward to dealing with them as an official
representative of the Clinton administration once he was
confirmed in his new job.
I visited Ambassadors Kabir and Remirez in Washington and
took the train to New York to talk Karrazi. He was very
understanding, but in some ways. I think, rather sorry that
were not going to be able to have Bill make the historic
trip to Tehran. As I was leaving the embassy he presented me
with a large box wrapped in elegant red wrapping. I carried
it around New York in the bitter cold for the rest of the
day. Even back in Washington assuming it was a piece of
Iranian handicraft or something equally mundane I did not
open it for several days. When I did it turned out to be the
largest container of caviar I had ever seen. Ambassador
Kamal Karrazi left shortly there after to become the Iranian
Foreign Minister.
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