ITTLE ROCK, Ark. — When Wesley K. Clark retired from
the military three years ago and was building a new career, one of the
first people he called was Richard C. Holbrooke, the former United Nations
envoy.
Mr. Holbrooke was brutally honest about the general's marketability. "I
told him, 'Trust me, no one has ever heard of you,' " Mr. Holbrooke
recalled in an interview. "And he shot back, `Well, I was the supreme
commander of NATO.' "
And although General Clark, the latest entrant in the Democratic
presidential field, left the military with precious little in the bank to
show for years of public service, he has managed to find his way to
wealth. In just three years, he has patched together a career heavy with
speaking engagements and seats on corporate boards, and has even taken a
stab at investment banking. All of which has put him in the enviable
position of having $2 million in checking accounts and an annual income
that topped $1.6 million last year.
General Clark declined to be interviewed for this article, but his
campaign provided information to The New York Times on his earnings and
assets.
The path between the Pentagon and major defense contractors (whose
board seats pay as much as $200,000 a year) is well trod — Gen. John M.
Shalikashvili, now retired, sits on the Boeing board, while another
retired general, John Ralston, is on the Lockheed Martin board. Other
wartime generals, like Colin L. Powell, H. Norman Schwarzkopf and Tommy R.
Franks, have turned their fame into million-dollar book deals.
But General Clark was perhaps not in a position to cash in as readily,
in part because as allied commander during the Kosovo war he was not as
well known as the men who ran the first war in Iraq. Moreover, his
potential as a lobbyist in the eyes of the defense industry could have
been undercut by his publicized run-ins with the Pentagon — although those
close to General Clark said he was drawn more to working with small
entrepreneurial companies.
In any case the general clearly surmounted obstacles to a richer life,
and one important method he relied on was political connections.
In addition to Mr. Holbrooke, he sought out Thomas F. McLarty III, a
former Clinton chief of staff.
"Wes called me when he was leaving the military and seeking advice,"
said Mr. McLarty, who has also served with General Clark on the board of
the Acxiom Corporation, a Little Rock data collection company. "What you
do when you're repotting yourself can be a tricky proposition. Wes was
gathering facts to decide what to do in the next passage of his life, and
a lot of arrows were pointing to return to Arkansas."
To that end the general sought out Vernon Weaver, a former ambassador
to the European Union, who is an executive at the Stephens Group, a
politically connected Little Rock investment bank. The introduction helped
him in the door. From June 2000, Stephens provided General Clark with a
steady paycheck and a base of operations.
Using this springboard, he fashioned a career representing smaller
defense contractors in Washington and writing a book, but for less money
than military superstars like Mr. Powell.
"Wesley Clark must be one of the few four-star generals not associated
with a Fortune 500 company," said Loren Thompson, a military analyst with
the Lexington Institute, a Northern Virginia nonprofit.
Stephens — where General Clark worked until last March, first as a
consultant and later as a managing director — has long supported both
parties. Its reputation was tarnished by ties to some people involved in
Clinton fund-raising scandals. The Stephens family has also given to
Republicans, including both Bushes and Bob Dole.
Those who have worked with General Clark, whether at Stephens or a
half-dozen other companies, said his main value was as a Washington
door-opener, helping them land government contracts and advising them what
products the Pentagon might want.
For a Virginia-based Stephens client, WaveCrest Laboratories, he helped
market electrical bicycles to special operations forces. He helped Acxiom
land government contracts for its antiterrorism databases. For Time
Domain, an Alabama company, he promoted Soldier Vision, which through
ultrawideband wireless enables troops to "see" through walls.
He also sat on the boards of Sirva, the Chicago-based parent of North
American Van Lines, which moves military families, and Messer Geiesheim, a
German maker of industrial gas, partly owned by Goldman Sachs.
But door-opening was not the full scope of his postmilitary ventures.
He made the bulk of his money by speaking to investment firms, colleges
and business gatherings at $25,000 to $30,000 an engagement. Like his
board memberships, this line of work came to a halt with his presidential
bid; he had to return money for a handful of speeches he made after
declaring his candidacy.
He received a mid-five-figure advance for his first book — "Waging
Modern War," which recounts his experiences in Kosovo — and made $3 to $4
in royalties for each book sold. In addition, his stints as a CNN wartime
commentator brought him about $1,000 an appearance, said several people
who knew about the arrangement.
"The book gave Wes a public platform that enabled him to say what he
needed to say and restart his public career," said Peter Osnos, his
publisher at PublicAffairs. "Now he had a voice and it allowed him to put
that part of his life on paper and move on."
The book sold a respectable 40,000 copies in hardback and 25,000 in
paperback. A second book, "Winning Modern Wars: Iraq, Terrorism and the
American Empire," recently had a first printing of 65,000.
While his speaking income was not a separate item in the documents
provided, a Clark spokesman said it accounted for the bulk of the $434,000
business income in his 2001 tax filing and the bulk of the $984,000
business income on his 2002 taxes.
In 2000, the year he left the military, General Clark had an income of
$474,000, of which $184,000 came from wages, $249,000 from business
earnings and the rest from investments. In 2001, he reported income of
$762,000, of which $213,000 was wages, $84,000 was pension, $434,000 was
business and the rest was from investments.
By 2002, General Clark's income had risen to $1.667 million. Of that,
$568,000 came from wages, $86,000 was pension and $984,000 was business
income, with investment gains making up the rest. Since he left the
military, most of General Clark's wages have come from Stephens.
His investment portfolio is worth about $575,000. He also has $1
million in a checking account and short-term certificates of deposit, and
another $1 million in a checking account in the name of Wesley K. Clark
and Associates, which he set up in 2002.
The campaign made available only a summary of General Clark's tax
returns. It did not identify his equity investments. After leaving the
military, he bought a house in Little Rock for $460,000 and inherited a
rural Arkansas log cabin.
General Clark joined Stephens just as it was beginning to be involved
in more military deals, and he first worked as a consultant in its
Washington office. While he lacked investment banking experience, Stephens
felt he could help attract business.
"Frankly, I did not know how he would fit in," said Warren A. Stephens,
the company's president, who is co-chairman of the Bush Arkansas
fund-raising committee. "But he was a bright person and I thought, `Let's
see if he can bring in some deals.' Wes was able to open doors for
us."
General Clark moved to Little Rock in July 2001 to become a full-time
Stephens employee. He ended up not bringing in any deals, but he was an
important draw at the firm's investment conferences in Las Vegas, Florida
and New York.
He was also becoming increasingly involved with Acxiom, which was
founded in Little Rock as a Democratic mailing-list company and which is
now one of the nation's largest database processors.
After the 2001 terror attacks, Acxiom, which had never before had a
federal contract, discovered its computers had personal data on 11 of the
19 hijackers and sought the government's attention.
General Clark telephoned federal officials for Acxiom on a pro bono
basis. By December he had joined the Acxiom board.
"Wes started making phone calls to people in the upper reaches of
government," said Jerry Jones, Acxiom's legal counsel, "and then they
started calling us."
Many of the resulting contracts are classified. One that is not is
Capps II, an airline passenger screening system that some privacy
advocates have criticized.
The general also helped arrange or attended meetings with high-level
officials like Norman Y. Mineta, the transportation secretary; Tommy G.
Thompson, the human services secretary; Paul H. O'Neill, the former
treasury secretary; and Vice President Dick Cheney.
"I was with him in the Senate Dining Room," Mr. Jones recalled, "and a
significant number of senators came up to talk to him."
The general did such a good job that he became a registered Acxiom
lobbyist. In June 2002, to keep an arm's length between Stephens and his
Acxiom lobbying, he and Stephens set up S.C.L., a limited liability
corporation in which General Clark received a consulting fee of $300,000
to get government contracts for Acxiom.
In March of this year General Clark left Stephens and signed a $150,000
retainer to lobby for Acxiom. As a member of the Acxiom board, he also
received $54,500 in shares and board fees of $23,000.
Acxiom recently came under fire after a subcontractor to JetBlue
Airways bought some Acxiom data and used it in ways that JetBlue said
violated its privacy policy. Mr. Jones said General Clark had had nothing
to do with that incident.
At Stephens, General Clark dealt with WaveCrest, the maker of an
electrical motor that uses computers instead of gears and a transmission.
As early as 2001, he met with WaveCrest technicians to discuss military
applications.
Last April he was named WaveCrest's board chairman and, wearing a denim
shirt with the company's logo in promotional photos, became an advocate
for the new motor, which he described as "the propulsion of choice for the
21st century."
Wavecrest's main product is the M-313 ShockTrooper, a high-speed bike
bought by the government for special operations troops and law enforcement
agencies.
"Wes helped us arrange our strategy and develop our product knowing
what the military needs in the battlefield," said Tom McMahon, a WaveCrest
spokesman. "He was instrumental in getting us to meet with the right
people."
A retired military colleague introduced General Clark to Time Domain.
The general served as a board adviser and helped market the company's
Soldier Vision technology.
"Wes was not going to the Pentagon and say, `Hey folks, buy a bunch,' "
said Ralph Petroff, the company's chief executive. "His value was in
pointing out what the military needs were and what would be of value to
the soldier in the field."
At Entrust, a Dallas Internet security company, General Clark's main
value was as a strategic thinker, said Butler C. Derrick Jr., a board
member and a former Democratic congressman. "He could help advise us on
our strategy since we do a reasonable amount of business with the
military," Mr. Derrick said. "That's what he did, not lobbying."
General Clark received $15,700 a year in Entrust board fees, stock
worth $10,000 and 44,000 Entrust options, half of which have no value.
Since May 2001, he also received about $60,000 a year as a board member
at Sirva, the private company that helps move military personnel.
Peter Rose, a spokesman for Goldman Sachs, which partly owns Messer
Griesheim, said it was General Clark's "extensive European contacts" that
led to his board membership there.
