New York Times
June 24, 2000
New Evidence in a Fund-Raising Inquiry
By JAMES RISEN
WASHINGTON, June 23 A former official of the Central Intelligence
Agency has provided fresh evidence to support accusations that a
top Democratic Party official sought to enlist the agency to aid
a major donor to President Clinton's 1996 re-election campaign.
In an unpublished manuscript, the former official -- identified
in Congressional investigations into Democratic fund-raising only
as "Bob from the C.I.A." -- describes a telephone conversation he
said he had with Donald Fowler, then the chairman of the
Democratic National Committee. Mr. Fowler was seeking the
agency's help for Roger Tamraz, a Lebanese-American entrepreneur
who had contributed at least $300,000 to the Democratic Party.
Accusations that Mr. Fowler sought to use the C.I.A. on behalf
of Mr. Tamraz rocked the agency in early 1997 when they surfaced
in the midst of the confirmation hearings in the bid by the
national security adviser, Anthony Lake, to become director of
central intelligence. Mr. Lake withdrew his nomination as soon
as the accusations of Democratic efforts to politicize the agency
emerged. Later that year, Mr. Tamraz became a star witness in
the Congressional investigation into Democratic campaign
fund-raising.
Mr. Fowler also testified, telling a Senate committee
investigating the campaign finance scandal that he could not
recall ever talking to a C.I.A. officer in order to help Mr.
Tamraz.
But "Bob from the C.I.A." never testified publicly about the
matter. At the time, he was still under cover as an officer in
the Directorate of Operations, the agency's clandestine espionage
arm, and even his last name remained classified. He gave a
deposition to Senate investigators, and left the agency not long
after the Tamraz affair.
Now, in his book-length manuscript, he writes that Mr. Fowler
wanted him to help Mr. Tamraz overcome resistance by White House
staffers who were trying to prevent Mr. Tamraz from meeting with
President Clinton. Mr. Tamraz wanted support from the Clinton
administration for his plan to build an oil pipeline in the
Caspian Sea region.
Mr. Tamraz had previously had a secret relationship with the
agency, and when he ran into resistance from officials at the
National Security Council at the White House, he told Mr.
Fowler that the agency might be able to pry open the White House
doors so he could meet with President Clinton and Vice President
Al Gore. Mr. Tamraz gave Mr. Fowler "Bob's" name, since he was
then a senior manager in the agency's Central Eurasian Division.
But Mr. Fowler insisted in his Congressional testimony that he
could not recall ever having called the agency on Mr. Tamraz's
behalf. The notes also made it clear that Mr. Fowler understood
Bob's C.I.A. affiliation, according to the Senate campaign
finance committee's report on the matter.
"I am very sensitive to the implications of perjury statutes,"
Mr. Fowler told the Senate campaign finance committee in 1997.
"But I have in the middle of the night, at high noon, late in the
afternoon, early in the morning -- at every hour of the day for
months now searched my memory about conversations with the
C.I.A., and I have no memory -- no memory of any conversations
with the C.I.A."
Mr. Fowler, who served as chairman of the Democratic National
Committee in 1995 and 1996, said again in an interview today that
he could not recall any conversations with an agency official on
Mr. Tamraz's behalf.
"I've been through that a hundred times, and I just have no
memory of any of that," said Mr. Fowler. "I have made multiple
statements about that, and don't have anything else to say about
it."
In the new manuscript, Bob writes that on Oct. 18, 1995, Mr.
Tamraz called him at his office at the agency. "A fellow named
Don Fowler is going to call you," he (Mr. Tamraz) said. "Please
talk to him."' At that point, Bob writes, he did not know who Don
Fowler was. So he took Mr. Fowler's number from Mr. Tamraz, and
called him to see who he was and what was going on.
"Fowler called back the next day -- October 19th, and identified
himself as the chairman of the Democratic National Committee,"
the manuscript says. "I never identified myself as a C.I.A.
employee, and Fowler never referred to my C.I.A. employment, but
it was nevertheless obvious that he knew exactly who I was. He
told me he was trying to help his good friend Roger Tamraz. He
told me straight out that he was upset with" two National
Security Council officials "because they were blocking Tamraz's
access to the president, and they were doing it for the benefit
of major corporations like Amoco. He said that Roger had been
disinvited to a White House fund-raising event, and so Roger had
complained to Fowler. I guessed Roger had given the D.N.C.
chairman my name as someone from C.I.A. who could vouch for
him."
In its final report on its investigation into campaign
fund-raising, the Senate committee said that "it is likely" that
Mr. Fowler's claims that he couldn't recall his contact with Bob
were false.
The C.I.A. has blocked publication of the manuscript, arguing
that it contains too much classified material about agency
operations. Since the author submitted the manuscript to be
cleared in December, the agency's publications review board has
repeatedly demanded numerous changes, despite a requirement that
the review process be completed in 30 days. Current and former
C.I.A. officials are required by law to seek agency clearance
for books or articles they publish to ensure that they don't
divulge classified information.
Bob said he now believes that the agency's demands have been so
excessive that the manuscript can't be published in its current
form.
The author and his Washington lawyer, Victoria Toensing, have
appealed the decisions of the review board to the agency's
executive director.
In the meantime, Harper Collins, the New York publisher, has
canceled its contract to publish the manuscript, a spokeswoman
for the publisher said.
Disputes between the agency and Bob and his attorney over the
manuscript have intensified in recent days, after security
personnel demanded to retrieve copies of a letter Ms. Toensing
had written to the agency's executive director relating to the
manuscript. An agency spokesman said the incident was prompted
by the fact that the C.I.A. believed the letter contained
classified information, and Ms. Toensing had sent the letter to
the agency over an unclassified fax machine. However, Ms.
Toensing said in an interview today that she had been using the
same fax to communicate with the agency on matters related to the
manuscript for months.
A C.I.A. security official called Ms. Toensing's office and
talked to her son, Brady Toensing, who is also a lawyer, since
Ms. Toensing was traveling at the time. The security officer
said she wanted to search the law office's files and computer
hard drives for classified information, according to Mr.
Toensing. He said he denied the request. On June 15, two C.I.A.
security personnel arrived at Ms. Toensing's law offices. Mr.
Toensing said he gave them the letter, and assured them he had
erased copies of the letter from the office computers. The
security personnel left without renewing their request to search
the office or Ms. Toensing's computers, Mr. Toensing said today.
Bill Harlow, a spokesman for the agency, denied that the security
personnel had ever asked to search the computer hard drives in
Ms. Toensing's offices.
Another C.I.A. spokesman, Mark Mansfield, insists that the
agency's objections to the manuscript are not politically
motivated or a result of the author's disclosures concerning
Democratic fund-raising. Instead, the agency is only opposed to
his use of operational details.
Ms. Toensing responded by saying that the agency has sought to
prevent the manuscript's publication by claiming that material
like the Tamraz affair, and another incident concerning a
prostitute, are classified.
"We have complied with the rules of the pre-publication process,"
she said in an interview. "However, the C.I.A. has made false
claims of classified information to thwart publication of this
book."
Bob wrote his manuscript book without identifying his last name
at the request of the agency.
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Shalom, A Salaam Aleikum, and to all, A Good Day.
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