-Caveat Lector-
NYTimes
February 17, 2001
U.S. Diplomats Turned Aside Israeli Push on Rich's Behalf
By JAMES RISEN with ALISON LEIGH COWAN
WASHINGTON, Feb. 16 — Senior diplomats in the Clinton
administration initially blocked Israeli lobbying efforts on
behalf of the fugitive Marc Rich but were bypassed in the final
decision-making when the president granted Mr. Rich a pardon on
his last day in office, current and former United States
officials said.
The Israeli government first approached senior American diplomats
in support of Mr. Rich in 1995, the officials said. At the
time, the Israeli government was not asking for a pardon for Mr.
Rich but rather tacit American acceptance of a proposal to allow
him to travel more freely around the globe without fear of being
arrested and returned to the United States, officials said.
But the Israelis soon dropped the matter when they met with
unified resistance from senior State Department officials.
Israeli leaders never again raised the Rich matter with American
diplomats, officials said. It was not until the final days of
the Clinton administration that the Israeli prime minister, Ehud
Barak, in telephone conversations with Bill Clinton, personally
asked him to pardon Mr. Rich, officials said.
Current and former United States officials say they do not
believe the matter was raised by Mr. Barak until late December
or January, and they believe that was the first time the Rich
case was broached in official channels since 1995.
Mr. Rich's lawyer, the former White House counsel Jack Quinn,
and other defenders of Mr. Clinton's pardon of Mr. Rich have
said that it grew out of Mr. Clinton's desire to help Mr.
Barak and foster Middle East peace, not from political donations
from Mr. Rich's former wife, Denise Rich.
In an interview on Thursday with Geraldo Rivera, Mr. Clinton
said, "Israel did influence me profoundly."
But despite the personal requests by Mr. Barak to Mr. Clinton,
clemency for Mr. Rich was never an issue in the Middle East
peace talks that Mr. Clinton kept alive until he left office.
"This was not a factor in the Middle East talks," said Dennis
Ross, the Clinton administration's longtime Middle East envoy,
who said he did not know about the pardon until he read about it
in the newspaper after it was announced. Mr. Ross, who remained
involved in Mr. Clinton's Middle East peace efforts until the
final days of the administration, said that he had not been asked
about the Rich pardon by the president.
Other senior Clinton officials deeply involved in
American-Israeli relations said they had not been consulted by
the president, either. Through a spokeswoman, the former
secretary of state, Madeleine K. Albright, said that she had not
been consulted by the president about the pardon.
George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, who
played a critical role in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations
and was frequently in Israel for meetings on them, was never
approached by the Israelis seeking a pardon for Mr. Rich, a
spokesman said. Nor was he consulted by the president on whether
to pardon Mr. Rich, the spokesman said. Samuel R. Berger, Mr.
Clinton's national security adviser, has said he was not
consulted.
Some Justice Department officials have also complained that they
were not consulted until the last minute about the Rich pardon,
which was handled by the White House.
In 1995, Mr. Ross and Martin S. Indyk, the United States
ambassador to Israel, both rebuffed efforts by senior Israeli
officials, including the foreign minister, Shimon Peres, to
persuade the United States to agree to allow Mr. Rich greater
freedom of movement around the world. The Israeli officials said
that Mr. Rich had proposed raising billions of dollars to help
Israeli government efforts aimed at economic development of the
West Bank and Gaza Strip as part of a Middle East peace
agreement, and that he had said he needed to be able to travel
more freely to do so.
But after checking with State Department lawyers and the Justice
Department, Mr. Ross rejected the proposal. Mr. Indyk also
rebuffed the Israeli approach.
"I had never heard of him, but I was very uneasy when I found out
about Rich's background," said Mr. Ross, who recently left
government. He said he turned the matter over to a State
Department lawyer and never agreed to any Israeli proposals about
Mr. Rich.
Mr. Ross said he never again heard from the Israelis about Mr.
Rich. He was present for conversations between Mr. Clinton and
Mr. Barak at the end of Mr. Clinton's term and was aware that
Mr. Clinton had told Mr. Barak he would consider his request
for pardons for both Mr. Rich and the convicted Israeli spy
Jonathan Pollard.
Although Mr. Rich had the support of Mr. Barak and Mr. Peres,
there was far more pressure on the White House to pardon Mr.
Pollard than Mr. Rich, according to several government
officials. But the White House apparently considered a pardon of
Mr. Pollard impossible because of unified opposition within the
United States government. In 1998, Mr. Tenet threatened to
resign if Mr. Clinton bowed to Israeli pleas for clemency for
Mr. Pollard.
Starting last fall, Mr. Rich also benefited from a concerted
campaign by influential political figures and others in Israel to
win his clemency — a campaign less public than the one in support
of Mr. Pollard. In letters they sent to Mr. Clinton, Mr.
Rich's supporters offered information about his clandestine
support for Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service. Among the
many prominent Israelis who sent letters on behalf of Mr. Rich
was Shabtai Shavit, who was chief of Mossad from 1989 to 1996.
Mr. Shavit said that Mr. Rich had helped Mossad in its search
for Israelis missing in action, and helped the evacuation of Jews
from "enemy countries."
Mr. Rich's secret support for Israel often involved financial
aid at sensitive times. According to a document provided to The
New York Times by lawyers familiar with the Rich case, Mr. Rich
was "instrumental" in the mid-1980's, when the relationship
between Israel and Egypt suffered after an Egyptian policeman
opened fire on Israeli tourists in the Sinai Desert.
According to the document, Mr. Rich established a special
$400,000 fund that was used by Egypt to compensate those Israeli
families. The document also said, "Rich has also been
instrumental in assisting the Israeli intelligence community in a
variety of activities." The donation, which was made anonymously
at the time, was also cited in a letter of support for Mr. Rich
by the Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami. Mr. Rich was
also a generous contributor to charitable efforts in Israel and
elsewhere, donating an estimated $100 million over two decades.
Israeli support from Mr. Rich may seem odd because he did
extensive business in Iran and Iraq, two of Israel's enemies.
The fugitive financier, who holds Israeli and Spanish
citizenship, has lived in Switzerland since 1983, when he fled
the United States after being indicted on charges of income tax
evasion, fraud and illegal oil deals.
Avner Azulay, a former Mossad agent who runs Mr. Rich's
charitable foundation in Israel, collected many of the letters on
Mr. Rich's behalf. In an interview earlier this week, Mr.
Azulay said: "He was helping evacuate Jews from countries when it
was very difficult. I wouldn't be working with this man if he
traded with Israel's enemies."
United States intelligence officials say they have little
information about Mr. Rich's reported involvement with Mossad.
Because the State Department has not recognized Mr. Rich's
efforts to renounce his citizenship, Mr. Rich is still
considered a "U.S. person" and so the Central Intelligence
Agency cannot legally spy on him.
But a former C.I.A. official, Vince Cannistraro, said he was
aware of Mr. Rich's Mossad connections. He said Mr. Rich's
role in oil trading with Iran in the early 1980's made him
attractive to Mossad as a conduit between Israel and Iran. Mr.
Cannistraro said he did not believe that Mr. Rich was a paid
Mossad agent but rather a wealthy international commodities
trader who could provide services like carrying messages and
transferring money clandestinely for operational purposes.
"They found his ties useful in Iran," said Mr. Cannistraro, the
director of intelligence programs for the National Security
Council in the Reagan administration. "He was a willing
collaborator."
Today, House and Senate committees continued their investigations
into the pardon. A representative of Mr. Rich's lawyer Mr.
Quinn said Mr. Rich would turn down an invitation from a House
committee to waive attorney-client privilege so that Mr. Quinn
could testify more fully about his efforts on Mr. Rich's behalf.
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FROM THE DESK OF:
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