Lost in Translation:
How Bush Interpreter
Got Through Security
He Is Fluent in Indonesian,
But He Also Testifies
For Accused Terrorist
By ANDREW HIGGINS and JAY SOLOMON
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
February 22, 2005; Page A1
JAKARTA, Indonesia -- Frederick Burks believes in UFOs, communes with
dolphins, runs a Web site that promotes conspiracy theories about U.S.
complicity in the 9/11 attacks and thinks Washington may have had a
hand in blowing up bars on the Indonesian resort island of Bali.
And, until last October, he had the ear of the world's most powerful
man: The 46-year-old California resident worked as an interpreter for
George W. Bush in the president's dealings with the leader of
Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation.
Now Mr. Burks has popped up in Jakarta as a star witness for the
defense in the terrorism trial of a fundamentalist Islamic cleric. "He
has some anger but he's a nice old man," says Mr. Burks of Abu Bakar
Baasyir, the 68-year-old preacher the U.S. believes was behind the 2002
Bali bombings. The cleric is also believed by the U.S. to be the leader
of a regional terrorist network linked to al Qaeda, but he strongly
denies that and, in an earlier trial in 2003, an Indonesian court
cleared him of directing a terrorist outfit.Mr. Burks's testimony, delivered last month in a south Jakarta court,
turned the former White House interpreter and sometime psychiatric
nurse into a national celebrity here in Indonesia. He appeared on TV,
spoke at universities, and was featured in magazines and newspapers.
His rock-star aura had strangers stopping him on the street when he
traveled here to testify from his home in Berkeley, Calif.
But he's considerably less popular these days with his former employers
in the White House and the State Department, who praise his linguistic
talents but are mighty upset that he has been spilling details of
supposedly confidential conversations. "He's gone off some deep end,"
says Stephanie Van Reigersberg, his former boss. During the years that
Mr. Burks was paid to whisper into the president's ear, she headed a
State Department unit that provides interpreters for State, the White
House and other branches of the U.S. government.
Speaking to the Jakarta court in fluent Indonesian, Mr. Burks described
a secret 2002 meeting between a U.S. presidential envoy and Indonesia's
then president, Megawati Sukarnoputri. He said the American had
demanded that Ms. Megawati secretly detain Mr. Baasyir and then hand
him over to the U.S. This demand preceded the Bali bombings and, says
Mr. Burks, shows that the U.S. had it in for Mr. Baasyir even before
his alleged crimes and suggests a frame-up.
Karen Brooks, who served as Mr. Bush's director for Asian Affairs on
the National Security Council until last year and attended the meeting,
says Mr. Burks was present as an interpreter. But she and the U.S.
embassy in Jakarta deny his claims that the U.S. pressured Indonesia to
hand over Mr. Baasyir. (They won't say what the meeting was about.) Ms.
Megawati hasn't commented publicly but did attend a party in Jakarta to
fete Mr. Burks during his recen t visit.
Worried that Mr. Burks's testimony might upend Indonesia's most
high-profile terrorism case, the prosecution has sought to undermine
the American's credibility as a witness and grilled him in court about
drug use and oddball writings rhapsodizing about a dead dolphin. (A
previous attempt to prosecute the cleric fizzled: the only charge that
stuck involved immigration violations.) Mr. Burks, who grew up in New
Jersey and California, says he has experimented on occasion with
ecstasy and peyote as part of his "spiritual journey."
"I was in disbelief that this guy was an interpreter for the president
of the United States," said prosecutor Salman Maryadi after the
hearing. "Considering his condition, how could he interpret for the
leader of the world's sole superpower?"
The judge ruled the prosecutor's questioning about Mr. Burks's private
peccadilloes irrelevant.
The U.S. government seems to have take n much the same view. For over 15
years, it used Mr. Burks's linguistic dexterity -- he also speaks
excellent Chinese -- despite his refusal to sign a confidentiality
agreement. Never a full-time government employee, he regularly worked
on contract for the State Department, securing interpreting gigs with
President Clinton, Mr. Bush and a number of lesser officials. He
learned his Indonesian while living with a family on the island of
Borneo in the 1980s, picked up Chinese during a teaching stint in China
and, after training as a nurse in Florida, mixed interpreting and
nursing.
Ms. Brooks, the former White House Indonesia expert, remembers Mr.
Burks as the "most talented interpreter I've ever seen" but say she's
flabbergasted that he never signed a confidentiality pledge. "You'd
think we'd be vetting these people," she says. The State Department is
supposed to take care of security clearances and confidentiality
pledge s for its staff and for contract workers if they are to have
access to secret information.
Confronted with a dearth of qualified speakers of foreign languages --
frequently noted as a serious problem by officials and others since
9/11 -- the U.S. government has scrounged for talent, with few
questions asked.
Mr. Burks, a former high-school math star whose friends called him
"Freddy Whiz-o," says he never hid his views or enthusiasms. He says he
had a mandatory, low-level security clearance, mainly a testament that
he didn't have a police record, but declined to sign a confidentiality
pledge. He says he also balked at filling in lengthy forms required to
get secret clearance because he'd have had to confess to having twice
taken ecstasy. "I couldn't lie," says Mr. Burks.
Ms. Van Reigersberg, who headed the State Department's interpreting
division until last year, when she retired, says that while Mr. Burks
wasn't bound by formal legal constraints, he was bound by professional
ethics not to divulge what was said "by either a president or a
policeman." She says she feels "mystified" and "indignant" now that he
has decided to blab. Ms. Van Reigersberg remembers Mr. Burks as "very
nice and very intelligent," and so good at his work that the State
Department paid him to help train other interpreters. She says he was
always an "interesting character" but says she never knew much about
his quirky Web musings.
While working as Mr. Bush's Indonesian-language interpreter, Mr. Burks
set up several Web sites, including momentoflove.org, weboflove.org and
WantToKnow.info. After 9/11, he began collecting and then posting
documents he believes show that parts of the U.S. government knew an
attack was coming and may even have been complicit in its execution.
"I'm sometimes labeled a conspiracy theorist, but I'm not," he says.
"I'm someone who can han dle dark energy, the really ugly things that
are going on behind the scenes, without getting too upset."
When he made an illegal holiday trip to Cuba in 1999 and got hit with a
$7,900 fine, he says he told the State Department he hadn't realized
that Americans were barred from going to Cuba. He kept his job, and
found a lawyer to fight the fine. He's still waiting for a court
hearing where he can contest the penalty.
He even survived a controversial foray into last year's presidential
election: He posted allegations on his Web site that Mr. Bush used a
secret listening device in meetings he had attended with President
Megawati and most likely had done the same in debate with Sen. John
Kerry. His says he got a reprimand from his boss at the State
Department. (Asked about Mr. Burks's claims, a White House official
described them as "nonsense.")
Shortly after that Web posting, he left the State Department's
translation service. He says he quit when a new supervisor insisted
that he sign a pledge not to divulge any information obtained while
interpreting.
The son of a Methodist preacher, Mr. Burks says he initially rebelled
against his upbringing by resisting his father's antiestablishment take
on life. He now describes himself as a "spiritual activist" but says
he's still "more a Republican than a Democrat" on economic questions.
In early 2001, he says, a friend turned him on to a film purporting to
expose a plot by the government to conceal the existence of
Unidentified Flying Objects. "The information blew me away," he says.
But, he adds: "I hesitate telling people quickly about this because
they'll say I'm a nut."
When President Bush traveled to Bali for a meeting with President
Megawati in October 2003, the State Department had another interpreter
lined up, but the White House insisted on having Mr. Burks. Ms. Brooks,
th en the National Security Council's Indonesia expert, says she
personally requested that he get the job because he was so good and
"Megawati loved him."
On the morning the two presidents met, Mr. Burks took an early morning
jog on the beach and came across a dead dolphin, an encounter he later
described in an e-mail he sent to friends and colleagues. He says he
knelt down and "opened to the spirit of this dead dolphin" and "felt
its presence with me...and the joyful presence of the entire school of
living dolphins." Their "loving presence," he says, penetrated the
traveling White House in Bali and made senior U.S. officials act in a
strangely friendly way. The White House declined to comment on that.
The defense team for Mr. Baasyir, the accused terrorist, came across
Mr. Burks's name in an article in an Indonesian newspaper that
mentioned his allegations of secret U.S. pressure to hand over the
cleric. Ahmad Mirawan Adna n, a defense lawyer, decided to send a
message asking him to testify but considered it a long shot. "I thought
we would have to sweet-talk him and persuade him. He said yes
immediately."
The legal team, which hoped to generate maximum publicity for its star
witness, worried that the local media might be distracted by the
tsunami two weeks earlier. They weren't and gave Mr. Burks's visit and
his views blanket coverage. "I had trouble making a schedule for him he
was so busy," says Mr. Adnan, the lawyer.
Mr. Burks says he enjoyed the celebrity treatment but is now glad to be
home so he can get back to work exposing coverups. "I was put here on
this planet for a purpose," he says. After his return to California, he
dropped in a mailbox a letter he had been given by Mr. Baasyir, the
alleged terrorist ringleader, for delivery to President Bush. It reads:
"You will be punished with horrific torture in the afterlife, but you
don't have to lose heart because there is still an opportunity for you
to save yourself from Allah's really horrific torture." It then
encourages Mr. Bush to convert to Islam.
Contacted by telephone in jail in Jakarta, Mr. Baasyir expressed
gratitude to and admiration for Mr. Burks, describing the former White
House interpreter as a man whose "main goal is to uncover all of George
Bush's lies." Mr. Burks's willingness to testify, said the cleric, is a
"peculiar" form of "bravery." Mr. Burks says he's flattered by all the
attention but will be upset if it turns out Mr. Baasyir really is a
terrorist: "I would feel bad. I would be shocked...I'd definitely
regret having done this."
Write to Andrew Higgins at [EMAIL PROTECTED] and Jay Solomon at
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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