Regarding the waiver for the failed launch, it is important
to remember that the satellite belonged to Intelsat, an
International organization, which picked LOR as satellite
contractor, and the Long March as launcher.
What choices did Clinton have with respect to the waiver?
If he had denied the waiver, two things could have occurred:
a) Intelsat would have gotten back to its members states,
and soon, Bill would have gotten phone calls from the likes
of John Major (prime minister at the time), Helmut Kohl, etc...
pointing out that Intelsat is an international organization
in which the US is only one of the member states.
b) Intelsat could have pulled the LOR satellite contract
and given it to one of its international competitors,
such as Daimler Aerospace. I don't believe that German
satellite technology is substantially far behind US
technology, and business would have been lost for
American companies.
The truth is that any president, Republican or Democrat,
would have approved that waiver, given the particulars
of the situation.
Specifically, if Clinton had denied a waiver for this
satellite, his only course of action would have been to
deny all further waivers, since the case for granting a waiver
to an international organization is much stronger than
for commercial domestic satellites. |
