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Technology Stocks : Loral Space & Communications -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sawtooth who wrote (3377)	5/24/1998 8:05:00 PM
From: Sawtooth	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10852

This afternoons "new(s)", FWIW; emphasis mine: Loral CEO says China trade waiver 'routine' By Joanne Kenen WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The head of U.S. aerospace company Loral said Sunday a government waiver allowing his company to launch a satellite on a Chinese rocket was routine and owed nothing to his Democratic Party campaign contributions. White House National Security Adviser Sandy Berger said the Loral deal had not damaged U.S. security in any way. But HouseSpeaker Newt Gingrich joined a chorus of U.S. lawmakers urging President Clinton to postpone his trip to China next month. Bernard Schwartz, CEO of Loral Space and Communications, said allegations that Clinton gave him the go-ahead to launch a satellite on a Chinese rocket were not affected by his big donations to Clinton and the Democrats. "That's just untrue. There's no foundation for that at all," Schwartz said on ABC's "This Week." He added that Loral had received 16 prior waivers from Republican and Democratic administrations to conduct sensitive business with China and had not received any sign that this request would be anything other than routine. "There was no issue here, no controversy here that we were aware of," he said. "If the implication is that I would take a stand that is harmful to this country, that's absolutely outrageous." Appearing on CBS's "Face the Nation," Berger defended Clinton's decision on Loral's satellite. "I am convinced the national security was not compromised by any decision that we made," said Berger, adding that he had not even known about the campaign contributions. "The fact that he, Mr. Schwartz, was a contributor to the Democratic party was not the fact that was known to me, that's not part of my job," Berger said. Berger acknowledged the Justice Department had expressed concerns about the waiver because it was investigating a possible technology transfer to China by Loral. But he said the State Department and Defense Department had indicated the satellite would not interfere with security and there was no missile technology involved. Clinton is facing a two-headed China scandal. One aspect involves Loral. The other centers on allegations that the Chinese military funneled illegal campaign contributions to the Democrats in 1996. Speaking from Jerusalem, Gingrich told CNN's "Late Edition" that Congress would investigate "how those fit together, whether there's a nexus there." "I believe the president should clearly postpone the trip to China until we have all the facts," Gingrich added. Two congressional committees will investigate why Clinton ignored Justice Department warnings when he approved in February the waiver to allow Loral to launch a satellite atop a Chinese rocket. Justice was investigating whether Loral earlier had improperly handed China information that could help improve its military missiles. Gingrich said Congress, not an independent counsel, should look into national security aspects of the China scandal, and House and Senate panels are both gearing up to do that. But he said Attorney General Janet Reno was "perverting the law" by not appointing an independent counsel for campaign finance. "Clearly there's enough grounds," he said. "I think she has more than ample grounds for naming the president and the vice president" as targets of an investigation. Time magazine in its June 1 issue quotes "investigative sources" as saying there is no evidence anyone in the White House knew that fund-raiser Johnny Chung was illegally funneling money from the Chinese military to the Democrats, or that Chung had ever lobbied anyone about satellite technology for China. Clinton's China visit includes a controversial stop in Tiananmen Square, where 1989 pro-democracy protests were violently crushed. The U.S. House last week approved a package of measures to halt the flow of sensitive satellite and missile technology to Beijing. Berger said it had acted "backward," starting with a remedy before it got the facts.