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Politics : Did Slick Boink Monica? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Grainne who wrote (15532)	6/2/1998 6:11:00 AM
From: Zoltan!	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 20981

Perhaps, but CLINTON'S NATIONAL INSECURITY COUNCIL By DICK MORRIS SOMETIMES, it takes a scandal to understand just how an administration really works. The Iran-Contra affair showed that President Reagan's National Security Council was dominated by covert operations types, focused on anti-Communism at any price. Now the China-Loral satellite scandal reveals that President Clinton's NSC has become, at best, a vehicle for corporate profits and, at worst, a payoff mechanism for campaign contributions. A lot of the blame rests on National Security Adviser Sandy Berger. Rarely has a national security adviser been less well versed in foreign policy. A politician, former speechwriter and advance man, Berger served as deputy to Clinton's first term national security adviser, Tony Lake. Berger held that job, the White House staff frankly admitted, to advise Lake on politics. Lake, an experienced foreign policy hand who had previously worked in the White House under Henry Kissinger, was thought to be obtuse politically and in need of Berger's political horse sense. So political was Berger that he attended the weekly strategy meeting for the president's re-election campaign in the White House residence and regularly voiced his opinions about campaign advertising, fund-raising, strategy and positioning. Political ingenue Lake could have cared less that Loral was a big contributor - but such considerations loomed large for experienced political operative Berger. The internal correspondence which presaged the decision shows Berger attempting to justify granting the Loral Corp. a waiver to collaborate with the Chinese Army in its satellite launch, rather than soberly weighing the evidence as to the move's desirability. Of course, in the weird world of the Clinton White House, not one of the players involved in the Loral decision represented the concerns they were supposed to represent. National Security Adviser Berger didn't offer national security advice, but instead focused on how to justify the waiver and shield it from press criticisms. White House Counsel Charles Ruff didn't worry about the legal implications of undermining the government's case against Loral by granting the waiver; instead, he told an aide that he was more concerned about economic factors and our relations with China. Maureen Tucker, a senior NSC aide, focused not on national security, but on Loral's bottom line -stressing the need for a quick decision so Loral wouldn't incur harmful financial penalties. Gary Samore, the NSC's non-proliferation expert, worked with Berger to see how the waiver could be granted rather than to assess its impact on India (whose recent nuclear tests may have been a response to Chinese missile sophistication). But the major person who didn't do the job he was supposed to do was the president of the United States. Remember that the decision to grant the waiver came during the last two weeks of January and the fist part of February of 1998. In a state of shell shock from the sudden exposure of his "non-sexual" relationship with Monica Lewinsky, the distracted president left his political sense behind in approving the waiver. One can imagine that he was not in a frame of mind to assess dispassionately either the national security implications or the political fallout. But rather than shield the president from making a politically dangerous decision at as time of great emotional angst, Clinton's staff exploited his vulnerability to force a quick decision to benefit Loral. The political need to appease a major campaign contributor overshadowed serious security concerns. Loral had attempted to launch a satellite with a Chinese rocket in 1996 which crashed; then the company helped China figure out what went wrong. The State Department concluded that the firm was so helpful, it violated U.S. export-control laws; the Defense Department noted that Loral's actions had harmed national security. The Justice Department clearly communicated that it would likely indict Loral, but warned that presidential approval of a new waiver would undermine its case. Despite all these concern, Berger told the president that he thought we could "effectively rebut criticism of the waiver." Nowhere is there any evidence that Berger led any serious review of the substantive merits of the waiver or of the national security dangers of permitting further Loral-Chinese collaboration. Instead, the information which flowed to the president focused primarily on the financial penalties Loral would incur if he waver were denied or even delayed. This focus on the financial needs of Loral, rather than the security needs of the United States, is what one would expect from a politician like Berger, anxious to assist in appeasing a major political supporter of the president. As yet unexplored is the interesting role of Tom Ross, a former NSC press aide who left the government to work for Loral. His passage through the revolving door of the military-industrial complex might offer an interesting insight into why the NSC was so concerned about the bottom line at Loral. The backdrop to all this is, of course, the checkbook of Bernard Schwartz. What business did the president have in accepting a campaign contribution of $100,000 from the head of Loral - part of the $1.1 million he ultimately gave Clinton - four weeks before granting the first satellite-launch waiver in June of 1996? Where was Clinton's judgment? This scandal is unlike any other Clinton has faced. It concerns national security, China and a blatant tie-in with campaign financing. Forget Monica. Last week's Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll showed that 65 percent of the public feels that this scandal is more serious than the rest. This is the scandal that commands our attention and focus. Here is where the action is. nypostonline.com