'Cold warrior' at heart of Cuba crackdown

[Judi Lynn]

'Cold warrior' at heart of Cuba crackdown
Critics blast Bush appointee's grip on policy

By Mike Shields, Journal-World City Editor

Friday, February 27, 2004

U.S. policy toward Cuba is dominated by one man, a scandal-plagued Cold War relic who has no business being President Bush's chief adviser on Latin America.

That's what U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts, the Kansas Republican who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee, has to say about Otto Reich.

"He's known as a hard-liner, not only with regards to Cuba, but Colombia, Venezuela and other areas in the hemisphere," Roberts told the Journal-World. "I just don't think Mr. Reich is the man for the job. Mr. Reich, I think, is still back in the Cuban Missile Crisis era."

Roberts is a Bush administration ally, though he differs with the president in favoring relaxed relations with Cuba. Bush critics have worse things to say about Reich. But critics and friends alike agree the fierce anti-Castroite who left Cuba at age 15 has been key in the administration's crackdown on Cuba and Americans who travel there.
(snip/...)

http://www.ljworld.com/section/citynews/story/162559

http://www.holton.k12.ks.us:16080/staff/abeam/ab/nonpinbacks/images/ks/roberts.gif

Bless Senator Pat Roberts heart! He's a REPUBLICAN, too! He is dissing _Bush's recess appointment, grimey, hate-spewing, Reagan Office of Public Diplomacy head propagandist, Cuban "exile," Otto Reich!

Now that takes a bit of character, you know! This is good news for Democrats. He's not rubber-stamping _Bush now, whereas he used to seem 100% behind him.

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

1. lol - when I saw the headline

I wondered if this was about Reich. Good to see even Republican's can't stomach Otto.

[berry]

2. It's good when GOPers break ranks even a little.

I just read that Roberts is one of 7 Senators who vote 100% with the Christian Coaliton, and was not feeling very charitable towards him. Still am not, since that group's agenda terrifies me. But it's good to know that home-state economics can trump ideology--though probably not unless it's some OTHER faction's ideology.

Does anyone know if Reich was/is involved in destabilizing Haiti? I think he must be. I know he was involved in similar attempts in Venezuela. I wonder if Iraqis are aware of the US record for supporting democracy in Latin America....

[Judi Lynn]

3. Oh, yeah! The only think missing in a pile of information

landing here is some time needed to do some searching. Sorry I don't have more time this a.m.

Here's a quick grab from google:

(snip) The assembled Haitian activists drew a parallel between this and U.S. media coverage of a peaceful demonstration by tens of thousands of Lavalas supporters in Haiti last November 25th. They felt their demonstrations were ignored by the U.S. press in a similar way while much smaller rallies demanding the resignation of President Aristide, a position many here view as official U.S. policy, were given unqualified weight and measure.

I couldn't help but think there might be something to this comparison as I remembered that Ambassador Otto Reich, President Bush's Envoy for Western Hemisphere Initiatives, had arrived in Haiti the same week bombs began falling on Iraq. Reich came as part of a delegation representing the Organization of American States and the Caribbean Community Council with the intention of brokering an agreement between the Haitian government and the Washington-backed "opposition" to Lavalas. Otto Reich is a known quantity when it comes to controlling the press and manipulating events to achieve U.S. foreign policy objectives in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Reich's visit was especially ominous as it coincided with reports from the Haitian police that uniformed soldiers of Haiti's abolished army had begun regular armed incursions into the Central Plateau region of the country from the Dominican Republic. A March 17, 2003 article in the Miami Herald reported, "In December, men wearing uniforms and carrying guns stopped a car with doctors and Washington-based filmmaker David Murdock. 'If our driver had kept going through it, who knows if they would have opened fire,' he said last week. He said he felt afraid for Haitians who have to travel that road regularly. Murdock said the men held him and others at gunpoint, lecturing them on how they would overthrow Aristide." Several policemen in Haiti's police force have recently referred to the current situation in the area as "the beginning of civil war in Haiti." And now Otto Reich was in Haiti.

Otto Reich? Is this the same Otto Reich who once used taxpayer dollars under the Reagan administration, from within his shadowy Office of Public Diplomacy, to cajole the U.S. press into supporting the Contra war against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua? According to The National Security Archive, a staff report by the House Foreign Affairs Committee (September 7, 1988) summarized various investigations of Mr. Reich's office and concluded that "senior CIA officials with backgrounds in covert operations, as well as military intelligence and psychological operations specialists from the Department of Defense, were deeply involved in establishing and participating in a domestic political and propaganda operation run through an obscure bureau in the Department of State which reported directly to the National Security Council rather than through the normal State Department channels.... These private individuals and organizations raised and spent funds for the purpose of influencing Congressional votes and U.S. domestic news media."
(snip/...)

http://victoria.indymedia.org/news/2004/02/22255.php

[Media_Lies_Daily]

4. More on Otto Reich...what a nice guy!....

NOT!!

Take a look at these links:


<http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB40/>

<http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0419-03.htm>

<http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2002-02/15landau.cfm>

<http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/documentos/2002/ing/m140302i.html>

[0007]

5. Thank you, I was just gonna post a few

I wonder if Orlando Bosch and Otto ever connected? I would bet they did!

[Judi Lynn]

8. Some views of Otto Reich and his relationship to the bomber/terrorist,

Orlando Bosch:


Otto Reich was sent off as Ambassador to Venezuela after the Contra war, where he was able to secure the release of the jailed Cuban exile terrorist, Orlando Bosch. This man had been jailed for eleven years for his role in the worst instance of airline terrorism in the Western Hemisphere (up until September 11, 2001, that is). This was the bombing of a Cuban plane which killed all 73 civilians on board in 1976. The U.S. Justice Department had evidence of Bosch's involvement in more than 30 other terrorist acts, some of them committed within the United States, including a rocket attack on a Polish ship in Miami. With the help of Otto Reich and Jeb Bush, who was busy ingratiating himself with right-wing Cuban Americans in Florida, Bosch was pardoned by George Bush I in 1992.
(snip)

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Zeroes/Otto_Reich.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Reich, in his key role at the Office of Public Diplomacy, routinely lied to the public about US involvement in writing assassination manuals, mining Nicaraguan harbors and ultimately about what became the facts of the Iran-Contra scandal. But, true to the formula for success in Washington, he got promoted for his astute dissembling and became US ambassador to Venezuela.

While serving in that post he helped President Bush I circumvent immigration laws and reject advise from the FBI in the successful attempt to get a notorious terrorist named Orlando Bosch special immigration status so he could return to the United States where, naturally, he continued his terrorist plotting against Cuba.

Reich subsequently served the public interest by lobbying for the tobacco industry, selling arms to third world countries and serving the cause of the Bacardi (rum) family as a kind of personal emissary for the booze giants.
(snip)
http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2002-02/15landau.cfm


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Reich first gained notoriety throughout Latin America and among US human rights groups for his role as head of the Office of Public Diplomacy during the Reagan administration. This office launched an anti-Sandinista propaganda campaign, illegally designed to influence the American public to embrace the administration’s agenda for Central America. Later, as US ambassador to Venezuela, Reich used his office to help Orlando Bosch, a known terrorist, get into the US. Bosch was convicted of firing a bazooka at a freighter in Miami, and accused of bombing a Cuban jet, killing 73 people. Despite this record the current Bush administration nominated Reich for Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs. In this capacity Reich admittedly advised Pedro Carmona—the businessman who seized the presidency—during the failed coup in Venezuela last month. Also he met with generals who planned the coup in the months leading up to the coup (some of whom were trained at the SOA).
(snip)

http://www.soaw.org/new/article.php?id=332

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What a prince!

(snip)
Otto was appointed as ambassador to Venezuela, a disparaging gesture remembered for years in Caracas. There he dedicated himself to securing the release of killer pediatrician and CIA agent Orlando Bosch--detained there after the horrific sabotage of a Cuban airliner--and to act the mafioso on behalf of U.S. interests, particularly within Venezuela's Cuban emigre business circles.

Reich, born in Cuba of an Austrian father and an emigre to the United States at an early age, established his Venezuelan network in military circles--thus obtaining an order for Bosch's release from a military tribunal--and within the Venezuelan secret services, in which the CIA and the U.S. embassy had their people well placed.

That same U.S. embassy in Caracas is currently occupied by Ambassador Charles Shapiro, former head of the State Department's Cuba Desk, who received the central civilian conspirators of the April 11 coup on a regular basis, for several weeks prior to that action.

During the '80s, Otto Reich launched disinformation from his Office of Public Diplomacy, like the one about MiG fighter planes being purchased secretly by Nicaragua and allegedly ready to attack U.S. territory, and the story that the Miskito Indians were being persecuted by the Sandinistas. He also circulated rumors to discredit journalists who wrote about the Nicaraguan revolution in terms that were considered too positive.
(snip)

http://www.counterpunch.org/allard0420.html

(Don't forget, over 30 countries had refused to accept Orlando Bosch before Otto Reich, Jeb Bush, and Cuban "exile" Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen interceded with George H. W. Bush and got him to overturn the Attorney General's finding against him, and pardon his @$$.)

[Judi Lynn]

7. This is a truly creepy cable from Reich's office

I can't get it to copy/paste. I've had the same trouble with a few documents in PDF.

This insight into his work is found within your first link.

I've never seen the term, "Cubaganda" before, and in the context, referring to creating material for Radio Marti, the Cuban "exile" operated propaganda station beaming from Miami to Cuba, it seems to indicate they are describing rewriting events to twist for propaganda purposes to feed to the Cuban citizenry:

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB40/19850530.pdf

CREEPY.

Someone put him on a card!

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

6. You guys are too hard on good ol' Otto.

I mean when he's not involved in some treasonous criminal plot and picking on defenseless peasants he can be a great guy.