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February
1, 2002
David
Vest
10
Things I Know About Him
January
31, 2002
Rahul
Mahajan
The
State of the Union:
A New Cold War
Dave Marsh
Miles
Copeland, War
and the Future of Music
John Pilger
The
Colder War
Alexander
Cockburn
American
Journal:
Killer Dog, Weird Couple
Dr. Susan
Block
Blowback
and Daniel Pearl
January
30, 2002
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Linda
Lay, Hill and Knowlton and the Tears of a Clown
Jack McCarthy
Free
Noelle Bush!
Michael
Ratner
Memo
to Bush: Adhere to
the Geneva Convention
Jay Moore
Proud
to be an American?
Susan
Block
The
Great Pretzel Swallower
and Guantanamo Porn
January
29, 2002
Gary Leupp
Why
This War Was, and Remains, Utterly Wrong
Alexander
Cockburn
The
Birds of Kandahar
Patrick
Cockburn
Afghan
Opium Trade
Back in Business
January
28, 2002
Larry
Chin
Brosnahan
for the Defense
Mokhiber/Weissman
Tyranny
of the Bottom Line
George
E. Curry
Civil
Rights Nominee Called Affirmative Action "Racist"
Sen. Russ
Feingold
Campaign
Finance Reform?
Think Enron
John Chuckman
Liberal?
Media?
January
27, 2002
Mokhiber
and Weissman
Enron's
Drip, Drip, Drip
Tom Turnipseed
MLK
Jr.'s Dream Perverted
January
26, 2002
Norman
Madarsz
Adieu,
Bourdieu
January
25, 2002
National
Lawyers Guild
Know
Your Rights
Alexander
Cockburn
You
Call This Terrorism?
CounterPunch
Wire
Cal
Energy Crisis Hoax:
It Wasn't A Shortage,
It Was a Shakedown
Tariq
Ali
Kashmir,
Klinghoffer,
the Kurds and Chomsky
Nadine
Strossen
Protecting
MLK Jr.'s Legacy:
Justice and Liberty After 9/11
January
24, 2002
Robert
Fisk
Turkey
Targets Chomsky
Dean Baker
Lying
on Top:
Ken Lay One of Many
David
Vest
Idiot
Wind
January
23, 2002
Terry
Waite
Guantanamo
Prisoners:
Justice or Revenge?
Molly
Secours
The
Case of Abu-Ali:
Racism and the Death Penalty
Robert
Jensen
Speak
Out, Get Slimed
A Photographic Journal of Life
in an Afghan Refugee Camp
By Judith Mann
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
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Photos by Allan Sekula
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War Diary
CIA's Assassination Plan a History of
Torture in US Prisons
bin Laden and Bush
Business Connections
Aisha Ikramuddin on the Hidden Hype
of US Food Bombs
Peter Linebaugh on
Pakistan
Christopher Hitchens' Love for Mrs. Thatcher
Jiang Zemin Tells Bush:
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and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The New Crusade:
America's War on Terrorism
By Rahul Mahajan
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
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The
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by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
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February 1,
2002
The Strange Career
of Frank Carlucci
By Francis Schor
In the past few months there has been a rash of
media reports on the Carlyle Group, a private equity investment
group with billions of dollars of assets in the defense industry
and a roster of directors and consultants which includes not
only well-known Reagan and Bush appointees but also international
figures like John Major, the former Prime Minister of Great Britain,
and Fidel Ramos, the former President of the Philippines.
The Chairman of the Carlyle Group, Frank
Carlucci, was not only a former Secretary of Defense in the Reagan
Administration, bu t a Deputy Director
of the CIA during the Carter Administration. In fact, Carlucci's
career in Washington provides some insight into the intersection
between foreign and domestic policy in the Cold War years. Moreover,
Carlucci's particular trajectory through the government and into
private industry reveals much about the meaning and influence
of the military-industrial complex in the past and continuing
policies of the United States at home and abroad.
A critical part of Carlucci's career was spent as a foreign service
officer during the 1950's and 1960's in such hot spots as the
Congo and Brazil. He capped that foreign service career with
a stint as Ambassador to Portugal from 1974-77, a key time in
the history and development of the Portuguese revolution. Carlucci's
navigation through these conflictual moments helps to situate
the nuances of US cold war policies not only in these specific
countries, but throughout the world.
As the Second Secretary in the US Embassy in the Congo during
the time of the reign and consequent assassination of Patrice
Lumumba, Carlucci was intimately involved in the US efforts to
overthrow Lumumba's government. In the recent cinematic reconstruction
of the life and times of the Congo's first elected prime minister,
Lumumba by Haitian director, Raoul Peck, Carlucci is depicted
as being part of a meeting of US, Belgian, and Congo officials
plotting the murder of Lumumba. Claiming that this particular
meeting was fabricated by the filmmaker, Carlucci did admit at
a Washington premier of the film that US policy towards the Lumumba
government was a bit "too strident."
The fact that CIA station chief Lawrence
Devlin was under direct instructions from Secretary of State
Dulles to seek the immediate removal of Lumumba is part of the
historical record. There is even evidence to suggest that the
actual hit on Lumumba came from the White House at Eisenhower's
suggestion. In fact, there was an assassin hired by the US government,
equipped with chemical weapons from Ft. Detrick, to use against
Lumumba.
When Lumumba was captured in December 1960 after fleeing from
house arrest by a former supporter and later vicious dictator
of the Congo, Colonel Joseph Mobutu, the CIA probably helped
to arrange for Lumumba's transfer to Katanga province where Katangan
and Belgian henchman murdered Lumumba and disposed of his body.
Meanwhile, Carlucci was attempting to
placate Lumumba supporters and draw them into a new coalition
government. In the confusions that ensued, Carlucci found himself
under house arrest and at odds with Clare Timberlake, the US
Ambassador to the Congo who did not favor any involvement with
Lumumba supporters. Fortunately for Carlucci, Timberlake was
relieved of his ambassadorial post and replaced by Kennedy appointees
whose liberal politics allowed for certain compromises with indigenous
forces in Africa who might still serve the anti-communist alliance
while facilitating US economic interests in the region.
Although Carlucci wasn't around for the mess that followed in
the wake of UN intervention and the continuing zigs and zags
of US policy in the Congo, he did wind up in Brazil in time for
the overthrow of the Goulart government. The CIA and State Department
were actively engaged in funneling money to opponents of Goulart
and setting the stage for the eventual military coup in March
and April of 1964.
Beyond his populist policies that threatened
nationalization of US subsidies, Goulart was seen by Washington
as "soft on communism" and "pro-Castro,"
indictments enough to spell his doom and put in place right-wing
military dictators who would outlaw any political or union dissent
for years. As a consequence of the military coup and its entrenchment,
Carlucci gained a reputation as a "tough-guy" with
the American Defense Attaché in Brazil, Colonel Vernon
Walters.
By the end of the 1960s Carlucci had returned to Washington to
become part of Nixon Administration, going from the Office of
Economic Opportunity in 1969-71 to the Office of Management and
Budget in 1971-72. He then was appointed Under Secretary of Health,
Education, and Welfare from 1972-74. Among the other key members
of these departments of domestic pacification were Caspar Weinberger,
who was a Carlucci mentor, and Donald Rumsfeld, a former college
buddy and wrestling mate from Princeton. Both Weinberger and
Rumsfeld would later become, as would Carlucci, Secretaries of
Defense. The bureaucratic imperatives honed in these cabinet
positions would further underscore the primacy of military Keynesianism
in governmental policy.
After so many positions as an underling and gray bureaucrat,
Carlucci burst onto the explosive stage of post-revolutionary
Portugal as Ambassador. With the approval of CIA Deputy Director
Vernon Walters and Henry Kissinger, Carlucci began immediately
to ferret out potential communist sympathizers among the left-leaning
young military officers who helped foment the revolutionary coup
in Portugal in 1974.
However, unlike Kissinger, Carlucci was
willing to work with Socialist Mario Soares not out of any sympathy
for Soares' politics, but because from Carlucci's perspective
Soares was the "only game in town" to prevent the most
militant leftists from assuming power in Portugal. Carlucci managed
to convince President Ford of his approach by working directly
through Rumsfeld who was, at the time, the White House chief
of staff. Carlucci's pay-off came when Soares won the Presidency
in 1976, cementing ties with NATO and instituting IMF approved
austerity measures.
Such successful machinations in Portugal earned Carlucci a position
as Deputy Director of the CIA in the Carter Administration from
1978-1981. When insurgent forces in Iran and Nicaragua in 1979
toppled the Shah and Somoza dictatorships, Carlucci and the CIA
had little ability to control the upheavals even though there
were various clandestine efforts to thwart the revolutionary
forces in these countries. On the other hand, the CIA certainly
played a significant role in sponsoring anti-Soviet Mujaheddin,
perhaps even suckering the Soviets into their disastrous campaign
in Afghanistan.
Carlucci then made the transition to a procurer of new weapons
as Deputy Secretary of Defense in the Reagan Administration under
Caspar Weinberger from 1981-83. During this time, in response
to wide-spread criticism of Pentagon waste and mismanagement,
Carlucci developed proposals (known as the "Carlucci Reforms")
to rationalize the process of weapons procurement. However, Carlucci's
policies did not lower costs. They did, apparently, offer new
start-up companies the opportunity to get involved in DoD pork,
something that the Carlyle Group would take advantage of later
on.
After a brief departure into the world of private business at
Sears World Trade from 1983-86, Carlucci returned to become first
an Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs in
1987. He then went on to become Secretary of Defense later than
year until his resignation in 1989 when he went to work for the
Carlyle Group.
As Secretary of Defense he worked closely with the Joint Chiefs
of Staff and particularly the Chairman, Admiral William Crowe,
Jr. (Crowe is now a chief stock-holder of the parent company
of BioPort, the recently FDA approved monopoly holder of an anthrax
vaccine. The Carlyle Group also apparently has stock holdings
in Crowe's company.) While overseeing some cutbacks in the DoD,
particularly military bases in the US, Carlucci was committed
to expanding certain military appropriations in the area of new
technology as a way of strengthening the US national security
state and expanding NATO. Although willing to compromise with
Congress on the Strategic Defense Initiative (encountering in
the process a rebuke from Reagan), Carlucci maintained a determined
stance of US supremacy in nuclear arms and nuclear-war-fighting
capability.
While outside of government in the 1990's, Carlucci managed to
circulate on the boards of various think-tanks, e.g. the RAND
Corporation, and help promulgate reports on national security
and defense that urged increases in defense spending and the
use of US military might. Nonetheless, he, along with other former
Secretaries of Defense, opposed sending ground troops to Bosnia,
perhaps because there were no long-term prospects for security
or economic advancements.
Certainly, Carlucci's tenure at the Carlyle Group has resulted
in an expanded portfolio of defense industries. Among the defense
industries that Carlyle holds is United Defense, a maker of missile
launch systems for the US Navy. However, Carlyle's reach under
Carlucci has expanded into a variety of new technologies in defense
and non-defense industries, such as global communications.
For example, Carlyle is keen on cleaning
up hazardous materials at military bases and nuclear waste. Buying
firms not yet publicly traded that deal with such services, such
as Duratek and EG&G, allows Carlyle to position these firms
for government contracts and then cash in when they are publicly
traded. Such influence-peddling is certainly not new to former
government officials who use their ties to past and present administrations
for private benefit.
Carlucci, of course, insists that he does not importune or lobby
his old buddy Don Rumsfeld. Nonetheless, the money trail from
Carlyle's portfolio to Rumsfeld's office at the Pentagon is pretty
evident. In one major decision by Rumsfeld, revealed by New York
Times columnist Paul Krugman, United Defense's 70-ton Crusader
artillery system was saved from a potential budget cut. Surely,
the proposed massive increase in spending for the Pentagon by
the Bush Administration will benefit the Carlyle Group.
What has seemed most egregious to inquiring journalists and public
interest groups has been Carlyle's consultants, like former President
Bush, whose ties to ruling elites in Saudi Arabia (including
the Bin Laden family) and South Korea have resulted in lucrative
holdings and investments in these countries for Carlyle. As noted
by the executive director of the Center for Public Integrity:
"(Former President) George Bush is getting money from private
interests that have business before the government...And, in
a really peculiar way, George W. Bush could, some day, benefit
financially from his own administration's decisions, through
his father's investments." In fact, George W. benefited
in the past from Carlyle by being put on the board of a Carlyle
investment, Caterair, an airline-catering company during his
Texas business career days.
Similar to the Enron situation, the Bush family and others have
enriched their careers and political fortunes with their ties
to the Carlyle Group. However, this is a scandal that still hasn't
gained the attention and measures necessary to prevent its scandalous
continuance.
Carlyle's cozy relationship with DoD
insiders and other power-brokers is part of Carlucci's effective
management of Carlyle. The global reach of Carlyle, while often
hidden behind the veil of private investments, moreover is indicative
of Carlucci's own experience with US imperial and military policies.
Like the subject of C. Vann Woodward's
seminal study of racial oppression and exploitation in the South,
The Strange Career of Jim Crow, Carlucci's "strange"
career is representative of significant other pathological imperatives
in US political culture. The residual effects and on-going commitments
to imperialism and militarism in US society feed such opportunistic
careerists as Frank Carlucci.
Until there is a massive movement to
dismantle all of the institutions and ideas that sustain US imperialism
and militarism, Frank Carlucci and his ilk will continue to profit
and prosper at the expense of the well-being and very lives of
people here and abroad.
Francis Schor
teaches at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. He can
be reached at: aa2439@wayne.edu
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