Why did Clinton suddenly change tack? The answer, according to a NEWSWEEK reconstruction, is a surprising Washington tale of the pressures that influence White House foreign policy in an election year. No one doubts that Colombia is a serious policy challenge, and many strongly believe the aid package is a vital response. But a series of other factors also came into play. Domestic politics was one–and lobbying efforts by arms producers may have been another.
According to the White House version of the story, it was Clinton’s drug czar, Gen. Barry McCaffrey–the former commander of all U.S. forces in Latin America–who convinced Clinton something had to be done about Colombia. In White House meetings and in memos, McCaffrey repeatedly pointed to Colombia’s surging coca crop and increasing ties between the country’s Marxist guerrillas and its drug lords. By last spring, the guerrillas were making daring raids into government-controlled territory. The U.S. drug czar prodded Colombia’s new president, Andres Pastrana, to take more aggressive action, telling him the guerrillas would be “outside his window” if his military didn’t strike harder. McCaffrey was similarly blunt with his own boss, warning President Clinton that his legacy was at stake. If the administration failed to act against Colombia’s narcoguerrillas, he told Clinton last summer, the United States would soon face a blizzard of Colombian cocaine more intense than anything seen before. “The country will say you let this go,” McCaffrey said to the president.
But it wasn’t McCaffrey alone who prodded Clinton into action. Despite the drug czar’s warnings, officials say, few in the White House paid much heed until last September, when Democratic pollster Mark Mellman showed up with worrisome news: the public perceived that “drug use” was on the rise and was inclined to blame Democrats. (In fact, government figures show overall drug use has been static for the past five years.) Drugs, according to Mellman’s polling, were one issue where Republicans had a clear edge in the upcoming election. “This issue is an Achilles’ heel” for the party, Mellman warned.
As it turned out, the poll was hardly the idea of a disinterested party: NEWSWEEK has learned that it was commissioned by Lockheed Martin, the giant defense contractor. As the maker of P-3 radar planes used to track drug smugglers, the company had been pushing for heavy increases for drug interdiction. But Lockheed was facing resistance, especially from “liberal” Democrats on Capitol Hill, a company official says. Mellman’s findings–based on telephone interviews with 800 registered voters–concluded that “56 percent” of the electorate would support a $2 billion increase in funding for “tracking planes to be flown in drug producing areas.”
Other powerful interests also weighed in. Occidental Petroleum, which has large investments in Colombia, pressed for greater U.S. engagement, and the Colombian government retained the powerhouse Washington law firm of Akin, Gump, to push for increased aid. Lobbyists from two U.S. helicopter companies were even more aggressive: Textron, maker of the Bell Huey, and United Technologies Corp., whose Sikorsky Aircraft division makes the Black Hawk. Both firms sent choppers to Washington’s Reagan National Airport to impress congressional members with gut-twisting rides.
The companies also made large campaign contributions. Federal election records show that Textron and United Technologies donated $1.25 million to both parties between 1997 and 1999. Last year UT made a strategic shift: having long favored gift- giving to Republicans, the Connecticut-based firm earmarked two thirds of its “soft money” to the Democrats, writing four checks totaling $125,000 to various Democratic committees. The bulk of that money, $75,000, was deposited in party accounts on one day, Dec. 31, 1999–11 days before the Colombia package was announced. (The company and the Democratic National Committee deny any link between the events: “We didn’t even know the Black Hawks were going to be in there” until the plan was released, a UT spokesman said. Lockheed and Textron officials also denied trying to influence the White House.)
Republican operatives have pointed to the role of Sen. Christopher Dodd, a former DNC chair. The aid deal includes $400 million for 30 new Black Hawks, which are made in Dodd’s home state of Connecticut. Even administration officials acknowledge the Colombian Army lacks enough hangars and pilots to handle so many choppers. “A year ago we couldn’t get them to fund three Black Hawks–and now they want 30?” says one GOP staffer. Dodd, who visited Colombia last December, denies ever mentioning his home-state choppers to administration officials–or knowing anything about the company’s last-minute campaign infusion.
McCaffrey acknowledges that it will be some time before the Colombians will be able to use the choppers, even if the package survives the scrutiny of Republicans in Congress. “This is a five-year engagement,” he says. By then, Clinton’s Colombia troubles will be in someone else’s hands.
