REBEL LOBBY BECOMES NEW GROWTH INDUSTRY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504130030-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 27, 2012
• Sequence Number: 30
• Publication Date: September 2, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

.~ Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504130030-9
LOS ANGELES TIMES
2 September 1986
US.-Backedk$uigeins
Rebel Lobby Becomes
New Growth Industry
By DOYLE McMANUS and SARA FRITZ, Times Staff Writers
WASHINGTON-When Nicara-
gua's contras recently ran low on
funds, they did what any other
political cause in Washington does:
They turned to a wealthy, well-
connected professional lobbyist.
The result was a sophisticated
mail appeal-one of those letters
disguised to look like a telegram-
in which rebel chief Adolfo Calero,
likening himself to George Wash-
ington at Valley Forge, asked each
donor to adopt a contra for $3.50 a
day.
"Our goal is $1 million in six
weeks," said lobbyist Roger Stone,
who helped Calero to design the
appeal and whose wife's direct-
mail firm is managing it. "And we
have a good chance of making it."
The mutual interest between
contras and lobbyists reflects an
unexpected result of what has
THE REAGAN DOCTRINE
Funding Anti-Communist Rebels
LAST OF THREE ARTICLES
become known as the Reagan Doc-
trine-the President's pledge that
the United States should sponsor
anti-Communist insurgencies all
over the Third World.
With conservatives in Congress
taking the lead in promoting aid to
anti-Communist guerrillas, in some
cases even beyond the bounds of
what the Reagan Administration
wants to provide, Capitol Hill has
become the center of a new growth
industry-the Rebel Lobby.
Nicaraguan, Angolan and Cam-
bodian rebels all maintain Wash-
ington offices, and the Afghans and
Mozambicans say they plan to
follo?.', suit. Their representatives
cultivate members of Congress,
drum up private contributions and
angle _or positive press coverage of
their '. arious causes-just like any
other Vashington lobby.
Lik, the once-powerful China
Lobby and the long-effective Israel
Lobby, the Rebel Lobby is using
the pressure of public and congres-
sional support to win the attention
of White House strategists and
State Department bureaucrats. '
Wasting No Time
Nor have the politicians wasted
any time in trying to harness this
new force. Senate Majority Leader
Bob Dole (R-Kan.), among others,
has become a loyal ally of the
rebels in what many view as an
effort to attract conservative sup-
port for his campaign for the 1988
GOP presidential nomination.
So far, the rebels seem to be
scoring more victories in Washing-
ton than on the battlefield. In the
last year, the Rebel Lobby has
succeeded in reviving military aid
for the contras, repealing the Clark
Amendment prohibiting U.S. aid to
the Angolan rebels, persuading
Reagan to approve deadly Stinger
anti-aircraft missiles for the Af-
ghan and Angolan rebels and win-
ning increases in existing aid pro-
grams.
Of course, it helps to have
top-notch experts on your side.
Stone's firm-Black, Manafort.
Stone & Kelly, one of the giants of
Washington's influence indus-
try-represents Angolan rebel Jo-
nas Savimbi with an annual retain-
er of $600,000 a year, as well as the
contras.
In addition, the rebels benefit
from a strong alliance with conser-
vative groups. A coalition of rebel
representatives holds meetings
regularly at the Capitol Hill head-
quarters of the Free Congress
Education and Research Founda-
tion, and several rebel groups have
offices in a building owned by the
Heritage Foundation, a conserva-
tive think tank.
In some instances, the rebels'
alliance with American conserva-
tives is a peculiar marriage of
convenience, particularly in the
case of Savimbi, who previously
received aid from China and called
himself a Maoist.
Still, as the Reagan Doctrine
gathers steam, the rebels' lobbying
efforts appear to have given the
once-lonely guerrilla bands a small
but independent power base in
Washington-and with it an un-
usual opportunity to influence U.S.
policy deliberations over their des -
tiny:
-During the pivotal House de-
bate over aid to the contras in June,
Calero was the most visible lobby-
ist in the Capitol, stalking the
marble halls in search of congress-
men who might be vulnerable to
persuasion. State Department offi-
cials say he has also carefully
marshaled support in Congress for
his own position as leader of the
contras, making any attempt to
depose him more difficult. "He
spends more time here than he does
in the (rebel) camps," grumbled
one who asked not to be quoted by
name.
-Angolan rebel leader Savimbi
has successfully used conservative
supporters, bolstered by Black,
Manafort, Stone & Kelly, to push a
reluctant State Department away
from attempts to negotiate with
Angola's Marxist government and
toward acceptance of covert U.S.
military aid to his guerrillas. In
February, he staged a triumphal
tour of Washington-and left with
new commitments from GOP sena-
tors to make sure that the aid
includes anti-aircraft missiles. "He
does seem to have charisma," ac-
knowledged House Intelligence
Committee Chairman Lee H. Ham-
ilton (D-Ind.), a foe of the Angolan
aid program.
-Afghanistan's rebels, who are
fighting the Soviet army itself, do
not need any help in winning a
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majority in Congress. "There's no
real opposition, so there's not much
need for lobbying," said Henry
Kriegel, executive director of the
Committee for a Free Afghanistan,
a group of U.S. supporters. But the
Afghan lobby has successfully
prompted congressional inquiries
into whether the CIA is providing
enough aid to the rebels and giving
them all the sophisticated weapons
that they want.
-The Nicaraguan, Angolan and
Afghan groups have even endorsed
the idea of U.S. aid to other
insurgent movements-in Ethio-
pia, Mozambique, Laos and Viet-
nam-in appearances at a series of
"contra summits," including one at
Savimbi's headquarters deep in the
African bush. But several attempts
to organize a joint lobbying opera-
tion for all the insurgencies have
foundered, apparently because
their interests are still as different
as the countries from which they
come.
Efforts Questioned
To be sure, the Rebel Lobby has
not been an unqualified success.
Savimbi, for example, had hoped to
win a congressional resolution of
support during his visit, but that
effort stalled. And the Afghan
rebels, bitterly divided into seven
factions, have been unable to agree
on a joint representative; three of
the guerrilla bands are planning to
open their own Washington offices.
Nor have all rebel groups repre-
sented in Washington received
U.S. assistance. Despite consider-
able prodding from conservatives,
the Administration has so far re-
fused to add the rebels fighting
Marxist President Samora Machel's
government in Mozambique to its
list of those receiving U.S. aid.
And the Nicaraguan contras. for
all the support that Reagan has
given them, are only now egin-
ning recover rom a major
setback suffered more than two
years ago when Congress cut off
their military aid. Their image in
Was ing on has been severely
hurt by reported CIA abuses, as
well as by allegations that they
have been involved indgraf-
fic ng and of
U.S. funds.
Some in Congress even question
whether Calero's dogged efforts
have actually won over any unde-
cided votes for the Nicaraguan
rebels.
"I guess you could say they
didn't hurt," a key swing voter,
Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), said
cautiously. "But it wasn't the main
thing. The main thing was the trips
that several members made to the
area."
Calero acknowledges that much
of his work has gone to damage
control-convincing skeptical
members of Congress that he takes
complaints about human rights and
other U.S. concerns seriously.
"I'm here to answer questions
... and to show that we aren't
killing babies," he said with a grin.
Calero's Washington operation
has itself come under fire from
some State Department officials,
who complain that he has used it to
bolster his own political position at
the expense of other, more liberal
contra leaders.
Administration officials recently
pressured him to put his represen-
tative in Washington, a former
Nicaraguan diplomat named Bosco
Matamoros, under the supervision
of the broader contra coalition.
Matamoros moved to the coalition's
office, but officials say he still
works as Calero's personal lobby-
ist.
Calero is quite pleased that
Stone's firm is also at his side.
Stone says that, for now, he and his
wife are not charging the contras a
dime, except for the expenses of the
direct-mail operation.
"I'm not doing this because I'm
looking for a client," Stone said.
"I'm doing it because I believe in
it."
Asked if he would ever hire
Stone's firm, Calero said, "I don't
mind if Roger Stone gets some
business out of this one day."
In the war of the lobbyists,
Savimbi has won the most sophisti-
cated victory to date.
Last year, Angola's Marxist gov-
ernment hired one of Washington's
largest lobbying firms, Gray & Co.,
to represent its interests. It was a
clever, if surprising, choice: The
firm, headed by former Dwight D.
Eisenhower aide Robert Keith
Gray and former George Bush aide
Daniel Murphy, boasts an imposing
and very capitalist list of corporate
and foreign clients.
Then Savimbi's supporters in the
GOP went to work, organizing a
wave of discreet complaints to
Gray, comments to his other clients
and, eventually, a picket line out-
side his building.
A few months ago, Gray quietly
pulled out of its contract with
Angola.
"They were coming into my
office with all these Angolans,"
Hamilton, the Indiana congress-
man, recalled. "They wanted me to
meet this Angolan leader and that
Angolan leader. They invited me to
Angola.... Then I got a call from
some of my friends at Gray & Co.
who said, 'We have reassessed the
situation,' that they decided that
they had been leading me astray
and Mr. Savimbi was really a very
marvelous man.
"I did a little checking on it,"
Hamilton said. "The White House
just called Bob Gray up and said
'Get out of this thing.' I don't know
what level at the White House di,
it.
"Many within Gray & Co. came
to me and were deeply embar-
rassed because they had jacked me
around for a long time. They
themselves think supporting Sav-
imbi is crazy, but Gray called them
in the office one day and said, 'We
are cutting out this [Angola] ac-
count."'
Frank Mankiewicz, an executive
vice president at Gray & Co. and
former aide to Sen. George S.
McGovern (D-S.D.), disputed the
details of Hamilton's story-but
acknowledged that the pressure
forced Gray's hand.
"We never got any sense from
anyone in the government that
there was a problem," he said. "In
fact, they welcomed it. . . . We
dropped the account because we
thought we were becoming part of
the issue. We were attracting pick-
ets.... It wasn't helping the
client to have that much attention
focused on us."
Perhaps the best'measure of the
Rebel Lobby's success is the many
impostors now showing up, claim-
ing to be representatives of resis-
tance forces. Just last April, a man
who portrayed himself as a contra
appeared at a news conference
with a congressional candidate in
Illinois; it was later learned that he
was actually a full-time salesman
at a shop in Washington's George-
town district.
"We call them Gucci comman-
dos," said Rep. Charles Wilson
(D-Tex.), a strong supporter of the
Afghan rebels who claims that he is
often pestered by phony rebel
representatives. "These are the
so-called freedom fighters and rep-
resentatives of freedom fighters
and self-appointed experts who
don't represent anybody.
"Some of them claim to repre-
sent the deposed King of Afghani-
stan-the royalty, the prince. And
some of them claim to be Muslim
fundamentalists, and they'll come
into my office and get down on
their prayer rug and all that, and
then you find out they're total
fakers."
Wilson said the impostors hope
to make money for themselves by
becoming identified with counter-
insurgencies that are now popes
in Washington.
OZ
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504130030-9