[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 49 (Tuesday, April 28, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H2342-H2346]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    PRESIDENT SHOULD SUPPORT RELIGIOUS FREEDOM, RATHER THAN APPEASE 
                         OPPRESSIVE GOVERNMENTS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 21, 1997, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) is recognized 
during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.

[[Page H2343]]

  Mr. WOLF. Madam Speaker, yesterday the President of the United States 
provided one of the most stunning rationalizations in history about the 
need for appeasement in the face of persecution. I submit today's front 
page article from the New York Times and encourage my colleagues to 
read it.
  What is so bad about the ``Freedom From Religious Persecution Act'' 
according to President Clinton? That it will force the administration 
to ``fudge,'' and that is the President's term, reporting on violations 
so they would not have to carry out the sanctions imposed by this act.
  There apparently was no mention by the President that the bill, the 
Freedom From Religious Persecution Act, provides a very generous 
waiver, a total waiver for the President. He can waive the sanctions 
for national security reasons or if doing so would advance the 
objectives of the act.
  As we consider this act, Madam Speaker, we should know that Catholic 
priests are in jail in China, Catholic bishops are in jail in China, 
even evangelical pastors are being persecuted in China. The Chinese 
government has plundered Tibet. I have been to Tibet. I have visited 
and gone outside the prisons to hear how they are persecuting Buddhist 
monks and Buddhist nuns. They are persecuting the Muslims in China, and 
yet the President says this legislation is a ridiculous act.
  What the President and State Department fear most about this bill is 
the fact that it requires them to look at facts and take action. This 
administration wants to appease these governments when they are 
perpetrating evil, the same type of evil that when Ronald Reagan was 
President of the United States, he talked about the evil empire when he 
gave that very profound speech in Orlando back in the early 1980s.
  President Clinton made his remarks when he stopped by a meeting with 
prominent evangelical leaders. He went on to describe President Jiang 
Zemin as a person who ``knows a lot about Christianity in China.'' That 
is what the President said. ``He knows a lot about Christianity in 
China.'' He said he ``understands the issue.''
  Yes, Jiang Zemin understands the issue. He understands that he puts 
priests in jail. He understands that he puts bishops in jail. He 
understands that he puts evangelical leaders and lay pastors in jail. 
He understands that he persecutes the evangelical church and the 
Catholic church. He understands that he plunders Tibet and he 
brutalizes the Buddhist monks and nuns. He understands that he breaks 
the backs of the Muslims in China. He understands.
  What does the President mean, that President Jiang Zemin understands? 
Does he mean he is sympathetic? Then let him open up the jails and 
allow these people to come out. And for the President of the United 
States to say this is wrong.
  Madam Speaker, let me remind my colleagues that President Jiang Zemin 
is president of a country which systematically imprisons Catholic 
bishops and priests, imprisons protestant pastors and lay people, 
tortures Buddhist monks and nuns.
  Has our President ever been to Tibet? No. Has anybody from the 
administration been to Tibet? No. I have been there and talked to the 
monks, and seen the plunder that is taking place. I say this is a 
shame. Yes, President Jiang Zemin knows about Christianity. He knows 
how to persecute it.
  But, Madam Speaker, Christianity will rise in China. Christianity 
will be there when President Jiang Zemin is gone. And the Catholic 
church will prosper and the evangelical church will prosper, and the 
church will rise up and be there long after President Jiang Zemin is 
gone from there. But what a disgrace for this President to say and 
infer that President Jiang Zemin is sympathetic to the church in China.
  One other thing I want to raise, Madam Speaker. I want to submit an 
article which was in Mother Jones magazine showing how USA*Engage, a 
lobbying group downtown run by Anne Wexler, is attempting to manipulate 
prominent religious leaders in the United States. One USA*Engage memo 
obtained by Mother Jones described how Company X is assigned to talk to 
one of the country's most well-known religious leaders and Company Y is 
assigned to talk to another prominent leader. It goes on.
  I am saddened that USA*Engage and the Wexler group would attempt to 
manipulate leaders in this country of different denominations, while 
priests are being persecuted and slavery is taking place in Sudan. 1.1 
million Christians have been persecuted in Sudan because of their 
faith. Because they love Christ and they want to stand for Christ, they 
are persecuted for Christ. And Anne Wexler and USA*Engage join up, join 
up to defeat legislation which will send a message to these people that 
we care, that we remember the words of the Declaration of Independence: 
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are 
created equal and given rights by their creator God, life, liberty and 
the pursuit of happiness. And for USA*Engage to attempt to manipulate 
this progress is very, very sad.
  Madam Speaker, yesterday the President of the United States provided 
one of the most stunning rationalizations in history about the need for 
appeasement in the face of persecution.
  I submit for the record today's front page New York Times article and 
encourage my colleagues to read it. What is so bad about the Freedom 
from Religious Persecution Act according to President Clinton? That it 
will force the administration to ``fudge'', and that's the President's 
term, reporting on violations so they would not have to carry out the 
sanctions imposed by the act.
  There apparently was no mention by the President that the bill 
provides for very generous waiver authority: he can waive the sanctions 
for national security reasons or if doing so would advance the 
objectives of the act.
  What the President and the State Department fear the most about this 
bill is the fact that it requires them to look at the facts and take 
action. He wants to continue appeasing governments even when they are 
perpetrating evil.
  President Clinton made his remarks when he stopped by a meeting with 
prominent evangelical leaders. He went on to describe President Jiang 
Zemin as a person who ``knows a lot about Christianity in China'' He 
``understands the issue,'' the President said.
  Let me remind you that President Jiang Zemin is the President of a 
country which systematically imprisons Catholic bishops and priests, 
imprisons Protestant pastors and laypeople, tortures Tibetan Buddhist 
monks and nuns and sends its security forces to break up underground 
worship services. President Jiang Zemin rules a country that uses brave 
dissidents as pawns in ego-politics--releasing prominent dissidents in 
exchange for favors by the United States.
  I am pleased that Wang Dan and Wei Jingsheng have been released. But 
it does not reflect progress. The Chinese government has not released 
Pastor Peter Xu, one of China's most prominent house church leaders; 
Bishop Zeng Jingmu, a 77-year-old Roman Catholic bishop; or the Panchen 
Lama chosen by the Dalai Lama, a 5 year-old boy who has not been seen 
or heard from for over two years. All of these individuals were on the 
list of thirty prisoners raised by the recent, and highly-touted, 
religious leader's delegation to China. Not one of the thirty religious 
prisoners have been released since the delegation's visit.
  Sure Jiang Zemin knows about Christianity--he knows how to repress 
it.
  There is a growing movement in the United States demanding that the 
U.S. government take action against governments that persecute 
religious believers. That is what President Clinton fears the most--
having to take action. To avoid action, he says the administration will 
be forced to ``fudge'' the facts. What an abomination.
  But there is another issue that I wanted to bring to my colleagues 
attention. The efforts being waged by USA*Engage and some top-dollar 
Washington lobbyists to defeat the Freedom from Religious Persecution 
Act by trying to manipulate prominent American religious leaders. I 
urge all my colleagues to read the recent article in Mother Jones 
magazine that I am submitting for the record.
  Mr. Speaker, I am really saddened by this action. It is so 
disappointing to see what has been taking place and to what lengths 
some will go to defeat a bill which seeks only to help people being 
persecuted for their faith. Catholic bishops and priests are in jail in 
China. Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns are being tortured in Tibet. 
Bahai's are being persecuted in Iran. Muslims and Christians are being 
persecuted in Sudan. Yet, the lobbying beat goes on. What a sad 
commentary.
  I believe it is entirely inappropriate to manipulate American 
religious leaders. Yet, according to the article, that appears to be 
what is happening. One USA*Engage memo obtained by Mother Jones 
describes how company X is assigned to talk to one of this country's 
most well known religious leaders and company Y is assigned to talk to 
another prominent leader. It goes on. How disappointing.

[[Page H2344]]

  Suffering Catholics, Protestants and Muslims in China do not have 
top-dollar Washington lobbyists. Christian slaves in Sudan cannot hire 
K Street law firms. Tibetan Buddhists have no funds to launch slick PR 
campaigns.
  The Freedom from Religious Persecution Act is about them. Who speaks 
for them?
  I have been to many of those countries.
  I have spoken to many persecuted people. Almost everywhere I go I 
hear over and over--please speak out for us. We cannot speak for 
ourselves. We are voiceless, powerless minorities who are being 
victimized by powerful governments. If the American government does not 
speak for us, who will?
  H.R. 2431 is not about trade--its about taking away taxpayer 
subsidies (including taxpayer subsidized trade) from governments that 
persecute people of faith.
  H.R. 2431 does not cut off non-humanitarian aid to countries until 
they are engaged in ``widespread, ongoing'' and particularly severe 
kinds of persecution. In the face of killing, rape, torture, 
imprisonment, enslavement and other violent action, how can the 
President tell the American people that the United States government 
will continue trying to ``understand'' their point of view?
  Passage of this bill is important to help those who suffer for their 
faith.
  Madam Speaker, I submit the following article for the Record:

                [From the New York Times, Apr. 27, 1998]

  Clinton Argues for ``Flexibility'' Over Sanctions--U.S. Tempted to 
                    ``Fudge'' on Repressive Nations

                          (By Elaine Sciolino)

       Washington, April 27.--President Clinton criticized laws 
     today that automatically impose sanctions on countries for 
     behavior that Americans find unacceptable. He said such 
     legislation put pressure on the executive branch to 
     ``fudge,'' or overlook, violations so that it would not have 
     to carry out the sanctions.
       Mr. Clinton made his unusually frank remarks during an 
     appearance before a group of about 60 evangelical Christian 
     leaders at the White House. They were meeting with Samuel R. 
     Berger, the national security adviser, in the Roosevelt Room.
       Specifically, Mr. Clinton asked the group to withdraw its 
     support for pending legislation that aims to reduce religious 
     persecution overseas by imposing trade and aid sanctions on 
     repressive regimes.
       Last week the House International Relations Committee 
     approved, by 31 to 5, a bill that would impose export and aid 
     sanctions on countries that endorse or permit violent attacks 
     on religious believers. Among other provisions, the sanctions 
     would ban imports from such countries, prohibit loans by 
     multilateral institutions and make it easier for victims of 
     religious persecution overseas to qualify for asylum or 
     refugee status.
       Mr. Clinton made clear to the visitors just how difficult 
     it is for his Administration to produce honest analyses about 
     a country's behavior when Congress passes laws that require 
     sanctions the moment a country violates what Congress defines 
     as good behavior. legislators weigh in on issues including 
     human rights, drug cooperation and efforts to stop the spread 
     of nuclear weapons.
       The President singled out punitive legislation against 
     Russia, Iran and Cuba as examples of Congressional 
     initiatives that boxed him in.
       ``What always happens if you have automatic sanctions 
     legislation,'' he said, ``is it puts enormous pressure on 
     whoever is in the executive branch to fudge an evaluation of 
     the facts of what is going on. And that's not what you want. 
     What you want is to leave the President some flexibility, 
     including the ability to impose sanctions, some 
     flexibility with a range of appropriate reactions.''
       Later he repeated the point, saying that automatic 
     sanctioning ``creates an enormous amount of pressure in the 
     bowels of the bureaucracy to fudge the finding.''
       Mr. Clinton did not say whether the Administration had ever 
     ``fudged'' the facts to avoid imposing sanctions.
       But the Clinton Administration, like its predecessors, has 
     been criticized for ignoring or excusing obvious violations 
     of United States sanction laws to justify continuing to do 
     business with certain countries.
       Earlier this year, for example, the Administration 
     certified that Mexico, America's second-largest trading 
     partner, was fully cooperating in antidrug efforts despite 
     evidence to the contrary that could have required economic 
     sanctions.
       Some lawmakers and arms-control experts have criticized the 
     Administration for not imposing sanctions on China for its 
     sale of germ warfare equipment to Iran and its continued 
     nuclear cooperation with Iran and Pakistan.
       In addition, American lawmakers have threatened to improve 
     economic sanctions on Russian enterprises that aid Iran's 
     missile program if Russia does not fulfill its pledges to 
     block the assistance. The Administration has strongly opposed 
     the move.
       It has also been cautions in declaring that some foreign 
     companies are trafficking in formerly American-held property 
     in Cuba. Such a declaration would automatically hamper the 
     companies' operations in the United States and their 
     executives' ability to enter the country.
       As for Iran, the Administration has avoided deciding 
     whether to impose sanctions against countries or companies 
     that invest heavily in its oil sector, despite legislation 
     requiring the United States to do so.
       Mr. Clinton's remarks provided a rare opportunity to 
     observe him in a private setting in which he did not expect 
     reporters to be present.
       The meeting was not listed on his public schedule, and he 
     was told only later that a reporter had been invited to 
     attend.
       During the meeting, the president of the National 
     Association of Evangelicals, Don Argue, told Mr. Clinton, 
     ``These are praying people,'' and asked how the group's 
     members should pray for him.
       The President asked that they never say a prayer for him 
     that they didn't say for his family as well.
       The he added, ``I'll tell you what the prayer I say every 
     night is: `To be made an instrument of God's peace, to have 
     the words in my mouth and the meditations in my heart and to 
     be on God's side.' That's about as good as I can do here.''
       Mr. Clinton also shared a story about his daughter, 
     Chelsea, freshman at Stanford University. He said she often 
     logged on to the Internet in the evening and called him to 
     ask him about something she had read in the early edition of 
     the next day's newspaper.
       ``She knows I work late,'' Mr. Clinton said. ``So some 
     night at a quarter to one or something, the phone rings. It's 
     Chelsea.''
       In his remarks, Mr. Clinton also unabashedly boasted that 
     American religious freedom should be the model for countries 
     that persecute their people over religious beliefs.
       ``The only answer for any of these countries is to 
     basically have a system that America has,'' Mr. Clinton said. 
     ``I've always tried to be a little bit careful about telling 
     anybody that we know best about everything.''
       But, he added, in this case, ``we know best.''
       Still, he waxed philosophical about the need to understand 
     other countries' ``historical nightmares'' before judging 
     them too harshly.
       ``It's also important when you deal with a country to know 
     what its historic bad dreams are,'' he said.
       America's bad dream goes back to the Civil War, he said. 
     Russia's goes back to invasions by Napoleon and Hitler, and 
     China's goes back to internal disintegration.
       In trying to persuade Russia that the eastward expansion of 
     NATO was not a threat, for example, Mr. Clinton explained: 
     ``You know that NATO would never invade Russia, and it's not 
     rational from our point of view. But then, America was never 
     invaded by Hitler or Napoleon.''
       Mr. Clinton also described President Jiang Zemin of China 
     as a leader who understands the concerns of the United States 
     and ``knows a lot about Christianity'' in China. ``I think he 
     understands this issue and I think that if we just keep 
     pushing along, I think that he will be more likely than not 
     to advance it,'' Mr. Clinton said.
       He added that he had spent ``a lot of time'' coaching Mr. 
     Jiang during his trip to Washington last year on how to 
     handle their joint news conference.
       Mr. Clinton said he had told Mr. Jiang, ``You've got to 
     learn how to smile when they hit you right between the 
     eyes.''
       ``I said, `That's the way we do it over here.' ''
                                  ____


                   [From Mother Jones, May/June 1998]

                  So You Want To Trade With A Dictator

                          (By Ken Silverstein)

       Americans may be fickle when it comes to politics, but as 
     politicians and moviemakers know full well, there's one 
     reliable ``gimme'': We hate dictators. Tyrants, autocrats, 
     despots--we just don't like them.
       So imagine how tough it would be to build a public campaign 
     promoting trade with countries such as Iran, Burma, or 
     Nigeria, whose dictatorial regimes have horrible human rights 
     records. That's the challenge for a coalition of the nation's 
     biggest corporate exporters, including aerospace titan 
     Boeing; construction equipment giant Caterpillar; the 
     country's biggest oil companies, including Unocal, Chevron, 
     Mobil, and Texaco; and other Fortune 500 firms such as IBM 
     and Motorola.
       All have money to make overseas, and economic sanctions are 
     just another obstacle. Now the coalition, led by its front 
     group, USA*Engage, will have its two big shots at success.
       For starters, it plans to file a lawsuit to overturn the 
     ``selective purchasing'' laws that have sprung up in 18 
     different cities across the U.S. banning government contract 
     work from being awarded to companies that trade with 
     tyrannical regimes. More impressively, they have already 
     managed to have a bill introduced in Congress--which appears 
     to have been drafted by their own lobbyists--that would 
     severely restrict the use of sanctions, and would pave the 
     way for greater trade with outlaw nations. How will they 
     convince legislators, or the voting public, that trading with 
     dictators is good? Their strategy is detailed in a series of 
     internal memos obtained by Mother Jones that describe how to 
     spin the most morally questionable of campaigns--with help 
     along the way from religious leaders and institutions such as 
     the Rev. Billy Graham and the Catholic Church.


                      STEP 1--FIND YOUR SALES TEAM

       The anti-sanctions drive is run out of the National Foreign 
     Trade Council, a prominent Washington, D.C., trade 
     association that represents the nation's 500 biggest 
     exporters.

[[Page H2345]]

     But when it came time for its attack on sanctions, the NFTC 
     needed a cover--provided, preferably, by someone who was 
     liberal, popular, and well-connected. So in early 1997, it 
     hired Anne L. Wexler, who heads the Wexler Group, and 
     recently was ranked one of the capital's 10 most influential 
     lobbyists by Washingtonian magazine.
       The ultimate power broker, Wexler has Beltway access to 
     burn, and her liberal credentials include working as a 
     campaign organizer for Eugene McCarthy's 1968 presidential 
     race, doing a stint as a consultant for the government 
     watchdog group Common Cause, and serving, from 1975 to 1977, 
     as the associate publisher of Rolling Stone during its 
     muckraking heyday. Wexler followed that with a job as a top 
     aside in Jimmy Carter's White House before launching her 
     political consultancy, which boasts executives with close 
     ties to President Clinton (Betsey Wright, his chief of staff 
     when he was governor) and to Newt Gingrich (former 
     Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Bob Walker, formerly a close 
     Gingrich ally).
       Wexler may have come far from her days as a war protester, 
     but her lobbying efforts still carry a liberal spin. Arguing 
     against sanctions, she says that because they limit 
     investment opportunities for business, ``the only people they 
     end up hurting are U.S. workers.''
       The NFTC also lined up important politicians on both sides 
     of Washington's revolving door. It signed up seven lobbyists 
     from Hogan & Hartson. One of them, Republican Clayton 
     Yeutter, while acting as President Reagan's U.S. Trade 
     representative, threatened trade sanctions against Southeast 
     Asian countries that did not open their markets to American 
     tobacco companies.
       Another of the group's lobbyists, former Rep. Michael 
     Barnes, a Democrat, demanded that sanctions be imposed on 
     Haiti in 1994 when he worked as a lobbyist for ousted 
     president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. During the first half of 
     1997 alone the NFTC paid $340,000 to Hogan & Hartson for its 
     campaign against sanctions.
       The NFTC also made sure to cement a relationship with a key 
     State Department official, Undersecretary of State Stuart 
     Eizenstat--who chairs the sanctions review team created last 
     year by the State Department--by retaining his former law 
     firm, Powell Goldstein.


                      step 2--put on a happy face

       With its lobbying army in place, the NFTC next needed to 
     start a front group to head the anit-sanctions drive. 
     Engineered by the Wexler Group, USA*Engage was officially 
     unveiled at an April 1997 press conference, during which it 
     portrayed itself as a dynamic ``broad-based coalition 
     representing Americans from all regions, sectors, and 
     segments of our society.'' The address on USA*Engage's 
     letterhead belongs to the Wexler Group, which is also where 
     the number listed for USA*Engage rings (though callers are 
     routed around the Wexler Group's main switchboard).
       In its literature, USA*Engage claims to have more than 600 
     members. But when contacted, several of the smaller companies 
     listed on its roster responded with puzzlement. Tim Hussey, 
     president and CEO of Hussey Seating of Maine, said he had no 
     idea what USA*Engage was. Richard Gravenhorst, co-owner of 
     Reco Industries, a Louisiana road equipment company, also 
     didn't know about USA*Engage, replying that his firm had 
     little international business. Sanctions, he said, ``[are] 
     certainly not one of our priorities.''
       When he is asked about USA*Engage's bloated membership, 
     Frank Kittredge, the NFTC president who doubles as the 
     group's vice chairman, admits that no more than 50 to 100 
     companies are active participants. ``USA*Engage was formed 
     because a lot of companies are not anxious to be spotlighted 
     as supporters of countries like Iran or Burma,'' he says. 
     ``The way to avoid that is to band together in a coalition.''
       So who is behind USA*Engage? The oil industry, for one. 
     Unocal's chief Washington lobbyist, Jack Rafuse, chairs 
     USA*Engage's State and Local Sanctions Committee. Unocal co-
     owns a billion-dollar natural gas pipeline in Burma, and one 
     of its partners is Burma's State Law and Order Restoration 
     Council (SLORC), the military dictatorship that the State 
     Department says used slave labor to help build the pipeline. 
     Jefferson Watterman International, a Beltway firm that 
     lobbies for Burma, is also a member.
       USA*Engage members also include Mobil and Texaco--both of 
     which have major investments in Nigeria and have lobbied to 
     prevent strong sanctions against Gen. Sani Abacha's regime, 
     despite its having imprisoned 7,000 people without charge 
     and, among other atrocities, having executed protester and 
     writer Ken Saro-Wiwa.
       USA*Engage's chairman, William Lane, is the Washington 
     director for Caterpillar, a company that has obvious reasons 
     for belong to the coalition. It has its own Burmese 
     dealership, and has business in other nations threatened with 
     or currently under U.S. sanctions, including Sudan, 
     Indonesia, Colombia, and Nigeria. Other USA*Engage members 
     have just as much incentive for wanting to trade with 
     dictators. Boeing, for instance, has long battled the 
     government's threatened sanctions against China, where it 
     sold one-tenth of its airplanes between 1992 and 1994. 
     Another group of coalition members--including Westinghouse 
     and ABB--has been pressing the Clinton administration to lift 
     a ban on nuclear power exports to Beijing.


                  step 3--call in the rent-a-scholars

       Once USA*Engage was formed, coalition leaders quickly 
     turned to a web of Beltway think tanks and scholars to 
     provide the sanctions drive with badly needed intellectual 
     ammunition.
       The Institute for International Economics (IIE) prepared a 
     study in 1997, released at USA*Engage's debut press 
     conference, which states that sanctions cost the U.S. economy 
     $15-$20 billion, and caused the loss of 250,000 jobs in 1995 
     alone. The study, confirms an IIE sanctions specialist, 
     Kimberly Elliott, was funded ``in part'' by the NFTC.
       Georgetown University law school professor Barry Carter 
     authored another study, paid for by the National Association 
     of Manufacturers (NAM), a USA*Engage member. When it came 
     out, NAM trumpeted the findings, saying the study showed that 
     sanctions come ``with a steep price tag for U.S. commercial 
     interests.'' The coalition also uses reports from prominent 
     think tanks such as the Cato Institute, the Center for 
     Strategic and International Studies, and the Center for the 
     Study of American Business to arm itself with intellectual 
     firepower. All have received funding from companies that 
     belong to USA*Engage.


                step 4--get religion, kill thine enemies

       Once USA*Engage had its research studies in hand, it 
     figured it would have an easier time convincing Congress to 
     lift trade sanctions. But then the coalition faced a new 
     enemy, one that any economic analyst would have a tough time 
     countering: The God Lobby.
       In May 1997, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) and Sen. Arlen Specter 
     (R-Pa.) introduced the Freedom from Religious Persecution 
     Act, which would slap mild sanctions on nations that 
     persecute religious groups as a matter of government policy. 
     The bill boasted a remarkable lineup of organizations that 
     testified on its behalf--from the Christian Coalition to 
     Amnesty International--and had strong backing from the 
     Republican leadership.
       USA*Engage sprang into action. On August 29, 1997, Don 
     Deline of Dallas-based Halliburton, a USA*Engage member and 
     the world's second-largest oil field services company, sent a 
     memo to coalition members outlining the group's strategy to 
     defeat the Wolf-Specter bill.
       The plan: fight fire with hellfire. According to the memo, 
     Deline met with two officials at the State Department, Deputy 
     Assistant Secretary Bill Ramsay and David Moran, the director 
     of the Office of Economic Sanctions Policy, who both told him 
     they didn't like the bill but were ``constrained for obvious 
     reasons in how active they believe they can be in opposing 
     them.'' Similarly, they suggested that business leaders would 
     be unsuccessful opposing the bill publicly. Instead, they 
     suggest, ``religious leaders and organizations should take 
     the lead for best results.''
       The resulting USA*Engage strategy matched members with key 
     religious leaders. Specifically, Deline wrote, ``Boeing will 
     contact Rev. Billy Graham; Marjorie Chorlins will contact 
     Drew Christian,'' whose last name is actually Christiansen, 
     and who represented the U.S. Catholic Conference, the 
     Vatican's organizational arm in the United States.
       When asked whether USA*Engage ever tried to get religious 
     leaders to speak out against the Wolf-Specter bill, Deline 
     admitted that the group had ``low-key'' conversations with 
     religious leaders, but says that was it. ``Nobody that I know 
     of is shoving religious leaders out front for their personal 
     gain,'' he says. Chorlins, a lobbyist for Motorola, confirms 
     that she did speak with Drew Christiansen about Wolf-Specter, 
     but then adds her own, nearly identical qualifier: ``Business 
     is not pushing religious leaders out there.''
       Says Chorlins, ``I talk to different organizations and 
     communities because I want dialogue, not to push them out 
     front.''
       Both Graham and Christiansen eventually did come out 
     against the religious persecution act--just as planned in the 
     memo. Graham traditionally has ignored human rights 
     conditions in the countries, such as China, where he 
     preaches. He also joined Boeing last year in urging Congress 
     to extend China's Most Favored Nation trade status.
       And two weeks after Deline's memo, Christiansen, speaking 
     before a House International Relations Committee hearing on 
     the bill, said the U.S. Catholic Conference recommended being 
     ``cautious and deliberate in invoking [sanctions] as a remedy 
     in public affairs.'' Christiansen then made two proposals 
     that came straight out of USA*Engage's playbook: He suggested 
     that the government require extensive public review before 
     imposing sanctions, and advocated that the proposed 
     presidential waiver included in the bill be extended.
       Brian F. O'Connell of Interdev, a Seattle-area evangelical 
     group, who also opposes Wolf-Specter, told Mother Jones that 
     a Washington, D.C.-based business group--he won't say which 
     but confirms that he talked to people from USA*Engage about 
     Wolf-Specter--wanted to fly him to Washington to testify 
     against the bill. O'Connell, however, declined the offer.
       Gregg Wooding, a spokesman for the Billy Graham Evangelical 
     Association, says Graham would not comment on this story 
     because ``he's not a politician and doesn't like to talk 
     about politics.'' Christiansen also declined to be 
     interviewed.

[[Page H2346]]

       Ultimately, Congress deferred further consideration of the 
     bill, and it was eventually rewritten to narrow the chances 
     of sanctions and broaden the presidential waiver. A report 
     sent out from Wexler's office to coalition members in 
     February boasted that ``USA*Engage is widely credited for the 
     failure of [Wolf-Specter] to come to a vote in 1997.''


                      step 5--write your own bill

       Now, having at least temporarily dispatched Wolf-Specter, 
     USA*Engage was ready to put together its very own sanctions 
     ``reform'' bill. The coalition quickly signed up two Hoosier 
     friends in Congress to sponsor the legislation: Republican 
     Sen. Richard Lugar, of the Senate Foreign Relations 
     Committee, and Democratic Rep. Lee Hamilton, the ranking 
     Democrat on the House International Relations Committee.
       When initially asked about her company's role in moving the 
     legislation forward, Wexler replies, ``We don't lobby.'' When 
     pressed, she concedes that her firm ``worked closely'' with 
     members of Congress who worked on the legislation ``so I 
     guess we do lobby.'' However, she says firmly, ``That bill 
     was written on the Hill.''
       But a USA*Engage lobbyist memo suggests that the role 
     Hamilton and Lugar played in sponsoring the legislation was 
     largely ceremonial, and that it was the lobbyists who drafted 
     the bill. In a memo dated September 4, less than two months 
     before the bill's introduction, the Wexler Group's Erika 
     Moritsugu wrote Richard Lehmann, a lobbyist for coalition 
     member IBM, telling him that he would be receiving more 
     information from her as soon as ``we work to finalize the 
     bill language.'' According to the memo, Wexler's people were 
     also planning ``a target date for introducing the bill'' and 
     even drafting the ``Dear Colleague'' letters that lawmakers 
     send out to their peers to build support for legislation.
       In the memo, Moritsugu also thanked Lehmann for contacting 
     Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.). According to other memos, the 
     Wexler Group sent out requests to coalition members asking 
     them to fax in summaries on their progress finding co-
     sponsors for the legislation. Wexler used this ``Co-
     Sponsorship Meeting Response Form'' to keep track of how far 
     USA*Engage's tentacles had spread throughout Congress. In the 
     case of Lehmann, they went far: Kolbe signed on as a co-
     sponsor of the House bill.
       On October 23, Hamilton introduced the Enhancement of 
     Trade, Security, and Human Rights through Sanctions Reform 
     Act in the House (Lugar followed suit in the Senate early the 
     following month). The bill would protect overseas contracts 
     signed at the time sanctions are imposed and would require 
     that sanctions expire after two years unless specifically 
     reauthorized.
       The legislation also makes the process of imposing 
     sanctions a bureaucratic nightmare while specifically 
     exempting restrictions on the use of measures ``imposed to 
     remedy unfair trade practices.'' In other words, says Mark 
     Anderson, a union officer at the Food and Allied Service 
     Trades who closely monitors USA*Engage, ``sanctions are just 
     fine if the economic interests of a company are threatened by 
     intellectual property theft or expropriation, but they should 
     not be imposed if a dictatorship is killing its people or 
     depriving workers of their rights.''
       Meanwhile, the law firm Hogan & Hartson has been scheduling 
     meetings between leading members of USA*Engage and 
     congressional staffers. A series of three internal campaign 
     memos from last fall urged key coalition members to attend 
     engagements set up with a number of Capitol Hill offices, 
     including the Senate Finance Committee.


                         step 6--seize control

       With Congress about to consider the bills, the future looks 
     sunny for USA*Engage. The group mailed out a progress report 
     to member companies stating that the coalition had 
     ``surpassed its 1997 goals across the board.'' Furthermore, 
     USA*Engage's ``continuous and aggressive media education 
     effort'' has paid rich dividends. According to the report, of 
     the 242 newspaper editorials written on the sanctions issue 
     since USA*Engage's founding last year, 180 had been favorable 
     to the coalition, 36 were neutral, and only 26 were hostile.
       The progress report also urged supporters not to let up, 
     mentioning that ``member companies are currently deeply 
     involved'' in recruiting more co-sponsors for the Hamilton-
     Lugar legislation, which already boasts 10 senators and 14 
     House members.
       There's also good news for one of USA*Engage's 
     congressional partners. While Hamilton will retire at the end 
     of his term, Lugar will be up for re-election in 2000 and is 
     apparently tapping into USA*Engage's membership lists. A 
     member of the coalition, who asked to remain anonymous, says 
     that after joining USA*Engage he received an invitation 
     charging a $1,000-a-head fee to a fundraiser for Lugar in 
     March at Washington's exclusive Monocle restaurant.
       Along with the sparks that will occur when Congress debates 
     the legislation, coalition members can expect a howl from 
     human rights advocates, such as Simon Billenness of Franklin 
     Research & Development Corp., a progressive investment firm 
     in Boston, who notes the importance economic sanctions played 
     in ending South Africa's apartheid regime. ``If USA*Engage 
     had succeeded with these tactics during the apartheid years, 
     Nelson Mandela might still be in prison,'' he says.
       But they can also expect support from sources higher up--
     and even more important than Billy Graham. The Clinton 
     administration is highly sympathetic to USA*Engage's cause, 
     especially the State Department's sanction review team, 
     headed by Wexler contact Stuart Eizenstat.
       As the anti-sanctions laws work their way through Congress, 
     according to the progress report, USA*Engage will assist 
     Eizenstat in dealing with any problems that might arise, such 
     as the weak drug policies in Mexico and Colombia, and the 
     upcoming Nigerian elections--rigged in advance by the 
     country's generals. These cases, the report warns, ``may 
     result in a call for sanctions.''
       Not to worry. Eizenstat's sanctions review committee will 
     have a strong say in such matters and, the report assures, 
     ``USA*Engage has encouraged this effort from the outset and 
     will provide private sector input as it unfolds.''

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