Don Goldberg

The Real Matt Walsh

2008-05-16T16:37:00.006-04:00

I don't usually equate sports with real news--it's entertainment, like movies and rock concerts, and hardly equates to issues like war, the economy, and natural disasters. Nevertheless, we don't like learning that our pop stars are lip--synching, and we certainly don’t like finding out that our sports heroes are cheaters.

I have been deeply involved in Patriot "Spygate" affair because Matt has been my client--I was asked to help navigate the media circus by his attorney, Michael Levy, a close friend with whom I have worked on a number of issues. I have done other sports scandals--Tim Montgomery was a client--and I generally don't care for this line of work. First, they don't pay very well; and second, dealing with sports reporters is not like dealing with other journalists. For them, access is everything. So writing investigative stories about the NFL or their hometown sports team means they will be shut out of access in the future.

Perhaps more importantly, sports is big business more than anything else, and the teams and the leagues go to great lengths to protect their business. Being open and forthcoming is simply not in their interest. Hence, the NFL and Goodell really are not investigative entities--their goal is to protect their business interests.

I have watched the Matt Walsh story develop over the past six months from the inside, and sat in on the two interviews that Matt has given to the New York times and HBO, both on Wednesday of this week. So based on my front-row view of the Spygate scandal, a few points need to be made:

1) Matt is not out for vengeance, has no ill will against the Patriots, and tried his best to stay out of this scandal. He only told what he knew, with no spin, and left it to others to draw conclusions. He was asked repeatedly by Andrea Kramer of HBO if he thought the league had punished the Patriots enough, if their three Super Bowl victories should be questioned, and if their significance should be diminished. This, of course, would have been a great sound bite to close the broadcast, and Andrea skillfully tried numerous times to get him to say something definitive. He would not do it. He loves the Patriots and believes strongly in their victories.

2) Matt has only talked about what he knows personally or what was directly told to him by players and coaches. The Patriots in their statement yesterday attempted to discredit Matt by questioning how a video guy could ever understand what coaches and players know, stating: "For him to attempt to speak with any authority on the process of coaching, play calling, or the decisions made by offensive or defensive coordinators is an embarrassment." I never have heard Matt, either in the interviews to the New York Times and HBO, or to me personally, attempt to speak authoritatively on coaching or play calling. He simply was repeating what he had been told, and he did so in an honest and forthright way, never going further than what he personally was involved in.

3) Roger Goodell's performance at his press conference begged the question of whether taping and decoding the opponent's defensive signals was of any real value to the patriots. If the taping is of such little consequence, then a) Why is it against the rules in the first place? b) Why did Goodell destroy the initial tapes immediately after reviewing them (he said because of the value to other teams if they got them)? and, c) Why did the Patriots not only go to such great efforts to conceal what they were doing but also continue doing it for seven years?

4) There is a real question about whether the punishment handed down by the NFL serves as any real deterrence. A $750,000 fine and the forfeit of an inconsequential draft pick in exchange for knowing the opponents offensive plays ahead of time--and the chance to win a hat trick of Super Bowls--is a very low cost of doing business. In contrast, sprinter Marion Jones' teammates, presumably innocent bystanders, lost their Olympic Medals after she admitted to using steroids.

Yes, I recognize that any NFL defense still needs to stop the other team's offense to win the game, but anyone who doesn't think having the other team's defensive signals isn't a huge advantage needs to read the quote in today's Washington Post [Some Are Fuzzy on Taping's Benefits -- washingtonpost.com] by an unnamed current NFL coach, who contends: "Are you kidding? It's huge. If I know what the defense is going to do on every play, I'll score 35 points a game, too." I wonder if Goodell interviewed that coach as part of his "investigation?"

Matt is a good guy who got swept up in something that he never wanted to be anywhere near. Don't blame the messenger.

Politics-- Venezuela-style

2008-04-08T15:57:00.003-04:00

What happens when you are a successful financial services entrepreneur in a country with a socialist government and a well-entrenched banking oligarchy? Well, if your name is Eligio Cedeno, and you have built a successful bank in Venezuela, you are in deep trouble. Eligio has spent the past year in jail on what can only be called a trumped-up charged, his constitutional rights repeatedly ignored, and his hearing to determine his status once again delayed indefinitely. (Full disclosure Eligio's company has hired me and Qorvis to help with some U.S. issues. I have never met Eligio, but have worked with his American colleagues).

I won't bother to go into the details of his initial arrest. It has to do with charges that he somehow illegally acted to bring American dollars into Venezuela. Suffice it to say the following: Cedeno has been denied his right to an impartial trial, right to reasonable bail, right to seek medical treatment, and right to present evidence in his defense. By every measure of fairness, the charges sure seem to be politically motivated and the Venezuelan Attorney General's case against Cedeno lacks any meaningful evidence necessary to uphold the charges before an impartial court. The case has been deferred indefinitely and a new date for the hearing has yet to be set.

How did Eligio get into this mess? My guess was that he was just too successful, so the existing powers in the banking industry teamed up with the Chavez government to take him down. Now, that is rank speculation on my part, but consider that as he has been languishing in jail, he was strong-armed into selling his bank at a severe discount. I guess when you are locked up you don't have much bargaining power.lies.

Here are the thoughts of Eligio's U.S.-based attorney, Victor Cerda: "The complete disregard for due process in the Venezuelan judicial system is appalling. More appalling is the fact that the Venezuelan prosecutors continue to hide from their own judicial system and the truth surrounding the baseless charges. It is time for the Venezuelan Governnment to set a trial date that will be respected and to put an end to Mr. Cedeno's persecution. Mr. Cedeno has cooperated with the Venezuelan legal system and remains steadfast in his desire to face his accusers and prove his innocence."

And the beat goes on.

Mark Penn and the Clintons

2008-04-06T21:09:00.003-04:00

I try not to post about my former employers or talk about partisan politics in Damage Control 101-- and I will probably get myself in trouble for this one. But I have to put my two cents in with the news this evening that Mark Penn is abandoning his leadership role on the Clinton campaign (please note that his polling firm is not giving up its lucrative role).

I have never thought that Mark Penn had very good political instincts, and I think that has been proven one more time during this campaign. The hubris that he could effectively be lead campaign strategist while running a PR agency the size and scope of Burson-Marstellar is mind boggling.

I do not know him well, but we did work together during my years in the Clinton White House, and my experience with him is, I think, instructive. It was my view that he totally misread the realities of the Republican members of the House of Representatives, and as a result the political strategy employed during the Monica Lewinsky debacle was totally ineffective, resulting in the House impeachment vote.

Mark would argue almost on a daily basis that despite the movement towards impeachment in the House, his polling was showing that President Clinton's approval ratings were high and getting higher as the Republicans pressed their campaign. Thus, keep playing off the national approval ratings, and the House Republicans would never have the nerve to go ahead with impeachment.

That is good and fine on a national level, but Republican House members aren't elected or beholden to the general public on a national level. They only have to worry about their Republican-leaning districts, where support for impeachment and against the President was closer to what Gingrich, Delay, and their soldiers were pushing.

I knew from first-hand experience. As one of the main staff managers for the Democrats after the Republicans took back the House following the 1994 mid-term elections, we forced those Republican members to take awful votes on their Contract for American legislation. These included forcing them to vote on amendments that would exempt from their priorities any provisions if they threatened the health and safety of, for example, pregnant women and their unborn children. The amendments we drafted and forced them to vote on week after week were designed to push the limits of their loyalty to the Republican leadership, who would tolerate no dissension in the ranks. We wanted to set up votes that would hopefully split at least the more vulnerable members from their conference.

We were unsuccessful, no mater how ugly and indefensible the provisions we crafted. They would march down to the well in lockstep and vote against these exemptions, under threat of punishment by the House Republican leadership. Having witnessed this up close and personal, I know that Penn's strategy was destined to fail.

Instead, some of us argued, we had to go into the vulnerable districts and find allies of those Republicans who would make the case against voting to impeach. This was never done in any meaningful way, in part because the powers-that-be were listening to Penn and his polls.

This is the same sort of tone-deaf strategy that Penn has brought to the Clinton campaign. What I cannot explain, and what is more troubling to me about the campaign, is the blind loyalty that the Clintons have for Penn and other long-time loyalists that they have brought into the campaign. Isn't this the exact kind of circle-the-wagons approach that has gotten them into trouble from the beginning of their run in national politics?

The Anatomy of a Smear

2008-04-03T11:04:00.001-04:00

Solid reputations take years to be won, but they can be lost virtually overnight. The political landscape is littered with the (figurative) bodies of those who have been implicated but later exonerated in scandal. The same is true in Africa as it is here in the States. And this is precisely what happened to former Nigerian Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who is seeking his nation's presidency (full disclosure: Atiku's Washington-based attorney is a client, and I have provided counsel on his issues. Two of my colleagues have met directly with the Vice President). Mr. Abubakar was implicated in the bribery scandal that led to the indictment of Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA), but on close examination of the evidence it turns out, well, there is no evidence that he was involved at all.

I write about Atiku because he is what should be the model for the United States in choosing allies in difficult parts of the globe. Nigeria is economically vital to this country given its oil resources; yet it is struggling to balance a sizeable Islamic population with the need to be on good terms with the West. Atiku, a Muslim himself, is a friend to the United States, and wants our countries to be friends, too.

A successful businessman-turned-politician, Atiku fought recent corruption in his government, standing against attempts by former President Olusegun Obasanjo to alter Nigeria's constitutionally-mandated term-limits. Although this was an act of political self-sacrifice, putting himself in the crosshairs of President Obasanjo and his supporters, Mr. Abubakar felt it was his duty. His reputation, however, suffered. He ended up a scapegoat for allegations originally aimed at President Obasanjo and others.

According to news reports, United States Congressman William Jefferson allegedly accepted at least $100,000 in bribes to build a relationship between a company employing his former chief of staff and a firm called iGate, which supposedly had the opportunity to provide IT support to Nigeria's government-owned phone company. When Rep. Jefferson learned that Mr. Abubakar would be visiting the U.S., he began mentioning Mr. Abubakar's name to create an appearance of progress and to suggest her had more influence than he actually did.

While Rep. Jefferson's trial is forthcoming, Atiku's name has been smeared, unnecessarily, in the international press. Mr. Abubakar never solicited nor accepted bribes from Rep. Jefferson or his associates. And this is clearly demonstrated by a review of the publicly-available affidavits in the case, which reveal that Rep. Jefferson's statements about him were simply part of an attempt to get more money out of his former chief of staff's employer:

Atiku had no connection to those involved in the bribery scandal, according to affidavits related to the case.

--During a December 2004 conversation with the woman who employed Brett Pfeffer, Rep. Jefferson's chief of staff, Rep. Jefferson told her that President Obasanjo, not Vice President Abubakar, was his point of contact with the Nigerian government.

--In August 2004, Rep. Jefferson introduced Pfeffer's employer, Lori Mody, to the president of the Nigerian company that would serve as iGate's local partner. At no time during the meeting did anyone mention a link between the local partner and Atiku.

--In a March 2005 conversation arranged at the direction of the FBI, Pfeffer met with Mody to attempt to restore the deteriorating iGate deal. In a detailed conversation about how the deal would unfold, Atiku's name was never mentioned, nor were there any veiled references to him.

--In April 2005, Rep. Jefferson mentioned Atiku's name to Mody as a means of creating the notion of his own influence with the Nigerians. Rep. Jefferson told Mody that Atiku would arrive in Washington on May 1, 2005. Problem, was, that never happened. He never arrived in Washington.

--In June 2005, Rep. Jefferson had written a formal letter addressed to the Vice President through the Nigerian Embassy in Washington, DC. If Rep. Jefferson had a personal relationship with Vice President Abubakar, going to far as to discuss an illegal business deal involving millions of dollars with him, why the need for formal correspondence through the Embassy of all places?

--On May 4, 2005, after not hearing a response from Atiku to the formal letter he solicited or otherwise, Rep. Jefferson told Mody that there was no need to involve the Vice President in the deal.

--On May 12, 2005, Rep. Jefferson met Mody and discussed the need to motivate the president of iGate's Nigerian partner because "he's got a lot of folks to pay off." Atiku's name was not mentioned during the detailed conversation.

When the parties involved became aware that Nigeria was thinking of awarding the contract elsewhere, Rep. Jefferson attempted to extract some final money from Mody and used Atiku as the excuse.

--After long negotiations between Rep. Jefferson and Mody, Rep. Jefferson convinced Mody that he needed $100,000 to bribe the Vice President. The FBI, working with Mody to build a case, gave Mody $100,000 and recorded the serial numbers of the bills as part of basic procedure.

-- Rep. Jefferson received that money from Mody while Mr. Abubakar was in Washington. Rep. Jefferson knew Mr. Abubakar was leaving in a day or two and had plenty of time to deliver that money. Instead, after Mr. Abubakar had left the country, Rep. Jefferson lied, on tape, to Mody, saying he had delivered the cash.

--During an FBI raid of Rep. Jefferson's home, $90,000 of the bills given to him by Mody as the supposed "bribe" for Atiku were found in his freezer. An investigation revealed another $4,800 had been given to a female legislative aide. Eventually, all but a single $100 bill was accounted for. This is pretty compelling proof that Rep. Jefferson lied to Mody to get more money on the pretext of a bribe that he always intended on keeping for himself.

Ultimately, misperception and falsehoods have marred Atiku's reputation around the world, with very few examining the obvious facts of the case to see that there is no merit to any suggestion of his involvement. Where does someone like Atiku go to get his reputation back?

2008-03-17T14:57:00.004-04:00

Sex and Politicians

2008-03-12T10:39:00.002-04:00

It's hard to avoid writing about Spitzer (best potential New York Post headline, "Eliot-- Phone Ho", thanks to my partner Rich Masters). Having represented a president facing his own sex scandal, I can say from first-hand experience that damage control in these situations is extremely difficult. There were times that the crisis team was sitting around our offices in the White House wondering how many days before Clinton would resign-- and wondering how solid our relationship with the Vice President was-- just as Spitzer's team no doubt has been doing.

But I think there is one mistake that both Spitzer and Clinton have made once the scandal became public-- listening to their lawyers about how to protect their legal positions instead of talking to their constituents. I understand that they are both lawyers, and both were surrounded by attorneys advising them on how not to get indicted. But unlike executives in the private sector, governors and presidents have one responsibility first and forement, and that is to lead. That's why the tens of millions of voters elected them, and that has to remain their number one priority.

That means explaining their actions to their constituents, and not hiding behind legal walls. Even if the risk is of self-incrimination, in my humble opinion that is what they owe to the public. Putting their own self-interest over that of their constituents got them into trouble in the first place. Transparency, humility, compassion, and a way to move forward. That's what's called for, not legal maneuvering. Just my two cents from experience.

More thoughts on student loans

2007-12-11T08:50:00.001-05:00

I got an interesting and difficult qustion in the form of a comment on my last student loan program posting: Can the private student loan program survive a Democratic Congress and a Democrat in the White House?

This is hardly an idle question. Both Obama and Clinton have made statements announcing their intent to abolish the FFELP if elected. And because the industry has been a significant giver to Republican candidates over the past dozen of so years and a meager giver to D's (in part responding to threats from the K Street project, and in part because of legitimate policy agreements), there is not much sympathy from the majority party on the Hill right now.

I strongly believe that the FFELP is extremely important and needs to be saved (please see my full disclosure in my previous post) for several reasons. First, I do not believe that acting as a lender is either an appropriate role for government agencies, or that they are particularly good at it. Think Veterans Administration, USDA, etc. Second, I also believe that competition which can only come with private lenders has brought valuable innovation and better services to universities and students. And third, I believe that universities only have leverage to demand better services and innovation when there is a competitive market, and if that is taken away, then so is any role that the schools have in demanding better programs.

Having said that, the FFELP and its private lenders are in trouble. Their traditional way of defending their program, relying on inside-the-beltway lobbyists and their friends on the Repbulican side of the isle, failed to even slow down this year's legislative cuts. If the FFELP community (it has many non-profit members, hence the term "community" rather than "industry") cannot enlist those most affected by the recent as well as future cuts to the program-- such as students and their parents and the schools and universities-- they will be in for tough times indeed.

I have recommended to the FFELP community that they take a broad-based campaign approach, educating and recruiting those who will be really hit hard by further program cuts to speak up to members of Congress before the next president is inaugurated. They need to start the campaign now, and it needs to be aggressive. Otherwise, they may not be around too much longer.

Fun with Government Loans

2007-12-05T11:59:00.000-05:00

Whenever I hear Members of Congress arguing for larger government-run loan programs, even as a professional Democrat I choke. Federal agencies are good at some things, but lending money is not one of them. You need look no further than the massive Washington Post expose today (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2007/12/04/ST2007120402047.html?hpid=topnews) on failures in the Department of Agriculture's loan program.

But there's another story out today that I am pretty sure won’t make the Post. It is about the costs to taxpayers of student loans. As perhaps only those of us with kids either already in college or nearing college age would be aware, there are two ways to get government-backed loans: From private lenders under the Family Federal Education Loan Program (FFELP), and from loans made directly by the Department of Education. (Full disclosure—I consult for a number of FFELP entities, including several trade associations, guarantors, and lenders).

FFELP organizations have had a difficult time this year, serving as a punching bag for critics and suffering crippling cuts in Congress. One of the most difficult arguments they have had to face is that direct loans are cheaper for the taxpayers, an argument which has always seemed dubious at best to me (the cost of the loans themselves to the students are set by law, so they are the same with both programs). Regardless of what you think about government contractors, the notion that government agencies can provide less expensive services than competitive companies fighting it out in the private sector defies common sense, history, and the laws the physics. Nevertheless, that has been a key argument, and the student loan industry has not been successful in fighting against this.

That’s why today’s edition of Inside Higher Ed is so interesting (http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/12/05/loans). Using Department of Education numbers, it reports that FFELP loans actually are in fact less expensive than direct loans from the Department. It cites a number of reasons for this, many related to the recently passed College Cost Reduction and Access Act which cut subsidies to lenders (thereby cutting costs to taxpayers). That should take this argument off the table, but specious arguments based on erroneous facts seem to take on lives of their own. Once they become part of the conventional wisdom, they can be very difficult to refute.

Bush, Iran, and the NIE

2007-12-05T10:15:00.000-05:00

Damage control 101 is back from a long hiatus, and hopefully will be much more active over the coming months, focusing on crisis management issues out there on the landscape. For example, I think the Bush White House once again blew it on how they handled the news this week that the NIE on Iran found no intent to acquire nuclear weapons. Bush was defensive from the start, arguing in favor of his tough continued tough stance towards the Iran government. It was simply not convincing and made him look even weaker, if that’s even possible. Here is what I think his key messages should have been:

· This is good news!! It means that a dangerous threat that we were extremely concerned about is off the table, at least for now.
· It is a vindication for my get-tough policy, because it backed the Iranian government off its quest for nuclear weapons.
· It demonstrates the vast improvements in intelligence collection and analysis that have resulted since 9/11 and the intelligence failure in Iraq.

No, it wouldn’t have stopped reporters from asking the “What did you know and when did you know it questions,” but it would have at least given him and Hadley something to fall back on….

Trafigura calls for greater transparency in regulations

2007-02-23T17:45:00.000-05:00

Following the payment of a $187 million settlement to the government of the Ivory Coast, executives from Trafigura, a company for which I have been a consultant for several years now, has now commented on their ordeal. In a recent article by Helen Hill on Lloyd's List, entitled: A toxic tale of bad law and sloppy business practices, Trafigura Director Eric de Turckheim discusses his concern for others who could fall victim to disparities in the Marpol and Basel conventions; he is now seeking greater clarity and a tightening of the legislation regulating the disposal of waste and slops. The article states:

Calling Marpol an "excellent convention" that ensured the seas were clean, Mr de Turckheim called for a link between Marpol and national legislation.

In a report by the City of Amsterdam into the attempt by the Probo Koala to discharge its slops in its port, he said it was evident there was a split between the various administrations on how the process was handled. There was a "slicing of responsibility" between EU and Dutch interpretation of rules and the international conventions.

This report revealed that Marpol rules had been translated into Dutch and legal terms had been changed so "the terms were not exactly the same".

As a way to improve this situation, Trafigura has commissioned Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, who oversaw the Lockerbie air disaster inquiry, to conduct an independent investigation of the regulations and how their ambiguity led to confusion among international parties. The report is set to be completed in May, and Lord Fraser will assess how different regulations can work better and how to ensure transparency in the system.

With regard to why Trafigura has waited this long to discuss their situation, the article states:

Mr de Turckheim contacted Lloyd's List and said he had only chosen to speak out because the company's employees were now freed. It was almost "impossible to have any communication which would not have had an impact on the outcome" of discussions in the Ivory Coast, he explained.

Given the perception problems Trafigura has been experiencing, would it have been worth the risk to clear their name in public before ensuring the safety of the three employees, which have been imprisoned in the Ivory Coast?

(FYI: Lloyd's List is a subscription based publication)

More Drama than Toxic Waste

2007-02-08T15:24:00.000-05:00

"More Drama than Toxic Waste"

I just came across an article entitled "The Probo Koala: a chemical odyssey", written by Diederik Boomsma, who has taken a unique look at the situation in the Ivory Coast. After reviewing the evidence in the Probo Koala case, Boomsma concludes that Trafigura BV has become the victim of irrational fears about the nature of chemicals. As I have written, Trafigura [a company for which I have been a consultant for a number of years], is currently embroiled in several lawsuits and is taking the blame for the improper disposal of slops from an oil tanker in the Ivory Coast. Although the situation initially looked dire for the company, many people are beginning get past their knee-jerk reactions.

Boomsma writes: "As soon as the word 'chemical' is used an objective representation of the facts seems to bite the dust. Who further examines the circumstances surrounding the Probo Koala and other incidents of the last decades will observe a recurring pattern: the dangers and hazardous effects of chemical substances are systematically exaggerated and blown up. Against the background of a barely concealed chemo-phobia each incident is presented as an event which should above all inspire us with fear. Thus our culture still does not seem to be released from the romantic exaltation of nature and the fear of Faustian research. But the panic which is created as a result of incorrect news coverage appears to, in many instances, lead to new victims."

In this case, that victim is Trafigura.

Focusing on the image problem of chemicals, Boomsma explains why Trafigura is in a pinch - the issue being that the improperly disposed of slops simply smelled "unnatural." As Boomsma says, "the waste provided a tremendous odour nuisance," causing people to jump to the conclusion that the smell was noxious:

"Most people associate chemistry with toxicity and consider 'natural products' as clean and pure, the opposite of chemical."

However, despite reports of score of people becoming ill from the smell, there is no concrete evidence that the slops contained anything that would induce sickness. But because of "chemo-phobia," several lawsuits have been filed and two Trafigura executives await trial in prison in the Ivory Coast.

The article asks some important questions about those who have filed undue and unfounded litigation against Trafigura - litigation based on fears - not facts - regarding the nature of what was disposed in the Ivory Coast. Boomsma asks: "Or do they hope that Trafigura, under the pressure of this kind of publicity, will need to settle for a substantial amount at a certain moment in time?"

Give the article a read and let me know what you think.

More on the Ivory Coast incident

2006-10-22T10:29:00.000-04:00

Was just alerted to a statement put on the web site of the Prime Marine Corporation responding to what they contend are mistatements in the media across Europe. [continued full disclosure-- as I have written previsouly, Trafigura is a company that I have consulted with for a number of years regardings issues in the United States]. Prime Marine is the owner of the vessel in question, the Probo Koala. Here is the link, but the site is flash one so you can't bookmark inside of it: http://www.prime-marine.net/. Again, I welcome any and all views on what's been going on with Trafigura in the Ivory Coast. Here is the statement in full for those of you too lazy to go looking for it on your own:

18th October 2006
With the departure of the PROBO KOALA from Paldiski, the managers, Prime Marine Management Inc. of Athens, are pleased that the Estonian authorities have cleared the vessel and her crew of any wrongdoing.
The vessel was never under arrest at Paldiski.
Under the directions of her timecharterers, Trafigura, the vessel was ordered to Paldiski to discharge a cargo of unleaded gasoline.
Thereafter, she was ordered to wash her tanks offshore Paldiski whilst awaiting a further cargo from that port. That is a normal ships procedure and, contrary to some recent speculation, the resulting slops were not of extraordinary nature. The Estonian authorities, having analyzed and checked those slops, permitted their discharge at a MARPOL designated facility.
In the process of seeking to explain the situation, the Prime Minister of Estonia summed up the conclusion of their investigation:
"I can assure you that there is nothing mystical in the waste from the Probo Koala - actually, it only includes oil and oil products. There is nothing to fear - it is not some extraordinary poison, but rather only normal oil compounds."
During the vessels call at Paldiski, Estonian officials boarded the vessel and carried out a number of surveys on behalf of the Ivorian and Dutch authorities. The Estonian authorities interviewed the crew in relation to cargo operations conducted by the vessel earlier in 2006 under Trafigura's orders.
Prime instructed the crew to cooperate fully with the Estonian authorities - to the extent that, no sooner had the Master and Chief Officer been interviewed, they were permitted to leave Estonia and return to their homes without conditions.
Prime provided the Estonian authorities with the vessel's papers, correspondence and computer records. The authorities had a complete picture of all cargo operations in 2006. At no time had the vessel been asked or ordered to carry toxic waste. The slops discharged at a MARPOL designated facility in Abidjan were residues from normal vessel operations.
Prime wish to state in the most emphatic terms that they remain shocked at the events in Abidjan and are deeply upset by the effect that the mishandling of the slops has had on the unfortunate residents of Abidjan.
The Managers are constantly seeking to assist in alleviating some of the distress felt by those effected. In addition, full assistance and cooperation will continue to be offered and indeed given to those still investigating the events in the Ivory Coast including those at UNEP.

Foul Play in the Ivory Coast?

2006-10-16T11:49:00.000-04:00

NRC Handelsblad, 14 October 2006
EVERYDAY SCIENCE
Fizz stop
Karel Knip
Last week, on Friday, a morning newspaper went as far as to show a photo of a child in Ivory Coast that had gotten ulcers because of the waste of the ‘toxic waste ship’ the Probo Koala. Nobody had thought of it before. Ulcers. It looked terrible, and the first thought that came up was: Which mother lets her child play with that stinking sludge? Because it was suggested that the child had smeared it on his face. But things turned out different. The photo had previously been used for an article in the New York Times on 28 September. Lydia Polgreen and/or Marlise Simons had interviewed the stricken family. “A few days after we had been confronted by the stench, the ulcers broke out,” said the child’s father Oudrawogol. That was the proof for the connection between stench and ulcers. The only proof.Why was the child not covered in ulcers all over? Were all other children on that age in the neighbourhood also covered in ulcers? Or had this only occurred in children who lived leeward from the pollution? Nobody had asked themselves these questions. It was all so very bad that one should not wish to know whether it was true. (Reader, please google on to the influence of the civil war on Ivorian health care, the uncontrolled growth of skin disorders and aids, the incidence of tuberculosis).The proof that the girls of four year old and nine year old, who were allegedly the first to die due to the pollution disaster, did indeed die from exposure to deadly fumes has never been furnished. The youthful Ivorian reporters David Youant and Christophe Koffi of the French press agency AFP recorded the diagnosis from a responsable in the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire (CHU) of the Cocody district who only wished to speak sous couvert de l’anonymat. Why did this person in charge wish to stay anonymous? We do not know how he had come to his analysis. Whether a post-mortem on the children’s’ bodies is still possible? Unknown. Perhaps blood and urine samples have been retained. The question is, of course, whether it will ever become clear what the effects of the pollution have been in Abidjan. When six French ecologists started their measurements on 9 September, they could no longer demonstrate alarming concentrations of hydrogen sulphide (H2S) and mercaptans. But this does not mean that these were not present after the dumping of the waste on 19 August. Technicians may still be able to calculate what the maximum concentration of H2S could have been. This was probably the most dangerous component of the waste, and the initial concentration of H2S in the watery waste is more or less known. The airport of Abidjan monitored wind speed, humidity and temperature of the polluted area (see french.wunderground.com). The size of the evaporation surface can be estimated. And it is quite specifically known which H2S concentration is acutely toxic when inhaled (approximately 500 ppm, or something like that).It should be possible to make a model, one would think. And it is a nice exercise to invent which data are necessary. H2S is quite speedily oxidised in a reaction with the normal hydroxy radicals in the air and made non-noxious. The half life of the gas is only approximately 12 hours, according to the internet. After three days, only one percent is left of the initial amount. If only because of this, the pollution plume is limited.H2S, with a molar mass of 34, is a gas that is only slightly heavier than the heaviest major component of air (oxygen, with a molar mass of 32). It is much lighter than CO2 (44), propane (44) or butane (58). This means that the gas does not tend to stay near the ground and therefore quickly thins in a vertical direction when it is released from the solution.The major difficulty lies in calculating the speed with which H2S might be released from the waste. It has been assumed by Everyday Science that H2S will not be quickly released from a strongly basic (alkaline) watery environment, because the concentration of the compound H2S as such is low at a high pH. According to an analysis of a local agency, the pH was approximately 10.5. According to the classic theory, the sulphide will be present in particular as HS- and S2- in case of such a pH. Refinery experts had said so. Sewage purification companies also know that their water only starts to stink when the pH comes below 7. (A pH of 7 is that of pure, neutral water. A pH lower than 7 is called acid.) Above this value, H2S is not inconveniently quickly released. It is indeed released but slowly, and that is the point: That the wind can rarefy it in time. This is more or less straightforward, but still the reasoning has been criticised. For there was a third argument for the assumption: the parallel with the behaviour of carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is also a weak acid, which all the more speedily escapes from a solution the more acid the latter is. Visible CO2 not only escapes from cola and tonic because so much of it is present, but also because these drinks are acid. A soda solution also contains CO2, but this is not released because a soda solution is so alkaline. Yesterday, suddenly the question arose whether the effervescence of Coca Cola can be stopped by increasing the pH of the solution, as it had allegedly happened with the waste from the Probo. It would be most perfect to increase the pH with caustic soda (NaOH), because that had also been used on the toxic waste ship. The question was: Where does the man in the street gets his NaOH? The answer: At Etos, where it is known as the ‘granular unblocking agent Fifax’. It looks very scientific but it is peculiar stuff. When water is added, it gets hot and foams, it is not clear why – it looks as if metal pellets are mixed with it. When it has cooled, a film appears on top of it. Luckily, the Coca-Cola was as usual, it did what Coca-Cola always does: being brown and fizzy.Until a splash of cooled NaOH was added, then the entire CO2 release was instantaneously stopped. The bubbles disappeared and nothing moved in the glass. The H2S release in Abidjan has to have been checked by the high pH as well, it cannot be denied. Whether the speed can be calculated is doubtful, but this can be measured by imitating the dumping.

Foul Play in the Ivory Coast?

2006-10-16T11:41:00.000-04:00

After my initial post on the alleged dumping of toxic wastes by an oil vessel in the Ivory Coast, I have received numerous emails from readers bringing my attention to how evidence in the situation may NOT stack up against the company at the forefront of the scandal, Trafigura.

In this latest article, brought my attention by a reader overseas, the Dutch newspaper, NRC Handelsbald, brings forth an interesting point of view. I am posting this here, but keep more coming...

NRC Handelsblad, 14 October 2006

EVERYDAY SCIENCE

Fizz stop

Karel Knip

Last week, on Friday, a morning newspaper went as far as to show a photo of a child in Ivory Coast that had gotten ulcers because of the waste of the ‘toxic waste ship’ the Probo Koala. Nobody had thought of it before. Ulcers. It looked terrible, and the first thought that came up was: Which mother lets her child play with that stinking sludge? Because it was suggested that the child had smeared it on his face. But things turned out different. The photo had previously been used for an article in the New York Times on 28 September. Lydia Polgreen and/or Marlise Simons had interviewed the stricken family. “A few days after we had been confronted by the stench, the ulcers broke out,” said the child’s father Oudrawogol. That was the proof for the connection between stench and ulcers. The only proof.
Why was the child not covered in ulcers all over? Were all other children on that age in the neighbourhood also covered in ulcers? Or had this only occurred in children who lived leeward from the pollution? Nobody had asked themselves these questions. It was all so very bad that one should not wish to know whether it was true. (Reader, please google on to the influence of the civil war on Ivorian health care, the uncontrolled growth of skin disorders and aids, the incidence of tuberculosis).
The proof that the girls of four year old and nine year old, who were allegedly the first to die due to the pollution disaster, did indeed die from exposure to deadly fumes has never been furnished. The youthful Ivorian reporters David Youant and Christophe Koffi of the French press agency AFP recorded the diagnosis from a responsable in the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire (CHU) of the Cocody district who only wished to speak sous couvert de l’anonymat. Why did this person in charge wish to stay anonymous? We do not know how he had come to his analysis. Whether a post-mortem on the children’s’ bodies is still possible? Unknown. Perhaps blood and urine samples have been retained. The question is, of course, whether it will ever become clear what the effects of the pollution have been in Abidjan. When six French ecologists started their measurements on 9 September, they could no longer demonstrate alarming concentrations of hydrogen sulphide (H2S) and mercaptans. But this does not mean that these were not present after the dumping of the waste on 19 August. Technicians may still be able to calculate what the maximum concentration of H2S could have been. This was probably the most dangerous component of the waste, and the initial concentration of H2S in the watery waste is more or less known. The airport of Abidjan monitored wind speed, humidity and temperature of the polluted area (see french.wunderground.com). The size of the evaporation surface can be estimated. And it is quite specifically known which H2S concentration is acutely toxic when inhaled (approximately 500 ppm, or something like that).
It should be possible to make a model, one would think. And it is a nice exercise to invent which data are necessary. H2S is quite speedily oxidised in a reaction with the normal hydroxy radicals in the air and made non-noxious. The half life of the gas is only approximately 12 hours, according to the internet. After three days, only one percent is left of the initial amount. If only because of this, the pollution plume is limited.
H2S, with a molar mass of 34, is a gas that is only slightly heavier than the heaviest major component of air (oxygen, with a molar mass of 32). It is much lighter than CO2 (44), propane (44) or butane (58). This means that the gas does not tend to stay near the ground and therefore quickly thins in a vertical direction when it is released from the solution.
The major difficulty lies in calculating the speed with which H2S might be released from the waste. It has been assumed by Everyday Science that H2S will not be quickly released from a strongly basic (alkaline) watery environment, because the concentration of the compound H2S as such is low at a high pH. According to an analysis of a local agency, the pH was approximately 10.5. According to the classic theory, the sulphide will be present in particular as HS- and S2- in case of such a pH. Refinery experts had said so. Sewage purification companies also know that their water only starts to stink when the pH comes below 7. (A pH of 7 is that of pure, neutral water. A pH lower than 7 is called acid.) Above this value, H2S is not inconveniently quickly released. It is indeed released but slowly, and that is the point: That the wind can rarefy it in time. This is more or less straightforward, but still the reasoning has been criticised.
For there was a third argument for the assumption: the parallel with the behaviour of carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is also a weak acid, which all the more speedily escapes from a solution the more acid the latter is. Visible CO2 not only escapes from cola and tonic because so much of it is present, but also because these drinks are acid. A soda solution also contains CO2, but this is not released because a soda solution is so alkaline.
Yesterday, suddenly the question arose whether the effervescence of Coca Cola can be stopped by increasing the pH of the solution, as it had allegedly happened with the waste from the Probo. It would be most perfect to increase the pH with caustic soda (NaOH), because that had also been used on the toxic waste ship. The question was: Where does the man in the street gets his NaOH? The answer: At Etos, where it is known as the ‘granular unblocking agent Fifax’. It looks very scientific but it is peculiar stuff. When water is added, it gets hot and foams, it is not clear why – it looks as if metal pellets are mixed with it. When it has cooled, a film appears on top of it. Luckily, the Coca-Cola was as usual, it did what Coca-Cola always does: being brown and fizzy.
Until a splash of cooled NaOH was added, then the entire CO2 release was instantaneously stopped. The bubbles disappeared and nothing moved in the glass. The H2S release in Abidjan has to have been checked by the high pH as well, it cannot be denied. Whether the speed can be calculated is doubtful, but this can be measured by imitating the dumping.

The Ivory Coast Mess

2006-10-09T16:18:00.000-04:00

Have you seen the articles on the alleged dumping of toxic wastes by an oil vessel in the Ivory Coast? It hasn't received much attention in the U.S. other than a huge article a couple weeks back on the front page of the New York Times. The company in the middle of the entire mess is an international oil and commodities trading company called Trafigura BV, headquartered in The Netherlands.

On the surface, the articles make the situation look pretty bad for the company. But I bring this up because I know Trafigura (I have consulted with them on a variety of issues over the past couple years), and I know their top executives (one of whom has been jailed in the Ivory Coast) take their environmental responsibilities extremely seriously. And to wantonly dump toxic wastes like the articles suggest just doesn’t seem like the company I have gotten to know.

So I asked Trafigura what happened, and they paint an entirely different picture than the New York Times and the other articles that have been written. I'm not going to repeat their side of the story (that would be a little gratuitous - of course they would deny culpability). I would rather hear from other folks who have been following the case. For example, here's an article that ran recently in Tradewinds last week that a friend sent me over the weekend:

Tradewinds today
Stricter measures unlikely
European Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas may struggle to toughen up ship-waste legislation as he promised last week, following the alleged dumping of toxic slops by the 38,000-dwt combination carrier (OBO) Probo Koala (built 1989).
Speaking at Paldiski, Estonia, where the ship is being held, the commissioner said he would find "ways and means" to reinforce existing waste-shipment regulation and forward proposals to "criminalise environmentally damaging practices".
His comments came as the controversial tanker was trapped at the port by the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise.
However, observers point out that it is unclear whether the fault for the incident lays with the ship or if it was a case of the failure of land-based waste-reception facilities.
One expert said: "You can have all the rules you like for ships but if there is no one to monitor the shore facilities and make sure they are adequate and properly run, then there is no way you can make sure that slops like this are properly disposed off."
Others point out that new tougher rules on the disposal of shipboard waste are already on their way through a revision of Marpol Annex II, to which the European Union (EU) is a signatory.
Any further proposed European legislation on tougher regulation would also have to go through the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), they say.
Experts also point out the disposal of toxic slops differs from criminalisation measures, which were brought in to cover oil pollution from tankers caused by "serious negligence" the EU felt was not covered by existing legislation like Marpol and the Law of the Sea after the Prestige accident. They point out that there are already penal penalties in place for the illegal discharge of toxic waste around the world, making it difficult for Dimas to introduce any stricter measures.
The Probo Koala , which was under charter to Trafigura, is accused of dumping hundreds of tonnes of toxic slops in Adibjan, Ivory Coast, last month after a dispute with Amsterdam Port Services over their disposal.
The waste is suspected of killing eight people and making thousands ill.
By Adam Corbett, London
This suggests that the issue of culpability is not so clear cut when trying to dispose of oil slops. Here’s another article from Intertanko questioning who is to blame:

The slop disposal conundrum - INTERTANKO

Published: 06 October 2006 13:53 - Updated: 06 October 2006 15:02

The lack of guaranteed slops and dirty ballast discharge facilities available to tanker operators at a reasonable price and able to accept a reasonable discharge rate is nothing new. INTERTANKO has long been pressing for Port States to honour their undertakings at the IMO. The EU Commission, assisted by EMSA, has been pushing some EU Member States to do what they have said they will do.

But the disposal of slops, often perceived as the owner's sole responsibility, is actually a shared responsibility. Slops are but cargo residues, collected together into one tank and stored until a disposal facility is available. In a single-voyage-chartered ship the cargo residues belong to the ship once the single-voyage is over. But on a period-chartered ship the slops are the charterer's property and responsibility.

Slops may be discharged by the ship correctly and in accordance with all regulations, but what happens to these slops after the ship has sailed? There have been some lingering doubts over what some slop disposal companies actually do with the slops. These doubts were reinforced by recent high-profile events in West Africa where the period charterer of a ship, claiming that the slops were allegedly discharged under the supervision of customs, port and environmental officials, has now filed a lawsuit against the disposal company, after eight people died and thousands suffered vomiting and stomach pains after waste was disposed of incorrectly.

In this sort of high profile situation, people are remarkably reluctant to find out the facts before pointing their finger, usually at the ship operator. Senior politicians are heard accusing the ship of "operating in an unethical and criminal manner" without considering that perhaps it is others in the chain of responsibility who have behaved in such a way.

Knee-jerk reactions - promises to upgrade implementation of EU legislation on hazardous waste transport _ ports requiring declaration of waste for all tankers, and stricter enforcement of waste removal in some cases.

But if adequate, viable and accountable disposal facilities were provided at all the main discharge ports, especially those in Europe and in the U.S., then there would be no need for a tanker to carry an increasingly mixed bag of slops around with her, adding one more cargo residue to the mixture each time disposal is frustrated.

This situation also highlights the critical importance of accurate information being provided to the ship for all cargo _ not just Annex II but also Annex I and bunkers _ and therefore of a rapid adoption of the IMO's Marine Safety Data Sheet requirements for Annex I cargoes at MSC in December.

Please let me know what you think? Is there another side to this story? What should have Trafigura done differently?

Blogs and politics

2006-08-08T12:06:00.000-04:00

You don't have to look any farther than the Senate Democratic primary race between Joe Lieberman and Ned Lamont for evidence of the growing role that the blogging world is playing in contemporary politics. The larger question is whether the blogosphere is a minor irritant to incumbent politicians or a major movement that threatens a seismic shift in the political landscape. I will leave that final answer to political scientists, but I happen to believe that the current world of blogs is a work in progress, and that whether it is the passing internet fad of the week/month/year or a truly cosmic development in the world of communications is still an open question.

Yes, politicians (and corporate executives) ignore the blogs at their own peril. Whatever they are not, they are surely an indication of some underlying sentiment. But that does not necessarily mean that they create discontent—only that they are may turn out to be the canary in the coal mine.

My good friend Lanny Davis (we worked together in President Clinton's White House Counsel's Office) has a different take. In an op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal, Lanny likens the harsh hatred that he sees in the blogging world that are taking on Lieberman (and anyone who supports him) as a sign that the liberal left is no better than “the deadly combination of sanctimony and vitriol displayed by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Michael Savage.” For him, this is a troubling revelation.

As much as I love Lanny, I think his argument is overblown. The likes of Ann Coulter, who have become celebrities and are make a killing espousing their brand of intolerance, have virtually nothing in common with the blogosphere. Many a doctoral dissertation has been written about the comfort that otherwise normal-seeming individuals feel in assuming a vicious and nasty persona when accorded the anonymity that the internet provides. [I always recommend to executives that when giving speeches they should ask questioners in the audience to identify themselves before posing their questions. Losing that anonymity almost always tampers down the questioner’s urge to be abusive.]

It is impossible to tell who these people are, their political leanings, and even how many of them there are, let alone if they are for real. It would hardly surprise me if some of the anti-semitic postings on widely-read web sites (like Daily Kos and Huffington) that Lanny cites as examples of his thesis weren't planted by those on the Republican right to discredit the entire Ned Lamont movement.

I'm not saying that this is some conspiracy, just that I don’t know, so I surely would not want to make any grand assumptions.

More to the point, the experience that Lanny writes about—the almost immediate flood of vicious e-mails defenders of Lieberman receive when they engage in public debate—is hardly different than the hand-written letters I used to receive as a reporter for famed columnist Jack Anderson 25 years ago, or the anonymous calls I would take when doing radio call-in shows to talk about some of the articles I had written. The only difference is that the internet has made it easier and faster.

But for executives wondering about how best to respond to attacks they or their companies or organizations get in the blogosphere, my advice remains the same: Don't. All that happens is you get “flamed,” the language gets even harsher, and you accomplish nothing.

Washington Business Climate is Solid

2006-08-04T14:37:00.000-04:00

I know this is not my typical posting (I haven’t had anything to report for a few months now, in any case), but I wanted to share some survey results from a poll that my colleague Bill Cullo, who runs Qorvis’ public opinion research group—which we call iQ Reearch—just complete. According to the survey, the vast majority of executives of Washington area businesses with annual revenues between $10 million and $250 million are “optimistic” about the region’s business climate, and as a result 41% of them are likely to make additional hires.

According to Bill, 90% of the executives said their businesses are doing better or about the same than at the same time last year. Only 10% said they are doing worse than last year.

Among the top reasons cited by the executives for their upbeat views were strong government spending (24%), the region’s healthy economy (13%), and increased spending by other businesses (10%).

The pessimistic executives primarily list national and international reasons for their less rosy view. The situation in the Middle East and the impact it may have on energy costs was cited by 26%. A similar number cited the national economy and federal deficit.

The results of the Qorvis poll indicates that the region’s optimists are considering additional hiring and enhanced marketing. For example, 43% said they plan to step-up marketing efforts, 41 % said they will make additional hires, 29% said they will expand office space, and 21 % said they will make capital investments.

Among the pessimists, 19% said they will delay expansion plans, 13% said they will defer capital investments, 11% do not expect to make new hires and 10% said they plan to downsize.

The Qorvis survey also found:

45% of all respondents believe that federal and local government compliance issues will become even more burdensome and complicated; 39% expect the cost of staying in business to rise sharply; 38% expect to see increased price competition, and 37% expect to encounter competition from fewer but bigger firms as the result of consolidations.

When asked to identify the one issue that is most likely to keep them up at night, the greatest number of executives (19%) cited “maintaining customer/client satisfaction.” The ability to hire and retain qualified people was cited by 14 % execs, and controlling costs was the third-most (13%) cited source of potential sleep deprivation.

“Conducting research among a unique audience such as small business decision makers can be a highly effective and instructive tool for a host of audiences and something that iQ is tasked with doing frequently,” according to Bill.

More on the FBI-Jack Anderson idiocy

2006-04-20T09:03:00.000-04:00

A couple new developments n the FBI-Jack Anderson idiocy. First, for my thoughts on the legacy of Jack Anderson, check out this article: http://www.abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=1862600&page=1.

Next, read Dale Van Atta's absolutely amazing e-mail on what we called the “Crown Jewels,” and which I wrote about upon Jack’s death last December:

Kevin and Mike (Sullivan):

I tried to reach you both by phone today, but perhaps this is easier. I believe what the FBI may be ultimately after are what we called the "Crown Jewels." Your family does not have them, nor does Mark Feldstein, nor does George Washington University. I was the sole keeper of the documents since 1979. To explain for Anderson alumni who were not there at the time (and for some who were, but never knew the whole story), some background is needed:

In early 1979, the angry (and probably mentally unbalanced) spouse of a former Ford Administration official called our office offering thousands of pages of classified material that the spouse had foolishly kept in a closet at home for almost three years. An intern, Frank Washington (and later paid associate), was dispatched. She told him that she thought there might be something in them that could "get" Henry Kissinger, and knew that Jack Anderson and his people were the best to do it. Many in the office took turns doing a massive Xeroxing, because the originals had to be returned in less than 24 hours.

This was the largest, potentially most-damaging (to our intelligence services) leak possibly in U.S. history, other than the more real-time traitorous actions by John Walker and other captured U.S. spy turncoats.

The swiftest summary would be to say it included nearly every serious national security document which was briefed or delivered to President Ford between June 1975 and April 1976 -- every National Intelligence Daily, most of the National Intelligence Estimates (Special or otherwise), every National Security Decision Memorandum (going back to Nixon/1969); also, many raw CIA cables, Staff Notes, Weekly Reviews, Weekly Surveyors; also, dozens of DIA Intelligence Appraisals, Executive Summaries, Weekly Intelligence Summaries and the like; also, many State Department cables, all relative Current Foreign Relations documents, Memoranda of Conversations, Intelligence and Research Bureau appraisals; many National Security Agency reports, and so on. Most of the documents were not just Top Secret, but Codeworded (SCI: Sensitive Compartmented Information) as well. Most of those Codewords themselves were classified Top Secret.

What to do?

The first thing was a scramble to skim through as much of it as possible, looking for scoops. Most of the office participated, including Gary Cohn, Jack Mitchell and others. We did summaries and grade ratings on the front of many of the documents. Though the haul resulted in maybe three dozen columns that year, not one was considered a major scoop -- though every one of them made the intelligence agencies nervous. (For example, I had fun zinging Kissinger with quotes from "locker room" type conversations he had with foreign diplomats disparaging the looks of Oriana Fallaci and Sally Quinn. He was quite upset, I heard, but never responded publicly.) There was nothing in the documents that could nail Kissinger for anything, as the source had hoped. In fact, the only outside person ever allowed to see them was Seymour Hersh. Under my supervision, and because of our friendship, he scanned through all of them at a desk across from me as he was writing The Price of Power. Though it was useful, he was also unable to find any smoking gun to get Henry.

After about a week with the documents, as others pursued more timely (less than three year old) stories, Bob Sherman and myself took charge of the documents. We moved them from Jack's house to the roof above our desks at 1401 16th Street (on the struts above the ceiling tiles).

At about this same time, I was finally able to get a very sexy, colorful Senate Foreign Relations report on foreign spying in the U.S., which was classified "Top Secret Sensitive." I wrote a week of consecutive columns, and we received national attention for the scoop. I also got a call from the CIA to come over to Langley and sit down with them. I did. They said they knew I had not printed everything from the document, and asked me to avoid publishing two sentences in it that would "make Imelda (Marcos) go batty," and would defniitely hurt their intelligence-gathering capability in the Philippines. That was all they asked; I agreed.

In the ensuing months, it became clear that intelligence-related reporting was a good avenue for me to pursue. As others well know, reporting with Hill sources is a two-edged sword: the information can be great and headline-grabbing, but the same source or another might leak it to someone else before our seven-day lead time was up and destroy our exclusive. Anything I could get from non-Hill intelligence sources was likely to be quite exclusive and hold up. As I began to do that, I became more aware of the very real danger that the Crown Jewels posed if they somehow fell into foreign hands. There was also the possibility that something we might innocently quote from them might get one of our spies exposed and possibly killed. [For example, I was able from the documents to draw up a list by real name (not pseudonym) of more than 300 top NSA and CIA agents working in foreign countries.] Then there were intelligence sources (hundreds of references to intercepted and decoded communications) that were likely still operating and could be harmed.

So I called the CIA and asked to have a big sit-down, during which I would have revealed the extent of the leak, outlined the time period and the documents so that they could review them in their own files and come back with what was the most sensitive -- which we would avoid reporting. (Given the SFRC-CIA pow-wow "math" --- only two sentences out of 100+ pages -- we'd only lose maybe 50 pages total that we hadn't been interested in reporting already anyway.) At first, they didn't believe me. (Bob Sherman, who sat in the desk next to me, probably remembers these calls.) Then I cited a particular article on the front-page of one NID on Brezhnev and they became alarmed. I received several frantic calls, but they still refused to sit down. They considered it "dangerous" to sit down with an investigative reporter and to appear to give de facto publication approval of everything they didn't identify as highly sensitive. I told them it was not exactly great for me to be evidencing a spirit of cooperation with the CIA. We stalemated.

Not long after that, I met with an ex-CIA official who just transferred to another part of government but was still cleared for Soviet Strategic weaponry, etc., which covered some of the most sensitive stuff. I asked him to meet me the following day at a Holiday Inn near Dulles Airport to go over classiifed documents I had and advise me what I should absolutely not report on. We met for several hours in a room I rented. I didn't totally trust him. So on the only National Intelligence Daily where the Copy Number was still visible, I altered the number and re-Xeroxed it to point to a different person in the Ford Administration (than our source) that I thought was a jerk. (Everyone who received the NID was given a specific Copy Number.) I never reported on anything the ex-CIA official deemed too sensitive.

Some weeks after, I received an angry call from the former Ford official that I had deliberately mis-identified on one of the documents. He wanted to know why he had been grilled by polygraph about his association with me. I was amazed that out of all those thousands of pages, the ex-CIA official had seen that one number. I now knew that I coudn't trust him. Several months later, a friend of his revealed that, by way of currying favor with his old agency, he had alerted them and the FBI to the meeting. As I understood it, they audio and video-taped the entire meeting from rooms around me and across the hall. (They could not "seize" the documents because these were copies of "stolen documents." I had told the ex-CIA official in advance about that, hinting that everything had been Xeroxed to make sure there were no fingerprints from the original source on our documents.)

I later confirmed that in the extensive file they had on me was this large portion regarding the Crown Jewels starting with the Holiday Inn meeting -- which is one reason the FBI knows about them now.

The Crown Jewels were most valuable to me as a near real-time case study on how intelligence reporting is conducted and reported to the President. The knowledge I gained from studying them was used advantageously time and gain to earn the patriotic cooperation of new intelligence sources. The point was easy to make: the fact that I had these, but they didn't know about it suggested I (like Jack and the rest of us) was only interested in revealing relevant government secrets that the public needed to know -- regarding duplicity, criminal activities, embarrassing activities and so on. We weren't just publishing secrets simply because they were secrets. It stood my (and our) reputation in good stead.

Now, here's the kicker: While they ceased to be of any "quotation" use for the column by the mid-1980s, they still needed to be safe and secure. They couldn't just be thrown away, because some foreign agent or a contact of theirs might come across them in an area landfill (which the KGB routinely searched for thrown-away classified documents). At one point, for a number of years, I had a very-trustworthy friend in northern Virginia dry-wall them into part of his home. In last than a year, I retrieved them from that location and stored them elsewhere.

Several years ago, I felt it was time to deal with them and there were three options -- incinerate (could never find an incinerator that I could personally feed them into, because the mortuaries didn't allow non-funeral people to operate near them); shred (but I always remembered how the Iranians over several months carefully put together shredded documents from our overrun embassy in Teheran); or give them away.

I settled on the latter. I thought they were more valuable as historical documents at this point than anything else -- useful to researchers and academics. I talked with Scott Armstrong about giving them to the National Security Archives he had set up. Word came back that they couldn't handle such sensitive not-declassified documents. Something about lawyers being nervous about it.

Some months after that, still wanting to be relieved of them, I hit upon what I felt was the ideal solution: gift them to the National Archives. I have been working for the last six years with former Nixon Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird on his autobiography/biography. During that time, I became impressed with the quality and nature of the people at the Gerald R. Ford Library in Michigan. Since these were Ford Administration documents, it made sense to gift them to the Ford Library. I contacted them. An appointment was made. A special security truck and guards were sent to my Ashburn, Va., home to retrieve them. The officer I sat down with explained that once I handed them over to him, I would not be allowed to see them because I was not "cleared" for such highly-classified documents. It was kind of funny, and he well knew the irony as well. However, I was convinced (and it has proven to be the case) that the National Archives would fight hard to declassify as much of it as possible -- working with the CIA, NSA, etc. I also knew that the CIA and others would never likely have given these documents on their own to the Archives (Ford Library section).

So there you have it. While it was evident from reading the columns over those years that Jack and his associates had access to classified documents, the FBI has long had separate evidence (from my heavily-bugged Holiday Inn meeting) that somewhere there was this massive cache of classified documents. (It's also possible that Don Goldberg's blog which "outed" the jewels for the first time may have put them on the curent scent.) I suspect that is a key part of their push to go through what you (Kevin/the Anderson family) donated to GWU. They think the Crown Jewels are in there. But they are not. They are back in government's own hands, but it's unlikely one branch (the FBI) is aware of what another branch (National Archives) already has.

You (Kevin) and Mike are free to reveal to them what I've done, which may sufficiently call off the dogs so that this does not become a protracted fight. I frankly would be very surprised if there were any (at least more than a dozen) classified documents among Jack's papers. I am aware of almost all the documents that were leaked to him, myself and others over the years and Jack had a tendency not to keep anything. He was not a memorabilia collector or packrat of any kind.

That's pretty much most of the story except for this P.S.: Within two years of receiving the Jewels, I did sit down with the original owner of the documents to "interview" the individual. The former Ford official immediately revealed knowledge of what the spouse had done and how the original documents were quickly destroyed on their return. Some gratitude was expressed that there hadn't been any intelligence "blowback" or harm caused as a result of the column's possession of copies of them. Also, some additional colorful details were provided at the time that, some day, I may be able to report for the fun of it.

Dale Van Atta
former Jack Anderson associate and co-columnist

This is history, my friends. Thank you, Dale, for allowing me to publish this.

2006-04-18T11:12:00.000-04:00

An FBI Outrage: The Bureau attempts to confiscate the records of the late columnist Jack Anderson

I guess I thought I’d seen it all after 25 years in Washington, but once again I realize that you will never go broke underestimating the intelligence of our law enforcement agencies, or overestimating the lack of common sense by these same folks.

Now I’ve just learned that the FBI is making an all-out attempt to rummage through the papers and notes of the late Pulitzer-Prize winning investigative reporter and columnist Jack Anderson. Jack, as you might recall, passed away recently after a lengthy illness (he was also my first boss in Washington, and I spent six years as one of his reporters from 1981 to 1987).

I am not going to interject my own commentary into this ongoing tale. Let these e-mails speak for themselves:

First, this note on April 8th from Kevin Anderson, one of Jack’s sons and an attorney in Salt Lake City. This e-mail was sent to a number of Jack’s former reporters:

Hello All:

The family is trying to find out if anyone who used to work with Dad is aware of any connection between Dad and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC); Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman, former lobbyists with AIPAC who are being prosecuted for violating the Espionage Act; or Lawrence A. Franklin, who worked at the Pentagon and pleaded guilty to violating the Espionage Act.

If I missed anyone, please forward this message and cc me so I can add them to my e-mail list.

KEVIN N. ANDERSON

The replies, from reporters including Brit Hume, Dale Van Atta, and Indy Badhwar, all came back negative. Next came this e-mail on April 17th, together with the attached letter that I have copied and pasted below:

Hello Again:

Now the reason for my earlier e-mail will be more apparent. Attached is a draft letter to the FBI from Michael Sullivan on behalf of the family. We are outraged at government's request and hope that you all will support us in our refusal to cooperate. While I have attached a draft of the letter, it is for background/informational purposes only. We do not want you to quote directly from the letter or indicate that you have seen the letter. Michael is very uncomfortable with direct quotes and probably would not like me disseminating it so broadly. But, feel free to paraphrase or plagiarize from the attached. I am traveling until about 9:00 p.m. MDT, but will be available for additional comments after that. I am comfortable with quotes consistent with the content of the letter

Thanks again for your support.

KEVIN N. ANDERSON

Now the draft letter (which I include in its entirety given the wide distribution to current and former journalists on Kevin’s e-mail):

VIA REGULAR MAIL

Mr. Keith Salette, Supervisory Special Agent
Mr. Robert J. Porath, Special Agent
Ms. Leslie G. Martell, Special Agent
Federal Bureau of Investigation
601 Fourth Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20535

Re:
Request by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to Review the Newsgathering Materials of Journalist Jack Anderson

Dear Messrs. Salette and Porath and Ms. Martell:

As you know, this firm represents the family of Jack Anderson in connection with the above referenced request. This letter follows up on our discussions during the meeting at my offices on April 5, 2006 at which you, on behalf of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), requested that the family of Jack Anderson permit the FBI to have access to Mr. Anderson’s journalistic work papers gathered during his more than six decades as a reporter for and the author of the Washington Merry-Go-Round. You represented that the FBI was seeking access to Mr. Anderson’s newsgathering materials in connection with its investigation of Messrs. Rosen and Weissman, two former officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (“AIPAC”). Specifically, if we understood you correctly, you represented (1) that you had information to suggest that Messrs. Rosen and Weissman had met with Jack Anderson and/or one of his reporters and had shared classified materials; and (2) that you had information to suggest that “some other individual” met with Jack Anderson and/or one of his reporters and that this individual could accurately be characterized as an agent of a foreign intelligence service. You represented that these contacts may “go back to the early 1980s.” Finally, although you indicated that you had not reviewed past Washington Merry-Go-Round columns for the period in which you purport to be interested to determine whether Mr. Anderson ever even wrote about subjects pertinent to your inquiry, you nevertheless represented that you were seeking “reporter’s notes” and source materials for the period from 1980 through the present that might be contained in Mr. Anderson’s newsgathering materials.

After giving the matter careful consideration, Mr. Anderson’s family wishes to inform you that it cannot accede to your request. The family has met and discussed this matter at some length and feels that it has a duty to act in a manner that is wholly consistent with the wishes and intent of their deceased father and husband. In order that you might better understand the family’s position, it wishes to inform you of the following:

Jack Anderson was a patriot with a deep and abiding love for his country and its people. While he firmly believed in the essential goodness and wisdom of its people, he was often critical of those in government who wield power. He felt strongly that the role of a free press was to stand as sentinel, ready to sound the alarm when government overstepped its bounds. In Jack Anderson’s view, a journalist’s sacred duty was to criticize government when appropriate in the hope that it might do better. The press was certainly never intended to serve as the government’s handmaiden. As Mr. Anderson explained regarding his reporting on the Nixon Administration: “I have always published what I thought the American people ought to know.… Occasionally the decisions have been agonizing ones. But usually, when something has come across my desk classified as a national security secret, it has involved the misdeeds and manipulations of people who had abused the public trust, and then had swept the evidence under the secrecy stamp.” Similarly, he wrote about the fundamental precepts he learned from his mentor Drew Pearson who “took pains to inculcate his convictions on the moral objectives of the newspaper column and the just society: to champion the cause of the voiceless instead of the dominant, the dissenter as well as the organization, the helpless against their exploiters, the small enterprise over the octopus, the public’s right to know and control rather than the official’s prerogative to conceal and manipulate.” In short, his views can best be summed up as follows: Ours is a government of the people. The people are the sovereigns; those who work in government are our servants. We the people have the right to know what our servants are doing when they act in our name. In Mr. Anderson’s view, this bedrock principle could not be otherwise; for, as he emphasized repeatedly: “The stakes are too high in a democracy where everything rests on an informed people.”

Indeed, Jack Anderson wrote about what drove him as an investigative journalist: “I have tried to break down the walls of secrecy in Washington. But today the walls are thicker than ever. More and more of our policymakers hide behind those walls. Only the press can stand as a true bulwark against an executive branch with a monopoly on foreign policy information. It has all the authority it needs in the First Amendment.” Lastly, please understand that Jack Anderson was a deeply religious man who viewed investigative reporting as a noble calling from God. He believed that life is an eternal struggle between good and evil, and that the United States Constitution was “a divinely inspired document.” For Jack, the First Amendment itself was a divinely inspired charter that sanctioned his journalistic mission.

With the benefit of this background, the family hopes you will appreciate that when they turn to the present matter, they cannot help but think that Jack Anderson would have been troubled by the present prosecution of Messrs. Rosen and Weissman. Indeed, for anyone who believes in the fundamental importance of robust public debate to our American system, this prosecution is troubling. While Messrs. Rosen and Weissman find themselves in the dock today, there is no reason under the government’s reading of the law, that journalists will not find themselves facing similar charges tomorrow. Rather than supporting such a prosecution, it is more likely that Jack Anderson would have used the Washington Merry-Go-Round to criticize this effort as a dangerous departure and government overreaching.

After much discussion and due deliberation, the family has concluded that were Mr. Anderson alive today, he would not cooperate with the government on this matter. Instead, he would resist the government’s efforts with all the energy he could muster. To honor both his memory and his wishes, the family feels duty bound to do no less.

In addition, the scope of the government’s review is too broad. The duty you feel as agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to remove all material marked as “classified” in any form and either permanently retain them or return them in some redacted or edited form would destroy the historic, political and cultural value of Mr. Anderson’s papers. In addition, it could still expose the identity of sources of the Washington Merry-Go-Round. As the family understands the government’s interpretation of existing laws, this could expose those sources to criminal prosecution.

Finally, as a practical matter, the family notes that it is extremely unlikely that Mr. Anderson’s journalistic work product contains material that may be pertinent to your inquiry in any event. First, the relevant time period specified in the indictment of Messrs. Franklin, Rosen and Weissman is from April 1999 until August 27, 2004. See Indictment, United States v. Franklin, No. 05-225 (E.D. Va. Aug. 4, 2005). Due to his failing health, Mr. Anderson was no longer actively engaged in reporting during the relevant period. Second, because you represented that Mr. Anderson and/or his reporters had contacts with Messrs. Rosen and Weissman that “go back to the early 1980s,” the family undertook to contact all the eminent journalists who shared the by-line with Jack Anderson during the period from ___ to ___: Dale Van Atta from ___ to ____; Michael Binstein from ___ to ____; and Jan Moeller from ___ to ____. None of Mr. Anderson’s co-authors were aware of any significant contacts with AIPAC or its lobbyists Rosen or Weissman during those years. What is more, in an effort to be thorough, the family also contacted over 45 former Washington Merry-Go-Round reporters who worked on the column since the late 1960s and none were aware of significant contacts with AIPAC or its employees. Indeed, it appears from the reporters that the contacts with AIPAC were minimal at best and involved routine newsgathering; for example, to get updates on the hunt for Nazi war criminals or to obtain information for news stories on anti-Semitism in the United States and abroad. Last, as we explained to you during our meeting, the notion that Mr. Anderson would have maintained “reporter’s notes” that might be of use to you, flies in the face of his general reporting practices, i.e., he took and maintained very few handwritten notes.

We hope the foregoing has been helpful to you in understanding the family’s views regarding this matter. If there is something you feel the family has overlooked in its deliberations or that you wish the family to consider further, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Very truly yours,

When I saw this letter, I asked Kevin if the FBI had demanded to review Jack’s papers and take any records that they deemed to be classified. His response:

To clarify, yes.the FBI has requested that it be able to review Jack’s papers supposedly to look for AIPAC related stuff, but they want to review all of the boxes and say they will be "duty bound" to seize anything that is marked classified, check with the relevant agency and, if the documents have been or can be declassified they will be returned so marked.

But there’s more. I next heard from Mark Feldstein, an award-winning journalist with CNN and WUSA (and Jack intern in 1978) who on the faculty of the George Washington University School of Communications, and is finishing a book about Jack and, among other topics, his battles with the Nixon White House. Here’s Mark’s e-mail:

Yes, 2 FBI agents came to my home... ...flashing their badges and demanding access to the papers the late Jack Anderson donated to my university. A somewhat intimidating experience for your average professor, I would say, but just a small part of the most concerted assault against the news media since the infamous days of Richard Nixon--ironically, the very subject of the book that I am now writing ("Poisoning the Press: Richard Nixon, Jack Anderson, and the Rise of Washington's Scandal Culture," to be published next year by Farrar Straus & Giroux). Hard to know whether Jack would be amused, outraged, or proud--probably all three.

Mark

I don’t know whether to be amused or outraged by this—or more likely both. Jack has not been an active journalists for many years, and the events and papers under scrutiny date back 20 or 30 years. How could they be relevant to any ongoing criminal investigation, let alone contain anything close to resembling state secrets. Surely, the Bureau must have anticipated that their keystone cops antics would be made public—or maybe I am giving them too much credit. Stay tuned…