The ‘Smoking Gun’: Sen. Inhofe Secures Proof of Sandy Berger’s Involvement in Clinton’s Pandering to Puerto Rican Separatists

(Washington, D.C.): Twice in as many weeks, Samuel Berger — the
China trade lawyer-cum-Democratic political operative turned President Clinton’s National
Security Advisor — has
prevaricated publicly about his direct, personal involvement in decision-making that led to the
early release of sixteen convicted Puerto Rican terrorists. For his mendacity in this matter, if not
for the content of his flawed security policy advice, Sandy Berger should at last be relieved of his
duties.

What ‘Is’ Is

On 8 September, Berger held a press conference in Aukland, New Zealand on the margins of
the
Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. In the course of that event, he had the following,
flippant — yet telling — exchange with a correspondent:

I’m aware of no such
contacts.

Then, during his appearance on the NBC Sunday morning program “Meet the Press”
on 19
September, Berger repeated this line in an interview with host Tim Russert.

although I
was not part of that decision,

The president did not seek your advice on this?

I do foreign policy.

Puerto
Rico is not an
issue that comes within the jurisdiction of the NSC.

this president’s
record on terrorism is the strongest of any president in history….

this president’s record in fighting terrorism is absolutely the
strongest possible record.

Oh, That Contact

Proof positive is now available that Sandy Berger was involved in the President’s
decision
to grant clemency to these felons — over the strenuous objections of the FBI, their
wardens and
the rest of the law enforcement community. This proof surfaced at a hearing called yesterday by
Sen. James M. Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma and chairman of the Senate
Armed Services
Committee’s Readiness Subcommittee. The subject of the hearing was the closely related issue
of the future status of the live-fire training range on the island of Vieques near Puerto
Rico.

Just how closely related the two questions are was evident in a note made public
by Sen.
Inhofe.¹ Written in the President’s hand, dated 26 July and
addressed to “Sandy,” it refers to a
21 July letter Mr. Clinton had received from Ruben Berrios Martinez, the president of the
separatist Partido Independentista Puertorriquea. Martinez made clear that
his letter was being
sent from the beach of the Vieques live-fire range — which he was then occupying,
together with
other nationalist trespassers:

As you know, we have successfully interrupted the Navy’s bombing and I have
pledged to
remain here until the Navy formally declares its intention to leave Vieques, or until I am
arrested. By now I have spent roughly the same amount of time on this beach as I
spent in
prison in 1971.

[I also want to] bring to your attention once more the plight of Puerto Ricans who have
languished in U.S. prisons during almost two decades, for activities related to their struggle for
Puerto Rico’s independence….The international community views them as political
prisoners, not common criminals, who deserve the exercise of your constitutional
powers of
executive clemency without delay.” (Emphasis added throughout.)

The Smoking Gun

In response, the President sent the following tasking note to Berger (underscoring in the
original):

Sandy

want us

The Navy can find a way to work around it

What about the prisoners[?]

Need Reply

The Bottom Line

It is not publicly known at this time what was the nature of the Sandy Berger’s “reply” to the
President’s tasker concerning making the Navy find a work-around (indisputably a matter within
the purview of the National Security Council) and the “prisoners” (which Berger insists was not).
Clearly, however, Mr. Clinton did contact his National Security Advisor about the
latter subject
almost two months ago.

Berger’s repeated misrepresentations on that score are all too reminiscent of his lack of
candor
with respect to other matters of high policy. Recent examples include: what he knew about
Chinese spying at the U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories and when he knew
it ²; his
suggestions that nobody at the White House was aware until late August about reports of
Russian money-laundering operations that have been going on for years; his
claim on last
weekend’s “Meet the Press” that “China has substantially decreased its at least nuclear
cooperation with Pakistan as a result of an agreement that we reached when the
president went
to China”³; and his failure to keep President
Clinton from making dangerously erroneous
and misleading claims (e.g., to the effect that there are “no missiles pointed at our
children,” the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty will curb nuclear proliferation, Yasser Arafat is a man of peace
and the readiness of our armed forces has not suffered from their over-commitment in
peace-keeping operations from Kosovo to East Timor).

President Clinton — and the Nation — are badly served by a National Security
Advisor who
is either unwilling or unable to speak truth to power, and perhaps to anybody
else. In the
present instance, the truth the President obviously did not want to hear is that releasing
remorseless terrorists will inflame Puerto Rican nationalists and possibly result in the death of
more Americans at their hands. No less importantly, Mr. Clinton needs to be told that
the Navy
simply cannot “work around” the permanent loss of the Vieques live-fire range.

To their credit, senior military officers — from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, Gen.
Hugh Shelton ⁴to Marine Gen. Anthony
Zinni, ⁵ the Commander-in-Chief of U.S. Central
Command to the two witness before Sen. Inhofe’s subcommittee, Vice Admiral William
Fallon
(USN) and Lieutenant General Peter Pace (USMC), ⁶ the Commander, U.S. Second Fleet and
Commander, U.S. Marine Corps Forces, Atlantic, respectively — have been trying to tell the truth
about Vieques.

The question is: Will Congress listen to them, see to it that the laws against
trespassing on
federal property ⁷ are enforced against
Martinez and his cohorts and act to return this vital
national asset to appropriate and necessary use by the U.S. military? Or will it allow
President Clinton, as with the FALN clemency decision, once again to ride roughshod over the
advice of the responsible authorities, further emboldening the anti-American aspirations of
Puerto Rican separatists at grave risk to national security? ⁸

¹The two issues were further linked by one of the terrorists, Ricardo
Jimenez, who used his own
appearance on “Meet the Press” on 12 September not to exhibit remorse, but to insist that the
U.S. military stop using the Vieques live-fire range. “There’s been an objective by the United
States government to terrorize the Puerto Rican nation. You terrorized Vieques day-in and
day-out and have no respect for us whatsoever during all these 60 years.”

²See the Center’s Decision Briefs entitled
Is Kosovo Clinton’s Most Dangerous Wag-the-Dog
Exercise? (No. 99-D 39, 27 March 1999);
Clinton Legacy Watch # 38: China and the ‘Three
P’s’ — Reckless Policies, Practices and Personnel Spell Trouble ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=99-D_33″>No. 99-D 33, 15 March 1999);
and China’s Nuclear Theft, Strategic Build-up Underscore Folly of Clinton
Denuclearization,
C.T.B. Campaigns (No. 99-D 31, 8 March 1999).

³The CIA has concluded that China has provided M-11 ballistic
missiles to Pakistan.

⁴Gen. Shelton told the Senate Armed Services Committee on 9
September: “I know that they
have looked for alternatives, and as of today have not found any suitable alternatives that provide
the degree of training that Vieques does and would allow us to deploy in the same trained and
ready status.”

⁵In a letter to Gen. Shelton, Gen. Zinni said the following: “This
training is an absolute
necessity to prepare our ships, aircraft and aircrews for ongoing operations [and] short-notice
contingencies.”

⁶In a joint prepared statement submitted to the Senate yesterday,
Adm. Fallin and Gen. Pace
said:

Our perceptions [concerning Vieques] are shaped by our responsibilities….We are
responsible for
providing and deploying well-trained and equipped Marines and sailors, as directed by the
Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Atlantic Command, to support the requirements of all five
geographic combatant commanders. Unspoken in that mission is the personal responsibility and
obligation we have to prepare those Marines and sailors to the very best of our abilities.
The
Vieques weapons range offers the best — and most realistic — training available on the East
Coast. We owe it to our sailors and Marines — and to their families — to provide the
best
possible training before sending them into harm’s way. This training protects U.S.
interests,
deters conflict, wins wars and saves American lives — as evidenced by the performance
of
U.S. military forces during recent operations in the Balkans and in the Arabian Gulf.
To deny
our sailors and Marines this training would reduce our overall readiness, decrease our
likely effectiveness, and place lives of U.S. service members at greater risk. (Emphasis
added. For additional excerpts of this important testimony, see the Center’s Security Forum
entitled Will Clinton Ignore the Military’s Advice on Vieques?

⁷In addition to the federal offence of trespassing on government
property — crimes which the
Justice Department has indicated it would not prosecute in the case of Vieques — the separatists
are removing unexploded ordinance from the range. Will the explosives thus acquired wind up
in the next generation of FALN bombs?.

⁸The President evidently expects to get political cover for doing the
latter from a hand-picked
presidential panel charged last June with second-guessing the military’s judgment about Vieques.
Its report is expected next week and is said to call for the Navy to leave Vieques within five years
and make limited use of it in the meantime.