K STREET CASHES IN ON THE 1915 ARMENIAN GENOCIDE.
by Michael Crowley
The New Republic, USA
July 23, 2007
Final Resolution
As a rising St. Louis politician in the mid-1970s, Richard Gephardt
was among a dynamic group of aldermen dubbed "The Young Turks." So
perhaps it’s not surprising that, 30 years later, the former Democratic
minority leader of the House of Representatives has aged into an Old
Turk. This spring, Gephardt has been busy promoting his new favorite
cause–not universal health care or Iraq, but the Republic of Turkey,
which now pays his lobbying firm, DLA Piper, $100,000 per month for his
services. Thus far, Gephardt’s achievements have included arranging
high-level meetings for Turkish dignitaries, among them one between
members of the Turkish parliament and House Democratic leaders James
Clyburn and Rahm Emanuel; helping Turkey’s U.S. ambassador win an
audience with a skeptical Nancy Pelosi; and, finally, circulating a
slim paperback volume, titled "An Appeal to Reason," that denies the
existence of the Armenian genocide of 1915.
Few people would place the Armenian genocide on their top ten–or even
top 1,000–list of the day’s pressing issues. In fact, many Americans
would likely be at a loss to explain who or what the Armenians are,
much less what happened to them 90 years ago. Not so in Washington. For
the past several years, U.S. representatives, lobbyists, and foreign
emissaries have been locked in a vicious struggle over a resolution
in Congress that would officially deem as genocide the massacre of
up to 1.5 million ethnic Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. The Turkish
government has fought this effort with the zeal of Ataturk–enlisting
a multimillion-dollar brigade of former congressmen and slick flacks,
as well as a coterie of American Jews surprisingly willing to downplay
talk of genocide. But the Armenian-American community has impressive
political clout–enough that a majority of House members have now
co-sponsored the resolution. And that means a ferocious final showdown
is looming, one so charged that this arcane historical dispute could
even interfere with the war in Iraq.
Even more striking than the historic Turkish-Armenian hatred festering
in the halls of Congress, however, is the way Washington’s political
elites are cashing in on it. Take Gephardt. While the Turks and
Armenians have a long historical memory, Gephardt has an exceedingly
short one. A few years ago, he was a working-class populist who cast
himself as a tribune of the underdog–including the Armenians. Back
in 1998, Gephardt attended a memorial event hosted by the Armenian
National Committee of America at which, according to a spokeswoman
for the group, "he spoke about the importance of recognizing the
genocide." Two years later, Gephardt was one of three House Democrats
who co-signed a letter to then-House Speaker Dennis Hastert urging
Hastert to schedule an immediate vote on a genocide resolution. "We
implore you," the letter read, arguing that Armenian-Americans
"have waited long enough for Congress to recognize the horrible
genocide." Today, few people are doing more than Gephardt to ensure
that the genocide bill goes nowhere.
It’s one thing to flip-flop on, say, tax cuts or asbestos reform.
But, when it comes to genocide, you would hope for high principle to
carry the day. In Washington, however, the Armenian genocide industry
is in full bloom. And Dick Gephardt’s shilling isn’t even the half
of it.
Representative Adam Schiff may be the first person elected to Congress
through the politics of the Armenian genocide. Back in 2000, Schiff
was a California state senator challenging Republican incumbent Jim
Rogan. The Burbank-area district is home to 75,000 Armenian-Americans,
or about 10 percent of the population, many of them desperate to see
Washington brand the Turks as genocide artists.
In September of that year, Hastert paid a campaign visit to the
district and delighted Armenians by vowing to call a vote on a genocide
resolution (which Rogan had co-sponsored). It’s possible Hastert was
stirred by questions of historical guilt. But, as one GOP campaign
official admitted, the vote would also happen to offer Rogan "a very
tangible debating point" against Schiff.
Mass murder may be strange fodder for a debating point. But in
America’s tight-knit Armenian community, it can seem that people want
to debate little else. Most Armenian-Americans are descended from
survivors of the slaughter and grew up listening to stories about how
the Turks, suspecting the Orthodox Christian Armenians of collaborating
with their fellow Orthodox Christian Russians during World War I, led
their grandparents on death marches, massacred entire villages, and,
in one signature tactic, nailed horseshoes to their victims’ feet. (The
"horseshoe master of Bashkale," the Ottoman provincial governor Jevdet
Bey was called.) Turkey’s refusal to acknowledge the guilt of their
Ottoman forbears infuriates Armenians, leaving them feeling cheated
of the sacred status awarded to Jewish Holocaust survivors.
It wasn’t until the mid-1970s that the Armenian community, which today
numbers up to 1.4 million, grew active enough to press its case in
Washington. At first, few people here took them seriously. After a
fruitless House debate about the genocide in 1985, for instance, one
Republican scoffed at "the most mischief-making piece of legislation
in all my experience in Congress." But the cause gained traction in
the 1990s, thanks largely to then-Senate Republican leader Bob Dole,
who never forgot the Armenian doctor who treated him after he was
severely wounded in World War II.
With Rogan’s seat on the line in 2000, a first-ever vote on a
genocide resolution seemed a sure thing–that is, until the Turkish
government mobilized its lobbying team, led by former Republican
House Speaker Bob Livingston, its $700,000 man in the field. In a
state of affairs one furious Republican described to Roll Call as
"ridiculous," Livingston found himself battling a measure meant to
protect the very House majority he had briefly presided over just
two years earlier. A Turkish threat to cancel military contracts,
including a $4.5 billion helicopter deal with a Fort Worth-based
company, ensured the opposition of powerful Texas Republicans like
Tom DeLay. Hastert was cornered. But he found cover in Bill Clinton,
who warned that Turkey might shut down its American-run Incirlik air
base, from which the United States patrolled the no-fly zone over
northern Iraq. Citing Clinton’s objections, Hastert pulled the bill.
Rogan tried to accuse Clinton of playing politics, and someone sent
out a last-minute mailer featuring Schiff next to a Turkish flag. But
it wasn’t enough, and Schiff beat Rogan by nine percentage points.
The episode–by showcasing crass partisan politics, expensive
access-peddling, sleazy political attacks, corporate lucre, and
the specter of geostrategic calamity–opened a new era in Armenian
genocide politics. "That was sort of the first introduction to how
aggressive the Turks are," says one former Republican congressman.
For the next six years, Turkish lobbying mostly kept the Armenian
genocide resolution off the Washington agenda. Then came a calamity for
the Turks: the 2006 midterm elections. Suddenly, Democrats, who had
always been more supportive than Republicans of the Armenian cause,
were in power. Even worse, California Democrats with Armenian-American
constituencies ascended to senior leadership positions. Among
them was the new House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who, with thousands of
Armenian-Americans in her Bay Area district, has spoken passionately on
the subject. "This Armenian genocide is a challenge to the conscience
of our country and the conscience of the world. We will not rest
until we have recognition of it," she declared in 2001. Likewise,
one of Pelosi’s closest confidantes, California Democrat Anna Eshoo,
is the granddaughter of an Armenian who resents the notion that her
grandma’s memories of genocide amount to "a fairy tale." And even
Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean, not previously known for
his interest in Transcaucasian affairs, paid a recent visit to the
Armenian capital of Yerevan and toured a national genocide memorial,
where he declared that "[t]he facts are that a genocide occurred."
It’s little wonder, then, that proponents of the genocide resolution
like Adam Schiff have never been so optimistic. "This is the best
opportunity we’ve had for a decade," the tanned and mild-mannered
Harvard Law graduate told me in his Capitol Hill office recently.
Which is also why, warns Schiff, "we’re seeing the strongest pushback
from the Turkish lobby that I’ve ever seen."
A few weeks ago, I called the Turkish Embassy to request an
interview. A couple of days later, I heard back–not from the embassy,
but from an American p.r. consultant employed by the Turks.
He suggested we meet the next day at a Starbucks. I found him in a
corner behind a glowing white iBook. He had long slicked-back hair, a,
seersucker suit, and a blinking Bluetooth earpiece, and looked ready
for a power lunch with the sharky agent Ari Gold from "Entourage." He
informed me our conversation would be off the record, before launching
his well-honed argument against the genocide resolution.
My Starbucks contact wasn’t the only Turkish emissary who prefers to
operate in the shadows. Another D.C.-based operative, who spoke to me
from a hotel room in Ankara, where he was chaperoning a very prominent
Democrat, also insisted that the substance of our conversation be
off the record. He asked that I not even reveal his identity. "I
don’t have a dog in this hunt," he insisted, despite his place on
the Turkish payroll. "My only hunt is for truth."
The truth, as the Turks see it, is simple: There was no genocide. The
Armenian death toll is exaggerated, and most died from exposure
or rogue marauders during mass relocations. (One Turkish activist
even cheerily assured me that, after the relocations, "everyone was
invited back.") The Turks say that the G-word implies an intent that
can’t be proved. This stance is more than just a matter of fierce
national pride. The Turks are terrified at the prospect of huge
financial and territorial reparations for the Armenians.("[C]ash,"
drools one Armenian nationalist blogger, "lots of cash.")
So, instead of doling out lots of cash to the Armenians, Turkey
showers Washington with political operators more than happy to argue
their case–for the right price. Few niches of Washington lobbying
are as lucrative as the foreign racket, which explains why more
than 1,800 lobbyists are currently registered to represent more
than 660 overseas clients. Thus the Turks have found no shortage
of willing pitchmen. Turkey currently maintains expensive contracts
with at least four different Washington lobbying and p.r. firms. The
result is that unsuspecting congressmen and staffers frequently find
themselves badgered by well-heeled Turkish emissaries. Not long ago,
one lobbyist invited a senior congressional aide to dinner at his
suburban mansion. When he arrived, the aide was surprised to find
himself surrounded by Turks keenly interested in his views on the
genocide bill. (This time, the hard sell backfired; the staffer
indignantly retorted that he believed a genocide had taken place,
causing the lobbyist’s face to go "ashen.")
The Turks insist that they need these expensive fixers and aggressive
tactics to counter America’s relentless Armenian grassroots lobby. In
addition to Gephardt (who did not respond to a request for comment),
Turkey contracts the services of David Mercer, a connected Democratic
fund-raiser and protege of the late Democratic Party chairman Ron
Brown. The Turks also pay $50,000 monthly to the Glover Park Group,
a powerhouse Democratic firm stocked with connected former Clinton
White House aides Joe Lockhart and Joel Johnson, for p.r. services.
That work included advice on shaping an April full-page New York
Times advertisement, which called for a new historical commission
(which the Armenians call a sham) and urged Washington to "support
efforts to examine history, not legislate it."
But the kingpin of Turkish advocacy is Bob Livingston, whose
lobbying firm, the Livingston Group, has hauled in roughly $13
million in Turkish lucre since 2000. Livingston, best remembered
for his comically brief stint as House Speaker-elect at the height
of the Clinton impeachment debacle (before he tearfully admitted
his own extramarital affair and resigned from Congress in disgrace),
has lobbied on a range of issues dear to Turkey’s heart. But it’s his
tireless fight against the genocide resolution that makes him a hero
in Ankara. Back in 2000, Livingston’s team personally contacted 141
different members of Congress in the five-week run-up to the aborted
vote. And on October 19, the day the vote was canceled, Livingston
met personally with Hastert to ensure its demise. Mission accomplished.
Likewise, when Adam Schiff tried to pass a symbolic House amendment
related to the genocide in 2004, Livingston’s firm again sprang into
action. As detailed in a recent Public Citizen study of foreign-agent
public lobbying records, the firm immediately barraged GOP leaders
like DeLay and Hastert with e-mails and faxes. Its team also badgered
everyone from top House aides to officials at the National Security
Council, the State Department, the Pentagon, and Vice President
Dick Cheney’s office. Livingston’s office even called the House
parliamentarian, apparently hoping to throw a procedural wrench into
Schiff’s gears. Against this onslaught, Schiff’s puny amendment didn’t
stand a chance. For its work in 2004, Turkey paid the Livingston
Group $1.8 million.
But, while Bob Livingston may be the winner of the Turkish lobbying
lottery, the prize for biggest hypocrite is still up for grabs. Dick
Gephardt isn’t the only lobbyist who has flip-flopped on the genocide
(though he gets points for having his firm distribute "An Appeal
to Reason," the genocide-denying pamphlet that offers a strangely
postmodern assessment of the imprecise nature of history–a convenient
stance if your forbears committed mass murder–including a quotation
attributed to philosopher Karl Popper, contending that "our knowledge
is always incomplete"). There’s also former Democratic representative
Steve Solarz of New York. Solarz was one of the first backers of a
genocide resolution way back in 1975. By 2000, he was working with
Livingston to defeat it, raking in $400,000 for his efforts.
It’s not just the lobbyists whose stance on the genocide seems
suspiciously malleable, however. Seven House members who have
co-sponsored the resolution this year have already changed their
positions. One is Louisiana Republican Bobby Jindal, who on January
31 added his name to the co-sponsor list–but then withdrew his
support the same day. Lobbying records show that, also on January 31,
Livingston called Jindal and spoke to him about the resolution.
(Jindal’s office didn’t respond to requests for comment.) Others have
seemingly positioned themselves less on the basis of historical or
moral considerations than on good old pork politics. Gunay Evinch,
a representative of the Assembly of Turkish American Associations,
recalls how one House resolution supporter privately explained
his position: "I don’t believe it was technically genocide," the
congressman said. "But I need highway funds."
Earning a special commendation for dubious behavior is Washington’s
Jewish-American lobby. In one of this tale’s strangest twists, the
Turks have convinced prominent Jewish groups, not typically indifferent
to charges of genocide, to mute their opinions. In February, Turkey’s
foreign minister convened a meeting at a Washington hotel with more
than a dozen leaders of major Jewish groups. Most prominent groups now
take no official position on the resolution, including B’nai B’rith,
the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (aipac), and the American
Jewish Committee. The issue "belongs to historians and not a resolution
in Congress," explains Anti-Defamation League director Abe Foxman, who
outright opposes the resolution. "It will resolve nothing." But it’s
also clear that Turkey’s status as Israel’s lone Muslim ally counts
for a lot, too. "I think a lot of Israelis agree," Foxman told me. (One
person involved in the fight offers a more cynical explanation: "Jewish
groups don’t want to give up their ownership of the term ‘genocide.’")
The Turks have also conspicuously hired some lobbyists with strong
Jewish ties. Their payroll includes a Washington firm called Southfive
Strategies, which bills itself as "a Washington D.C.
consulting boutique with access to the White House, congressional
leadership, and influential media organizations." Southfive is run
by Jason Epstein, a former Capitol Hill lobbyist for B’nai B’rith,
and Lenny Ben-David, an Israeli-born former deputy chief of mission
at Israel’s Washington embassy and a longtime aipac staffer whose
previous firm, IsraelConsult, also worked for Turkey.
Some Jewish leaders, to be sure, find such realpolitik less than
tasteful. "It is obscene for us, of all people, to quibble about
definitions," one prominent California rabbi recently told the
Jewish Journal. But, when I asked one Jewish-American aligned with
the Turks whether he truly believes that genocide didn’t take place,
he stammered that "the verdict" is not in, before adding, "If you’re
asking do I sleep at night, I do."
Strange as it may be to find a World War I massacre on the 2007
Washington agenda, even more bizarre is the possibility that it may
precipitate an international crisis. At one March House subcommittee
hearing, Adam Schiff got a rare opportunity to grill Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice. Angry over the Bush administration’s
opposition to the Armenian genocide resolution, Schiff pressed Rice:
"Is there any doubt in your mind that the murder of a million and a
half Armenians between 1915 and 1923 constituted genocide?" Schiff
even pointedly appealed to Rice’s background in "academia." But the
ever-disciplined Rice wouldn’t bite. "Congressman, I come out of
academia. But I’m secretary of state now. And I think that the best
way to have this proceed is for … the Turks and the Armenians to
come to their own terms about this."
What Rice didn’t say is that the Turks, should their lobbying firepower
fail to stop the genocide bill from moving forward, have an even
mightier weapon to brandish: the war in Iraq. As they did in 2000,
the Turks are hinting they will shut down Incirlik, a far more dire
threat now that Incirlik supplies U.S. forces occupying Iraq.
Administration officials also fear Turkey might close the Habur Gate,
a border point through which U.S. supplies flow into northern Iraq.
In an April letter to congressional leaders, Rice and Defense Secretary
Robert Gates bluntly warned that a House resolution "could harm
American troops in the field [and] constrain our ability to supply
our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan."
That prospect may even be dragging U.S. troops themselves into the
Turkish counteroffensive. Or so says Frank Pallone, a New Jersey
Democrat and lead co-sponsor of the genocide resolution. "[The
Turks] have had American soldiers call members of Congress and say,
‘Don’t vote for this, because I am going to be threatened in Iraq,’"
Pallone says. (A Turkish embassy spokesman denied knowledge of this.)
The Turks also warn that branding them as Hitleresque is sure to
enrage Turkish nationalists and heighten tensions on the closed
Turkish-Armenian border. If the resolution is passed, "it’s going
to be a heavy, heavy blow," says Murat Lutem, a Turkish embassy
official. "The upheaval will be so significant that the government
won’t be able to say, ‘Let it be.’" That’s one reason some Turkish
newspapers, with their sudden interest in Capitol Hill politics,
have recently read like Ottoman versions of Roll Call. The Turks
are especially fixated on the Armenian ally Nancy Pelosi, whom one
Turkish columnist disdained as "an uncompromising iron lady."
Faced with such intense Turkish opposition, however, Pelosi may prove
less iron lady than diplomat. Democratic aides say the potential
for geostrategic mayhem weighs heavily on her–never mind her 2005
declaration that "Turkey’s strategic location is not a license to
kill." And after she rebuffed earlier meeting requests from such
Turkish dignitaries as Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, her recent
willingness to meet the Turkish ambassador may be revealing.
Still, senior Democratic aides say Pelosi could press ahead–possibly
in early fall. Meanwhile, a Senate counterpart to the House bill
already has 30 co-sponsors, including Harry Reid and Hillary Clinton.
And so Dick Gephardt has his work cut out for him. But not without
a growing toll on his reputation. Even in modern Washington, where
it’s taken for granted that everyone has their price, flip-flopping on
genocide has the ability to shock. One person dismayed by Gephardt’s
reversal is Anna Eshoo. Eshoo says she was recently in an airport
with former Connecticut Representative Sam Gejdenson, one of the
three co-signers on Gephardt’s 2000 pro-resolution letter to Hastert,
when the pair spotted Gephardt. "Look who’s here!" Eshoo mockingly
exclaimed. "Hey Dick, the Kurds are looking for you!" Gejdenson
sardonically chimed in–referring to another foe of Gephardt’s Turkish
client. Eshoo says it was just teasing among old friends.
But, she pointedly adds of the former House Democratic leader:
"Clearly this is not a principle of his. This is business."