Chiquita vice chairman,
on canceling the trip of
Panamanian foreign minister:
Contributions buy influence
Chiquita SECRETS Revealed
MIKE GALLAGHER & CAMERON McWHIRTER
Cincinnati Enquirer 3may1998
"About the EU tour that this minister in Panama wants to take is just highly dangerous . . "And I was saying that we should, if we could politely do it without ruffling too many feathers, get that minister's trip cancelled. So that would be exactly my program." - Keith Lindner, Chiquita vice chairman, on canceling the trip of Panamanian foreign minister; Contributions buy influence
Carl Lindner is well known in this town as a big contributor to both Democrats and Republicans.What is he getting for his money?
Mr. Lindner, chairman of the board and CEO of Chiquita Brands International Inc., is buying the power of the White House and Capitol Hill, according to advocates of campaign finance reform and opponents of Chiquita's trade battles with Europe.
"Although he has given more to Republicans, he has also been a double giver. And double giving is the clearest evidence that this money is not about elections, it's about buying influence," said Ann McBride, president of Common Cause, the non-profit group leading the campaign for finance reform. "The way Carl Lindner has given has been to give to both parties so that no matter who wins, he'll have a place at the table."
Mr. Lindner, a registered Republican who has spent at least two nights at the Clinton White House, certainly has a place at the table of the Democratic administration as well as both sides of the aisle in Congress.
Mr. Lindner has made large contributions - totaling millions of dollars - to Republican and Democratic candidates over the years. But that largesse has come under scrutiny since 1993 when the European Union established trade preferences limiting how many bananas Chiquita could bring to Europe. Chiquita began asking the White House to intervene while also making large donations to the Democratic Party.
In 1995, the U.S. Trade Representative's Office of the White House took the company's cause to the World Trade Organization (WTO), the first case by the United States brought before the newly created international body.
The U.S. decision to take up an international case on behalf of one multinational company contributed to the recent debate about campaign finance reform.
Dole and Del Monte, the two other large U.S. banana producers, did not file requests with the White House. Dole proposed a compromise in 1995 to avert the WTO action, but it was turned down.
Mr. Lindner and other Chiquita officials declined repeated requests to meet with the Enquirer to discuss campaign contributions or any other subject. Through attorneys hired to deal with the Enquirer, Chiquita issued the following written statement:
"Neither Carl Lindner Jr. nor any other Chiquita, United Brands, or American Financial official has ever asked for or received any promises in return for political contributions related to the WTO (World Trade Organization) proceeding or any other matter, nor have any such promises or quid pro quos (things given in exchange for something else) been anticipated or expected by Mr. Lindner or Chiquita."
The White House also firmly denied any improper support for Chiquita's case because of Mr. Lindner's donations.
"It's absolutely not true and has no foundation in reality," said Jay Ziegler, spokesman for the White House's trade office.
But the Enquirer has obtained, through the Freedom of Information Act, correspondence between the White House, members of Congress and Chiquita dealing with the European banana issue beginning in 1994. Though many portions of the letters have been blacked out by the government, the correspondence demonstrates the influence that Chiquita exerts on the U.S. trade office.
The correspondence shows that:
Powerful congressional leaders sent letters to the White House pressuring the administration to support Chiquita's position. Chiquita supporters included U.S. Sen. John Glenn, D-Ohio, U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, U.S. Rep. and Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, R-Georgia, U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, U.S. Sen. and Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd, D- Conn., and others who had received donations from either the Lindners, their controlled companies or company officials.
Chief support appears to have come from Bob Dole, while he was still the senior Republican senator from Kansas. Many of these letters were faxed to the trade office by Carolyn Gleason, Chiquita's trade attorney, registered lobbyist and key liaison to the Clinton administration on this issue. On one letter from Mr. Dole dated June 21, 1995, then U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor scrawled a note to his staffers: "Please give me a way to proceed. Pressure is going to grow. MK"
Chiquita's lobbyist, Ms. Gleason, sent faxes to the trade office - at the office's request - providing policy position papers on the banana issue for U.S. embassy staff around the world. Other faxes show Ms. Gleason writing legislation on this issue for the trade office to submit to the Federal Register.
Staff of the White House's trade office discussed how to manage the press to Chiquita's advantage. In an e-mail message sent June 14, 1996, Ralph Ives, deputy assistant U.S. trade representative and the Clinton administration's point man on the banana issue, wrote about a segment on the trade dispute that was being planned by public television's News Hour.
"Chiquita is urging that we either try to kill this (preferable, but not sure how) or either Peter (Allgeier, a trade office staffer) or I agree to be interviewed....I will find out more after talking with Chiquita."
The segment never ran. Producers at the News Hour told the Enquirer that they did some initial reporting on the subject but never planned to air a segment on the dispute.
Mr. Lindner held at least two meetings with high-level staff of the White House. In addition, Chiquita's lobbyist, Ms. Gleason, had frequent contact with the office.
In one letter, dated July 19, 1995, Mr. Lindner, and his son, Keith, wrote to Mickey Kantor that they hoped to meet soon to discuss "our larger case strategy and to discuss our mutual efforts in greater detail." They had meetings before and after the letter. Senators, including Mr. Glenn, also met with Mr. Kantor on Chiquita's behalf.
Tape-recorded internal Chiquita voice-mails, provided to the Enquirer by a company source, also show the influence that Chiquita has with the White House's trade office. In a Jan. 30 message from Keith Lindner, Chiquita's vice chairman, to Steven G. Warshaw, company president and chief operating officer; Robert Olson, chief counsel; Ms. Gleason and others, Mr. Lindner recommended that Chiquita try to cancel the trip of Panamanian Foreign Minister Ricardo Alberto Arias to the European Union.
"About the EU tour that this minister in Panama wants to take is just highly dangerous," Keith Lindner said, adding later, "And I was saying that we should, if we could politely do it without ruffling too many feathers, get that minister's trip canceled. So that would be exactly my program."
Later that day, Ms. Gleason called Mr. Olson and others with a voice-mail message stating the trip had indeed been canceled.
A Chiquita consultant met with the Panamanian minister and convinced him that the U.S. trade office could not meet with him on Monday, but only later in the week, she said. The later meeting meant the minister would not have time to travel to the EU.
Ms. Gleason then learned that the U.S. trade office had scheduled a meeting for Monday.
"USTR (the trade office) went ahead and scheduled a meeting on Monday," she said. "That has since been corrected."
The trade office moved the meeting with Mr. Arias from Monday to Wednesday, meaning the minister would not have time to visit Europe, according to Ms. Gleason's voice-mail message.
In a statement issued through its attorneys, Chiquita stated, "Chiquita never asked the United States Trade Representative to reschedule meetings with the Panamanian foreign minister."
Minister Counselor Fernando Eleta at the Panamanian Embassy in Washington, D.C., said he could not believe "Chiquita would do something like that." He said he would withhold comment, however, until he had a chance to review the Enquirer article.
Today, Chiquita plays a major role in formulating U.S. banana trade policy. At the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) banana conference in Rome last May, the U.S. delegation consisted of three U.S. trade diplomats and four other people listed as "advisers."
The advisers were Michael O'Brien, president of European Offices of Chiquita; Manuel Rodriguez, Chiquita's assistant general counsel from Cincinnati; Ms. Gleason; and Robert Moore, the head of a banana trade group that represents the entire industry. No one from Del Monte or Dole was represented on the U.S. delegation. According to the head of the FAO's Intergovernmental Group on Bananas, delegation advisers are chosen by the individual governments.
Through Ms. Gleason, a partner in the law firm of McDermott, Will & Emery, Chiquita presents its views in meetings and telephone calls with Amy Wynton, chief of Agriculture for the State Department and other top Clinton officials.
The Chiquita-State Department connection extends even further. When an Enquirer reporter called the U.S. Embassy in Honduras to ask about a former embassy staffer now working for Chiquita, embassy staff said they could not provide the information. According to an internal, tape-recorded voice-mail message obtained by the Enquirer from a company source, embassy staff informed Chiquita of the call later that same day.
Washington favors
Opponents of Chiquita's actions in Washington, D.C. say Chiquita has bought White House support for a cause that will hurt U.S. allies only to help the bottom line of the Cincinnati company.
"It's a clear issue of buying trade favors," said Randall Robinson, the head of TransAfrica Forum, a Washington, D.C.-based lobbying group for African and developing world issues. "The President ought to be ashamed of himself."
Mr. Robinson, initially a supporter of President Clinton, and his wife, Hazel Ross-Robinson, have taken up the trade issue because they feel that if Chiquita can remove Europe's banana protections, developing economies in the Caribbean and Africa will be severely damaged.
Ms. Ross-Robinson, who lobbies for Caribbean countries in Washington, D.C., has organized visits by several political leaders to the Caribbean islands to meet with farmers and has brought farmers from the Caribbean and Africa to lobby Congress.
Mr. Robinson, the leader of the successful boycott effort of apartheid South Africa in the 1980s, has twice dumped bananas as a protest in Washington, D.C. to call attention to what he sees as the White House sellout. At his urging, prominent black Americans, including Bill Cosby and Jesse Jackson, have written the White House to express concern about the Clinton administration's support for Chiquita's position.
Mr. Robinson and other Chiquita opponents point to April 1994, when Mr. Lindner and his associates contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to numerous state Democratic parties, shortly after then U.S. Trade Representative Kantor took the banana case to the WTO. The money was donated to state parties and did not have to be filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), making it harder to track because the donations were spread among many offices.
Caribbean leaders saw the connection as a payback by President Clinton to Mr. Lindner.
"There was no reason for them to go to the WTO," said Jamaican Ambassador to Washington, D.C. Richard Bernal. "We were given assurances by Ambassador Kantor that the U.S. wanted to resolve this. It was a breach of faith with the Caribbean."
Recently, the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, a non-profit research institute focusing on Latin American issues, called on the Federal Election Commission to investigate Mr. Lindner's donations because, they said, Mr. Lindner has "bought himself a U.S. foreign policy."
According to a Common Cause analysis of soft money donations, Mr. Lindner, relatives and officers of his companies gave a total of $3,164,460 in "soft money" donations to Republican and Democratic national fund-raising committees from 1988 through the first six months of 1997. Most of the money went to Republicans.
Soft money donations can be given in an unlimited amount to political committees. Contributions to individual candidates for national office are restricted.
In March 1998, Common Cause ranked American Financial Group and related companies as the fourth largest giver in soft money to both parties in 1997. (Tobacco firm Philip Morris was the top giver.) The group reported that American Financial, its subsidiaries and executives gave $310,000 in soft money to Republicans and $75,000 to Democrats in 1997 alone.
Soft money donations are legal, but . . . they have become the focal point in the debate about campaign finance reform.
Ms. McBride said Mr. Lindner was "one of the biggest soft money givers and one of the pioneers in double giving."
Mr. Lindner's donations have favored Republican candidates, but he also has given millions to Democrats, and stayed in the Lincoln bedroom twice at the invitation of President Clinton.
Mr. Lindner was called by Vice President Al Gore in October 1994 while the White House was considering diplomatic action against the European Union on the trade issue. White House records reviewed by the Associated Press show that in the following weeks, Lindner companies and associates donated $250,000 to the Democratic National Committee.
A Dec. 2, 1994, White House memo referred to the October calls made by the Vice President from the White House. Mr. Lindner, one of the persons named in the memo, was listed as giving $150,000, apparently part of the $250,000, according to the Associated Press.
Another memo indicates that Mr. Lindner invited Vice President Gore to stay at his Florida estate. According to the White House, Mr. Gore did not take Mr. Lindner up on his offer.
Mr. Lindner's and Chiquita's reach in Washington, D.C. goes beyond campaign contributions. Chiquita also has hired the influential lobbying group Public Strategies Washington, Inc., paying it $279,402.08 in 1996 alone.
"Carl Lindner and Chiquita are giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to both Democrats and Republicans and are getting people to support them," said E. Courtenay Rattray, executive director of the Jamaican banana exporting company Jamco. "This is just money politics."
But as Mr. Lindner's supporters have pointed out in the past, Mr. Lindner was involved in money politics long before the banana trade issue in Europe. He was a major contributor to Richard Nixon. He contributed heavily to Ronald Reagan's candidacy, and helped fund both of his inaugurations. He also gave heavily to George Bush's 1988 and 1992 campaigns.
The Center for Public Integrity, a public interest group, stated in a report that Mr. Lindner was one of the major "career patrons" of Sen. Bob Dole. Mr. Lindner and Chiquita officials heavily supported Mr. Dole's 1996 presidential bid. Mr. Dole was also a frequent passenger on Mr. Lindner's private jet.
Despite recent calls for campaign finance reform, Mr. Lindner still makes large contributions.
According to FEC reports on 1996 election cycle donations, Mr. Lindner and other leading Chiquita and subsidiary officials gave to the congressional and Senate campaigns in at least 35 states. They also gave "soft money" contributions to political committees on both sides of the aisle.
The bulk of the donations were given to Republican candidates, but substantial funds went to Democratic "soft-money" organizations. For example, Mr. Lindner himself gave money to the National Republican Senatorial Committee and also to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. The Clinton - Gore campaign, the Democratic National Committee, the "DNC Services Corporation" and other soft money groups also received hundreds of thousands of dollars from Mr.
Lindner, his family and officials of his companies, according to FEC records stored on the computers of a non-partisan public interest group, the Center for Responsive Politics.
For the 1997-1998 election cycle, FEC records show that as of April 1, Mr. Lindner's American Financial Group has given $150,000 in soft money to various committees, making the company the largest soft money contributor in Ohio. The second largest soft money contributor in the state is Mr. Lindner himself, with $125,000 in donations.
Mr. Lindner, his relatives and company officials also have given thousands to various candidates and political action committees.
Candidates receiving money so far in the 1997-98 election cycle include Mr. DeWine, Sen. Alphonse D'Amato, R-New York, Rep. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Ohio, and Rep. John Boehner, R- Ohio.
Gary Ruskin, who runs the Congressional Accountability Project, a Washington, D.C.-based interest group that tracks financial contributions in Congress, said that he sees Mr. Lindner's name repeatedly when reviewing campaign finance filings.
"The guy is fascinating," he said. "He shows up all the time."
Mr. Lindner's name often comes up in Capitol Hill discussions about campaign finance reform.
The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, planning hearings on campaign finance reform, issued subpoenas to Mr. Lindner and Chiquita for documents regarding campaign contributions last August. But the hearings were dropped in November, when chairman Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., announced that his committee would not pursue the issue, citing lack of cooperation from other politicians and lobbyists.
The majority of Sen. Thompson's committee had first-hand knowledge of Mr. Lindner's political giving. Both Mr. Thompson and Mr. Glenn, the ranking Democrat, had received direct contributions from Mr. Lindner. So had five of the other 10 committee members.
The World Trade Organization
The World Trade Organization was created in January 1995 to implement the goals set out in several world trade agreements, particularly the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The objective of GATT is to reduce trade barriers among countries that have signed the accord so that eventually nations can trade as freely as possible. The United States, the European nations and most of the major industrial economies of the world are members of GATT.
One of the key functions of the WTO, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, is to resolve trade disputes between nations. A nation that feels another GATT member is not trading fairly can ask for a special WTO panel to investigate and resolve the matter. Only nations can bring this request to the WTO, so Chiquita had to enlist the help of the United States and several Latin American governments to present its case against the European Union's banana trade restrictions.
(Copyright 1998)
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