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THE NEW REPUBLIC
K STREET CASHES IN ON THE 1915 ARMENIAN GENOCIDE.
Final Resolution
by Michael Crowley
Post date: 07.12.07
Issue date: 07.23.07
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 xxxx 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 thenSenate
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 Worthbased
company, ensured the op- position 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."
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 NEW REPUBLIC
K STREET CASHES IN ON THE 1915 ARMENIAN GENOCIDE.
Final Resolution
by Michael Crowley
Post date: 07.12.07
Issue date: 07.23.07
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 xxxx 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 thenSenate
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 Worthbased
company, ensured the op- position 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."
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.")
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