Maisto is described as a pragmatist within the Bush inner circle, but there also are prominent Republicans reportedly working for Chavez behind the scenes, among them former New York congressman and GOP vice-presidential nominee Jack Kemp. The Wall Street Journal reported in June that Kemp developed a friendship with the Venezuelan ambassador in Washington, former oil executive Bernardo Alvarez, and accompanied him on public-relations missions, including an editorial-board meeting at the Journal. Kemp's office at Empower America did not return repeated calls by Insight seeking to ask if the former congressman has been acting as an unregistered agent of Venezuela.
Kemp reportedly is trying to sell crude oil to the U.S. Strategic Reserve on behalf of a company formed by the Venezuelan government to sell royalty oil. The newsletter Petroleum World reports that the company, Free Market Petroleum LLC, has links to international fugitive Marc Rich, who received a last-minute pardon from outgoing president Bill Clinton. According to Petroleum World: "Jack Kemp ... is using his unquestionable influence in the U.S. political scene to try to swing a deal of over $1.2 billion in Venezuelan oil, serving on the side as a public-relations adviser to Bernardo Alvarez and the Chavez government. The 'normal' commissions on such a deal would be of the order of $50 million. Not bad."
Neither Kemp nor his firm are registered with the U.S. Justice Department as foreign agents for Venezuela.
Also helping to keep Chavez in power has been the attention of Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), at the time of the brief coup the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs, and his chief foreign-policy aide, Janice O'Connell. Columnist Robert Novak wrote in April that Dodd and particularly O'Connell hold a grudge against Assistant Secretary of State Otto Reich, a conservative and anticommunist. This antagonism to Reich in particular, and conservatives generally, fuels Dodd's aggressive stance on U.S. policy in Latin America.
Novak reported and Insight sources confirm that,with the Democrats in control of the Senate, O'Connell made it clear to career officials in the State Department that it was she who was calling the shots on U.S. policy in Latin America. As a result, career State Department officials were unwilling to take risks by supporting the democratic opposition in Venezuela for fear of retribution by O'Connell. Foreign policy insiders say that during the 48-hour period when Chavez was removed from the presidency, Dodd's office was very active - and successful - at guaranteeing that Washington did nothing to assure Chavez's permanent ouster. "Dodd clearly called the shots on Latin America policy," said one State Department official. "There is no conservative counterbalance to Janice O'Connell in the Senate now that Jesse Helms is gone." O'Connell did not return telephone calls seeking comment for this article.
A year ago this magazine reported that House International Relations Committee Chairman Henry Hyde, R-IL, sent Bush a powerfully phrased letter warning that the triumvirate of political extremists leading economic powerhouse Brazil, oil giant Venezuela and the terrorist-sponsoring regime of Cuba had become an emerging Axis of Evil that the United States must stop. Nonetheless, the Bush administration studiously has ignored the deteriorating political situation in Caracas and, indeed, has gone out of its way to comfort and reassure the Chavez government even as he uses thuggish tactics to obliterate what remains of Venezuela's political opposition. ***
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The grass is thick with snakes.
