Clinton's new 'bagman': Jack Cashill on appalling Vietnam scandal media chose to ignore

In 1973, the year Ron Brown came to Washington, D.C., Ly Thanh Binh came to America. He left his native South Vietnam to finish his schooling. When his government fell in 1975, he made the best of it, getting a degree in economics from Tulane in 1978 and becoming an American citizen soon after. He was looking for a new opportunity when, in 1992, he met an older Vietnamese gentleman adrift in America, Nguyen Van Hao.

Hao had quite a history himself. In 1975, as a deputy prime minister of South Vietnam, he proved his cunning ? perhaps his treachery ? by securing a position in the incoming communist administration, the only high-ranking South Vietnamese official to have made the switch.

At the time Binh and Hao met, Hao was running a convenience store in south Florida. Hao showed Binh a set of jumbled plans for stimulating investment in Vietnam once the trade embargo was lifted. Binh liked what he saw. Hao had the connections, and Binh had the language and business skills to put the plans in order. It seemed a good fit.

In November 1992, Brown flew to Florida to meet with Lillian Madsen, his Haitian mistress, and her friend, Nguyen Van Hao. Not yet nominated to Clinton's Cabinet but fully expecting to be, Brown listened to Hao's plans and told him he wanted to be "the exclusive lobbyist" for Vietnam.

Hao had one specific goal ? lifting the trade embargo against Vietnam. Brown had one specific goal, too. He wanted money.

So confident was Hao of Brown's interest, he flew back to Vietnam and took his new partner with him. Once in Vietnam, the American Binh could see his Vietnamese partner had not oversold his connections. Hao and Binh met with the prime minister and returned with a letter from him to Brown, urging Brown to continue discussions with the pair.

By the time Hao and Binh arrived home in December, Brown had already been nominated secretary of Commerce. To keep up his lifestyle, Brown knew he would need more money than government work paid. Hao obliged. He returned to Washington without Binh and met Brown. At this second meeting, according to Binh, Brown made a specific and telling request: $700,000 in cash ? the same amount he received in a recent buyout that pained him to put in annuities.

The money was to be placed in a Singapore bank account. If Hao was unfazed, Binh was getting queasy. Said the American Binh: "My guts turned upside down." The two men were no longer hiring a lobbyist. They were bribing a public official.

By the time of the third meeting in February, the Senate had already confirmed Brown as secretary. This time, Brown met Hao alone in his Commerce Department office, a fact later verified by his own staff.

Binh was sufficiently upset that he began telling his story to the media and federal officials. The media blew him off, but the FBI took him seriously. In late February 1993, the Miami office of the FBI launched a probe.

For six months, no news of the investigation made its way into the media. When it did, Brown was emphatic in his denials. Through a spokesman, he told the Washington Times that he "never had any contact with any of the people named, not Mr. Hao or Mr. Birth [sic], and never had any business dealings with the company."

Soon after, the Miami Herald reported that despite all the denials, Brown and Hao had met three times, just as Binh had been alleging. Brown's attorney, Reid Weingarten, finally acknowledged the meetings, but dismissed any bribe allegations. Left unsaid was why the secretary of Commerce would host a convenience store manager he barely knew.

Binh had the answers, and his credibility was further strengthened when the New York Times reported that authorities "had found evidence that suggested the Vietnamese were preparing to establish a bank account in Singapore."

But Brown got lucky. As the Vietnam crisis was heating up, President Clinton was abandoning his appointment of the controversial Lani Guinier to head up the Civil Rights division of the Justice Department. Clinton's approval rating among blacks, which had been 87 percent a few months earlier, fell precipitously to 53 percent.

Bill Clinton was in no position to abandon Brown. Jesse Jackson adviser Ron Walters defined Clinton's dilemma: "You've got a very popular figure in the black community and the black business establishment. If he doesn't stick by Ron Brown, it will be politically untenable for Bill Clinton."

Despite the evidence, Janet Reno turned down the request made by Republican House leadership to appoint a special prosecutor in the Vietnam affair. And so the investigation was thrown back to a federal grand jury in Janet Reno's Dade County. Insiders believe it was then-Deputy Attorney General Webster Hubbell who spiked it. The prosecutor never even called Ron Brown to testify.

By early 1994, Brown would once again be the subject of flattering profiles like the one in the New York Times, headlined: "Ron Brown Re-emerges in Halls of Power, and Thrives." As to the grand-jury investigation, that was a mere "detour."

Fate was not as kind to Guinier, at least in the short run. Although Vernon Jordan promised his and the president's lasting support, that quickly evaporated. The Black Caucus refused to meet with the president for over a month, but then its members also began to back away from Guinier. Guinier was seeing for herself how the civil-rights community had "withered because of this instinct to insider politics."

As to Brown, he would never experience this kind of betrayal at the hands of this community. That betrayal would not occur until nearly two years after his death.

Here's some excerpts from some of the source articles for my timeline:

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Vietnam: The Big Buildup Begins; U.S. Firms Get Ready To Act Quickly Once Embargo Is Lifted:[FINAL Edition]
Thomas W. Lippman.
The Washington Post (pre-1997 Fulltext).
Dec 6, 1992. pg. h.01
Full Text (1058 words)

(snip - Final 3 Paragraphs below)

Embargo `Irrelevant'

The corporate view of the embargo is that it is politically irrelevant - because the Hanoi government has fulfilled the two principal conditions for lifting it: withdrawal of its troops from Cambodia and cooperation on the MIA issue - and economically counterproductive, because the United States is losing out while other nations seize opportunities.

Similarly, Frederick Z. Brown, director of Southeast Asian Studies at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, wrote in a recent paper for the Overseas Development Council that "today, the United States has a chance to `win' in Vietnam ... The question for the next administration is whether the continuation of the economic embargo against Vietnam serves U.S. political, economic and national security objectives. The answer is no. The most effective guarantee of regional security is to integrate Vietnam into the international economic grid. ... "

Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), chairman of the Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs, said during his visit here last month that he favors lifting the embargo and the President Bush has promised the Vietnamese to reward their new posture of cooperation on the MIA issue. Kerry and other senators met with Bush and his senior foreign policy and defense advisers at the White House last week to urge him to make some gesture toward Hanoi, but they said they did not recommend any specific move such as ending the embargo. Bush did not commit himself, they said.

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New gestures cited on MIAs Kerry says Hanoi offering more access; [City Edition]
John Aloysius Farrell, Globe staff. Boston Globe (pre-1997 Fulltext).
Boston, Mass.: Dec 18, 1992. p. 3

WASHINGTON -- Sen. John F. Kerry, the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on POW-MIA Affairs, said yesterday that Vietnamese officials have responded to recent American goodwill gestures by becoming more forthcoming on the issue of missing US servicemen in Southeast Asia.

In a telephone interview from Hanoi, where he and the committee vice chairman, Republican Sen. Bob Smith of New Hampshire, are meeting with Vietnamese officials on the POW issue, the Massachusetts Democrat said US officials should soon gain access to select military records they have long sought, including the first Vietnamese accounts of US pilots shot down over the Ho Chi Minh trail in Cambodia and Laos.

Other records were given to the senators yesterday, Kerry said. Some are quite specific -- including details of where US planes were shot down, how pilots died and where their remains were buried. "Significant things are clearly happening," he said.

President Bush announced Monday that the United States was easing its trade embargo with Vietnam, allowing American companies to sign contracts to do business there. Bush's action has left the Vietnamese "very pleased," Kerry said. "It has given them confidence that this is a road worth going down."

(snip)

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Networks provide vital leverage, opportunities to smaller firms looking toward expansion
Brown, Steve.
National Real Estate Investor. Atlanta:
Apr 1993. Vol. 35, Iss. 4; pg. 98, 3 pgs
Full Text (2480 words)
Copyright Argus Business, a Division of Argus Inc. Apr 1993

When the Canadian Consulate decided it was time to find new accommodations in San Francisco, the Canadian government first had to pick a brokerage firm to scout the market.

Representing a foreign government looking for a new U.S. office location is an unusual assignment for Damner-Pike Inc., a six-year-old independent real estate broker located in San Francisco.

Without his firm’s membership in a real estate brokerage network--Boston-based Colliers International Inc.--company principal Peter Pike says he probably wouldn’t have gotten the assignment.

“We were recommended by our Canadian Colliers affiliate, which has represented the Canadian Consulate in a number of cities,” says Pike, whose company concentrates on office leasing and investment sales in the city by the bay. “The San Francisco consulate wanted to take advantage of the soft office market and expand into a new location.” Damner-Pike leased the consulate a 20,000 sq. ft. space in a Fremont Street office tower.

(snip)

INDEPENDENT FIRMS GAIN GLOBAL ABILITY

For Colliers International, meeting the needs of its clients and member firms had literally meant going to the ends of the earth.

Founded in 1979, Colliers now has 130 offices stretching from America to the Far East, Latin America and Europe. Newest members of the network represent China, Mexico, Hungary and Italy.

In February, Colliers was the first U.S. real estate affiliate to open an office in Vietnam. Colliers officials anticipate an opening of American and Vietnamese relations in the next few years.

“We wanted to be in on the ground floor when American companies are ready to do business in Vietnam,” says Colliers president Stewart Forbes. “I went over there in December, and we actually obtained the first license to do real estate transactions in Vietnam.”

Colliers’ international connections are paying off for the brokerage affiliation, with deals ranging from working with U.S. property companies that are expanding to Latin America to representing Indonesian buyers acquiring office buildings in Texas.

“Certainly, the bread and butter of our business is still domestic,” says Forbes. “But we definitely see corporations growing more and more interested in the availability of our international services.”

The transfer of expertise through Colliers’ information and referral network go both ways. Many real estate firms in lesser-developed nations depend on Colliers members for upgrading their operations. “There are great differences in the level of expertise and professionalism that exists outside the United States,” Forbes says. “That gives us the opportunity to transfer some of our real estate knowledge into these developing countries.”

Tough real estate markets at home in the United States have translated into a boost in business through the Colliers system. “We are reporting our best results ever, in terms of the level of our referral revenues,” Forbes says. “When times are tougher and the competition is stiffer, you have to draw on every resource you have,” he says.

(snip)

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No Limit to How Low Kerry Will Go in Hunt for Big Money
Lowell Ponte.
Insight on the News. Washington: Feb 17-Mar 1, 2004.

(snip)

Kerry prevented a vote on the Vietnam Human Rights Act (HR 2833), which would have made lifting trade restrictions contingent on communist Vietnam restoring basic human rights. By stopping this measure from becoming law, Kerry protected Marxist Vietnam from pressure to free its slave society.

Through much manipulation and arm-twisting, Kerry persuaded his now-defunct committee to vote unanimously that no POWs remained in Vietnam. And with the disappearance of this issue and the proposed human-rights legislation, Kerry gave Bill Clinton and the Democratic Party the pretext they needed to begin reopening trade that could help keep the Marxist Vietnamese dictatorship afloat. Those given first place in line for such trade opportunities, of course, were the biggest contributors to Democrats such as Kerry and Clinton.

The year after his committee's vote to give communist Vietnam a clean bill of health, the strangest thing happened. In December 1992, Vietnam signed its first huge commercial deal worth at least $905 million to develop a deep-sea commercial port at Vung Tau to accommodate all the trade that was to come. It signed the deal with a company called Colliers International. At the time, the chief executive officer of this company was C. Stewart Forbes, who happens to be Kerry's cousin.

When the Democratic Party decided to give Kerry a leg up toward its presidential nomination by holding its 2004 National Convention in Boston, certain big corporations rushed to pony up money for the Democratic event. One of the first of these rushing to fill Democratic coffers was Spaulding & Slye Colliers, the current corporate partnership involving Colliers International, which anted up $100,000. Money is fungible, and part of the Vietnam millions channeled to Colliers International easily can be inferred to be comingled in this $100,000 donation to the Democratic National Convention.

This July as you watch the red, white and blue balloons fall from that Boston convention ceiling to celebrate the newly selected Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry, think of the red ones as being purchased and used to seduce you by communist Vietnam.

Here's a 1993 article on same subject with a few more details.
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Vietnam contacts?

U.S. News & World Report. Washington:
Aug 23, 1993. Vol. 115, Iss. 8; pg. 27, 2 pgs

After President Clinton nominated Ron Brown to become secretary of commerce, the Senate moved quickly to confirm the appointment. The 52-year-old lawyer who chaired the Democratic National Committee had helped put Clinton in the White House. Two days after Clinton moved into the Oval Office, Brown as sworn in. The consummate insider, Ron Brown had moved into one of the most important jobs in Washington.

Within a matter of weeks, however, Brown faced allegations that he had agreed to accept a $700,000 payment from the Vietnamese government in exchange for helping lift the United States trade embargo against its former enemy. U.S. News has learned that in late February, the FBI’s Miami field office opened a criminal investigation into the allegations, which warranted the official inquiry because of Brown’s status as a public official. There is no evidence that Brown cooperated with the Vietnamese in any official capacity. If he did, he could face criminal charges. Brown has known of the inquiry for some time and has refused to discuss it. In a statement this week, his office said: “The secretary categorically and unequivocally denies he has ever had any business, financial or professional relationship with any Vietnamese individual, organization or group, or any person claiming to represent Vietnamese government or business interests.”

The inquiry is described by law enforcement officials as “sensitive.” It is being monitored by FBI headquarters and at the Justice Department in Washington. The FBI will neither confirm nor deny the existence of the inquiry, but law-enforcement sources say that, after five month, the investigation is “active.” U.S. News confirmed that witnesses have been interviewed by FBI agents in the past few weeks.

The investigation, nevertheless, appears fraught with problems. The principal source of the allegations against Brown is a man named Ly Thanh Binh. A business consultant who lives in Tamarac, Fla., Binh told FBI agents that Brown was approached by a former partner of Binh’s in November 1992. The man, Florida resident Nguyen Van Hao, wished to enlist Brown’s help in lifting the trade embargo against Vietnam. Binh said. Binh and Hao had been partners in a consulting venture called Vietnam Development Corp., which hoped to create business opportunities in Vietnam. According to Binh, Hao told him the Vietnamese government had agreed to pay Brown $700,000 for his help in getting the trade embargo removed; he said Hao told him the money was being transferred to an account at Banque Indosuez in Singapore.

The FBI has proceeded carefully. According to knowledgeable sources, Binh was administered a polygraph test on February 25; he was found to be “not deceptive.” Binh also gave the FBI what he said were contemporaneous notes of his talks with Hao. It was only after this that FBI agents began pursuing the case actively. There is no indication that any evidence has been presented to a grand jury, however, and Brown has not been contacted by the FBI.

There are many hurdles facing the investigators. For one thing, Binh has told the FBI that he never met or talked to Brown; he says he heard of the alleged scheme only from Hao. Thus, some of Binh’s evidence would be considered hearsay and inadmissible in a criminal trial. Further, Binh had a falling out with Hao as a result of their business dealings; a Hao relative suggests Binh has a motivation to discredit Hao. Binh denies this. Hao, a former top South Vietnamese official who was a onetime economic adviser to the Communist government after the fall of Saigon, declines to discuss the matter. “Hao will not dignify the comments of Binh with a response,” says his lawyer, James McGuirk.

Most troubling to the FBI inquiry is this: There is no evidence to show that Brown received $700,000 or any money through Hao or other parties. The bank account in Singapore has not been located. Indeed, law-enforcement officials say, at this stage in the inquiry, the FBI agents have been unable to determine whether Brown was part of an illicit scheme or merely a victim of other people attempting to trade on his name.

Proper talk. In a series of interviews with U.S. News, Binh described the substance of the allegations he has made to the FBI. This is a summary of his account: Through a middleman, Hao first attempted to get in touch with Brown last year. In mid-November, Hao instructed Binh to send Brown a Federal Express package outlining the Vietnam Development Corp. business plan for Vietnam. A week later, Hao and Brown discussed the plan at a meeting in South Florida. Hao said Brown was interested in representing Vietnam. On November 28, Binh, Hao and two other men flew to Vietnam, where they met with Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet. Hao gave the prime minister Brown’s business card and a copy of a newspaper story that identified Brown as the chairman of the Democratic National Committee. In the interviews, Binh emphasized that he believed that the discussions between Hao and Brown were entirely proper through this period of time. Brown then was a lawyer in private practice and in the past had earned much of his income as a lobbyist.

By mid-December, things had changed, Binh says. He recalls seeing news reports that Brown had been named to serve as commerce secretary. Binh says he told Hao that they could no longer ask Brown to be involved in their efforts because it would create a conflict of interest for Brown. Shortly after Christmas, however, Binh says, Hao said he intended to continue working with Brown. According to the account Binh provided to the FBI, Hao said Brown planned to help get the trade embargo lifted and that he had asked for a $700,000 fee. In his interviews with U.S. News, Binh also said that Hao bragged that he had access to $50 million for investment in Vietnam; the money, according to Hao, was in a Swiss bank account controlled by deposed Haitian dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier.

To proceed with the investigation any further, FBI agents must confirm the essentials of Binh’s account. In the past month, FBI agents have questioned Hao at his Coral Springs, Fla., home. According to someone close to Hao, he denied Binh’s assertions. Agents have also interviewed a Pompano Beach businessman named Marc Ashton, who associate of Duvalier’s. Ashton also knows Hao, who worked as a consultant in Haiti during the 1980s.

FBI agents believe Ashton may have information that would shed light on Binh’s allegations. Binh told the bureau that Hao was introduced to Brown last year by a man Binh had never met. Binh knew the man only by the first name of “Marc.” Hao described Marc as a trusty. friend of Brown’s, Binh said. U.S. News was told that Ashton introduced Hao to Brown last year. This account was provided by an attorney, Robert Wunker, who represents both Hao and Ashton. In an interview, Wunker said there had been “discussions” between Hao and Brown. But the attorney insisted these talks were proper--and that they stopped once Brown was nominated as commerce secretary on December 12. “Nothing happened,” Wunker said. “Brown never was retained.”

Though Binh did not know Ashton, FBI officials are known to believe that Ashton would have been a plausible middleman. The president of a small Florida company that packages and sells gourmet meals, Ashton has known Brown since at least the early 1980s, when Brown worked as a lobbyist for the Duvalier government. Ashton declined to talk with a reporter who visited his office. Ashton’s friendship with Brown was con firmed, however, by Ashton’s sister-in-law Lillian Madsen. “Brown knows everybody,” said Madsen, 49, who describes herself as a “close personal friend” of the commerce secretary’s.

The various players are now being studied by FBI agents. Law-enforcement officials say the investigation has been hampered by Binh’s decision to take his story public to various news organizations. However the FBI investigation turns out, Washington seems to be moving steadily toward better relations with Vietnam. A delegation led by senior U.S. diplomat Winston Lord was in Vietnam last month to discuss a number of matters. Next month, President Clinton must decide whether to renew the U.S. trade embargo. The embargo was imposed in 1975, after North Vietnam took over South Vietnam.

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1969	John Kerry meets with Vietcong spokeswoman, Nguyen Thi Binh, in Paris

1975	Ly Thanh Binh comes to U.S.A., Graduates Tulane University 1978.
08/02/1991	Senate Select Committee on P.O.W./M.I.A. Affairs created, John F. Kerry, Chairman.

11/xx/1992	Ron Brown first meets with with Nguyen Van Hao, prior S. Vietnamese Vice Premier of Commerce and business partner of Ly Than Binh a business consultant living in Tamarac, Fla

11/28/1992	Binh, Hao and two other men flew to Vietnam, where they met with Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet

12/xx/1992	John Kerry and Bob Smith travel to Vietnam (POW/MIA Committee)

12/xx/1992	Vietnam signed its first huge commercial deal worth at least $905 million to develop a deep-sea commercial port at Vung Tau in anticipation of trade to come. It signed the deal with a company called Colliers International. Stewart Forbes, CEO of Colliers is John Kerry's cousin.

01/14/1993	After 16 month investigation, Senate report issued concluding "no compelling evidence" that any US servicemen remain alive in captivity in Southeast Asia.

02/xx/1993	Colliers International is first U.S. real estate affiliate to open offices in Vietnam.

05/xx/1993	John Kerry travels to Vietnam (late May/Early June)

02/14/1994	U.S. lifts trade embargo against Vietnam

2004	Spaulding & Slye Colliers, a corporate partner of Colliers International, donates $100,000 to the Democratic Party for National Convention