"The fight against Reich, who's been nominated for assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, is being led by Bill Goodfellow and the Center for International Policy (www.ciponline.org/reich/index.htm)."
"Goodfellow has been working with the Latin-American-centered groups since early last year, when Reich's name surfaced. The debate has reignited bitter political controversies from the mid-1980s, when Reich was involved in the Iran-contra scandal and other efforts to funnel aid to the contras (whom the Democratic Congress had defunded in reaction to the violence the counterrevolutionaries were inflicting on Nicaragua in their war against the Sandanista government). Intimately entangled with the agenda of the anti-Castro Cuban-exile lobby, Reich is known as an abrasive right-wing ideologue. His appointment is seen largely as a payoff to the hard-line Miami Cubans for helping Bush win Florida. It would also repel many Latin-American leaders and political elites."
Goodfellow soon hired a full-time lobbyist, grass-roots organizer, and media-affairs specialist in an effort to block the appointment. Dipping into a well of materials on Reich's record compiled by the National Security Archive (www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv), the CIP team directed journalists, editorial writers, and columnists to some of the more questionable highlights of Reich's career.
As a result, most major newspapers have opposed the nomination. CIP's Web site and one set up by the Coalition for a Sensible Latin America Policy (CSLAP) at www.stopottoreich.org have become key resources in the fight. CSLAP's collection of church groups, think tanks, and advocacy organizations includes the CIP, the Cuban Committee for Democracy (www.us.net/cuban), Foreign Policy in Focus (www.fpif.org), and the Washington Office on Latin America (www.wola.org). These groups have been instrumental in rallying grass-roots opposition in key congressional districts.
bttt
Thanks. That fits the pattern of Goodfellow's associations with various pro-Castro/-Allende/-Sandinista lobbying groups. In Letelier's papers there is a letter from the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) praising Goodfellow's work on Chile. The National Security Archive group mentioned in your post, which as mentioned played a role in opposing Reich's nomination, is also tied to NACLA's lobbying network and runs various projects using FOIA to declassify various documents on US policy in Chile and other parts of Latin America. One of the National Security Archive's leading members, Peter Kornbluh, was instrumental in arranging Kerry and Harkin's trip to meet Daniel Ortega. That Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) group mentioned in your post has a similar background.