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 Dick 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 Turks insist that they need these expensive fixers and
aggressive tactics to counter America's relentless Armenian
grassroots lobby. In addition to Gephardt (who did not respond to a
request for comment), Turkey contracts the services of David
Mercer, a connected Democratic fund-raiser and protégé of the late
Democratic Party chairman Ron Brown. The Turks also pay $50,000
monthly to the Glover Park Group, a powerhouse Democratic firm
stocked with connected former Clinton White House aides Joe
Lockhart and Joel Johnson, for p.r. services. That work included
advice on shaping an April full-page New York Times advertisement,
which called for a new historical commission (which the Armenians
call a sham) and urged Washington to "support efforts to examine
history, not legislate it."
 
But the kingpin of Turkish advocacy is Bob Livingston, whose
lobbying firm, the Livingston Group, has hauled in roughly $13
million in Turkish lucre since 2000. Livingston, best remembered
for his comically brief stint as House Speakerelect at the height
of the Clinton impeachment debacle (before he tearfully admitted
his own extramarital affair and resigned from Congress in
disgrace), has lobbied on a range of issues dear to Turkey's heart.
But it's his tireless fight against the genocide resolution that
makes him a hero in Ankara. Back in 2000, Livingston's team
personally contacted 141 different members of Congress in the five-
week run-up to the aborted vote. And on October 19, the day the
vote was canceled, Livingston met personally with Hastert to ensure
its demise. Mission accomplished.
 
Likewise, when Adam Schiff tried to pass a symbolic House amendment
related to the genocide in 2004, Living- ston's firm again sprang
into action. As detailed in a recent Public Citizen study of
foreign-agent public lobbying records, the firm immediately
barraged GOP leaders like DeLay and Hastert with e-mails and faxes.
Its team also badgered everyone from top House aides to officials
at the National Security Council, the State Department, the
Pentagon, and Vice President Dick Cheney's office. Living- ston's
office even called the House parliamentarian, apparently hoping to
throw a procedural wrench into Schiff's gears. Against this
onslaught, Schiff's puny amendment didn't stand a chance. For its
work in 2004, Turkey paid the Livingston Group $1.8 million.
 
But, while Bob Livingston may be the winner of the Turkish lobbying
lottery, the prize for biggest hypocrite is still up for grabs.
Dick Gephardt isn't the only lobbyist who has flip-flopped on the
genocide (though he gets points for having his firm distribute "An
Appeal to Reason," the genocide-denying pamphlet that offers a
strangely postmodern assessment of the imprecise nature of history-
-a convenient stance if your forbears committed mass murder--
including a quotation attributed to philosopher Karl Popper,
contending that "our knowledge is always incomplete"). There's also
former Democratic representative Steve Solarz of New York. Solarz
was one of the first backers of a genocide resolution way back in
1975. By 2000, he was working with Livingston to defeat it, raking
in $400,000 for his efforts.
 
It's not just the lobbyists whose stance on the genocide seems
suspiciously malleable, however. Seven House members who have co-
sponsored the resolution this year have already changed their
positions. One is Louisiana Republican Bobby Jindal, who on January
31 added his name to the co-sponsor list--but then withdrew his
support the same day. Lobbying records show that, also on January
31, Livingston called Jindal and spoke to him about the resolution.
(Jindal's office didn't respond to requests for comment.) Others
have seemingly positioned themselves less on the basis of
historical or moral considerations than on good old pork politics.
Günay Evinch, a representative of the Assembly of Turkish American
Associations, recalls how one House resolution supporter privately
explained his position: "I don't believe it was technically
genocide," the congressman said. "But I need highway funds."
 
Earning a special commendation for dubious behavior is Washington's
Jewish-American lobby. In one of this tale's strangest twists, the
Turks have convinced prominent Jewish groups, not typically
indifferent to charges of genocide, to mute their opinions. In
February, Turkey's foreign minister convened a meeting at a
Washington hotel with more than a dozen leaders of major Jewish
groups. Most prominent groups now take no official position on the
resolution, including B'nai B'rith, the American Israel Public
Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and the American Jewish Committee. The
issue "belongs to historians and not a resolution in Congress,"
explains Anti-Defamation League director Abe Foxman, who outright
opposes the resolution. "It will resolve nothing." But it's also
clear that Turkey's status as Israel's lone Muslim ally counts for
a lot, too. "I think a lot of Israelis agree," Foxman told me. (One
person involved in the fight offers a more cynical explanation:
"Jewish groups don't want to give up their ownership of the term
genocide.'")
 
The Turks have also conspicuously hired some lobbyists with strong
Jewish ties. Their payroll includes a Washington firm called
Southfive Strategies, which bills itself as "a Washington D.C.
consulting boutique with access to the White House, congressional
leadership, and influential media organizations." Southfive is run
by Jason Epstein, a former Capitol Hill lobbyist for B'nai B'rith,
and Lenny Ben-David, an Israeli-born former deputy chief of mission
at Israel's Washington embassy and a longtime AIPAC staffer whose
previous firm, IsraelConsult, also worked for Turkey.
 
Some Jewish leaders, to be sure, find such realpolitik less than
tasteful. "It is obscene for us, of all people, to quibble about
definitions," one prominent California rabbi recently told the
Jewish Journal. But, when I asked one Jewish-American aligned with
the Turks whether he truly believes that genocide didn't take
place, he stammered that "the verdict" is not in, before adding,
"If you're asking do I sleep at night, I do."
 
STRANGE AS IT may be to find a World War I massacre on the 2007
Washington agenda, even more bizarre is the possibility that it may
precipitate an international crisis. At one March House
subcommittee hearing, Adam Schiff got a rare opportunity to grill
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Angry over the Bush
administration's opposition to the Armenian genocide resolution,
Schiff pressed Rice: "Is there any doubt in your mind that the
murder of a million and a half Armenians between 1915 and 1923
constituted genocide?" Schiff even pointedly appealed to Rice's
background in "academia." But the ever-disciplined Rice wouldn't
bite. "Congressman, I come out of academia. But I'm secretary of
state now. And I think that the best way to have this proceed is
for ... the Turks and the Armenians to come to their own terms
about this."
 
What Rice didn't say is that the Turks, should their lobbying
firepower fail to stop the genocide bill from moving forward, have
an even mightier weapon to brandish: the war in Iraq. As they did
in 2000, the Turks are hinting they will shut down Incirlik, a far
more dire threat now that Incirlik supplies U.S. forces occupying
Iraq. Administration officials also fear Turkey might close the
Habur Gate, a border point through which U.S. supplies flow into
northern Iraq. In an April letter to congressional leaders, Rice
and Defense Secretary Robert Gates bluntly warned that a House
resolution "could harm American troops in the field [and] constrain
our ability to supply our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan."
 
That prospect may even be dragging U.S. troops themselves into the
Turkish counteroffensive. Or so says Frank Pallone, a New Jersey
Democrat and lead co-sponsor of the genocide resolution. "[The
Turks] have had American soldiers call members of Congress and say,
Don't vote for this, because I am going to be threatened in Iraq,'"
Pallone says. (A Turkish embassy spokesman denied knowledge of
this.)
 
The Turks also warn that branding them as Hitleresque is sure to
enrage Turkish nationalists and heighten tensions on the closed
Turkish-Armenian border. If the resolution is passed, "it's going
to be a heavy, heavy blow," says Murat Lutem, a Turkish embassy
official. "The upheaval will be so significant that the government
won't be able to say, Let it be.'" That's one reason some Turkish
newspapers, with their sudden interest in Capitol Hill politics,
have recently read like Ottoman versions of Roll Call. The Turks
are especially fixated on the Armenian ally Nancy Pelosi, whom one
Turkish columnist disdained as "an uncompromising iron lady."
 
Faced with such intense Turkish opposition, however, Pelosi may
prove less iron lady than diplomat. Democratic aides say the
potential for geostrategic mayhem weighs heavily on her--never mind
her 2005 declaration that "Turkey's strategic location is not a
license to kill." And after she rebuffed earlier meeting requests
from such Turkish dignitaries as Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, her
recent willingness to meet the Turkish ambassador may be revealing.
 
Still, senior Democratic aides say Pelosi could press ahead--
possibly in early fall. Meanwhile, a Senate counterpart to the
House bill already has 30 co-sponsors, including Harry Reid and
Hillary Clinton. And so Dick Gephardt has his work cut out for him.
But not without a growing toll on his reputation. Even in modern
Washington, where it's taken for granted that everyone has their
price, flip-flopping on genocide has the ability to shock. One
person dismayed by Gephardt's reversal is Anna Eshoo. Eshoo says
she was recently in an airport with former Connecticut
Representative Sam Gejdenson, one of the three co-signers on
Gephardt's 2000 pro-resolution letter to Hastert, when the pair
spotted Gephardt. "Look who's here!" Eshoo mockingly exclaimed.
"Hey Dick, the Kurds are looking for you!" Gejdenson sardonically
chimed in--referring to another foe of Gephardt's Turkish client.
Eshoo says it was just teasing among old friends. But, she
pointedly adds of the former House Democratic leader: "Clearly this
is not a principle of his. This is business."
 
MICHAEL CROWLEY is a senior editor at The New Republic.