Who Is Richard Perle?

Thanks to www.cooperativeresearch.org



1960s: Ahmed Chalabi Studies at University of Chicago; Meets Albert Wohlstetter
Ahmed Chalabi, an Iraqi exile, studies for his doctorate in math at the University of Chicago where he gets to know Albert Wohlstetter, a prominent cold-war strategist and a mentor for Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle. After receiving his degree, Chalabi moves to Lebanon where he works as a math teacher at the American University of Beirut. His brother, Jawad, is also living in Beirut and runs Middle East Banking Corp. (Mebco). [American Prospect, 11/18/2002; Salon, 5/5/2004; New Yorker, 6/7/2004; Christian Science Monitor, 6/15/2004]

October 1970: FBI Wiretap Records Perle Disclosing Classified Information to Israeli Officials
An FBI wiretap at the Israeli Embassy in Washington picks up Richard Perle discussing classified information with an Israeli official. The information was given to Perle by National Security Council staff member Hal Sonnenfeldt, who is currently under investigation for providing classified documents to the Israelis. [Atlantic Monthly, 5/1982]

March 1978: Congressional Staffer Offers Israeli Classified Material
During breakfast at Washington’s Madison Hotel, Stephen Bryen, a Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer and a close associate of Richard Perle, is overheard offering to pass classified material to Zvi Rafiah, the congressional liaison officer for the Israeli embassy and a suspected senior Mossad officer (see October 1973). [Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, 7/4/1986] “I have the Pentagon document on the bases, which you are welcome to see,” he reportedly says. [Nation, 6/29/1985] The eavesdropper is Michael Saba, a businessman and former executive director of the National Association of Arab Americans. Saba, who recognizes Bryen as a staff member of the Senate Committee, promptly reports the incident to the Justice Department, which quickly launches an FBI investigation. The investigation will find that Bryen has illegally obtained classified documents of military and scientific importance and that he has been seeking material that “could prove to be a major embarrassment to the US government.” [Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, 7/4/1986] The investigation also learns that he has been meeting with Zvi Rafiah “two or three times a week.” [Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, 7/4/1986] The FBI ultimately assembles “a good circumstantial case” that Rafiah “routinely issued orders to Bryen” and will recommend that the case be brought before an investigative grand jury for espionage. But the case is quietly closed after Bryen resigns at the insistence of Philip Heymann, the assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, and under strong pressure from senators Clifford Case (Bryen’s boss) and Henry Jackson (Richard Perle’s). Heymann happens to be a close personal friend and associate of Dr. Bryen’s attorney. [Nation, 6/29/1985; Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, 7/4/1986]

1979: Meeting Held in Turkey Discussing US-Turkey Alliance
Albert Wohlstetter arranges a meeting in Istanbul bringing together 13 Americans, 13 Turks, and 13 Europeans. Richard Perle is possibly present. The policies discussed at the meeting later become the basis of the Turgut Ozal administration’s pro-American policies in Turkey (see September 1980) (see December 1983). [American Enterprise Institute, 11/22/2003 Sources: Seyfullah Nejat Tashan] Wohlstetter, a professor at the University of Chicago, is a mentor to Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle. [Think Tank, 11/14/2002] He sees Turkey as “a US staging post for Middle East contingencies and as a strategic ally of Israel.” [Evriviades, 1999]

March 1980: Richard Perle Leaves Position as Senate Aide, Becomes Private Consultant
Richard Perle leaves his position as a Senate aide to become a consultant with the Abington Corporation. His first clients are Israeli arms dealers Shlomo Zabludowicz, and his son Chaim Zabludowicz, who would like to sell the US weapons produced by Soltam Ltd., an Israeli company that makes mortars, artillery, ammunition, and other civilian and military products. Shlomo Zabludowicz is the founder of the company and its principal shareholder. Soltam agrees to pay Abington $10,000 a month for a period of one year. Despite Perle’s resignation as a Senate aide, he inexplicably remains on the Senate rolls as a nonsalaried employee until May 31, 1981. During this period, Perle retains his Senate security clearance. William F. Hildebrand later tells the New York Times that Perle’s arrangement with the Senate was not normal. “[Y]ou can’t be employed” by the Senate “and not get paid,” he explains. [New York Times, 4/17/1983]

September 1980: Pro-American Military Coup Takes Place in Turkey
General Kenal Evren leads a military coup in Turkey. Richard Perle, in a 1999 article, will justify the pro-American coup as “a response by the Turkish armed forces to the breakdown of order and security and the rise of terrorism and widespread random violence in Turkey.” According to Perle, the wave of terrorism in Turkey “threatened to undermine American support, both popular and official, for Turkey and for close cooperation in security affairs between the United States and Turkey.” [Foreign Policy Research Institute, 9/1999] Perle says Turkey’s civilian government failed to maintain law and order. Conveniently, the clampdown that follows the coup enables the new government to begin implementing the pro-US strategic agenda that was laid out during the 1979 meeting arranged by Perle’s mentor, Albert Wohlstetter (see 1979). It is now known that the terrorism that destabilized Turkey in the late 1970s was predominately the work of secret groups run by the Turkish military in conjunction with the CIA and NATO. [Progressive, 4/1997; Covert Action Quarterly, 6/1997; Ganser, 12/17/2004]

Early 1981: Richard Perle Assists Reagan’s Transition Team
Richard Perle works on the Reagan administration’s transition team. He manages to “place his associates in important national security positions and in the Department of Defense.” [New York Times, 4/17/1983]

March 1981: Richard Perle Receives Large Sum from Israeli Arms Dealers
Richard Perle is paid a $50,000 fee by Israeli arms dealers Shlomo and Chaim Zabludowiczes (see March 1980). Perle says in a later interview with the New York Times that the amount was paid to him for services he provided Soltam Ltd during the previous year. In January 1982, he will also receive a portion of a $90,000 fee that Soltam pays to Abington Corp. (see January 1982) The payments made to Perle and Abington are both funneled though Tamares, a small London-based subsidiary of Salgad, another company founded by Shlomo Zabludowicze based in Liechtenstein. [New York Times, 4/17/1983]

March 23, 1981: Richard Perle Appointed to Position at Defense Department
Richard Perle becomes Assistant Secretary for International Security Policy at the Defense Department. [New York Times, 4/17/1983]

April 1981: Richard Perle Wants Stephen Bryen to be his Assistant
Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle indicates that he would like Stephen Bryen to be the deputy assistant. This becomes an issue during Perle’s confirmation hearings because Bryen was previously investigated by the FBI for passing classified documents to Zvi Rafiah, an Israeli embassy official in 1978 (see March 1978). Perle and Bryen are described in 1985 as “perhaps the most effective proponents of neoconservative positions on such matters as arms control, technology transfer, and the Middle East.” [Nation, 6/29/1985]

January 1982: Asst. Defense Secr. Richard Perle Advocates on Behalf of Former Client
Richard Perle, an assistant secretary of defense, writes a memorandum to the secretary of the army recommending that mortars manufactured by the Israeli arms company, Soltam, be evaluated for cost competitiveness. Less than a year before, Perle received $50,000 from the company (see March 1978). Perle also complains in the memo that the company had not been given a fair shot at an earlier Pentagon contract. [New York Times, 4/17/1983]

1984: Richard Perle Promotes Propaganda Campaign to Encourage Soviet Soldiers to Defect
Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle urges the CIA to promote a propaganda program urging Soviet soldiers to defect to the mujaheddin in Afghanistan. He is viewed by the CIA officers as the craziest of the many extreme right-wingers with whom they have dealt. [Crile, 2003, pp. 331-334]

1985: Ahmed Chalabi Introduced to Richard Perle
Albert Wohlstetter introduces Ahmed Chalabi to Richard Perle, undersecretary of defense for international-security policy. [American Prospect, 11/18/2002]

1986: Richard Perle Negotiates Defense Agreement with Turkey
Richard Perle successfully completes negotiations on the new Defense and Economic Cooperation Agreement with Turkey, making the country the third-largest recipient of US military aid after Israel and Egypt. He also proposes the establishment of a “high-level US-Turkish consultative group co-chaired by the Pentagon and the Turkish general staff.” These developments cause “consternation” in the State Department. But after an “intense struggle,” is able to push the programs through with the support of ambassador Robert Strausz-Hupe and members of the National Security Council. [Foreign Policy Research Institute, 9/1999; Nation, 8/23/2002] Perle himself is the American co-chair of the high-level defense group. [Washington Post, 7/24/2004] On one of Perle’s trips to Turkey he is accompanied by future counterterrorism director Richard Clarke. Clarke had been assigned by the State Department to be keep an eye on Perle’s activities, but finds that he is “charmed by his manner and persuaded by his logic about the strategic importance of Turkey.” [Clarke, 2004, pp. 49]

1987-2004: Richard Perle Serves as Member of Defense Policy Board
Richard Perle serves as a member of the Defense Policy Board, an unpaid but influential position in the Pentagon. [Inter Press Service, 6/29/2004]

April 1987: Richard Perle Resigns as Assistant Secretary of Defense, But Remains on Defense Policy Board
Richard Perle, again under fire for leaking classified information, resigns as assistant secretary of defense, but remains in his unpaid position on the Defense Policy Board. [Asia Times, 3/29/2003]

End Part I