John R. Bolton

John Bolton, the embattled nominee for U.S. ambassador to the UN, has been a key Republican Party figure since the early 1980s, when he was tagged to serve in the Reagan administration. He quickly gained a reputation as one of a breed of “New Right lawyers” who operated at the second tier of the State Department or received top policy positions in the Justice Department. Bolton gained entry to the Reagan administration through strong support from Senator Helms and from New Right strategist Richard Viguerie and his influential Conservative Digest. During Reagan’s second term, Bolton began working together with a team of Federalist Society lawyers under Attorney General Edwin Meese. With Federalist Society members and activists in top policy positions, the Justice Department for the first time came under the ideological influence of the New Right.1

From the start of his political career, Bolton has been a Republican Party loyalist. As a private attorney before joining the Reagan administration in 1981, he worked with Senators Jesse Helms (R-NC) and Paul Laxalt (R-NV).3 In the 1980s he participated in Republican Party efforts to beat back the voter registration campaigns organized by labor and black organizations.4

A veteran of Southern electoral campaigns, Bolton has long appealed to racist voters. Working closely with his former boss James Baker during the Florida recount following the contested 2000 presidential election, Bolton proved his allegiance to the party and polished his reputation as someone “who gets things done.” In July 2002, the Wall Street Journal reported that Bolton’s “most memorable moment came after the U.S. Supreme Court ordered a halt to the recount, when Mr. Bolton strode into a Tallahassee library, where the count was still going on, and declared: ‘I’m with the Bush-Cheney team, and I’m here to stop the vote’.”

After thanking Bolton for his services, Vice President-elect Cheney was asked what job Bolton would get in the new administration. “People ask what [job] John should get,” Cheney said, “My answer is, anything he wants.”5

When announcing Bolton's nomination as the new UN ambassador, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called Bolton a “tough-minded diplomat” who has a “proven track record of multilateralism.” Bolton certainly has a long track record, but not as a multilateralist. Since the 1970s Bolton has aggressively and stridently attacked multilateral institutions and international treaties. At the same time, however, Bolton has been a firm supporter of multilateral entities and coalitions that the U.S. controls—such as NATO, the “coalition of the willing” in Iraq, and the anti-rogue Security Proliferation Initiative, which was led by Bolton.

“The president and I have asked John to do this work because he knows how to get things done,” said Rice. A hard-line unilateralist and an aggressive opponent of multilateralism and international treaties, Bolton has served as the Bush administration’s designated treaty basher. From the early days of the first Bush administration, Bolton mounted a campaign to halt all international constraints on U.S. power and prerogative, fiercely opposing existing and proposed international treaties restricting landmines, child soldiers, biological weapons, nuclear weapons testing, small arms trade, and missile defense.

In 2001 Bolton’s nomination as the new Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security was approved by a vote of 57-43 in the Senate. All fifty Republicans voted to confirm Bolton, joined by Democratic hawks Ben Nelson, Zell Miller, Joseph Lieberman, Mary Landrieu, Russell Feingold, John Breaux, and Evan Bayh.

In law school and throughout his legal and political career, Bolton has gained a reputation as being abrasive, astute, humorless, and relentless in the pursuit of his political agenda. In his office at the State Department, Bolton displays a mock grenade with the label: “To John Bolton—World’s Greatest Reaganite.”6

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed in 1997, Bolton articulated his dismissive view of international treaties. “Treaties are law only for U.S. domestic purposes,” he wrote, “In their international operation, treaties are simply political obligations.” In other words, international treaties signed by the United States should not be considered as a body of law that the United States should respect in its international engagement but rather just political considerations that can be ignored at will.

Bolton has since the mid-1990s led the charge of the anti-multilateralists and UN bashers against the International Criminal Court. In a 1988 National Interest article, Bolton argued that signing the ICC would make the “president, the cabinet officers who comprise the National Security Council, and other senior civilian and military leaders responsible for our defense and foreign policy … the potential targets of the politically unaccountable Prosecutor in Rome.”

In 1998, when he was senior vice president of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Bolton described the ICC as "a product of fuzzy-minded romanticism [that] is not just naïve, but dangerous."7 Early in the first year of the Bush administration, Bolton prevailed upon Secretary of State Colin Powell to give him the honor of renouncing the Clinton administration’s signature of the treaty establishing the International Criminal Court (ICC). Bolton called the moment he signed the letter abrogating Clinton’s approval of the ICC “the happiest moment in my government service.”

Bolton has long dismissed the legitimacy of the United Nations. In a 1994 speech at the liberal World Federalist Association, Bolton declared that “there is no such thing as the United Nations.” To underscore his point, Bolton said: “If the UN secretary building in New York lost ten stories, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.”

Bolton has also supported stopping U.S. payments to the United Nations. “Many Republicans in Congress—and perhaps a majority,” Bolton said before joining the George W. Bush administration, “not only do not care about losing the General Assembly vote but actually see it as a ‘make-my-day’ outcome. Indeed once the vote is lost… this will simply provide further evidence to many why nothing should be paid to the UN system.”8

In a 1999 article in the Weekly Standard titled “Kofi Annan’s Power Grab,” Bolton laid out the neoconservative position on U.S. military supremacy with respect to what the neocons regarded as the outdated UN Charter. Bolton took issue with Annan’s description of the United Nations as "the sole source of legitimacy on the use of force." According to Bolton, “If the United States allows that claim to go unchallenged, its discretion in using force to advance its national interests is likely to be inhibited in the future.” In mounting the challenge to Annan and the United Nations, Bolton also criticized President Clinton for “his implicit endorsement of the Annan doctrine” during his speech opening the General Assembly session that year.

In Bolton’s view, Annan had put his own legitimacy at risk by expressing his concerns about the NATO bombing campaign over the former Yugoslavia. When visiting the war zone, Annan said: "Unless the Security Council is restored to its preeminent position as the sole source of legitimacy on the use of force, we are on a dangerous path to anarchy." Subsequently, in the secretary general’s annual report to the UN membership, Annan wrote that "enforcement actions without Security Council authorization threaten the very core of the international security system. ... Only the [UN] Charter provides a universally legal basis for the use of force." Bolton wrote that these were “sweeping—indeed, breathtaking—assertions,” although from a post-Iraq invasion perspective Annan’s statements could be described as prophetic.

Bolton is a militarist who embraces the “peace through strength” philosophy of international affairs. Praising Bolton in a speech he delivered on January 1, 2001 at the American Enterprise Institute, Sen. Jesse Helms, who was chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said, “John Bolton is the kind of man with whom I would want to stand at Armageddon.”

Bolton was a leading voice against the ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), signed by President Clinton but never ratified because of strong congressional opposition from Republicans. Following the 1999 Senate vote rejecting the treaty, Bolton said that the vote marked “the beginning of a new realism on the issue of weapons of mass destruction and their global proliferation. The Senate vote is an unmistakable signal that America rejects the illusionary protections of unenforceable treaties.”

While undersecretary of state, Bolton was responsible for organizing the administration’s Proliferation Security Initiative, as a kind of “coalition of the willing” focused on stopping the transfer of WMDs and precursor material. Announced by President Bush while in Poland in May 2003, the PSI is, according to Bolton, “legitimate and will be extremely effective in its efforts against weapons of mass destruction proliferation.” Bolton described the PSI—which specifies that partner nations will cooperate with the United States in intercepting and confiscating suspect shipments going or coming from “rogue” countries—as an example of how the United States can “defend its national interests using novel and loose coalitions.”9

In mid-2001 Bolton announced at the UN Conference on Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons that Washington opposed any initiative to regulate trade in small arms or in non-military rifles—or any effort that would “abrogate the constitutional right to bear arms.” Accompanying Bolton to the conference were members of the National Rifle Association (NRA). “It is precisely those weapons that Bolton would exclude from the purview of this conference that are actually killing people and endangering communities around the world,” said Tamar Gabelnick, director of the Arms Sales Monitoring Project at the Federation of American Scientists. She charged that the U.S. delegation, led by Arms Control Secretary Bolton, single-handedly destroyed any possibility of consensus around the Small Arms Action Plan. 10

Before Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld spoke of the U.S. alliance with the “New Europe” while dissing the “Old Europe,” Bolton already had signaled that the post-WW II transatlantic alliance was being overhauled by Washington. Months before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Bolton warned that “the Europeans can be sure that America’s days as a well-bred doormat for EU political and military protection are coming to an end.”

Bolton has been a player in a strategy by U.S. militarists and neoconservatives to expand NATO and to form new U.S.-led political and military coalitions in Central and Eastern Europe. Leading this initiative have been two neoconservative institutes that are located in the same building in Washington, DC—the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) and the American Enterprise Institute.

Before joining the Bush administration, Bolton was a member of the New Atlantic Initiative, a bipartisan initiative sponsored by AEI and funded by two right-wing foundations: Olin Foundation and Lynde & Harry Bradley Foundation. The New Atlantic Initiative was launched in June 1996 following the Congress of Prague, where more than 300 conservative politicians, scholars, and investors discussed “the new agenda for transatlantic relations.”

Headquartered at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC, the New Atlantic Initiative is dedicated to strengthening North Atlantic cooperation, admitting the transitional democracies of the former Soviet bloc into NATO and the European Union, and establishing a free trade area between an enlarged European Union and the NAFTA countries.11 The New Atlantic Initiative is closely associated with the Project on Transitional Democracies, and was also closely linked to the now-defunct U.S. Committee on NATO—groups that were both founded by PNAC board members.12

Bolton is an outspoken hawk on U.S. policy in the Middle East, and has since the mid-1990s been closely associated with neoconservative organizations and pressure groups that are close to the right-wing Likud party in Israel—including the Project for the New American Century, American Enterprise Institute, Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), and the Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf (CPSG).

Bolton boasts that one of his most important achievements was the central role he played at the State Department in 1991 in leading the successful campaign to repeal the 1975 General Assembly resolution equating Zionism with racism, “thus removing the greatest stain on the UN’s reputation.”

Along with other Bush administration officials, Bolton was on the board of advisers of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs before joining the administration. JINSA supports a “peace through strength” policy to support Israel and works to build “strategic ties” between the U.S. military and U.S. military contractors with Israel. Other administration figures associated with this militarist organization that aims to strengthen the military-industrial complexes in both Israel and the United States are Richard Cheney, Douglas Feith, and Paul Wolfowitz.

Two months prior to the Iraq invasion, Bolton traveled to Jerusalem to meet with former Prime Minister Netanyahu and Prime Minister Sharon to discuss strategies for “preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction.” No mention was made of the widely accepted fact—although never mentioned by the United States—that Israel is the only nuclear power in the Middle East. Instead, the undersecretary for disarmament affairs focused on the Bush administration’s disarmament targets following the planned invasion of Iraq. Bolton in February 2003 said that once regime change plans in Iraq were completed, “it will be necessary to deal with threats from Syria, Iran, and North Korea afterwards.”14

When he worked as an assistant attorney general under Edwin Meese, Bolton thwarted the Kerry Commission’s efforts to obtain documentation, including Bolton’s personal notes, about the Iran-Contra affair and alleged Contra drug smuggling. Working with congressional Republicans, Bolton also stonewalled congressional demands to interview deputies of then-Attorney General Edwin Meese regarding their role in the affair.15

Also while at the Justice Department, Bolton refused to provide internal documents to the Senate during the confirmation hearings for the nominations of Rehnquist, Scalia, and Kennedy to the Supreme Court.16

Speaking before an audience at the Heritage Foundation in May 2002, Bolton made the case that Cuba should be included among the axis of evil countries because of its development of biowarfare capacity. Cuba is world renowned for its biomedical industry, but according to Bolton the industry was concealing a WMD project. He charged that Cuba has “at least a limited offensive biological warfare research development effort” and that it has “provided dual-use technology to other rogue states.”

Providing no evidence for his allegations, Bolton said that Cuba was involved in the sales of illicit biowarfare technology at least in part as a way to boost its cash-short economy. Other administration officials, when pressed, declined to support Bolton’s charges against Cuba. Bolton’s claims that Cuba was developing biological weapons and that Syria possessed WMDs were completely unsubstantiated by leading officials.

Bolton never complied with congressional demands to provide documentation on the Cuban assertion, and the CIA effectively blocked Bolton’s appearance before the Senate regarding his allegations about Syria’s weapons of mass destruction. A congressional investigation of Cuba’s alleged WMD program found no evidence to back Bolton’s assertions.17

Bolton is not only one of the administration’s leading hawks on China policy, he is also its strongest advocate of Taiwan’s independence and of U.S. defense of Taiwan. Bolton has close professional and personal ties in Taipei. According to an investigative report by the Washington Post ( April 9, 2001), Bolton was on the payroll of the Taiwan government before joining the Bush administration. Bolton received $30,000 for “research papers on UN membership issues involving Taiwan” at the same time he was promoting diplomatic recognition of Taiwan before various congressional committees.18

In 1999 Bolton, speaking as an AEI scholar, said that "...diplomatic recognition of Taiwan would be just the kind of demonstration of U.S. leadership that the region needs and that many of its people hope for. The notion that China would actually respond with force is a fantasy." Bolton joined a prominent group of neoconservatives and traditional conservatives who signed a statement jointly sponsored by the Project for the New American Century and the Heritage Foundation that lambasted the Clinton administration for its failure to offer unequivocal support of Taiwan. The statement, whose signatories included William Kristol, Elliott Abrams, Richard Perle, I. Lewis Libby, Edwin Meese, William Buckley, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Paul Weyrich, James Woolsey, and Paul Wolfowitz, called for a state-to-state relationship with Taiwan.19

In July 2003, during the run-up to the six-nation talks with North Korea, Bolton described President Kim Jong Il as the “tyrannical dictator” of a country where “life is a hellish nightmare.” North Korea responded in kind, saying that “such human scum and bloodsucker is not entitled to take part in the talks…. We have decided not to consider him as an official of the U.S. administration any longer nor to deal with him.” The State Department sent a replacement for Bolton to the talks.20

John Bolton, a Yale-trained lawyer, rejects the legitimacy of international law—at least when international conventions, treaties, and norms constrain what he regards as U.S. national interests. Bolton also has a record of questionable legal and ethical dealings at home.

As an associate at the high-powered Covington law firm, Bolton in 1978 worked with Sen. Jesse Helms and the National Congressional Club, the senator’s campaign-financing organization, to help form a new campaign finance organization called Jefferson Marketing. According to the Legal Times, Jefferson Marketing was established "as a vehicle to supply candidates with such services as advertising and direct mail without having to worry about the federal laws preventing PACs, like the Congressional Club, from contributing more than $5,000 per election to any one candidate's campaign committee." After its formation, Jefferson Marketing became a holding company for three firms—Campaign Management Inc., Computer Operations & Mailing Professionals, and Discount Paper Brokers.

Together with another Covington attorney, Brice Clagett, Bolton later represented the National Congressional Club and Jefferson Marketing—which were treated as a single legal entity—in various lawsuits filed against it by the Federal Election Commission (FEC)—all of which led to a $10,000 fine levied by the FEC against the National Congressional Club in 1986.

In 1987 the National Congressional Club reported a debt of $900,000, with its major creditors being Richard Viguerie, Charles Black, Jr., Covington and Burling, and the DC law office of Baker & Hostetler—all of which maintained good relations with the right-wing political action committee as their debts for service offered went unpaid. Jefferson Marketing was the PAC’s largest creditor, with more than $676,000 due from the National Congressional Club. By the end of the decade, FEC documents showed that Helms’ political action committee owed Covington $111,000. But this was not considered a major concern for Covington, according to firm spokesman H. Edward Dunkelberger, Jr.21

A decade later Bolton was again entangled in money laundering schemes to support Republican candidates, but this time it involved money channeled from Hong Kong and Taiwan to the Republican Party by way of a “think tank” linked to the Republican National Committee (RNC). In 1995-96 Bolton served as president of the National Policy Forum (NPF), which, according to a congressional investigation, functioned as an intermediary organization to funnel foreign and corporate money to Republicans.

The NPF had been established in 1993 in anticipation of the 1994 general election. Founded by the RNC’s chairman Haley Barbour a few months after he assumed the party’s chairmanship, the forum was organized as a nonprofit, tax-exempt education institute, although the IRS later ruled that NPF was a subsidiary of the RNC and not entitled to its requested tax-exempt status.

A congressional investigation into foreign money and influence in the 1996 presidential campaign brought to light the role of the NPF, which, according to a minority report of the congressional committee, channeled $800,00 in foreign money into the 1996 election cycle after having also used the same mechanisms to fund congressional races around the country in 1994.

When John Bolton became NPF president in 1995, the forum began organizing “megaconferences” as a hook to raise money for the party. These conferences brought together Republican members of congress, lobbyists, and corporate executives to discuss matters that were frequently the object of pending legislation. An NPF memo laid out the funding strategy: “NPF will continue to recruit new donors through conference sponsorships. ... In order for the conferences to take place, they must pay for themselves or turn a profit. Industry and association leaders will be recruited to participate and sponsor those forums, starting at $25,000.”

Corporate representatives professed surprise at the size of the contribution request. “It's pretty astounding,” said one invitee. “If this doesn't have ‘payment for access' (to top GOP lawmakers) written all over it, I don't know what does.”

Bolton also made sure that handsome contributors received their money’s worth. In another NPF memo, two NPF employees told Bolton that, in return for a $200,000 donation by US West, the telecommunications company should be assured that the policy issues that most concern them should be incorporated into the NPF agenda for their upcoming telecommunications “megaconference.”

In addition to the continuing money laundering, during John Bolton’s tenure as NPF president, the forum received a $25,000 contribution from the Pacific Cultural Foundation. Both Barbour and Bolton expressed their appreciation in a letter to the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative, which functions as Taiwan’s embassy in Washington. According to one communication with Taiwan’s official representative in Washington, it was noted that the “generous contribution” would enable the forum “to continue to develop and advocate good international policy.”

Bolton left his position at the National Policy Forum shortly before Congress launched its probe into whether the group illegally accepted foreign contributions. No charges were ever filed as a result of the congressional hearings, which according to the Democratic Party minority members of the committee didn’t devote adequate resources into the investigation of NPF operations.22