“You know what they’re saying, don’t you?” Rep. Bob Dornan, the least reticent soul in the Congress, asked me rather rhetorically.
“Clinton was snorting five lines of cocaine a day. That’s what’s in those medical records he’s hiding.”
The California Republican was greeting me with the bombast for which he is well-known, even notorious. Clinton has disclosed some records and, so far, there is not a scintilla of evidence to support “what they’re saying.”
“Want to make me out to be a crazy man?” Dornan said without the slightest of prompting. “Well, I’ve been married to the same woman 42 years next April.”
Fine, but Dornan is not one to just say no to the outrageous.
As Capitol Hill denizens and viewers of C-SPAN know, he is boundless in his passions, which embrace a broad continent of subject matters–some far-fetched but others, as one was reminded last week, perhaps not.
Yes, he detests Clinton, liberals and gays, among others. Clinton is a lying, cheating, draft-dodging, drug-taking “nerdy little flower child.” His House floor privileges were suspended briefly last year after he declared that Clinton “gave aid and comfort to the enemy” while protesting the Vietnam War in England.
But Dornan, 63, invests even more emotion in military matters, notably POW-MIA issues. And to those who write off “B-1 Bob” as a theatrical, conspiracy-minded troglodyte representing the conservative precincts of Orange County, Calif., they should refrain from always hitting the cable channel clicker when confronting his garrulous, screeching persona.
As the House hurried through lots of business so members could hit the campaign trail, there was disclosure of apparently new evidence about the Korean War. American POWs might have been left behind and even perhaps subjected to torture. If true, it is a hideous tale.
And in the middle, stirring the pot, was Dornan, who grew up on New York City’s Upper West Side, the son of a well-to-do haberdasher. He volunteered for the Air Force and was a fighter pilot between 1952 and 1958.
He moved west and became a TV talk show host. He was elected to Congress in 1976, later losing a 1982 race for Senate. He was elected again to the House in 1984 and fully committed himself to the concerns of combat veterans.
For sure, talks with POW-MIA activists and Korean War historians underscore that a fair number of them had been aware of the vivid claims given so much attention last week. In particular, they had heard about the assertions of Jan Sejna, a former Czech general who works for the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Sejna testified to a panel chaired by Dornan last week that U.S. soldiers were left behind and used as guinea pigs by Czech and Soviet doctors.
According to Sejna, doctors tested mind-altering drugs, chemical and biological weapons, and even performed amputations for practice.
Ann Mills Griffiths, an official of the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia, said she first heard such claims several years ago when a Senate panel, meeting in closed session, considered the topic of Korean War POWs.
So what has happened to bring this all out in the open now, four decades after the war ended? Is this anything new or yet another story of media gullibility?
In asking around, what seemed fairly clear last week was that some combination of the following is at play:
– Our normalization of relations with Vietnam. During the long diplomatic dance, the U.S. wanted to assure that a goal of re-establishing ties was not ultimately undermined by opposition of veterans. The administration did not want veterans to think they’d been sold out in return for normalization. The Vietnam discussions provide a backdrop, even a rough primer, for making headway with the North Koreans.
– American efforts to draw out the North Koreans and establish a peace treaty in the area. The U.S. has been dealing with them on nuclear issues of late, while Americans were allowed in recently to dig up remains of servicemen lost in the Korean War. It may not constitute a true warming, but there is dialogue.
– The end of the many World War II remembrances has focused somewhat more attention on the Korean War. There’s a new monument in Washington to veterans of that war and a variety of upcoming anniversary remembrances.
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– The declassification of certain documents, as well as discovery of others in the Eisenhower Library in Abilene, Kan. As far back as the mid-1950s, there’d been mainstream press reports of hundreds of POWS possibly left behind in Korea. Now, certain documents give a new legitimacy to the claims, as did the previously classified testimony of an Eisenhower military aide, retired Army Col. Philip Corso, who appeared before Dornan’s House panel.
– The New York Times ran a story on the topic on Page One Wednesday. The Times is a road map for many journalists, especially insecure newspaper editors and network TV producers. If a story is there, it’s legitimized, no matter how moth-eaten or wayward. If the Times ceased publishing, the staffs of Dan Rather, Peter Jennings and Tom Brokaw might commit mass hara-kiri–or start ripping off USA Today.
Paul Mero, Dornan’s chief of staff, noted Thursday that the response to the Times story dwarfed that from any previous one, including a much more complete effort that came out earlier in U.S. News & World Report.
– The presence and panache of Bob Dornan.
He is more obsessed with POW/MIA issues than he is with liberals, gays (whom he has referred to as “lesbian spear-chuckers”) or, yes, draft-dodging, deceitful Bill Clinton. His cluttered office has so much military paraphernalia and model airplanes, it suggests a bombed-out gift shop at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, replete with a photo of John “Duke” Wayne.
As telling, the historic 1994 congressional elections, which brought the Republicans majority status in the House, meant that Dornan became chairman of two separate subcommittees, one on military personnel.
He was no longer a high-decibel backbencher, relegated to holding forth in an empty House chamber during the “special orders” periods beloved by elected proselytizers and C-SPAN junkies. He could single-handedly force the Korean issue on to a front burner.
“Short attention span and low level of interest” is how he rapidly sums up why more attention wasn’t paid to the topic by the media and general public.
“Documents found in the Eisenhower Library” are what he deems the significant new support for some of the allegations.
As for why he seems in overdrive, the response reflects the current GOP anxiety over Bob Dole: “Because we may lose the House and we don’t have time to lose.”
Oh, before leaving, I was shown photos of the whole family, including 10 grandchildren.
“Here’s one of my kids in Garden Grove (his home) and my knockout wife. She’s as good looking as my mom,” he said before pausing.
“Well, not quite. But she knows that.”
Cokie watch
The Society of Professional Journalists meets in Arlington, Va., Saturday to mull the first change in its code of ethics since 1987.
One recrafted provision states that journalists should “refuse gifts, favors, free travel and special treatment, and shun secondary employment, political involvement, public office and service in community organizations if they compromise journalistic integrity.”
The change there includes insertion of the word “fees.” According to ethics committee chairman Kevin Smith, a professor at Miami University of Ohio, it means speaking fees and was inspired by the paid moonlighting before special interest groups of “of people like Cokie Roberts and Sam Donaldson.”