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Jewish World Review March 8, 1999 / 20 Adar, 5759
A. Engler Anderson
IF GEN. AUGUSTO PINOCHET is brought to justice for human rights
abuses in Chile, one of the people responsible uncovering evidence of United
States’ involvement will have been Washington lawyer Jack Blum.
"I think Pinochet deserves everything he gets," says Blum. "You will note the
silence of the United States in the whole Pinochet affair. We are silent
because we are complicit."
Blum should know. He led the Senate probe into ITT’s role, with the Central
Intelligence Agency, in aiding the 1973 coup that overthrew the popularly
elected government of Salvador Allende, kicking off 17 years of bloody
military rule.
"We
have some very strong imperatives about caring for the downtrodden, for the
poor, worrying about the imprisoned and caring about justice. But these things
tend to get wiped out when you begin supporting a thug who is your political
pal.
"From a Jewish view, this is terribly offensive — if you take anything in
Torah seriously."
Blum also led congressional probes into the activities of one-time U.S. ally
Gen. Manuel Noreiga, the Iran-Contra Affair, and overseas bribes by defense
contractor Lockheed Aircraft. Now that the Cold War is over, he says the
United States must clean up its foreign policy act. "We worked with all kinds
of people who were against labor and the left" in the fight against communism.
"But the coalition that emerged was very pro-U.S. but it also turned out to be
a corrupt system.
"We’ve been involved in a Cold War which has had policymakers cutting
corners, and most of the policymaking has been done covertly," Blum says. "Is
the solution to send in spies and bags of money, or is the solution to really
work on democratic governments? Is that best done by sending in diplomats, or
military people?"
He says policymakers need to take a cold, hard look at foreign aid. "A huge
amount of money that the World Bank has dispersed has been flat out stolen,"
he says. "The reason is that the people who have been stealing have been our
pals and that has to be stopped."
Blum is no stranger to corporate crime and official corruption. He came to
Washington as antitrust counsel under mentor, Sen. Phil Hart. Later, on the
staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he looked into overseas
payments by Lockheed Aircraft, Third World loans by American banks, the oil
industry, and ITT involvement in Chile.
Bad policy sometimes starts at home. "How much is inspired by very crass
domestic politics?" he asks. "We can’t change Cuban policy because everybody
is afraid the Miami Cubans would go crazy."
On Israel, he says U.S. policy should be informed "by altruism" and "by what
is right." He says that policymakers need to jettison the idea that the Jewish
community is a monolithic vote that will support everything the Israeli
government proposes. "How much support the Netanyahu government has in the
Reform Jewish community is an open question," he
says.
‘Spies and bags of money’
Critic: U.S. must clean up foreign policy act
Blum says that the ethics must inform how we conduct foreign relations. "This
is a core issue of Judaism," says Blum, 58, who once trudged around the Lower
East Side with a tome of Talmud as a bachur at the famed Rabbi Jacob Joseph
Yeshiva, and is president emeritus of Reform Temple Shalom in Arnold, Md.
A. Engler Anderson, a staff reporter for Boston's
Jewish Advocate, is moderator of J-PEN: Forum for Jewish Journalism &
Journalists. His personal home page can be reached by clicking here.
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