Richard N. Perle

Long-time Washington cold warrior Richard Norman Perle is a man of many hats: Pentagon policy adviser (resigned February 2004), former Likud policy adviser, media manager, international investor, op-ed writer, talk show guest, think tank expert, and ardent supporter of the war in Iraq.

Known in Washington circles as "The Prince of Darkness," Perle is associated with the American Enterprise Institute and the Project for the New American Century, both of which have been prominent behind-the-scenes architects of the Bush administration's foreign policy, in particular its push for war with Iraq.

He is closely allied with former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Dundes Wolfowitz, another Iraq hawk. Perle is also a vocal supporter of Israel and a critic of Saudi Arabia. Perle is on the Advisory Board of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), and is a former chairman of the Defense Policy Board, a Defense Department advisory group composed primarily of former government officials, retired military officers, and academics.

Background

Perle was born 16 September 1941 in New York City, attended the University of Southern California, earning a B.A. in English in 1964. As an undergraduate he studied in Copenhagen at Denmark's International Study Program. He also studied at the London School of Economics and obtained a M.A. in political science from Princeton University in 1967. He is married to Leslie Joan Barr. He owns a vacation home in Les Baux (Provence, France) and is there neighbor to Brian Lapping and previously to Jeane Kirkpatrick.

A biographical note stated that Perle had served as Resident Fellow of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research since 1987 "where he had directed its commission on Future Defenses".

Perle was a member of the Defense Policy Board between 1987 and 2004 and was Chairman of it between 2001-2003. He was Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy in the Reagan Administrations between 1981 and 1987. Before that he had served on the US Senate Staff (1960-1980).

He did his Honours Examinations at the London School of Economics between 1962 and 63, gained a Bachelor of Arts in International Politics at the University of Southern California in 1964 and completed a M.A Politics at Princeton University in 1967.

He has been a director of a number of companies including Conrad Black's Hollinger and Tapestry Pharmaceuticals.

Perle's Role in Hollinger

Perle had close business ties with Conrad Black, former chairman of Hollinger International Inc., which at one time owned more than 400 daily and weekly newspapers in Canada, the United States, Britain, Israel and Australia. Hollinger papers included London's Daily Telegraph, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Jerusalem Post. Black, a Canadian, joined fellow media kingpin Rupert Murdoch in defending British Prime Minister Tony Blair's decision to stick with Bush's war aims, despite overwhelming domestic opposition.

Perle was a Director of Hollinger from June 1994. A biogrpahical note on the company's website at the time stated that Perle was Co-Chairman of Hollinger Digital Inc., the media management and investment arm of Hollinger [11]. It also mentioned that Perle was "a Director of Jerusalem Post", another subsidiary of the company, and that he had served as a director of GeoBiotics.

Perle and Black are now (2004) estranged and have accused each other of wrongdoing in the looting of Hollinger assets. The Breeden Report, which cataloged the accusations against Black by the now-independent Hollinger directors, singled out Perle, among all of the corporate directors, for criticism: "As a faithless fiduciary, Perle should be required to disgorge all compensation received from the company". [12]. In October 2004, Hollinger amended its lawsuit against Black to include Perle as a defendant, asking for $22.9 million, including the $5.4 million of his compensation. .

Despite his familiarity with the media, Perle found a piece by veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh a little hard to take. Hersh's New Yorker report, "A Hawk's Business," targets Perle's hush-hush meeting with Saudi industrialist Saleh al-Zuhair, a meeting arranged with the help of Iran/contra figure Adnan Khashoggi. Hersh explored the possibility of a conflict of interest for Perle, one of whose businesses is Trireme Partners LP, a venture capital firm that invests in technology, goods, and services related to homeland security and defense. Trireme also created International Advisors Inc., a lobbying firm whose main client is Turkey. Henry Kissinger is a Trireme adviser, and Perle is a managing partner. [13] Kissinger, who was forced to resign as head of the independent commission to investigate the 9/11 attacks, has been using his influence to try to keep the Saudis calm during the buildup to war. The subject of the al-Zuhair meeting is in dispute, but Perle is fighting off the impression that he was trying to use his Pentagon influence to profit from a war that he is doing all he can to implement. Hersh criticized Perle's relationship with Trireme as an ethical conflict of interest, to which Perle responded by calling Hersh "the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist."

Bush has recently taken to accepting Perle's view that the United Nations is pretty much irrelevant when it comes to Iraq.

Perle is also associated with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, which backs Bush's Iraq war push. Others with the foundation are columnist Charles Krauthammer,the Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, and Georgia senator Zell Miller. Perle, who produced the 1992 PBS documentary, "The Gulf Crisis, the Road to War," has long experience in the ways of Washington.

The wide-ranging Perle even finds himself involved in Total Information Awareness technology. He was listed as a speaker at a March 13 Washington press briefing on 'data mining,' the use of computer technology to sift out patterns from electronic communications. A fellow Pentagon official, Admiral John M. Poindexter of Iran-Contra notoriety, spurred a political firestorm with his TIA plans. Congress forbade such technology to be used against Americans. The briefing, which also billed Sen. Ron Wyden, was promoted as informational only. However, concerned scientists have charged that data mining pays off in miniscule results in contrast to widespread privacy violation.[14]

Mr. Perle has received some heat due to a possible conflict of interest with serving on the Defense Policy Board and being hired as an advisor for Global Crossing, "Even as he advises the Pentagon on war matters, Richard N. Perle, chairman of the influential Defense Policy Board, has been retained by the telecommunications company Global Crossing to help overcome Defense Department resistance to its proposed sale to a foreign firm, Mr. Perle and lawyers involved in the case said today." Mr. Perle's fee is $750,000, but he will receive an additional $600,000 if the sale is approved. [15] Concerned over conflict of interest, senior Democrats sought an inquiry into the matter by the Pentagon inspector general. [16]

Perle maintained that he had not violated any ethics rules, but decided to resign his position as chairman of the Defense Policy Board on March 26, 2003, [17]. In an effort to save face, he wrote in his resignation letter that he would refuse any compensation with his deal with Global Crossing and "any fee for past service would be donated to the families of American forces killed or injured in Iraq." There was also a report that "The communications company, Global Crossing, also announced that Mr. Perle had decided to sever his ties with it."[18] [19]

The Global Crossing affair started a more critical look into Perle's business affairs. On March 29, 2003, The New York Times reported that Perle was involved with Loral Space and Communications in 2001 as an advisor while it faced accusations that it transfered rocket technology to China. [20] It is worth noting that the Global Crossing affair was also due to Global Crossing trying to overcome Defense Department opposition to be sold to a venture with ties to China.

In February 2004, Perle resigned entirely from the Defense Policy Board. [21] The full text of Perle's resignation letter may be found at the website for the public relations firm Benador Associates. [22]

It was reported May 25, 2004, by CNN that Tom Clancy, the brand name author with many admirers in the military criticized the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, citing it as proof that "good men make mistakes."

That same writer said he almost "came to blows" with a leading war supporter, former Pentagon adviser Richard Perle.

The hawkish master of such million-selling thrillers as "Patriot Games" and "The Hunt for Red October" now finds himself adding to the criticism of the Iraq war, and not only through his own comments.

His latest book, Battle Ready (2004 book) is a collaboration with another war critic, retired Marine Gen. Anthony C. Zinni. "Battle Ready" looks at Zinni's long military career, dating back to the Vietnam War, and includes harsh remarks by Zinni about the current conflict.

In a press conference held on March 25, to promote the book, both Clancy and Zinni singled out the Department of Defense for criticism. Clancy recalled a prewar encounter in Washington during which he "almost came to blows" with Richard Perle, a Pentagon adviser at the time and a longtime advocate of the invasion.

"He was saying how (Secretary of State) Colin L. Powell was being a wuss because he was overly concerned with the lives of the troops," Clancy said. "And I said, 'Look ..., he's supposed to think that way!' And Perle didn't agree with me on that. People like that worry me."

One unusual (but in-character for him) habit of Perle's is his demands for payment for press inteviews [23].

Critical description

"The baby-faced Richard Perle, who chairs the Defense Policy Board, waited out the Vietnam War at the University of Chicago. He then joined pro-Vietnam War Senator henry Scoop Jackson's staff and made his reputation as one of the youngest of the defense intellectuals. Like Jackson, Perle made pro-Israeli poliy an axiom of his discourse. Perle has become well-known for his aggressive mouth on TV talk shows, contradicting the flaccidity of his physical demeanor." page 131, Saul Landau. 2003. The Preemptive Empire: A Guide to Bush's Kingdom. London: Pluto Press. ISBN 0745321402.

Organizational affiliations

• American Enterprise Institute, Senior Fellow
• Autonomy, serves on the Board of Directors
• 1992 Committee on U.S. Interests in the Middle East
• Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, Advisor
• Defense Policy Board, Member, (was Chairman but resigned March 26, 2003 due to Hersh/Khashoggi and Global Crossing scandals)
• Geobiotics, LLC, Non-executive director
• Global Crossing, Advisor/Lobbyist [24]
• Henry Jackson Society
• Hollinger Digital Inc., Director and Co-Chairman
• Hollinger International Inc., Director and member of the Executive Committee
• Iran Enterprise Institute, Facilitator
• Jerusalem Post Publications, Director
• Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, on the Board of Advisors
• Morgan Crucible, PLC, Non-executive director since 1988[25]
• National Security Advisory Council, Member
• Onset Technology, on the Board of Directors
• Project for the New American Century
• Study Group on a New Israeli Strategy Toward 2000 (1996), Group Leader
• Trireme Partners LP, Managing partner
• US-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce
• Washington Institute for Near East Policy
• American Center for Democracy – Advisory Board
• Monitor Group – paid advisor and lobbyist

Quotes

"Richard Perle, foreign policy adviser: 'The first time I met Bush 43 … two things became clear. One, he didn't know very much. The other was that he had the confidence to ask questions that revealed he didn't know very much.'"

Books

Books By Perele

• Richard Perle, Hard Line, Random House, June 16, 1993. ISBN-10: 051710590X ISBN-13: 978-0517105900 (This is a novel).
• Robert Kagan, William Kristol (editors) Crisis and Opportunity in American Foreign and Defense Policy, March 1, 2000. Paperback ISBN: 1893554163 Hardcover ISBN: 1893554139 (This includes essays by Richard Perle, Elliott Abrams, William Bennett, James Caesar, Donald Kagan, Ross H. Munro, Peter W. Rodman, Paul Wolfowitz).
• David Frum and Richard Perle, An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror, Ballantine Books, October 2004. ISBN-10: 0345477170 ISBN-13: 978-0345477170

Books About Perle & His Views

• Alan Weisman, Prince of Darkness: Richard Perle: The Kingdom, The Power, and the End of Empire in America, November 2007. ISBN-10: 140275230X ISBN-13: 978-1402752308
• Grant Smith, Neocon Middle East Policy : The 'Clean Break' Plan Damage Assessment, Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, May 2005. ISBN 0976443732

Resources and articles

Profiles

• Richard Perle, NeoCon Europe.
• Richard Perle, Resident Fellow", American Enterprise Institute, undated, accessed April 2007.
• "Richard N. Perle: Board Member", Hudson Institute, undated, accessed April 2007.
• Other Officials' Profiles: Richard N. Perle, Foreign Policy in Focus, May 7, 2002.

External articles

2002

• "Interview with Richard Perle, PBS WideAngle with James P. Rubin, July 11, 2002
• Brian Whitaker, "US thinktanks give lessons in foreign policy," Guardian Unlimited, August 19, 2002.
• Jason Vest, Turkey, Israel and the US, The Nation, August 23, 2002.
• Chris Suellentrop, "Richard Perle - Washington's faceful bureaucrat," slate.com, August 23, 2002.
• Eric Boehlert, "The armchair general," Salon.com, September 5, 2002.

2003

• Maureen Dowd, "Costing trickle-down democracy", Sydney Morning Herald, March 5, 2003. (Originally published in the New York Times).
• Interview with Richard Perle, CNN Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, March 9, 2003.
• Rosalinda, "Richard Perle Caught Running a $100-million Sheik-Down", Thunder Bay IndyMedia, March 13, 2003.
• Seymour Hersh, "Lunch with the Chairman," New Yorker, March 17, 2003.
• Eric Alterman, Perle, Interrupted, The Nation, March 20, 2003.
• Richard Perle, "Thank God for the death of the UN", The Guardian, March 21, 2003.
• Maureen Dowd, "Perle's Plunder Blunder", The New York Times, March 23, 2003.
• Pentagon Pal Perle Gets GX Paycheck, Light Reading, March 24, 2003.
• Stephen Labaton, "Democrat Seeks Inquiry on Bankrupt Firm's Adviser", The New York Times, March 24 2003.
• Jim Lobe, "Perle: 'Prince of Darkness' in the spotlight," Asia Times, March 25, 2003.
• "US general with Iraq role linked to hardline Israelis", independent.co.uk, March 26, 2003.
• Arianna Huffington, "Having Your Souffle And Eating It Too", TomPaine.com, March 26, 2003.
• Pamela Hess, "Top Rumsfeld adviser resigns over ethics", UPI, March 27, 2003.
• Richard Wolinsky, "Perles Before Swine", Wolinsky WebLog, March 28, 2003.
• Stephen Labaton, "Adviser to U.S. Aided Maker of Satellites," The New York Times, March 29, 2003.
• Bruce Murphy, Neoconservative clout seen in U.S. Iraq policy, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel On-line, April 5, 2003.
• Tim Shorrock, Richard Perle's Corporate Adventures, The Nation, April 3, 2003.
• Ben Winters, "The People vs. Richard Perle," In These Times, April 14, 2003.
• Stephen Labaton, 15 November 2003: "Report Finds No Violations at Pentagon by Adviser," New York Times: "The Pentagon's inspector general concluded this week that Richard N. Perle violated no ethics laws or rules when he was leading an influential Pentagon advisory board (Defense Policy Board) while at the same time representing two companies (Loral Space and Communications and Global Crossing) and in their dealings with the government."
• Stephanie Kirchgaesnner, Hollinger examines Perle investments. Newspaper publisher probes corporate-governance practices, MSNBC.com, November 17, 2003.
• Eric Boehlert, "The gathering storm around Richard Perle," Salon.com, November 26, 2003.
• Michelle Goldberg, "Is this the neocon century?," Salon.com, December 17, 2003.
• Paul Krugman, 23 December 2003: "Citizen Conrad's Friends," New York Times. The "Conrad" is Conrad Black.

2004

• Jenny Falcon, "Key Pentagon Advisor Richard Perle Resigns Post as Head of Defense Policy Panel," Voice of America News, February 27, 2004.
• Sandro Contenta, "U.S. war policy 'grave error'. Ex-Rumsfeld aide admits occupation of Iraq a failure," Toronto Star, May 26, 2004: "Richard Perle, until recently a powerful adviser to U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, described U.S. policy in post-war Iraq as a failure."
• Edwin Black, "FBI Delay Raises AIPAC Case Issues", Jewish Telegraphic Agency, December 24, 2004.

2005

• Otis Bilodeau and Peter Robison, "SEC may sue Perle over Hollinger: Regulator warned ex-Pentagon aide", Globe and Mail', March 24, 2005.
• Dana Milbank, "AIPAC's Big, Bigger, Biggest Moment", Washington Post, May 24, 2005.
• Elizabeth Jensen, "Public Broadcasting and Political Balance: A New Twist", New York Times, June 29, 2005.

2006

• Michael Carmichael, "A New 'Perle Harbor': Neocon Foreign Policy Architect Richard Perle reveals US War Plans in the Iranian Theater," Global Research (Canada), June 7, 2006.
• Jim Lobe, "'New American Century' Project Ends With A Whimper," Inter Press Service (Antiwar.com), June 13, 2006.
• Michael Carmichael, "Bolton Bolts from Oxford Protests. Taunted and Jeered," CounterPunch, June 14, 2006.
• Rostam Pourzal, "Fanatic Friends, MKO Tricks US Progressives, Gains Legitimacy," Iran Press Service, June 23, 2006.
• Richard Perle, "Why Did Bush Blink on Iran? (Ask Condi)," Washington Post; American Enterprise Institute, June 25, 2006.
• Patrick Seale, "Neocons Still Run the Show in Washington," Dar Al-Hayat, June 26, 2006.

2007

• Alison Weir, "The Message of PBS's "Crossroads" Series: Some Muslims Are Not Bad", CountePpunch, April 17, 2007.
• Media Matters, "PBS gave Perle hour to repeat debunked claims about Iraqi WMDs and links to Al Qaeda", Media Matters, April 23, 2007.
• "The Architects of War: Where Are They Now?" Think Progress, July 2007.