South African agents attempted to buy influence in the White House by offering to buy a jet for Bob Dole’s running mate, writes Eddie Koch
JACK KEMP, currently running as the Republican candidate for vice-president in the United States elections, was deeply embarrassed in the late 1980s by revelations that South African military intelligence agents had offered senior officials in his campaign committee a R2-million jet in exchange for a direct influence over future United States policy towards Africa.
South African superspy Craig Williamson told the Mail & Guardian this week that the International Freedom Front (IFF), a right-wing think tank funded by army intelligence in the South African Defence Force, had planned to buy a jet worth about $450 000 for Kemp’s campaign committee while the senator was making a bid for the 1988 Republican presidential nomination.
Williamson also confirmed reports that the South African intelligence agents who ran the IFF from Johannesburg had expected automatic membership in Kemp’s “kitchen cabinet” and hoped to name an assistant secretary of state for Africa in a future Kemp administration as a reward for providing the Republican senator’s campaign committee with a jet.
There is no evidence, however, that Kemp had any knowledge at the time of the wheelings and dealings that were taking place between members of his campaign committee and agents of Pretoria’s intelligence fraternity. Kemp is in fact a moderate Republican who lobbied for economic sanctions against the apartheid state despite a veto by then President Ronald Reagan on the trade embargo.
Documents obtained last year by the New York publication Newsday reveal that IFF mastermind Russell Crystal played a prominent role in the abortive 1987 scheme to buy office and influence in a future White House administration. Crystal was a right-wing spy at the University of the Witwatersrand in the 1980s and went on to take part in various clandestine operations for police and military intelligence.
The documents show that Colleen Morrow, then treasurer for the IFF at its public headquarters in Washington, had sent an internal memo to the foundation’s actual operational headquarters in Johannesburg asking that $450 000 be allocated to the purchase of a plane for Kemp’s campaign at the time.
“We can be the kitchen cabinet types of the Kemp administration,” Morrow said in the memo to Crystal, who was de facto head of the IFF at the time. “Due to a loophole in FEC [Federal Electoral Commission] law, one person — the person who provides the plane — has the capacity to become the largest donor to the Kemp campaign … Clearly we have the opportunity to become Jack Kemp’s favourite people in the world (if we can only find him a plane).”
The memo dated May 26 1987 was in response to a letter from the Kemp campaign asking her “assistance with helping the Jack Kemp for President Committee find the use of a jet”. That letter was signed by Michael Simpfenderfer, finance coordinator for the Kemp campaign.
Kemp himself was deeply embarrassed when the operation was exposed by Newsday. He described Simfenderfer as “a rogue elephant” who was subsequently sacked by the Republicans. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, but that’s not one of them, tying myself to South African intelligence,” Kemp told Newsday.
“I take responsibility, I guess, for my campaign. If I had known then what I know now, (a) it wouldn’t have happened, and (b) if it did happen without me authorising it, I would have fired him.”
If the IFF had gone ahead to provide the plane, the transaction would have been a violation of United States law which prevents not-for-profit organisations from making such donations.
But Williamson says he pulled the plug on the proposed deal by advising intelligence “powers that be” that it was not worth spending the money because it was unlikely that Kemp would win the presidential nomination.
The scheme then collapsed and the Kemp campaign folded not long afterwards. Vice-President George Bush went on to win the Republican nomination and the presidency, and Kemp served in the Bush cabinet as minister of housing.
Kemp’s efforts to gain high office were revived this week when he was named as running mate for presidential candidate Bob Dole. A popular football star in his time, the vice-presidential candidate has brought some glamour and populist appeal into the Republican line-up against Bill Clinton this year.
He has often clashed with conservative colleagues in the past over their free-marketeering economic policies and has made a number of enemies in the party by supporting social welfare programmes, a ban on the sale of automatic weapons and affirmative action programmes.
Kemp’s track record suggests it is highly unlikely he would have colluded in the IFF’s shady dealings. But the botched 1987 plot does show how South Africa’s intelligence agencies made clandestine use of taxpayers’ money in fanciful schemes to buy direct influence over United States policy on Africa.
Army intelligence spent about R6-million a year on the IFF, which was code-named “Operation Babushka” at the time. The man directly in charge of the scheme was Ferdi van Wyk who liaised with Crystal via the codename “Gypsy”.
The IFF presented itself as a Washington-based think tank for the American right and successfully recruited a number of conservative politicians into its ranks. High-profile support from powerful men like Senator Jesse Helms allowed the foundation to attract large donations from individuals and institutions in the United States.