Otto Juan Reich (b. October 16, 1945) is an American diplomat and lobbyist who worked in the administrations of Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush. Reich was born in Cuba; his family moved to North Carolina when he was fifteen. He graduated from University of North Carolina in 1966, and after a two-year stint in the US Army, received a master's degree from Georgetown University in 1973. After graduating, Reich worked for the state and federal governments in Florida and Washington, D.C.
In 1983 Reich began leading the Office of Public Diplomacy (OPD), which he helped establish. The OPD sought to promote the Contra guerillas in Nicaragua, through techniques described by the Comptroller General in 1987 as "prohibited, covert propaganda". Reich, described as "chief spinner" of the effort by journalist Ann Bardach, was not accused of illegal activity. The OPD was shut down after the Iran-Contra affair in 1987. Reich served as the Ambassador to Venezuela from 1986 to 1989, and subsequently worked as a corporate lobbyist for twelve years.
Reich was nominated by George W. Bush to be Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs in 2001. The Senate did not allow confirmation hearings, citing Reich's role in the Iran-Contra affair, and his advocacy as ambassador for Orlando Bosch, then imprisoned in Venezuela on suspicion of bombing Cubana de Aviación Flight 455. Bush made a recess appointment, allowing Reich to hold the position for one year without confirmation. He was subsequently appointed special envoy to Latin America. He resigned from the Bush administration in 2004, and has since run a consulting firm and advised Republican presidential candidates.
Early life and education
Otto Reich was born in Cuba to an Austrian Jewish father and a Cuban Catholic mother. His father, who fled Nazi Germany in 1938, traveled to Cuba with the intention of continuing on to the United States. In Havana, he met and married a Cuban woman, and began selling furniture. By 1945, most of his father's family had been killed in the Holocaust. According to The New York Times, his father's experiences in Nazi Germany made the elder Reich "immediately suspicious of [Fidel] Castro, prompting him to flee with his family to North Carolina in 1960, when Otto was 15."
In 1966, Reich received a B.A. in International Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He then spent three years in the US Army, from 1966 to 1969, as an officer in the 3rd Civil Affairs Detachment stationed in the Panama Canal Zone. He received an Master's degree in Latin American Studies from Georgetown University in 1973.
Career
After receiving his master's degree, Reich began working as an international representative for the Florida Department of Commerce, the first position he held in government. He also worked as a staff assistant in the U.S. House of Representatives, as a Community Development Coordinator for the City of Miami, and later as a Director of the Council of the Americas. Reich was Assistant Administrator of the US Agency for International Development in charge of US economic assistance to Latin America and the Caribbean between 1981 and 1983. This position was the first he held under the administration of Ronald Reagan.
Office of Public Diplomacy
From 1983 to 1986, Reich established and managed the inter-agency Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America and the Caribbean (OPD), which sought to promote the Contra guerrillas in Nicaragua. Reich managed a staff including officials from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and The Pentagon, some of whom were personnel trained in psychological warfare. Reich reported to Oliver North, who then worked at the National Security Council, although the office itself was under the State Department.
The OPD sent false information to the US media, such as a claim that the Nicaraguan government was involved with drug trafficking. It also wrote opinion pieces in mainstream US newspapers, attributed to fictitious Nicaraguan rebel leaders, attacking opponents of Reagan's foreign policy. While heading this office, Reich also once demanded a meeting with staff of the National Public Radio (NPR), after NPR reported on a massacre of civilians carried out by the Contras, and warned the staff that their reports were being monitored. Reich also confronted journalists at CBS News in April 1984 after the network aired a documentary about El Salvador that, according to Reich's superior George Shultz, favored the country's guerrillas over the US and Salvadoran governments.