Janine Wedel - Shadow Elite - How the World's New Power Brokers Undermine Democracy, Government, and the Free Market

Richard Perle met Wohlstetter through Wohlstetter’s daughter, his high school classmate. Perle stayed in touch with Wohlstetter and, in 1969, became acquainted with Paul Wolfowitz through Wohlstetter. As Perle tells the story: “Albert Wohlstetter phoned me one day. I was still a graduate student at Princeton . . . and he said, could you come to Washington for a few days and interview some people and draft a report on the current debate shaping up in the Senate over ballistic missile defense, which was a hot issue. . . . And he said, I’ve asked somebody else to do this too, and maybe the two of you could work together. The someone else was Paul Wolfowitz. So Paul and I came to Washington as volunteers for a few days, to interview people, and one of the people we interviewed was Scoop Jackson and it was love at first sight. . . . I was there for eleven years.” 12

Jackson himself had been influenced by Wohlstetter. While a liberal on social issues, the intensely anti-Soviet Jackson supported a strong national defense; he was even labeled the “Senator from Boeing” by those who disapproved of his unrelenting support for weapons systems. During Perle’s tenure with Jackson (until 1980), several other neoconservative figures—who would become members of the Neocon core—joined Jackson’s staff: these included Elliott Abrams, Norman Podhoretz’s stepson-in-law, who served as special counsel to Jackson (from 1975 to 1976); and Frank Gaffney, an aide to Jackson in the late 1970s on issues of defense and foreign policy. 13

These neoconservative activists, and others, came into their own during the Reagan administration; the 1980s were their ideological heyday. Reagan’s foreign and security policies were in sync with the Wohlstetter-Jackson mindset: American military superiority and, to a lesser extent, economic strength should unashamedly assert itself in the world. These young men now had the opportunity to put some of their ideas into action; their interconnectedness and network grew as they secured positions in the Pentagon and the Department of State. 14

Perle was posted to the Pentagon as assistant secretary of defense for international security policy (from 1981 to 1987). Feith served as a special counsel to Perle from 1982 to 1986, and was later named deputy assistant secretary of defense for negotiations policy. Perle and Feith were joined in the Department of Defense by Frank Gaffney. After working under Perle for several years, Gaffney was named assistant secretary of defense for international security policy when Perle left the Reagan administration. 15

At the State Department, Wolfowitz was appointed to its policy planning staff (and was its head from 1981 to 1982). Joining him at State were Elliott Abrams and Michael Ledeen. Abrams worked for Reagan in several positions. Ledeen, for his part, worked for both the State and Defense departments, as well as serving as a consultant to the National Security Council. Abrams and Ledeen would become important players in the Iran-Contra affair.

The Power of the Collective

Given the neoconservatives’ Trotskyist heritage, albeit one generation removed (Perle and his age cohorts are part of the “second” or “younger” generation)—and their repudiation of that past—it is both fitting and not, I suppose, to think of the Neocon core as a collective. Despite their wholesale reversal, the core seems inspired, perhaps unconsciously, both by their collective ideology and the closeness of a Trotskyist cell. Accordingly, the core forms an intricate spine—an intertwined, exclusive, and self-protecting network—the first feature of flex nets. Neocon core member Meyrav Wurmser, who has organized seminal activities with Perle and Feith, put it thusly: “You have a story here about ideas, and love among people, and it’s true and I’m not being cynical about it, it’s real fundamental love and power because some of those ideas make policy and some of the people in the group are policy makers, and we function and we view ourselves as a group, and we will all stand for each other in defence of each other all the way.” 16

Having a leader helps such a group maintain its “love and power” and “defence of each other.” Not unlike in a Russian clan, Perle has been the group’s linchpin since the beginning. His centrality is widely recognized by both insiders and outsiders. Officials at the Israeli embassy in Washington even reportedly refer to this collection as the “Perle group.” Perle has served as a mentor to Abrams, Feith, Ledeen, and Gaffney (among others), all of whom worked for Jackson. As Feith described him: “Richard for sure is a godfather. He would actively work to help anybody he had worked with and liked and admired and who he thought was useful to the overall cause of U.S. national security as he saw it.” Perle is at the nexus of a plethora of efforts and seemingly always ahead of the game; I could well have written about him as an archetypal flexian in Chapter 1. Perle connects people, brokers deals—circumventing bureaucracy via informal contracts like a Russian blatmeister—and holds salons in his home to discuss issues about which he and his circle are passionate. 17

To achieve their agendas, members of the Neocon core engage in complementary activities, in and outside of government, advocacy, and think-tank type organizations (many of which they helped set up), and they play multiple roles in relation to each other. As evidenced by Perle, Wolfowitz, and Feith’s mutual-aid round robin, flex nets gain influence in part by the members’ quietly boosting one another, promoting one another for influential positions, and covering for one another. And these three are but a sample of the larger Neocon core of roughly a dozen or so players, many (if not most) of whom are equally intertwined with other members, via long, multiple, and intense associations with one another. While working together to achieve a mutual agenda extends a flex net’s capabilities, this coordination of effort is not a conspiracy. Unlike conspirators, who keep secret their activities (and, often, the very existence of their group and its purpose), members of a flex net are open about their acquaintanceships. Some of a flex net’s activities are kept close to the chest, such as Perle, Wolfowitz, and Feith bailing each other out of trouble. Others, however, are not only in the open—standard policy-input efforts such as writing briefing papers or testifying before congressional subcommittees—they invite media attention and may even be crafted by public relations specialists. Witness the massive and concerted “information” effort conducted by the Neocon core and their associates, with crucial participation from certain columnists and reporters, that was essential in taking the United States to war in Iraq.

Pursuing mutual goals implies a division of labor; not everyone does the same thing. For instance, while Wolfowitz and Feith promoted the Iraq war from within government, Perle helped cultivate and propagate information that served the Neocon core cause from behind the scenes and appeared in the media as an expert. He did this first as a member (for a time, head) of a governmental advisory board and, later, as a private citizen. Visibility does not necessarily equate with influence: Like members of clans, those operating under the radar sometimes wield more influence than those in the spotlight.

Although one can identify a cluster of Neocon core activists, accomplishing open, shared goals in a complex governing system entails some fluidity in a flex net’s boundaries; to further specific causes, members sometimes join with close associates and political allies. Ever evolving, the flex net doesn’t have a hard boundary but rather a gravitational core. And, of course, all members of the Neocon flex net have not been equally important at all times. Some, especially on the periphery, have moved in and out as needed, as the network mobilizes to achieve its goals. 18