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'Otto Juan Reich' (born October 16, 1945), a Cuban-American, is former senior official in the administrations of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. He has been Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere, Ambassador to Venezuela, Assistant Administrator of the US Agency for International Development and the President's Special Envoy for the Western Hemisphere.
Reich was appointed Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere in January 2002, and served under a recess appointment. In 2003 Bush then appointed him US Special Envoy to the Western Hemisphere. Since leaving the White House in 2004, he has headed his own international consulting firm, Otto Reich Associates, LLC, based in Washington, D.C.[1].

Contents

Early years

Office of Public Diplomacy

2002 Venezuelan coup

External links

Early years

Reich was born in Cuba to a Cuban Catholic mother and an Austrian-Jewish father, Walter Reich, whose parents died in the Holocaust and who had fled Austria in 1938. His father was trying to reach the United States but he remained in Havana, where he settled down, got married, and sold furniture. At age 14, Otto Reich, raised in his mother's Catholic faith left with his family for the US as refugees a year and half after Fidel Castro came to power.
In 1966, Reich received a B.A. in International Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. From 1967 to 1969, as a paratroop officer, he served as a Civil Affairs officer in the US Army in the Panama Canal Zone. He was awarded the US Army's Commendation Medal.
After receiving a M.A. in Latin American Studies from Georgetown University in 1973, Reich worked as a staff assistant in the U.S. House of Representatives, an international representative for the Florida Department of Commerce, Community Development Coordinator for the City of Miami, and later Washington Director of the Council of the Americas.
From 1981 to 1983, Reich was Assistant Administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in charge of US economic assistance to Latin America and the Caribbean. In 1991 and 1992, at the request of President George H. W. Bush, Reich served as Deputy US Representative to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva.

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 in the United States State Department. The OPD declassified Central Intelligence Agency informarmation and disseminated to influence public opinion and spur Congress to continue to fund the Reagan's administration's campaign against Nicaragua's Sandinista government.
From 1986 to 1989, Reich served as Ambassador to Venezuela. For this service he received the State Department's Superior Honor Award, the Meritorious Serice Award and the Republic of Venezuela's Order of the Liberator, the highest honor conferred by that nation.
From 1989 to 2001, Reich worked as a corporate advisor to clients such as Bell Atlantic, McDonnell Douglas Aircraft Co., AT&T, Bacardi, British American Tobacco, and Lockheed Martin, which sought to sell F-16 fighter aircraft to Chile. He also reportedly helped draft the Helms-Burton Act which tightened the embargo of Cuba.

2002 Venezuelan coup

Reich held the post of Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs at the time of the 2002 Venezuelan coup d'état attempt.
Administration officials and anonymous sources acknowledged meeting with some of the planners of the coup in the several weeks prior to April 11, but have strongly denied encouraging the coup itself, saying that they insisted on constitutional means. [2] Because of allegations, Sen. Christopher Dodd requested a review of US activities leading up to and during the coup attempt. The OIG report found no wrongdoing by US officials either in the State Department or in the US Embassy. Inspector General Report
According to a report in ''The New York Times'', Reich warned Congressional aides that there was more at stake in Venezuela than the success or failure of Chávez. He accused Chávez of meddling with the historically independent state oil company, providing haven to Colombian guerrillas and bailing out Cuba with preferential rates on oil. He also said the administration had received reports that "foreign paramilitary forces"-- which they suspected to be Cubans -— were involved in the bloody suppression of anti-Chávez demonstrators, in which at least fourteen people were killed.[3]
The United States, which had acknowledged the ''de facto'' government, did not condemn the coup until Chávez had been restored to power. U.S. government statements
He also served as vice-chairman of Worldwide Responsible Apparel Production (WRAP).
From 1998 to 2001, Reich was co-host of CNN International’s “Choque de Opiniones,” a Spanish-language version of CNN’s “Crossfire.” He appears regularly on US and Latin American media.

External links

★

★ Otto Reich Associates, LLC

★ Official State Department biography

★ Otto Reich Testimony before the House International Relations Committee Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere May 25, 2005 VIDEO: http://boss.streamos.com/real/hir/34_wh052505.smi

★ "Bush Envoy Puts Latin Post, and a Stormy Past, Behind Him", ''New York Times'', June 17, 2004

★ "Otto Reich: A Career in Disservice", Council on Hemispheric Affairs, July 13, 2004

★ Interviews on YouTube

★ State Department OIG report on attempted Venezuelan Coup