September 4, 1999
G.O.P. Letter Plays on Nuclear Threat to Spur Donations
By DON VAN NATTA Jr.
ASHINGTON -- Fund-raising letters postmarked in this city have always used language that is hyperbolic. But in a recent "urgent" letter, a Republican fund-raising chairman asked for contributions of $25 or more to help the Senate protect the United States from a looming nuclear attack by North Korea.
Senator Mitch McConnell, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, began the four-page letter this way, "Dear Fellow American: My colleagues in the United States Senate must have your immediate help to protect our country from a potentially devastating nuclear attack."
McConnell said a "generous emergency gift of $25 or more" would help Senate Republicans defend the United States and "do what President Clinton will not: preserve, protect and defend the United States of America."
Included with the mailing was a "Nuclear Crisis Action Survey," a list of eight multiple-choice questions that the reader was asked to complete and return within 48 hours.
"We want your opinions," the letter said, "on how you want the Senate to act on the shocking information that has only recently come to our attention: The Communist North Korean government has obtained nuclear technology, and possibly the capability of reaching our shores with nuclear missiles."
The eighth and final question: "Will you do your part to help today?" There are boxes for amounts ranging from $25 to $1,000. Senator McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, assured the recipient that he would share the survey's results with the Senate Republican leadership.
The United States, Japan, and South Korea have threatened to cut off foreign aid and remittances if North Korea proceeds with a test of a missile that has the capability to reach Hawaii or Alaska. Two weeks ago, the United States and North Korea agreed to meet this month in Europe to discuss the matter.
Intelligence officials have said the missile North Korea plans to test is an advanced version of the Taepodong rocket it launched last year.
As chairman of the Senate Republicans' main fund-raising group, McConnell is one of the most outspoken and influential opponents in Congress to a bill that would ban unlimited campaign contributions known as soft money. Last month, McConnell urged as many as 20 executives to resign from a committee dedicated to advancing the bill that would overhaul campaign finance.
His fund-raising letter is clearly intended to play off North Korea's potential of fielding a ballistic capable of striking the United States. But it would take another technological advance to enable North Korea's rockets to have the range to reach the lower 48 states. The Pentagon last month positioned two Navy observation ships to watch for a possible test launching.
Steven Law, the executive director of the Republican committee, said that the letter was a test mailing sent to several thousand people and that the response was less than what they hoped for. But Law defended the letter's message and its tone, saying, "This is standard fare for direct mail, and it is a good deal less incendiary than some mailings I've seen."
During the cold war, he said, fund-raising letters used scare tactics about nuclear war to win drum up support.
McConnell declined to comment on the letter. And Robert Steurer, his press secretary, referred questions to the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
Advocates of campaign finance reform said they were outraged by the letter's message and tone, calling it a brazen effort to play upon people's fears to raise money. They also said it was the first time they could recall that a fund-raising letter depended on the specter of nuclear war.
"I've seen a lot of direct mail and people play a lot of games, but I've never seen anyone take us to the verge of nuclear war to raise a few bucks," said Fred Wertheimer, the president of Democracy 21, a nonprofit public policy organization that endorses changes in campaign finance law. "Senator McConnell is obviously perfectly happy to scare the wits out of unsuspecting senior citizens and others in order to shake some campaign dollars out of them."
Charles Lewis, the founder and executive director of the Center for Public Integrity, said the letter's "fear-mongering techniques just takes my breath away."
"This sounds like a hysterical fly-by-night direct mail thing, and the fact a United States senator would allow something like that to go out under his name really takes the United States Senate to a new low," said Lewis, whose organization is a nonpartisan campaign finance watchdog group.
The former chairman of the Republican National Committee, Haley Barbour, said shrill language in fund-raising letters was typical and was used by Republicans and Democrats alike.
"To me, the shrillest letter I've ever seen was a Democratic letter that accused the Republicans of taking away Social Security from millions of senior citizens," Barbour said.
Of the letter bearing McConnell's name, James H. Matlack, director of the Washington office of the American Friends Service Committee, a humanitarian group affiliated with the Quakers, said the letter, which he recieved in July, was riddled with misinformation.
"It is at best misleading; at worst, it is a plain damn lie," Matlack said.
McConnell accuses the Clinton Administration of giving over $200 million of "YOUR TAX DOLLARS" to North Korea, which he said the nation used to aid its nuclear program.
In recent years, the Clinton Administration has guaranteed North Korea $200 million in aid for food in the face of widespread domestic starvation and fuel for its civilian nuclear plants, in return for a pledge to restrain its military nuclear program.
"This shameful reality," McConnell said, "is compounded by a terrifying fact: If the North Korean Communists launch a nuclear attack on our nation, THE UNITED STATES DOES NOT HAVE A WAY TO STOP IT.
"By the time we retaliate with our own missiles, their nuclear bombs will have already killed hundreds of thousands of our citizens. And the reason is, the Clinton-Gore Administration for years refused to allow deployment of the military's missile defense program."
The United States has no missile defense force, but Congress is pushing for an antimissile force to be set up as soon as 2003 or 2005, and the Pentagon says that such dates may be feasible.
Law defended the accuracy of the letter, saying all its assertions were backed up by research conducted by the Republican committee.
Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company