Chas W. Freeman Jr.

Charles W. Freeman
United States Ambassador to Saudi Arabia
In office 15 June 1989 – 13 August 1992
President	George H. W. Bush
Preceded by	Walter Leon Cutler
Succeeded by	Ray Mabus (after interim Chargé d'Affaires - see ambassador list)
Personal details
Born	1943
Profession	diplomat

Charles W. ("Chas") Freeman, Jr. (born 1943) is an American diplomat, author, and writer. He has served for the State and Defense Departments in many different capacities in the past thirty years, with the non-partisan Washington Report on Middle East Affairs calling his career "remarkably varied". He most notably worked as the main interpreter for Richard Nixon in his 1972 China visit and as the United States Ambassador to Saudi Arabia from 1989 to 1992, where he dealt with issues related to the Gulf War. He is a past president of the Middle East Policy Council, co-chair of the U.S. China Policy Foundation, and vice-chair of the Atlantic Council. In February 2009, unnamed sources leaked to the news media, initially to The Politico, that Freeman was Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair's choice to chair the National Intelligence Council in the Barack Obama administration. After several weeks of strong criticisms, he withdrew his name from the nomination, and then charged the Israeli lobby for what he saw as a smear campaign against him.

Life and work

File:Nixon Mao 1972-02-29.png

Freeman worked as Richard Nixon's main Chinese-English interpreter when the President met with Mao Zedong.

Freeman was born in Rhode Island, and lived and was educated in the Bahamas where his father was in business, returning to the United States at age 13. After studying at Yale University under a scholarship, he studied at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and entered Harvard Law School.

After law school, he left to join the United States Foreign Service in 1965, working first in India and Taiwan before being assigned to the State Department's China desk. There he was assigned as the principal interpreter during United States President Richard Nixon's 1972 first visit to the People's Republic of China. He later became the State Department Deputy Director for Republic of China (Taiwan) affairs. The State Department also sent Freeman back to Harvard during this time in order to complete his J.D.

After various positions within the State Department he was given overseas assignments as deputy chief of mission in Beijing, China and then Bangkok, Thailand, before being selected as principal deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs in 1986. During these assignments he attained a working knowledge of several languages. He became United States Ambassador to Saudi Arabia in November 1989, serving during Operation Desert Storm, until 1992.

From 1992 to 1993 he was a Distinguished Fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies. From 1993 to 1994 he was Assistant Secretary of Defense, International Security Affairs. From 1994 to 1995 he was Distinguished Fellow, United States Institute of Peace. In 1995 he became Chairman of the Board of Projects International, Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based business development firm arranging international joint ventures. For four years, from 2004, he served on the board of the China National Offshore Oil Corporation which met only yearly; he was not involved in issues like the company's dealing with Iran or its attempt to buy the U.S. oil company Unocal. He also is a member of the board of several diplomatic institutes, as well as of several corporate and non-profit advisory boards.

In 1997, Ambassador Freeman succeeded George McGovern to become the president of the Middle East Policy Council (formerly known as the American Arab Affairs Council) which "strives to ensure that a full range of U.S. interests and views are considered by policy makers."

In the fall of 2006, the Council was the first American outlet to publish (a slightly revised version of) University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer and Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University Professor Stephen Walt's working paper The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. According to an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, Freeman endorsed the paper's thesis, and he said of Middle East Policy Council's stance that "No one else in the United States has dared to publish this article, given the political penalties that the Lobby imposes on those who criticize it."

In his over thirty year diplomatic career, Freeman has received two Distinguished Public Service Awards, three Presidential Meritorious Service Awards and a Distinguished Honor Award. He speaks fluent Chinese, French, Spanish and Arabic.

National Intelligence Council appointment controversy

Dennis Blair named Freeman as chair of the National Intelligence Council

On February 26, 2009 the Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair named Freeman as chair of the National Intelligence Council, which culls intelligence from sixteen US agencies and compiles them into National Intelligence Estimates. Blair cited his "diverse background in defense, diplomacy and intelligence."

News of Freeman's nomination met with criticism from a number of pro-Israel commentators and chinese dissidents of his views about Israel and Arab nations and his ties to Saudi Arabia and China, with Steve J. Rosen, a former top official with AIPAC conducting the "opening salvo" according to professor John Mearsheimer. The Zionist Organization of America called for rescinding "the reported appointment." U.S. Representative Steve Israel wrote to the Inspector General of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence calling for an investigation of Freeman's "relationship with the Saudi government" given his "prejudicial public statements" against the state of Israel. All seven Republican members of the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence signed a letter raising "concerns about Mr. Freeman's lack of experience and uncertainty about his objectivity." 87 Chinese dissidents wrote a letter to President Obama asking him to reconsider the appointment. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was said to be "incensed" by Freeman's alleged views of the Tiananmen Square massacre, reportedly urged President Obama against the selection. Freeman explained that the remarks were taken out of context and represented "his assessment of how Chinese leaders had seen things."

Freeman then issued a full statement on his reasons for withdrawal, stating, "I do not believe the National Intelligence Council could function effectively while its chair was under constant attack by unscrupulous people with a passionate attachment to the views of a political faction in a foreign country;" he identified the country as Israel. He questioned whether the "outrageous agitation" following the leak of his pending appointment meant that the Obama administration would be able to make independent decisions "about the Middle East and related issues." He cited especially interference by Israel supporters, writing:

"The libels on me and their easily traceable email trails show conclusively that there is a powerful lobby determined to prevent any view other than its own from being aired. The tactics of the Israel lobby plumb the depths of dishonour and indecency and include character assassination, selective misquotation, the wilful distortion of the record, the fabrication of falsehoods, and an utter disregard for the truth."..... "The aim of this lobby is control of the policy process through the exercise of a veto over the appointment of people who dispute the wisdom of its views, the substitution of political correctness for analysis, and the exclusion of any and all options for decision by Americans and our government other than those that it favours."

— Charles W. Freeman

After his withdrawal Freeman gave an interview to Robert Dreyfuss in The Nation saying he regretted he did not identify his attackers as “right-wing Likud in Israel and its fanatic supporters here,” what he called the “(Avigdor) Lieberman lobby.” He also said that if President Obama had stepped in earlier he might have deflected attacks by Democrats, but that he and the National Intelligence Council still “would have been subjected to a slanderous attack.” He said these attacks were as the “Chinese say, killing a chicken to scare the monkeys,” to dissuade other critics of Israel from accepting government positions, but he had received messages from a number of Jews who also disagreed with Israel’s policies.

In an interview with Fareed Zakaria on CNN he repeated many of the same points, adding a defense of past comments about the September 11 attacks, saying US past actions had “catalyzed -- perhaps not caused, but catalyzed -- a radicalization of Arab and Muslim politics that facilitates the activities of terrorists with global reach.” He stated he was “deeply insulted” by those charging antisemitism and that he had a “great respect for Judaism and its adherents.” He also said Saudi Arabia has “definitely been successfully vilified in our politics,” despite efforts by the current Saudi king to reform his country and promote peace with Israel. He ended by expressing optimism about President Obama saying he has a “strategic mind” and that what America needs is a “strategic review of the policies that have brought us to this sorry pass in which we now find ourselves -- not just in the Middle East, but in many other places, as well.”

In an interview quoted in The New York Times, Freeman said “Israel is driving itself toward a cliff, and it is irresponsible not to question Israeli policy and to decide what is best for the American people.” In the same article Mark Mazzetti and Helene Cooper substantiate Freeman's accusations, writing: "The lobbying campaign against Mr. Freeman included telephone calls to the White House from prominent lawmakers, including Senator Charles E. Schumer, the New York Democrat. It appears to have been kicked off three weeks ago in a blog post by Steve J. Rosen, a former top official of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel lobbying group." While some members of Congress denied that the Israel lobby played a significant role, The Forward said "Many of the lawmakers demanding an investigation into Freeman’s qualifications for the intelligence post are known as strong supporters of Israel."

On March 11, The Washington Post printed two opposing editorials on the subject. An unattributed editorial opinion charged Freeman and those with similar opinions were "conspiracy theorists" issuing "crackpot tirades." The same day the Post also published a piece by regular columnist David Broder, entitled "The Country's Loss", stating "The Obama administration has just suffered an embarrassing defeat at the hands of the lobbyists [that] the president vowed to keep in their place, and their friends on Capitol Hill."

Views on foreign policy issues

The Associated Press has characterized Freeman as "outspoken" on various issues including Israel, Iraq, and the war on terror.

September 11 attacks

Freeman commented at a Washington Institute for Near East Policy meeting in 2002 that, "And what of America’s lack of introspection about September 11? Instead of asking what might have caused the attack, or questioning the propriety of the national response to it, there is an ugly mood of chauvinism. Before Americans call on others to examine themselves, we should examine ourselves." In October 2005, Freeman told another Washington conference: "On the question of U.S. strikes on targets in Iran or elsewhere, I simply want to register what I think is an obvious point; namely that what 9/11 showed is that if we bomb people, they bomb back."

Israel

In a 2005 speech to a conference of the The National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations Freeman stated, "As long as the United States continues unconditionally to provide the subsidies and political protection that make the Israeli occupation and the high-handed and self-defeating policies it engenders possible, there is little, if any, reason to hope that anything resembling the former peace process can be resurrected. Israeli occupation and settlement of Arab lands is inherently violent." He explained that he believed "US-Arab relations matter greatly to my country and because, unlike many in Washington, I do not believe in diplomacy-free foreign policy and have a healthy regard for what is now derided as “reality-based analysis.”

In a 2006 speech to the annual US-Arab Policymakers Conference, Freeman said that Americans allowing Israel to “call the shots in the Middle East” had “revealed how frightened Israelis now are of their Arab neighbors” and that the results of the “experiment” were that “left to its own devices, the Israeli establishment will make decisions that harm Israelis, threaten all associated with them, and enrage those who are not.”

In a 2007 speech to the Pacific Council on International Policy Freeman said that "Al Qaeda has played us with the finesse of a matador exhausting a great bull by guiding it into unproductive lunges." He cited the 2003 invasion of Iraq which "transformed an intervention in Afghanistan most Muslims had supported into what looks to them like a wider war against Islam." He held that the US had "embraced Israel’s enemies as our own" and that Arabs had "responded by equating Americans with Israelis as their enemies." Charging the US now backed Israel’s "efforts to pacify its captive and increasingly ghettoized Arab populations" and to "seize ever more Arab land for its colonists."

Saudi Arabia

In 1991, while he was US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Freeman gave an interview listing ways that Saudi Arabia had been helpful to the US. It contributed $13.5 billion to the 1991 Gulf War effort and provided fuel, water, accommodations and transport for US forces on Saudi soil. Immediately after the war it rapidly increased its oil production, preventing the US recession "from becoming far worse." He also stated Saudi Arabia continued to insist that oil be in dollars "in part out of friendship with the United States." He warned that with the "emergence of other currencies and with strains in the relationship" Saudi Arabians might begin to question why they should do so.

China

In a 2007 article on the implications of China's success or failure in integrating its people and economy, Freeman writes that Americans are too ignorant of Chinese history and that "Almost every ideological faction and interest group in our country now asserts its own vision of the People's Republic. Some do so out of fascination, others out of dread." Noting differences on moral areas like religious freedom and population control, he advises "we must not only understand why each side feels as it does, but what it is and isn't actually doing and what the real — as opposed to the imagined — consequences of what it is doing are likely to be."

Publications

• America's Misadventures in the Middle East, Just World Books, Charlottesville, VA, 2010.
• Arts of Power: Statecraft and Diplomacy, U.S. Institute of Peace Press, Washington, D.C., 1997.
• The Diplomat's Dictionary, Second Edition, revised, U.S. Institute of Peace Press, Washington, D.C. 1997 (full text).

External links

• NIC official website
• SourceWatch Article
• His upcoming book "America's Misadventures in the Middle East"
• Biography from the Middle East Policy Council
• Background information from Washington-Report.org
• His 2008 speech the 'National War College Alumni Association' on American-China Relations for the 21 century