Kerry first stumbled across BCCI in early 1988. As chairman of the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, he was investigating money-laundering charges against Panama’s Manuel Noriega when he uncovered a $20 million account in Noriega’s name in BCCI’s Miami branch. That was the first of many revelations that tied the rogue bank to everything from money laundering to a secret takeover of Washington’s First American Bank. By 1989, long before anyone recognized the scandal’s dimensions, Kerry was calling publicly for the bank to be shut down. “He deserves credit for watchdogging and blowing the whistle,” says former drug czar William Bennett, who argued in vain to Attorney General Richard Thornburgh that BCCI deserved the “death penalty” every bit as much as drug kingpins.
With such compelling evidence, why was Kerry so roundly dismissed? Part of it rests with Kerry’s reputation, and the suspicion that he is a showboater, even by Washington standards. Elected to the Senate in 1984, Kerry waited only weeks after taking office before going on a highly publicized trip to Nicaragua. On Capitol Hill, a hotbed of rival fiefdoms, Kerry’s principal investigator, the aggressive Jack Blum, didn’t win friends, either. BCCI was “one of 50,000 conspiracy theories [Blum] was promoting,” snipes a Hill staffer.
While Kerry is winning points for his early BCCI alert, he has also been criticized for not having pursued the scandal more aggressively. His probe faltered in the spring of ‘89, and Blum eventually took his information to New York District Attorney Robert Morgenthau. Republicans on Capitol Hill, anxious to divert blame away from the Justice Department, charge that Kerry backed off because prominent Democrats, like Clark Clifford, were involved. Kerry says there were a few " eyebrows raised" but says there was “no overt ‘don’t do this’.” Democratic sources confirm that Kerry was made aware “through the grapevine” that his efforts would have repercussions and that “he would pay a price.”
As the commander of patrol boats in the Mekong Delta, Kerry learned to navigate enemy waters. He holds the Bronze Star, the Silver Star and three Purple Hearts. Asked what makes a hero, he once said, “Basically, you don’t get killed.” On Capitol Hill, the survival arts aren’t that different, Kerry has navigated the minefields of competing interests and avoided sniper fire from both sides. He won’t get a medal, but he may never again have to prove he is serious.
