"I did believe my contributions gave me access," Tamraz declared in the Senate hearing room where witnesses in past weeks have denied that political contributions gained donors favorable treatment.
The millionaire oilman also talked of involvement with the CIA, torture in his homeland of Lebanon for assisting the United States during a covert operation and his flight from "trumped up" embezzlement charges.
Now a U.S. citizen who got to pitch his Caspian Sea pipeline project during a brief encounter with the president, Tamraz bristled at a National Security Council assessment of him as an unsavory figure unfit to meet Clinton.
"I would like to know why, after all I have accomplished, lived through, seen and participated in, I should be deemed unfit to visit the White House," said Tamraz.
"I have risked my life many times for this country for no material gain."
The Commerce Department reported yesterday that America's overall July deficit was up 25 percent from June. Imports hit an all-time high while U.S. exports shrank by 1.4 percent.
The politically sensitive deficits with both Japan and China widened considerably and the trade imbalances with Germany, Italy and France surged to records.
So far this year, the trade deficit is running at an annual rate of $114 billion, surpassing last year's eight-year high of $111 billion.
Critics argued that dramatic midcourse corrections are needed before President Clinton is granted the authority he is seeking from Congress to expand free trade beyond Mexico to the rest of Latin America.
"We need to switch to a strategy that generates good jobs and a high and rising standard of living," said Robert Scott, an economist at the labor-financed Economic Policy Institute.
The same period also showed a drop in AIDS deaths, a trend reported by the government earlier this year. Deaths from the disease fell 23 percent, from an estimated 50,140 in 1995 to about 38,780 in 1996, the Centers for Disease Congtrol and Prevention said yesterday.
In 1996, an estimated 56,730 people were diagnosed with AIDS, down from the 60,620 new cases in 1995, the CDC said.
09-19-97
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