Clinton Backs Diamond Dealer Who Backs Democrats

WASHINGTON — International diamond dealer Maurice Tempelsman, a generous contributor to the Democratic Party, has won unusual support from high Clinton administration officials for a business proposal that could position him as a key marketer of billions of dollars of Angolan diamonds, interviews and classified government cables show.

A longtime companion to Jacqueline Onassis and a frequent White House visitor, Tempelsman last year won help from a senior State Department official and then-National Security Advisor Anthony Lake for his Angola plan. And despite a prohibition on lending in Angola by the U.S. Export-Import Bank, the records and interviews show, National Security Council and State Department officials discussed such financing for mining equipment to be purchased in connection with the Tempelsman proposal.

Tempelsman has not won complete support in Angola yet for his proposed deal. But the access and action he has gotten in Washington have recently set off a campaign of quiet complaints from some foreign policy officials who say Tempelsman’s Angola deal would draw the United States more deeply into diplomatic and financial commitments in the war-torn southern African nation.

Last October, Lake had his deputy for African affairs take the unusual step of calling the Export-Import Bank--an independent federal agency--about financing Tempelsman is seeking for diamond-mining equipment.

At the time of the call, Tempelsman had in hand a letter of praise for his plan from Assistant Secretary of State George E. Moose, a document Tempelsman was able to use to help try to sell his deal to the Angolan government and the rival UNITA party led by Jonas Savimbi.

Then in May of this year, in back-to-back meetings with Savimbi and Angolan President Jose Edwardo dos Santos, U.S. Ambassador to Angola Donald Steinberg and NSC advisor Shawn McCormick discussed Tempelsman’s proposal and suggested that the United States would help seal the deal with Ex-Im financing, State Department cables show.

Tempelsman’s diamond consortium plan was not just potentially a good business deal. It was attractive to some U.S. officials because it offered a framework for resolving a battle over Angola’s lucrative diamond trade, a battle that has been a stumbling block to peace. “Maurice Tempelsman has been willing to do whatever he could to secure completion of the peace process,” said Tempelsman’s attorney, Theodore Sorensen. Tempelsman was traveling to Angola this week.

Tempelsman’s plan would bring the government and UNITA together in a jointly held consortium. Tempelsman hopes to obtain financing from the Ex-Im Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corp. to bring U.S.-made deep-mining equipment to Angola in order to get the diamonds buried in the country’s ancient volcanic rock.

Tempelsman’s company would have no investment or ownership in the diamond consortium, but would seek to market the stones.

Moose declined to be interviewed about the Tempelsman proposal, but a State Department official authorized to speak for the department said the Moose letter was “a vehicle for Tempelsman to get his foot in the door.”

The official added: “We have been very careful to only extend services we do with other businessmen.”