Clinton's Nat'l Portrait Gallery Bust donated in honor of Mochtar Riady. (?)
M. Soja
http://www2.nando.net/nt/politics/
A bust of Clinton and a tale of Riady
Copyright Š 1997 Nando.net
Copyright Š 1997 The Boston Globe
WASHINGTON (Mar 5, 1997 01:07 a.m. EST) -- In the Hall of the
Presidents at the National Portrait Gallery, visitors pause
reverentially to examine Gilbert Stuart's portrait of George
Washington. They look, sometimes quizzically, at Norman Rockwell's
portrait of a reflective Richard Nixon.
But nowadays, there's an occasional buzz just around the corner from
the portrait of George Bush, when visitors come upon the striking
life-size bronze bust of President Clinton: It is almost uncanny in
its detailed resemblance of the subject.
But it's the inscription that inspires the murmers: The bust was
donated in honor of Mochtar Riady.
Republican members of Congress have charged that Riady and his Asian
conglomerate, the Lippo Group, have exerted undue influence over
Clinton through hundreds of thousands of dollars given to his
campaigns; briefing papers and meetings urging Clinton to adopt a
pro-China policy; Lippo's business arrangements with Clinton's
Arkansas chums; even the appointment of a trusted Lippo retainer, John
Huang, to a sensitive US government position.
Scores of FBI agents and congressional investigators are investigating
those ties. But to some, the mystery surrounding Lippo's influence on
the presidency is nowhere more puzzling than in the gallery, which
contains artistic representations of America's 42 presidents.
The Gallery accepted the sculpture of Clinton sight unseen, even
though Arkansas sculptor Jan Woods, who specializes in equine figures,
had never done a human bust. Woods had already been commissioned to do
the original bust for the grounds of the governor's mansion in Little
Rock. She offered a copy to the gallery.
What is shrouded in mystery, like much about the Riady relationship
with Clinton, is how C. Joseph Giroir Jr., a former member of the Rose
Law Firm in Little Rock, donated the bust to the Gallery in honor of
Riady and his wife. Hillary Rodham Clinton practiced at the Rose Law
Firm.
The National Portrait Gallery's records on the issue are only slightly
at odds with Woods' recollection, 2 1/2 years later, of how the
donation was arranged, although Woods refused in two interviews to
fully explain how Giroir came to be the donor.
But it is Giroir's explanation that seems more contradictory.
Giroir, who has business dealings with the Lippo Group, said in an
interview last month that the Little Rock Chamber of Commerce had
asked him to buy Woods' work and donate it to the National Portrait
Gallery.
But the chamber's chairman, Douglas Buford, a Little Rock lawyer, said
that was news to him, and to the chamber's staff. "It didn't happen,"
Buford said.
Giroir denied that Riady paid for the bust.
Kent Cooper, the executive director of the Center for Responsive
Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks the influence of money in
politics, likened the Giroir donation to "a little stone in the shoe,"
another example of a friend of Clinton ingratiating himself with a
client, Riady, who in turn has sought to ingratiate himself with
Clinton.
Unlike political contributions, which must be reported, the donation
to the Gallery is, in Cooper's view, another "back pocket" operation
in which people seeking influence with the president pay for such
things as a jogging track at the White House or the restoration costs
of Clinton's boyhood home.
For Woods, questions about the arrangement are not what she had
expected. "This was a very happy event in my life. How fabulous, I
thought, to be the only Arkansas artist in the Smithsonian
Institution," she said recently.
Woods was rueful about the extra notice the bust has received because
of the Riady association. "This was a very innocent thing," she said,
expressing fear that the gallery, an arm of the Smithsonian, may now
regret taking her work.
But the Gallery has no regrets. Each time the White House changes
hands, the gallery awaits the formal portrait of the former president;
Bush's was unveiled in 1995. But it also seeks something that depicts
the sitting president. A bust of Bush was placed in the Hall of the
Presidents in 1990.
When Woods wrote the gallery Aug. 1, 1994 to offer them a bust of
Clinton, she had been commissioned to do the sculpture for the
governor's mansion. She sent along photos of the clay model, pictures
of her measuring Clinton, and noted that Clinton had purchased two of
her pieces as gifts for heads of state.
Eight days later, Alan Fern, the Portrait Gallery's director, wrote
back, eagerly accepting the offer. Brennan Rash, the gallery's
spokeswoman, said that no contact was made by the White House or
anyone with ties to Clinton on Woods' behalf.
In her 1994 offer, Woods said, "There are certain parties in Arkansas
who are interested in donating a casting to the National Portrait
Gallery." But Woods said recently that when she made the offer, she
had been unable to locate a donor.
Woods was paid $6,000 by the Little Rock Convention and Visitors
Bureau for the original casting for the governor's mansion. To produce
a copy for the Gallery, she explained, she needed a donor.
At some point, Woods said, a friend she refused to identify told her
Giroir "might be interested in funding something like this," and put
her in touch with him. She said Giroir agreed. "He paid for it and put
it in their name because they were his clients," Woods said of the
Riadys.
A Dec. 16, 1994 Portrait Gallery memorandum said that "Jan Woods
called today to say that she is fairly definite about having found a
donor. ... She is meeting with the donor's lawyer Monday." Woods said
that meeting was with Giroir.
Giroir, asked what he had paid Woods, said it was "in the same
ballpark" as the $6,000 Woods had received for the first casting.
Though the donor is entitled to a tax deduction, Giroir said he was
unaware of that and has not claimed one.
Like other Arkansas friends of Clinton, Giroir has developed business
interests in Asia since Clinton became president, sometimes with the
Lippo Group, he said, but more often as a co-investor with others. In
the past four years, he has contributed about $200,000 to Democratic
Party committees.
"This was a very ordinary process," said Rash, the gallery
spokeswoman. "There was nothing at all unusual about it."