Cabinet Profiles

Don Evans
Paul O'Neill
Colin Powell
Donald Rumsfeld
Ann Veneman

Don Evans, Commerce Secretary

Commerce Secretary Don Evans, George W. Bush's close friend from West Texas, is a skilled businessman, fundraiser, and campaign manager. How much he knows about the world of international commerce is uncertain. However, his ideology on the subject is not much in doubt. Evans told the New York Times, "The road the Department of Commerce will travel is clear: the promotion of free enterprise, first in America and then abroad, will be our first priority--free flow of capital, free and open competition."

Evans, a native of Houston and a longtime resident of Midland, met Bush through his wife, a woman who went to grade school with the president. He has now known Bush for over 25 years, and has raised money for all of Bush's political campaigns.

The two men are very close; soul mates, in fact. It was Evans who, after a George W. binge, steered the future president away from sin and toward Jesus. According to Gail Sheehy, writing in the October, 2000 Vanity Fair, "In 1985, Don Evans urged Bush to join a new kind of men's group--a franchised Community Bible Study program for men, a precursor to the Promise Keepers."

In 1969, Evans earned a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Texas, and in 1973 he returned to UT and, like Bush, took an MBA. Evans went into the oil business as did Bush, but there are differences between them. Bush went nowhere in the oil business, but Evans became chairman and president of Tom Brown, Inc. of Midland and Denver. According to its web page, "Tom Brown, Inc. is an independent natural gas and crude oil exploration and production company with core areas of activity in the Rocky Mountains and Texas."

Evans did well, and recently did even better. The Austin Chronicle wrote in March, 2000, "The company is among several small, publicly traded oil companies that have seen their fortunes improve in recent months as the price of crude oil has skyrocketed. One of the largest individual shareholders in Tom Brown, Evans has an 800,000-share stake in the company, worth over $13 million."

The fact that Evans and Tom Brown, Inc. were the beneficiaries of a Governor Bush-promoted oil company tax break did not unduly upset the Texas electorate. As Bush made clear early on during his 1978 congressional race, "There's no such thing as being too closely aligned to the oil business in West Texas."

However, unlike the other big oilman of the administration, Dick Cheney, Evans has little experience in international exploration. He knows far more about the Permian Basin than the Caspian Sea. But Evans, loyalist that he is, is unlikely to create any international initiatives at Commerce that will go against the Bush foreign policy team.

Paul O'Neill, Treasury Secretary

At his January 17 confirmation hearing, nominee Paul H. O'Neill did not appear to be a right-wing ideologue. In fact, he appeared to break ranks slightly, expressing some doubts about the Bush tax cut as an instrument for reversing recession. But then, O'Neill is a curious choice for treasury secretary. He is from an industrial company, not Wall Street, and he's received some praise from labor leaders. His views are hard to categorize: the New York Times calls him the "wildcard" in the Bush cabinet. He might better be described as a capitalist with a long-term outlook of what ensures profits.

According to a December issue of Tax-News.com: "This is an unconventional man, who has occasionally taken positions on global warming, energy taxes, education, Social Security and health care that seemed neither partisan nor Republican. In 1990, stepping out of line with fellow executives, Mr. O'Neill tried publicly to persuade Mr. Bush's father to put a $10 per barrel tax on the price of oil as a way of reducing energy use, protecting the environment, and helping close the budget deficit."

O'Neill, 65, comes across as the pragmatic CEO that he is and the former White House budget officer he was. Not that O'Neill is a closet liberal, either. He supports, for instance, Bush's unified testing standards in education, and he opposed Clinton's plan for universal health care, calling it an "empty box." O'Neill is trustee of the conservative American Enterprise Institute. He is also a member of the more centrist Policy Committee of the Business Roundtable and is on the boards of both the Business Council and the Conference Board. "This is a man who simply delights in challenging conventional wisdom," says Tim Wirth, former Democratic senator from Colorado.

O'Neill comes to the Treasury Department after 23 years in private industry. For 10 years he was at International Paper (IP), where he became president in 1985. During O'Neill's stay at IP, his company and several other major paper manufacturers were indicted on state and federal charges of price fixing. International Paper settled its civil suits for sums totaling more than $13.5 million. This, however, did not harm O'Neill's reputation as a successful CEO.

In 1987, O'Neill was lured to ALCOA, then a financially challenged aluminum company, by a member of the board of directors named Alan Greenspan, who had met O'Neill when they both worked in the Ford administration. O'Neill succeeded at ALCOA, turning a failing rust-belt company into one of Wall Street's best performing stocks. He did so through an eclectic emphasis on worker safety, open-plan architecture, and international expansion. And he did so without alienating labor. In fact, he became a friend and ally of Steelworkers Union President George Becker, and O'Neill is credited with developing a new form of collective bargaining. "This man would make a great treasury secretary in any administration, Democratic or Republican," Becker told the New York Times.

For the past 13 years he has been ALCOA's chairman and chief executive officer and is known in Pittsburgh, ALCOA's hometown, for his community work. O'Neill, for instance, chaired a well-publicized regional health care initiative. He also led the Pennsylvania task force on education.

When Bush tapped O'Neill for Treasury, Greenspan praised the then president-elect for attracting "an exceptional and talented person." O'Neill has extensive government experience. According to his official biography: "He worked as a computer systems analyst with the U.S. Veterans Administration from 1961 to 1966 and served on the staff of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget [OMB] from 1967 to 1977. He was deputy director of the OMB from 1974 to 1977."

He obtained a BA degree in economics from Fresno State College and a master's degree in public administration from Indiana University. He also did graduate work in economics at both Claremont College and George Washington University.

Whether he can fit in with the no-regulation, tax-cut Texas Republican crowd is uncertain. In fact, at his confirmation hearings he expressed further disdain for increased tax relief to business. "I never made an investment based on the tax code," he said. "Good business people don't do things because of inducements."

Colin Powell, Secretary of State

Colin Powell, Secretary of State designate, is perceived as politically middle-of-the-road and morally above criticism. Certainly, he irritates Republican right-wingers by championing affirmative action and failing to condemn abortion. However, he has made his career by ingratiating himself with both Army and Republican leadership, and his world view does not seem to diverge from that of his new boss, George W. Bush.

Powell was born in 1937 in Harlem and grew up in New York's South Bronx. He obtained a BS in geology from City College of New York, became commander of CCNY's ROTC, and was commissioned as a second lieutenant.

He served in Vietnam with the Americal Division, and was one of those officers informed about the My Lai massacre. He responded to an Army complainant by writing, "There may be isolated cases of mistreatment of civilians and POWs," but, "relations between Americal soldiers and the Vietnamese people are excellent."

Powell was not tarred by the My Lai investigation, and when he returned from Vietnam the Army awarded him tuition to pursue an MBA from George Washington University. In 1972, he garnered a Fellowship in the Nixon White House, and went on to a series of positions in the military, and in the Energy and Defense Departments under President Carter. Powell became senior military adviser to Casper Weinberger in the Reagan administration, and in 1987 Reagan named Powell National Security Advisor.

He was in the center of action during Iran-Contra, and while he would later deny knowing of illegal arms shipments, there is considerable evidence that he was in the thick of it. Powell is mentioned frequently in the Tower Commission report on Iran-Contra. And journalists Norman Solomon and Robert Parry note that Powell was a close friend of Saudi Arabian Prince Bandar who was bankrolling Contra operations to the tune of $25 million. Parry and Solomon report that it was Powell who oversaw the transfer of missiles from the army to the CIA for delivery to Iran.

Nonetheless, two years later, president Bush named Powell Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Powell, along with Norman Schwartzkopf, was the architect of Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Powell retired from the Army in 1993.

At age 57, he was still claiming publicly that he had not yet developed a political philosophy. But it was clear from the company he kept that he had one, even if he couldn't name it. Powell had been close to both Weinberger and all-around bureaucrat Frank Carlucci (Secretary of Defense, Deputy Director of the CIA, National Security Adviser), whom he called "the godfather of godfathers." He was also assisted by Bush staffers Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, who alternated serving as Chief of Staff and Secretary of Defense.

Powell appears to hold a cautiously internationalist point of view. He is not trusted by the far right, in part because he is willing to work with the UN, supports NATO expansion, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. In 1992, Powell penned an article in CFR's magazine Foreign Relations entitled, "U.S. Forces: challenges ahead."

Despite his willingness to work with other nations, Powell has no doubt of U.S. moral superiority. At the 2000 Republican Convention, he said, "The sick nations that still pursue the 'fool's gold' of tyranny and weapons of mass destruction will soon find themselves left behind in the dust bin of history. They are investing in their own demise as surely as the Soviet Union did by investing in the Red Army."

Whether Powell intends to assist tyrants in their demise is uncertain. He has been far more cautious on armed intervention than many in and out of the military. Caution was at one time dubbed "the Powell Doctrine," and Powell himself was the main impediment to U.S. intervention in Bosnia. But Powell did not invent caution. "In fact, the Powell Doctrine was actually the Weinberger Doctrine," said Air Force Magazine in 1999, describing the six-point checklist against repeating the Vietnam experience.

As soon as Powell was nominated Secretary of State, he issued a call to renew the conflict against Iraq. "They have not yet fulfilled those agreements and my judgment is that sanctions in some form must be kept in place until they do so," Powell said at a press conference.

Because of his military experience and stature, Powell is almost certain to exercise a great deal of influence over military, as well as diplomatic, policy in the Bush administration.

Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense

Rumsfeld Reconsidered: An Ideologue in Moderate's Clothing
William D. Hartung - Jan 2001

Ann Veneman, Secretary of Agriculture

Ann Veneman was the first female deputy secretary of agriculture and, before that, was the first female secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture. Not surprisingly, she is a true-blue agribusiness Republican.

According to the Sacramento Bee, "Her Republican pedigree goes back a good while: as a high school student, she served as a page at one GOP convention, and she subsequently served in conventions as both delegate and alternate." Raised on a peach farm in Modesto, California, she obtained three degrees from California universities: a BA from UC Davis, an MA in public policy from Berkeley, and a law degree from UC Hastings. Her entire career has centered on agricultural law and trade.

Veneman had already made a name for herself before becoming California agriculture secretary. For seven years during the Reagan and Bush, Sr. administrations, she served in the U.S. Department of Agriculture and, under Bush, was named the nation's first female deputy agriculture secretary. At a 1992 meeting, President Bush Sr., told a group of California farmers, "I'm accompanied by the woman that many of you know, Ann Veneman. I thought it would be better, coming to a bunch of experts in agriculture, to have some brains with me. Mine are good for some things,... but I certainly don't stand here as any expert."

Veneman is even better known as an expert on international marketing than as a field agent for farmers. From 1989 to 1991, Veneman was deputy undersecretary of agriculture for international affairs and commodity programs. In this assignment, she managed international issues, including trade policy, export negotiations, and food aid. According to the trade publication Ag Alert, "While she was a negotiator at the Uruguay round of talks on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the U.S.-Canada FreeTrade Agreement, and the North American Free Trade Agreement she developed her background expertise in trade that she burnished further while head of CDFA (California Department of Food and Agriculture)."

Veneman comes, then, as the most internationally minded agriculture secretary in memory. With agricultural exports slipping--although they still represent 10% of all U.S. exports--big agriculture welcomes Veneman as an aggressive champion for U.S. exports. In other words, Ann Veneman is bad news for agriculture in developing countries, bad news for antiglobalization forces, and good news for Archer Daniels Midland.