Ex-SBA Aide Tells White House Pressure for Wedtech Contract

A former Small Business Administration official described Wednesday what he called an unprecedented meeting in which assistants to then-White House aides Lyn Nofziger and Elizabeth Hanford Dole pressured the agency to award a $32-million no-bid contract to Wedtech Corp.

The January, 1982, discussion regarding the scandal-plagued Bronx, N.Y., defense contractor “was the first time we had ever had White House staff sit there and advocate for one company,” recalled David V. Gonzales, former special assistant to former SBA Administrator Michael Cardenas.

“We always received phone calls from . . . (congressmen on Capitol) Hill; we dealt with those five days a week,” Gonzales told a reporter. “But to have the White House intervene on behalf of a specific company was out of the ordinary. It had never happened before.”

Part of Criminal Probe

Gonzales said he was interviewed for two hours last week by investigators for independent counsel James McKay, who is conducting a criminal probe of the ties to Wedtech by Nofziger, former White House political director for President Reagan, and Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III.

During the lengthy 1982 discussion with the White House aides, Gonzales and Cardenas refused to agree to the suggestions of Pier Talenti and Henry Zuniga that Wedtech receive the contract.

A few days later, Cardenas was forced by the White House to resign and Gonzales was fired. After Cardenas resigned, Wedtech was awarded the contract to supply small gasoline engines without competitive bidding under an SBA program for assisting minority contractors.

Dole Denies Role

A statement issued Wednesday by the Transportation Department said: “Secretary Dole had no knowledge of any attempt by any White House official to influence the award of a contract to Wedtech.” Dole is now the transportation secretary.

Nofziger lobbied for Wedtech shortly after leaving the government in 1982. Meese recently acknowledged that as White House counselor he interceded on the company’s behalf, directing his staff to ensure that the firm got a fair hearing from the Army on the engine contract.

The South Bronx firm is the focus of federal and New York state investigations into allegations that it paid off more than a dozen public officials to help it win contracts.