Marc Rich Reported Uneasy as Furor Widens

The man who spearheaded the pardon campaign for fugitive financier Marc Rich says his friend feels “uncomfortable” with the ensuing controversy but is certain that any investigation will prove that he did nothing wrong in the effort.

“He is uneasy with the fact that others have become involved, that they now have to explain themselves,” Avner Azulay, the former top Israeli spy who runs Rich’s Tel Aviv-based charitable foundation, told Israel’s Haaretz newspaper. “He is a discreet man, and this public discussion does him no good.”

Former President Clinton’s last-minute pardon of Rich has become the subject of congressional inquiries and a criminal investigation by the FBI and the U.S. attorney’s office in New York. Investigators are trying to determine whether contributions made by Rich’s ex-wife, Denise, to Clinton’s presidential library project and to Hillary Rodham Clinton’s successful senatorial campaign played any role in the pardon.

Rich, who lives in Switzerland, was indicted in New York in 1983 on charges of tax evasion, mail fraud and participating in illegal oil deals with Iran.

The intense scrutiny surrounding the pardon has forced Rich and his wife, Gisela, to call off a party at a posh Swiss ski resort that was supposed to celebrate the end of his days as a fugitive, a Swiss newspaper reported Thursday.

Last month, the couple invited friends to a “Night in Las Vegas” party in the St. Moritz ski area. A few days ago, the Riches called their guests to tell them that the party in the exclusive Chesa Veglia restaurant had been canceled, citing the negative publicity surrounding the pardon, according to Blick, the Swiss mass-circulation daily.

In Israel, Rich’s friends and advisors were faced with fresh revelations Thursday that the financier gave $25,000 to the 1993 campaign of Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert, who was among dozens of Israeli politicians and cultural leaders who lobbied Clinton on Rich’s behalf.

In a 1999 interview with Israel’s Maariv newspaper, Rich denied making donations to Israeli politicians or participating in local campaigns, saying, “That should be left to the people who live in the country without any outside influence.”

Both Azulay and Olmert’s spokeswoman insisted that there was no connection between Rich’s campaign contribution--considered significant by Israeli standards--and Olmert’s recommendation that Clinton pardon Rich.

Olmert spokeswoman Shelley Ben-Yehuda said that the mayor believed that Rich’s gifts of more than $21 million to Jerusalem’s cultural, educational and welfare agencies justified his advocacy for Rich’s pardon.

Some of Rich’s Israeli friends say the donation to Olmert is puzzling because the financier is a close friend and admirer of Olmert’s opponent in the 1993 mayoral race, then-incumbent Teddy Kollek.

Menachem Melvorach, who ran Rich’s foundation before Azulay took over in 1996, said the donation seemed out of character.

“It seems unacceptable,” he said. Even though Israeli government records confirm Rich’s donation to Olmert, “I still don’t believe it,” Melvorach said.

The donation is being cited as another piece of evidence revealing how Rich acquired influence in Israel. Clinton has said that “Israel did influence me profoundly” in the decision to pardon Rich.

In addition to Olmert, outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Nobel peace laureate Shimon Peres and Shabtai Shavit, the former head of the Mossad spy agency, topped a list of Israeli leaders lobbying Clinton on Rich’s behalf.

On Thursday, a spokeswoman for the Peres Center for Peace, founded by the peacemaker, said the nonprofit organization received $300,000 over a four-year period from Rich’s foundation. She said the money was used to start a Palestinian blood bank and to buy computer equipment that linked Israeli and Palestinian schools as part of an experiment in coexistence.

There was no connection between Rich’s gifts and Peres’ lobbying of Clinton, the spokeswoman said.

In the Haaretz interview, Azulay insisted that Rich never asked for anything in return for his donations.

“When it was decided [last November] to ask Clinton for a pardon, we built a character testimony and turned to people who were familiar with his quiet activity over the years,” said Azulay, who noted that Rich has given more than $100 million to various causes in the last two decades. “Not one of the politicians I approached turned me down.”

Azulay, a senior Mossad agent during Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, said Rich sought the pardon simply because he wanted to travel to the United States freely to visit the grave of his daughter Gabrielle, who died of leukemia four years ago.

“He also wanted to say kaddish [prayers] over his father’s grave,” Azulay said. “These are difficult things to explain to a [non-Jew].”

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Batsheva Sobelman of The Times’ Jerusalem Bureau contributed to this report.