Inside Washington

Ross Perot struck a responsive chord among many Americans when he denounced foreign agents during his failed 1992 presidential campaign, portraying them as sinister and unpatriotic influence peddlers who've sold out the interests of the United States in favor of foreign clients. A former consultant to one of the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union said Perot was shrewd in picking his target. "People hate lobbyists and what could you hate more than a foreign lobbyist?" he asked.

Aram Bakshian, Jr., has served as an aide to three American Presidents, most recently as Director of Speechwriting for Ronald Reagan. As Editor in Chief of American Speaker, his writing on politics, history, humor and the arts has been widely published in America and Europe. What is an Armenian community? It's hard to say. We are so wide spread and yet so few and far between. This is especially true in a society as mixed and mobile as America.

Barry Zorthian is a consultant and partner in the firm of Alcalde & Fay in Washington, serving clients in the fields of economic development, government and public affairs. He is also, by appointment, a member of the Board for International Broadcasting, which oversees Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty.

WASHINGTON, DC - The republics of the former Soviet Union had little time to celebrate their new independence before a chilling post Cold War reality hit - they lacked vital diplomatic, trade and media skills. The newly independent states once depended on the Soviet Union's diplomatic corps and economic and trade organizations to represent their interests overseas, but with the collapse of the Soviet Union, this arrangement vanished almost overnight.

Washington's recognition of Armenia as a national entity harks back forty five years when Secretary of State Dean Acheson gave the "Voice of America" (VOA) the green light to begin radio broadcasts in Armenian to the Soviet Union. At the time, VOA was in the State Department, but even after 1954 when it became the broadcast arm of the newly-organized United States Information Agency, VOA was understood to be an extension of United States foreign policy.

Rep. Gilman (R., NY) is Chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, and in this capacity is the primary spokesman in the House on foreign policy. Rep. Gilman was elected to his 12th term in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1994. His international experiences include tenures as Congressional Delegate to the U.N., ser­vice on the Ukraine Famine Commission, the U.S.-European and U.S.-Mexican Inter parliamentary Conferences.

The Armenian collection is a drop in the bucket compared to the more than 100,000,000 books, journals, photographs, manuscripts and films that makes the U.S. Library of Congress arguably the largest library in the world. But seen within the overall context of the Library's mission, which is to "serve Congress and the nation", and its importance in a city like Washington, the Armenian collection stands out as a unique tool in this age of information highways.

David Zenian's journalism career began in Beirut with United Press International (UPI), which became his second home for nearly 23 years. During that time he also reported for the Daily Telegraph, Daily Express and Guardian newspapers of London, National Public Radio, Independent Television News of London and others.

David Ignatius is The Washington Post’s Assistant Managing Editor in charge of business news. From 1990 to 1992, he was The Post's Foreign Editor. He is the author of a trilogy of spy novels set in the Middle East: Agents of Innocence, SIRO and The Bank of Fear.