May 7, 2003, 06:01

Pentagon adviser Richard Perle briefed an investment seminar on ways to profit from conflicts in Iraq and North Korea just weeks after he received a top-secret government briefing on the crises in the two countries.

Perle, who until March was chairman of the Defense Policy Board, a group of outside advisers to the Pentagon, also serves on the board of several defense contractors. His actions raise concerns about conflicts of interest.
....

A financial advisor who participated in the conference call told Capitol Hill Blue that Perle offered \"advice on how to cash if war broke out in Iraq and/or North Korea.\"

Perle did not return phone calls or e-mails seeking comment.
....

charliecstl:
Lots of opportunists ... are willing to earn millions on the backs of soldiers and dead civilians.  Disgraceful.

But last week, Mr. Perle's view of Lord Black changed. Issuing his first public statements since being heavily criticized in an internal report for rubber-stamping transactions that company investigators say led to the plundering of the company, Mr. Perle now says he was duped by his friend and business colleague.

Mr. Perle, a top Pentagon official in the Reagan administration, wielded considerable influence in foreign-policy circles as recently as 2002 as an intellectual parent to the neoconservatives. He was named to the Hollinger board in 1994, joining other like-minded men selected by Lord Black, a self-made businessman from Canada who surrounded himself with conservative thinkers. He particularly did that at Hollinger, a global media company whose holdings at the time included The Chicago Sun-Times, The Jerusalem Post, The Sunday and Daily Telegraph and The Sydney Morning Herald.
***
The report contends that Lord Black improperly took hundreds of millions of dollars for himself and associates - and that Mr. Perle was the enabler, approving some questionable transactions at the same time he was being heavily compensated at the direction of Lord Black. The report said that Mr. Perle told the committee he often signed documents without reading them, and it singled him out among the directors for conflicts of interest.

\"With the notable exception of Perle, none of Hollinger's non-Black group directors derived any financial or other improper personal benefit from their service on Hollinger's board,\" the report said. \"It is, of course, possible for a conflicted board member to act at least somewhat responsibly. As a conflicted executive committee member, however, Perle did not. Rather, his executive committee performance falls squarely into the 'head-in-the-sand' behavior that breaches a director's duty of good faith and renders him liable for damages.\"

From his vacation home in southern France late Friday, issuing the outlines of his legal defense for the first time, Mr. Perle said that he was misled.
***
He [Perle] advised George W. Bush on foreign policy during his 2000 presidential campaign and went on to become chairman of the Defense Policy Board, an influential advisory board to the Defense Department. His protégés were placed in important administration jobs; he was on the boards of several start-up companies and advised others about how to deal with the administration. He was preparing to open a venture capital fund, Trireme, to make investments in industries related to defense and homeland security. Hollinger made an initial investment of $2.5 million in the fund, but at last accounting it had lost $1 million in value.
***
According to the Breeden report, Mr. Perle signed the Dec. 25 document as \"co-chairman, Hollinger Digital.\" But he told the special committee that he did not believe his signature would be binding and that he signed the document just as he was leaving for vacation in France, in anticipation of Lord Black's approval of the investment.

The report suggests in one passage that Lord Black ultimately agreed to permit Hollinger to make a $2.5 million investment in Trireme to get Mr. Perle to resign as head of Hollinger Digital, telling three top Hollinger executives by e-mail messages that he was \"well aware of Richard's shortcomings\" and another that he was \"well aware of what a trimmer and a sharper Richard is at times.\"

In another e-mail message, sent to a Hollinger executive in early January 2003, he wrote: \"I have been exposed to Richard's full repertoire of histrionics, cajolery and utilization of fine print. He hasn't been disingenuous exactly, but I understand how he finessed the Russians out of deployed missiles in exchange for noneventual deployment of half the number of missiles of unproven design.\"

In February 2002, according to the report, Lord Black sent a letter to Mr. Perle complaining that Hollinger had been receiving expenses from an American Express card for $1,000 to $6,000 a month \"and there is no substantiation of any of the items which include a great many restaurants, groceries and other matters. This is not a system that conforms to the standards being imposed in every area of this company.\"

The report said it could not find a reply from Mr. Perle.

By Frank Ahrens
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 1, 2004; Page A01

Press tycoon Conrad M. Black and other top Hollinger International Inc. officials pocketed more than $400 million in company money over seven years and Black's handpicked board of directors passively approved many of the transactions, a company investigation concluded.

A report by a special board committee singled out director Richard N. Perle, a former Defense Department official, who received $5.4 million in bonuses and compensation. The report said Perle should return the money to the Chicago company.

The report also criticized the board's audit committee, which includes former Illinois governor James R. Thompson and former ambassador Richard R. Burt, for failing to question Black's large management fees. It said it was reasonable for former secretary of state Henry Kissinger, another independent director, to rely on the audit committee.  
....

The report said Perle \"breached his fiduciary duties\" as a member of the board's executive committee, signing documents without evaluating or, sometimes, reading them, including those that allowed Black and Radler to evade audit committee scrutiny. Perle received more than $3 million in bonuses and hundreds of thousands of dollars more in compensation from a Hollinger subsidiary that invested in new media companies during the dot-com boom. The report said Hollinger International put $63.6 million into 11 companies Perle recommended and lost nearly $50 million. \"Perle was a faithless fiduciary . . . and . . . should not be allowed to retain any of his Hollinger compensation,\" the report said.

Perle did not return a call to his office and e-mails asking for comment yesterday.
....

TomFord:
I love the emails from Black trashing him.