Talk:Otto Reich/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Eddie891 (talk · contribs) 01:22, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Intend to review shortly. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 01:22, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Comments

• "described by the Comptroller General" I think this would benefit from a year

  Added

• "Cuban Catholic mother and an Austrian-Jewish" you hyphenate one but not the other?

  No reason...fixed

• "most of William's family" who is william?

  A copy-paste error, is who he is; it was supposed to read "Walter"; however, the article doesn't verify his father's name (which predates my involvement with the article), and I've removed it.

• "immediately suspicious of Castro, prompting him to flee with his family to North Carolina in 1960, when Otto was 15. unclosed quotation marks in the article, would it hurt to have [Fidel] Castro?

  Added

• "He was awarded the US Army's Commendation Medal" can you verify this?

  I cannot. I've tried pretty hard, and asked for assistance at the military history noticeboard, too. I've left it in (hidden) in the hope that someone will be able to at some point, but I'm happy to remove it if you'd rather.

• Shouldn't M.A. link to, well, M.A.?

  Done.

• "Washington Director of the Council of the Americas" what does this mean?

  I couldn't tell you; it's a detail reproduced identically in government biographies. I've trimmed to "a director", if that helps.

• "when he first worked" does this refer to 1983? It's somewhat unclear, imo

  No, the position; tweaked; let me know if it's still unclear

• "authored by fictitious" maybe "attributed to fictitious"? Fictitious authors obviously couldn't write the articles themselves

  True, fixed.

• "Reich's position drew him into the Iran-Contra affair." I think it worthwile to give a brief summary of the affair and how Reich was drawn into it

  I'm a little hesitant to add detail here, because it's easy to introduce COATRACK issues. As it is, Reich's primarily known for his OPD work, and his advocacy for Bosch, and these things are discussed at length. However, Reich was in the periphery of the scandal; the sources don't go into detail as to why he was drawn in; it's somewhat obvious, in that all things Contra were investigated, but not stated explicitly; so I'm worried that more detail will be undue.

• I think op-ed is traditionally lowercased

  changed

• "described in a declassified memorandum " the denial or the operation itself?

  The operation. reordered.

• "that it could use a familiar Cuban brand name" can you be more specific here?

  This took a little while, but Bardach mentions it; it's the Havana Club brand.

• "Reich was also involved with an effort by" year?

  1990s, but the sources aren't more specific, I'm afraid...

• "subsequently described by the" At first, I thought his advocacy was described as terrorist, which makes no sense. Could you clarify that this refers to Bosch? Maybe split into two sentences?

  Fair, reordered.

• "but the incident led to a" unclear what 'the incident' here is?

  the entire sequence of events in the previous pargraph; reworded to avoid suggesting it was all Reich.

• "was scheduled to end in December 2002" did it?

  Yes, adjusted.

• "became special envoy to Latin America, " you quote the office title ("special envoy to Latin America") in the lede

  Unquoted in lead.

• "Reich currently runs " {{as of}}?

  done; cited the company's website, which isn't great, but nothing else that's recent seems to be available

• "also served as vice-chairman" when?

  Unclear; he was vice-president in 2001.

• "During this time," during what time?

  During the nomination; tweaked.

• I've lightly copyedited, please check that my changes are satisfactory. On the whole, a very nice article. That's my suggestions from a first pass, happy to discuss any/all in greater detail. Best, Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 13:45, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

  @Eddie891: Thanks for the review; a couple of responses for you to consider; I've addressed most of the comments, I think. Vanamonde (Talk) 19:02, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

  Happy with your changes and your responses look good. I'll momentarily check sourcing and images etc. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 21:33, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

  Sources seem mostly reliable. Per WP:RSP, There is no consensus on the reliability of Salon. Editors consider Salon biased or opinionated, and its statements should be attributed. Similarly, Discussions regarding Newsmax are lacking in depth, and in focus on evaluating this source specifically. Newsmax has been cited in discussions of other sources as a low benchmark for a partisan outlet with regard to US politics, and for a propensity for comparatively fringe viewpoints. I'd like your thoughts on why you think they should be considered reliable here, particularly in a BLP. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 21:38, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

  Earwigs gives this a pass... Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 21:39, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

  File:Otto Reich.jpg is definitely public domain, but it could use source/author information. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 21:40, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

  re: sources: Newsmax is only there because it ranked him as influential; if you think it's undue weight I'll dump it, I certainly didn't add it. When I came across the page, it was a rather hagiographic take on Reich, with much of the critique omitted; and while I think I've done a reasonable job including that, I wanted to avoid giving the impression I was here to do a hatchet job...I didn't realize Salon had an RSP entry; I've always found it reliable but partisan, and hence acceptable for statements of fact; but it's easily replaced, the only thing I can see that's entirely specific to that source is its use of "Justice Department" over "Attorney General and Associate Attorney General". Vanamonde (Talk) 22:28, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

  re: Image; the author's hard to identify, but the image was up on a government website, so I don't know that it's entirely necessary; I've added a working archive url to the source information, where the image is visible. @Eddie891: I think that's everything. Vanamonde (Talk) 22:33, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

• Source spotcheck
  • 1 a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, Y for d, source says "would be", you say "were". Similarly, source says "slaughter", you say "massacre". Not sure if there's a discernible change in meaning or they are comparable. for e, I'd recommend specifying when CBS was confronted. Also source doesn't say "favored the country's guerrillas over the US-supported government" just that it favored the guerrillas. For i, it doesn't say "subsequently denied" but "always denied"
    • n-- I don't see "From 1998 to 2001,"
    • m-- it's unclear when the 20 year period began, the article implies it was when the article itself was published and describes it as a ban
    • w-- I'm not sure I see " and from Cuban-Americans in general" explicitly here
  • 2, a, c, e, f, g, h Y for g, he's a "minor celebrity", not just "celebrity"
    • b-- I don't see "established"
    • d-- I'm not sure you got the right source here for bardach's quote, though "not accused of illegal activity" is in the source
  • 3 a, c, d, e, f Yfor d, source doesn't explicitly state that the staff was only pentagon/cia
    • b-- I don't see "paratroop officer" in the source
    • c-- source says that he moved in 1972, which would have been before getting his masters degree
  • 4, c, d, e, g Y for g, you can specify the date of confirmation further
    • a-- I don't see "paratroop officer in the source
    • b-- says "Master's degree" rather than M.A.
    • f-- I don't see "From 1998 to 2001,"
  • 5 a, b, c Y
  • 6 a, b Y for b, I think it would be stronger if you directly quoted the house investigation: "a domestic political and propaganda operation"
  • 7 Y
  • 8 I'm not seeing '1989' cited as the end of his service, I'm also confused as to whether Reich actually actively lobbied or just argued that he was innocent. However other than that it's good
  • 9 Y
  • 10 Y
  • 11 Y
  • 12 Y (relying on GTranslate)
  • 13 a, b Y
  • 14 a, b, c, d Y
  • 15 Y
  • 16 a, b Y
  • 17 Not seeing " replaced at the State Department by his former deputy"
  • 18 a says " advisers for Latin America" not foreign policy
    • 18b cannot cite the 2020 date, otherwise good
  • 19 Y
  • 20a, b Y
  • 21 Y
  • 22 Y
  • 23 Y
  • 24 Y
  • 25 Y
• I don't think you cite the birth date in the article at all?
• I couldn't find From 1989 to 2001, Reich worked as a corporate lobbyist, for clients that included Bell Atlantic, McDonnell Douglas, AT&T, and British American Tobacco. anywhere and would appreciate if you quoted the text behind Bosch was described as a terrorist by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Attorney General. for me because I just cannot find it. I think I'm missing an obvious thing for both of these.

Not sure whether you should feel lucy or unlucky, but I checked all the sourcing and it comes up very clean on the whole. Nit-picking things for the most part. I also suffer from chronic not-reading the whole source itis so it's possible I missed something obvious. If so, apologies. Best, Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 00:03, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

Vanamonde93 not sure you saw this. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 19:52, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

@Eddie891: Apologies, it's on my to-do list but I've not been on-wiki much for some days. I'll get to this soon. Vanamonde (Talk) 22:48, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

Vanamonde93, No worries and certainly no rush. I just remembered that I never pinged you about this so wasn't sure if you saw it. No problem holding the review until you can get around to it. Best, Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 23:19, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

Eddie891; this time, I neglected to ping; I've worked through the source comments. Vanamonde (Talk) 16:22, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

And now it's me who got busy with real life :P I'll take a look shortly. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 20:46, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

• Thanks for a detailed check: I've long been of the opinion that verifiability checks aren't taken as seriously as they should be, so I do appreciate your thoroughness. I'll try to address all the points; apologies if the formatting is a bit odd...

  1e; Date added; US support isn't exactly controversial, but to avoid synth I've tweaked it a little, the source does say "favorable to the guerrillas and distorting of U.S. and El Salvadoran government goals and tactics."

  1i; I think they're functionally equivalent; the word is only there to avoid the implication that he denied it immediately

  1m; a fair point, but the sources are also fuzzy about this.

  1n; Removed. Quite sure the dates preceded my involvement, but I should have caught it.

  1w; apologies, that came from Dao, and could have been more specific; "Cuban-American groups, however, are lobbying hard for Mr. Reich, calling him the most qualified assistant secretary in decades and warning of political consequences if he is not nominated."

  2b; that's in his state department biography; added now

  2d; indeed I have not; that's from Bardach's book, page 200; added.

  2g; so amended.

  3b; again, predates me; again, should have caught it.

  3c; true, but it's not uncommon for people to move before formally completing graduate school...GU confirms the date of his graduation; [1]

  3d; poor word choice; tweaked

  4a; tweaked, as above (this is now ref 3, in the latest version).

  4b; GU confirms an MA, but I prefer spelling out Master's degree anyway...

  4f; adjusted, as above

  4g; added

  6b; done

  8; "The office was shut down, but Reich escaped prosecution. Instead, he was dispatched to Venezuela, where he served as ambassador from 1986 to 1989..." I'm using the kindle edition, so I don't recall which page this is, but it's in the 198-202 range, likely 200. Bardach also suggests lobbying; "A half dozen State Department cables suggest that Reich used his position to lobby for Orlando Bosch..."

  17; as with many others, predating me...fixed.

  18a; Latin America logically implies foriegn policy, surely? But it's not a critical point, amended.

  18b; this was his company's website that should have been sourced, moved up from the end of the sentence

  I have not cited the birthdate, and I am unable to. I have removed it from the lead and commented it out of the infobox.

  The list of companies he lobbied for I also thought must have been bloody obvious, but after a lengthy search I traced his website as being the likeliest source...meaning it should certainly not be in the article. Again, apologies for not fixing that; it was cited when I came across it, but ought to have double checked.

  That last quote from Bardach is a truly odd situation. I own the digital edition, and the quote is as follows: "The Justice Department's decision was based in part on a letter sent by FBI special agent George Davis to Secretary of State George Shultz in 1987 in which Davis warned the Secretary of State not to allow Bosch to return to the US "My colleagues and I conducted exhaustive investigations of Bosch from the time of his arrival", Davis wrote. "He was regarded by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies as Miami's number one terrorist". Bush's own Attorney General, Richard Thornburch, described Bosh as an "unreformed terrorist", and the Justice Department concluded that Bosch should be deported from the US." The FBI also considered CORU, which Bosch founded, a terrorist outfit [2]. For some reason, the Bardach quote not only isn't visible on the google books version, it doesn't come up in a search. This baffled me for a while yesterday, and I eventually wrote it off as a bug. The page is between 329 and 331, based on the index and some educated calculations. Vanamonde (Talk) 05:29, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

I found it in this search, will AGF on page numbers. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 20:48, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

• This meets the GA criteria now, passing. Very nice work Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 20:48, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

  Thank you for a very thorough review. Vanamonde (Talk) 21:06, 6 October 2020 (UTC)