In 1992, shortly after Rockwell Schnabel had been appointed by the first President Bush to the No. 2 position at the Commerce Department, a reporter spotted a saying on an embroidered pillow at his Brentwood home: "If you can't dazzle them with intelligence, bluff them with nonsense."
It may be an apt aphorism for a man who rose rapidly from a middle-class upbringing in Holland to head a Los Angeles brokerage firm, serve as ambassador to Finland under Ronald Reagan, hold two Commerce Department posts, and found Trident Capital, a venture capital firm that manages $600 million.
Schnabel told Mother Jones that he supported George W. Bush last year partly because of his relationship with the candidate's father and partly because of his belief that Bush could unite the country. "I am an absolute believer that he is clearly the guy who can bring all the parties together," Schnabel says.
Schnabel insists there is no connection between his political giving and his financial interests in information technology, software, and telecommunications. "We have had zero, no benefit," he says. But Schnabel has been accused of mixing politics and business in the past. In 1993, the Justice Department said that Schnabel, then deputy commerce secretary, had contacted the Department of Veterans Affairs to speed approval of a federal contract for Del Mar Avionics, a medical supply and defense company owned by his father-in-law. Schnabel admitted no wrongdoing, but paid $5,000 to settle the ethics violation.
A year earlier, Schnabel had delivered $4.5 million in federal aid to Los Angeles after the Rodney King riots. The Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau received $1.5 million. Last year, Schnabel was appointed chairman of the bureau.
-- Michael Scherer
