Today's Washington Post carries an obituary for Richard Shadyac, the Virginia lawyer and fundraiser extraordinaire for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital who died last week at age 80. The Post obit leads with Shadyac's work for St. Jude but also recalls his controversial work representing the government of Libya during the 1970s and '80s.
Mr. Shadyac, a Lebanese American, had long been registered as a foreign agent for Libya. He set up an Arab American committee to help reelect President Jimmy Carter in 1980, at the request of the campaign, he said. But after Carter's brother, Billy, made headlines by taking a $220,000 loan from Libya, campaign officials became nervous about anyone with ties to the north African country, and they disavowed Mr. Shadyac's committee.
Mr. Shadyac took it personally.
"I will not be made a fall guy for anybody," he told the Washington Post's Myra MacPherson at the time. "The double standard of our diplomacy shocks me. How we single Libya out as the worst when we're in bed with Vietnam, who just a few years ago were killing Americans. We're in bed with Red China and Russia. The Pakistanis burn the hell out of our embassy and all of a sudden, because of the Afghanistan situation, we can't go over there fast enough and give them aid. ... "
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