by R-A Business staff

- U.S. Congressman Tom Cole

- Congressman Cole, you are the fourth-ranking Republican leader in the U.S. House of Representatives. When we interviewed Senator John McCain, he referred to you as the conscience of the Republican Party. How can a man from Oklahoma become a leader in Washington? What course did your political career follow?

- We’ve had a lot of nationally significant leaders from the state really on both sides of the isle. Former Speaker Carl Albert was, of course, the presiding officer in the U.S. House of Representatives. Former Senator Don Nickles was Deputy Majority Leader. Our distinguished leaders included late Senator Robert Kerr. My predecessor J. C. Watts was also the fourth-ranking member in the Republican leadership. We have produced over the years a high degree of political talent in Oklahoma. In my case, my route was through having played in national politics for many years. I was the top staff person of two Republican committees, the Republican National Committee, where I was chief of staff, and the National Republican Congressional Committee, where I was executive director in the early 1990s. I’ve worked in many campaigns around the country. This involvement gave me both the relationships and the skill set that this particular job demands.

- You are one of the proponents for small business development. What is the government able to do to help business owners in the U.S. generally and in your state to grow their companies and give jobs to people?

- There is a group of incentives that are available to all small businesses across the United States – everything from benefits in the tax code to things like the Small Business Administration and targeted loans. We try to guide people towards those. There are also some things unique to Oklahoma. We have one of the best career tech systems in the country, where small businesses can go and talk to people about the kinds of workers that they need. They can also get advice as to how they should organize and develop a business plan. We’ve also got the Quality Jobs Program and tax incentives for companies.

The career tech system is very beneficial. I’ve had interest in a small company that is now 20 years old. The best business advice we got was from the Oklahoma career tech system. We do business nationally, not just in Oklahoma. The help we got was essential. There are available programs to help smaller companies in the state – they offer financing opportunities, business incubators, and many other things. We try to help business owners, but, at the end of the day, starting a business requires a tremendous amount of effort by the business owner. You need to come up with an idea and work it through: solving the problems, getting the needed capital, assembling the workforce. None of this is really an easy thing. Entrepreneurial talent is important.

- One of the methods to grow a business is through pursuing new free markets with more consumers. Why do you think small and medium businesses are hesitant to enter the global market? Is international commerce the exclusive domain of the “big guys?”

- This is a very interesting question. I think that there are many more opportunities here than people realize. I just was out at a small company that employs around 20 people. The company produces a very important test for disease. Its market is about 95% outside of the state of Oklahoma and 40% international. It is a very successful enterprise.

I asked them, “How do you do this with 20 people?” They said, “First of all, we have a great product line, which we continue to develop. We know how to leverage our resources, the talent at the University of Oklahoma. We are much more nimble and quicker and we work with very efficient distribution systems. We teach the people there what our product is, and they help us penetrate foreign markets.”

Certainly, it can be done. I think that people simply do not know about the resources that are available to help a small company get the relationships and the contacts for business overseas.

- Congressman Cole, you were the Secretary of State of Oklahoma under Governor Frank Keating and assisted with the recovery efforts following the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. You presently serve on the Armed Services Committee that took a number of steps to counter the threat of terrorism since September 11, 2001. At the same time, the fight against terrorism may produce tension in the relationship of the United States with other countries. In your view, has trade cooperation with the U.S. been affected as a consequence of America’s military operations?

- This is an area where we are doing better, but we have not done as well as we should have. I think that September 11 was such a horrific attack. We did have an immediate outpour of support and sympathy around the world. I am not sure if we used it as wisely or as well as we could. There have been numerous efforts since 9/11 to attack the United States. Some have been thwarted by American intelligence, security, and military authorities. Some of them have been thwarted by other countries that helped the United States. Sometimes, people here do not realize that.

The French and the U.S. sometimes have some very serious disagreements about how to proceed in the world. The cooperation we received from French intelligence agencies has been absolutely superb. The British, Americans certainly believe, are our very best friends, but there are also Germans fighting with us in Afghanistan. We’ve got a great deal of help. Still, we need to be better about that because countering international terrorism requires tremendous cooperation.

Russia was much more helpful to the United States than we acknowledged. We recognize that we missed an opportunity there to build our relationship, particularly with the operations in Afghanistan, where the Russians have long interests and an unfortunate experience of their own. They were, nevertheless, helpful to us. There were a lot of people pressuring the Russian government not to do that.

The cooperation between the Europeans, the Russians, and the Americans in dealing with the potential threat of an Iranian nuclear program that could easily become weapons-oriented was absolutely critical. We all have a vital interest here. While we have some differences in our approach, all of us have come to the conclusion that a nuclear-armed Iran would create a very dangerous situation for the region.

We need to think much more clearly and act more carefully in coordination with our allies in dealing with terror, in my opinion. We’ll get better at this.

The cooperation between China, Russia, South Korea, and Japan in dealing with the threat of a North Korean bomb seems to have bore fruit. That was a very patient and frustrating diplomacy, but it is the right way to go.

- One of the important directions of work for the Armed Services Committee is to minimize the nuclear threat. How do you work together with Russia and the other countries of the former Soviet Union to counter nuclear proliferation?

- We’ve done some excellent work, I think, with the Russians. We’ve worked together on the decommissioning of nuclear weapons in a safe way, where the material could be controlled. We contributed in terms of technical know-how and financial resources before Russia’s current prosperity when the money was really needed. I think that we should continue that effort. Both of us need to refocus our attention on treaties between our respective countries. We maintain the two largest and most sophisticated nuclear arsenals in the world. We have tremendous nuclear technical capabilities.

The Russians, while they have a different approach towards Iran and a different set of national interests, have been more helpful in the last several months than is generally recognized. Russia has recently held back a shipment of nuclear fuel to the Iranians. This was a clear signal that there needed to be more international supervision and agreement on the issue.

Americans need to recognize that Russia is a great power with an incredibly advanced scientific community and arms industry. At the same time, its interests are not that different from ours – stopping the proliferation of nuclear technology.

Russia will want to be involved in the spread of nuclear power, and so will we. Our recent agreement with India is a case in point. It is not something that we should expect Russia to give up. We should work together to insure that what we do would be the spread of peaceful nuclear power. The French and all the other nuclear powers obviously have an interest in that as well.

We’ve had disagreements with Russia at some times, but we are trying to get better. I think we will get better still in the years ahead.   

- You are an expert on British history. Did the history of Russia ever interest you?

- It does. I was recently at a conference in Berlin. Its focus was Europe, Russia, and the United States. There is always a great debate whether Russia is a European country. I do not think how you can conclude that Russia is anything but a European country and a part of the European civilization.

At the time of the Cold War, what Russia did and thought was of tremendous importance. My dad was a career military man. I can still remember Khrushchev coming to the United States in 1959. I was at McGuire Air Force Base, where they landed, like thousands of Americans who went out to see the plane.

We’ve been, obviously, enemies, but we’ve been allies. The Russians bore the brunt of losses in the fight against the Nazi tyranny. The entire world owes the Russian people an enormous debt for sacrifices they endured in bringing the victory in World War II. This is not recognized in this country as much as it should be.

Richard Nixon, whom I consider to be one of our most sophisticated thinkers internationally, wrote both before and after the demise of communism as the governing ideology in the U.S.S.R. that Russia was a very important country and that the failure to reach out to it in the 1990s could be costly. I do not think that we reached out as much as we should have.

If we see the continued development of democracy, and President Putin leaves the Presidency, which I expect he will, the incentives for cooperation will be even greater. It is interesting that we ask if Russia is a perfect democracy or not. We are not a perfect democracy. In my lifetime, we made it very hard for African-Americans to vote. There are no perfect democracies, but as far as Russia moves in the right direction, that’s a good thing.    

- Some archeologists say that Indians came to America from what is now Siberia. Do you think Native Americans really have “Russian” roots?

- I don’t know. I’m not an archeologist. I assume that the native people did come from Eurasia right across the land bridge and spread across North America. I read a book by Charles Mann called 1491, which is about the state of Native America on the eve of the arrival of Columbus. Mann does a great synthesis work on when and from where the people came.

I’m not sure that saying that we have Russian roots or European roots really matters when we are talking about something that happened that long ago. The linkage between the peoples of Eurasia and the peoples of North and South America is, I think, undeniable.

- Do you believe the relations between Russia and the U.S. will change after President Bush and President Putin leave office?      

- I think it will. It has been rocky at times between the two. At the same time, history will look back and say that they forged a better relationship than most people understood. We have been more cooperative than ever before. While there are some differences between the two men, I think that they genuinely like one another and respect one another. This needs to deepen and grow beyond individuals into a recognition that the two countries share a common destiny in some ways. I think we both are scientific leaders. We both are military powers, and we both are nations of continental scope and sweep. The resources we have, as well as the richness of our respective cultures, mean that we are going to play major roles in the years to come. It would be far-far better if we did that as partners than as adversaries. We’ve seen what the world was like when Russia and the United States were at odds with one another. It was not good for either one of us.

Just think of the things we can do if we cooperate - the things we can do in space, the things we can do in energy production. Moreover, I think that Russians and Americans truly like one another. If they get together individually, they both have a very open and expansive view. They are hospitable peoples. They are peoples that share many common views.