Rep. Moorhead Calls Off Latin America Trip

WASHINGTON — Rep. Carlos J. Moorhead (R-Glendale), under fire for his plans to lead a congressional delegation on a Latin American junket that included a number of prime tourist attractions, canceled the trip Tuesday, saying it would be inappropriate to be away during critical federal budget negotiations.

Moorhead’s plans for the 16-day trip to Panama, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Brazil and Ecuador were criticized by U.S. diplomats in Latin America, who sent a cable condemning it as a needless junket at such a critical time.

Mixed in with meetings on copyright law were stops at attractions such as the Inca ruins of Machu Picchu in Peru, the Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro, Argentina’s Iguazu Falls and the Otavalo market in Ecuador.

Angry U.S. diplomats noted that Moorhead, four colleagues and their spouses were scheduled to fly north from Rio to Panama for dinner on Jan. 19 and then head south the next morning to have breakfast and dinner in Quito. Seven and a half hours of sightseeing were scheduled between the two Quito events.

“The present itinerary provides more time for travel or sightseeing than work and substantive meetings,” the diplomats wrote. “Transporting five members of Congress and their spouses on an Air Force jet strikes us as an excessive and injudicious use of government resources.”

While defending the trip as official business, Moorhead, who chairs the House subcommittee overseeing copyright law, announced Tuesday that the trip was off--for now. State Department spokesman John Dinger said other lawmakers were beginning to cancel global travel plans after they were advised that the budget impasse had strained embassy resources worldwide.

In all, 25 foreign trips had been planned by House and Senate members between last week and the middle of January. Such jaunts are commonplace during the year-end recess, but they drew particular criticism this year with the U.S. government partially shut and 280,000 employees on furlough.

Other Californians whose trips have been affected by the budget standoff are Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills), who dropped plans to go to Russia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Albania and Belgium until the impasse is broken, and Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, whose upcoming trip to China, Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia is up in the air.

F. Allen Harris, president of the American Foreign Service Assn., which represents U.S. diplomats, said lawmakers do need to travel the world as part of their jobs, but he said too many trips border on tourism.

“This country, as a world leader, needs knowledgeable members of Congress with firsthand experience about how to conduct its foreign affairs,” Harris said. “However, we don’t need, at taxpayers’ expense, trips to Machu Picchu, Copacabana, Cuzco, Iguazu Falls and Otavalo in a two-week tour of Latin America.”

For his part, Moorhead said his subcommittee made the trip arrangements months ago and never planned to leave while budget negotiators were still at the table. The congressman, who will retire at the end of the year, insisted that despite the exotic stops--which he said he wasn’t responsible for--the trip was full of official business aimed at reducing copyright piracy in Latin America.

“There are certain parts of the world where we’re having a lot of problem with piracy, and South America is one of those areas,” he said. “Billions of dollars worth of products are illegally copied. That’s something we can’t afford to let slip. . . . This is definitely a working trip. Anyone who goes is going to work their tails off.”

There were meetings scheduled with the presidents of Argentina and Brazil, Moorhead said, and the delegation planned to discuss how to reduce the theft of pharmaceuticals, computer software and other protected products by Latin American firms.

A copy of the itinerary obtained by The Times shows business sessions with legislators in Chile, Brazil and Argentina; the Peruvian minister of trade, and a variety of U.S. and Latin American corporate officers. But plenty of sightseeing was also planned.

On the schedule was a train trip from Cuzco to Machu Picchu, a carnival show in Brazil, a police escort so that Moorhead and his wife could visit an orphanage in Peru, and a bus tour of the old city of Quito.

Among those who had planned to join Moorhead on the trip were Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), chairman of the Judiciary Committee; Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the committee; and Rep. Patricia Schroeder (D-Colo.), a senior member of the panel.