Dymally Linked to Diamond Importer : Congress: Lawmaker withdrew support of South Africa sanctions. Businessman later donated $34,200 to Californian’s scholarship program.

WASHINGTON —  Rep. Mervyn M. Dymally (D-Compton) took a leading role in the fight for stiff sanctions against South Africa in February, 1987, when he introduced legislation to ban U.S. imports of South African diamonds.

He continued to support strong diamond sanctions as late as March, 1988. But in April of that year, Dymally changed course. Accepting arguments that his initial bill was unworkable and unfair, he proposed changes to pending sanctions legislation to weaken its impact on diamond importers in this country.

Dymally’s change of heart followed a meeting in his Washington office with New York diamond importer Maurice Tempelsman, a buyer of uncut South African diamonds whose business could have been crippled by stiff sanctions. The lawmaker offered an amendment drafted by Tempelsman’s lobbyist, Howard Marlowe, according to Marlowe. The amendment, which effectively headed off such sanctions, was approved by the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Two months later, Tempelsman donated $34,200 to support a Dymally scholarship program for minority students. Later in 1988, after the donation, Dymally agreed to lobby his colleagues to support other changes that Tempelsman wanted in the sanctions bill.

A Dymally aide solicited the donation from Tempelsman when his lobbyist first sought a meeting with Dymally to discuss diamond sanctions in April, 1988, according to an account by Marlowe.

The House later approved a version of the amendment drafted by Marlowe and backed by Dymally. It called for a study of the enforceability of diamond sanctions and headed off the policy change that Tempelsman opposed: a requirement that importers of uncut diamonds certify that they did not come from South Africa. In March, Dymally had proposed just such a requirement.

Two months after meeting with Dymally, Tempelsman donated $34,200 to the Ana G. Mendez Foundation that was used to fund the 1988 Mervyn M. Dymally Young Minority Scholars Program, according to Jose Mendez, foundation president. That was the amount suggested to Tempelsman in a prospectus sent to him by Amelia Parker, a Dymally aide.

The Mendez foundation set aside part of Tempelsman’s $34,200 to pay “honoraria,” according to a 1988 foundation document. Dymally reported receiving a $2,000 honorarium from the Mendez foundation in July, 1988.

The bulk of the gift financed trips by 14 minority students from Dymally’s California congressional district to Puerto Rico for four weeks of academic work.

Dymally declined to be interviewed, and did not respond to repeated queries from a reporter this month. In response to a summary of this article delivered to him Tuesday, Dymally on Wednesday sent a one-page statement to the Washington Post in which he said he did not “solicit contributions from Mr. Tempelsman.”

Dymally also said that the amendment he backed to soften the sanctions was based on the unenforceability of diamond sanctions against South Africa, the opposition of other House members and a desire not to hurt Botswana, another African country that exports diamonds.

According to House rules, members may not accept from a person with a direct interest in legislation “favors or benefits . . . under circumstances which might be construed by reasonable persons as influencing the performance of governmental duties.”

How to distinguish between behavior covered by this rule and ordinary cooperation with interest groups or constituents who also make political contributions or give honorariums to members is a matter of ongoing debate in Washington.

In a five-page reply to questions about these events, Tempelsman wrote: “I do not fault Congressman Dymally for bringing the foundation to my attention or for sponsoring the participation of a group of California students in the foundation’s science program.

“At no time did he so much as hint that a contribution from me to the foundation would affect his position on the diamond sanctions or any other matter.”