The Senate did not allow confirmation hearings, citing Reich's role in the Iran-Contra affair, and his advocacy as ambassador for Orlando Bosch, then imprisoned in Venezuela on suspicion of bombing Cubana de Aviación Flight 455.
[2] According to The New York Times, his father's experiences in Nazi Germany made the elder Reich "immediately suspicious of [Fidel] Castro, prompting him to flee with his family to North Carolina in 1960, when Otto was 15.
[5] After receiving his master's degree, Reich began working as an international representative for the Florida Department of Commerce, the first position he held in government.
[3] He also worked as a staff assistant in the U.S. House of Representatives, as a Community Development Coordinator for the City of Miami, and later as a Director of the Council of the Americas.
[5][2] From 1983 to 1986, Reich established and managed the inter-agency Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America and the Caribbean (OPD), which sought to promote the Contra guerrillas in Nicaragua.
[1][5] Reich managed a staff including officials from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and The Pentagon, some of whom were personnel trained in psychological warfare.
[2] It also wrote opinion pieces in mainstream US newspapers, attributed to fictitious Nicaraguan rebel leaders, attacking opponents of Reagan's foreign policy.
"[2][1][7] A 1987 Congressional committee investigating the Iran-Contra affair stated that the OPD had encouraged "′white propaganda′: pro-Contra newspaper articles by paid consultants who did not disclose their connection to the Administration.
[10] In that position he lobbied the US government to press for the release of Orlando Bosch, a Cuban exile militant then being held in Venezuela under suspicion of organizing the bombing of Cubana de Aviación Flight 455.
[2][1][6][16] Bacardi's efforts met success with the passage of the Helms–Burton Act in 1996, which tightened the US embargo against Cuba, and stripped trademark protection from the brand name.
[2][6][16] Reich was also involved with an effort by Lockheed-Martin to sell F-16 jet fighters to Chile, which would have been the first time in twenty years that advanced weapons had been sold by the US to Latin American countries.
[2] In 1991 and 1992, at the request of President George H. W. Bush, Reich also served as Deputy US Representative to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva.
[5] Reich held the post of Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs at the time of the Venezuelan coup d'état on April 11, 2002, that briefly overthrew President Hugo Chávez.
[2][19] Reich also spoke to ambassadors of other Latin American countries hours after the coup, telling that Chávez had resigned, and asked them to support the new government.
[2] Carmona nonetheless dissolved both the Assembly and the Supreme Court, leading to a popular uprising that toppled the coup government and returned Chávez to the presidency.
Reich was replaced at the State Department by Roger Noriega, and became special envoy to Latin America, which was a position that did not require confirmation by the Senate.
[27] A 2002 profile of Reich in The New York Times described him as a "minor celebrity" in Latin America, stating that editorial cartoons in Nicaragua had depicted him "as a Superman-like figure capable of terrorizing corrupt officials and the nation's former Marxist leaders.