For Huang, a Changed Lifestyle, Friends Say

John Huang, the pivotal figure in the campaign fund-raising scandal, is a lonely man these days, biding much of his time in his hillside home in Glendale, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

The 52-year-old banker who raised millions of dollars from people of Asian heritage for the Democratic Party now is shunned, not only by his former political allies in Washington, but also some in Los Angeles’ large Asian community.

“A lot of people clung to John when they thought he had access,” said a friend. “Now that he is tainted, they don’t want to have anything to do with him.”

Since his fall from the top echelons of American politics 10 months ago, Huang has been forced to make a dramatic adjustment in his lifestyle, according to friends and associates.

The executive who commanded a six-figure income is out of work and privately has lamented about his prospects for employment. The financial strains of federal investigations have prompted him to talk of selling one of his million-dollar properties.

Although he once jetted coast to coast nearly every week and hobnobbed with heads of state, he now takes long walks down the winding streets in his neighborhood. As a diversion, he has taken to tending his own garden.

Instead of orchestrating major fund-raisers, the former Democratic National Committee official stays in the shelter of his tightly knit family.

And the few times he has ventured to attend public gatherings, he has maintained a stoic and sometimes upbeat demeanor, expressing no regrets about his foray into national politics.

Federal investigators are probing whether Huang, a naturalized U.S. citizen, engaged in economic espionage for his former employer, the Lippo Group of Indonesia, or possibly for China, where Lippo has major investments. They also are examining his possible role in the alleged laundering of overseas donations.

The DNC has returned nearly half of the $3.4 million Huang raised, calling the money illegal or questionable. No formal charges have been leveled against Huang, who left a Commerce Department post in 1995 to raise money full time for the Democratic Party.

On the advice of his attorneys, Huang has declined Times requests for an interview. He previously has denied that he tried to influence the political process on behalf of foreign interests. And congressional hearings that recessed Thursday have not yielded evidence supporting allegations that Huang conducted economic espionage.

Huang has refused to testify without a grant of immunity, which is still being sought by his attorney. But, with or without his appearance, his fund-raising and foreign ties will again be scrutinized when hearings resume in the fall.

Among questions that investigators want to explore:

* Where did he get the money that he contributed and raised?

* What was his relationship with Lippo, especially when he worked with the Commerce Department in 1994 and later the DNC?

* What was his relationship with the White House, which he visited dozens of times from 1993 through 1996?

* What was his connection to Democratic donor and President Clinton’s friend Yah Lin “Charlie” Trie?

* Did he have a role in the alleged laundering of contributions related to a fund-raiser last year attended by Vice President Al Gore at a Southern California Buddhist temple?

“Putting on these hearings without Huang is like putting on ‘Hamlet’ without the prince,” said Alan I. Baron, chief Democratic counsel for the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, which has been conducting the televised hearings.

Source of Division in His Community

For this article, The Times interviewed more than 50 of Huang’s friends and former associates. Most asked that their names not be used because they wanted to avoid becoming entangled in the controversy.

Their accounts provide glimpses into how Huang has fared since he returned to California after his removal as the DNC’s top fund-raiser.

Supporters initially talked about establishing a legal defense fund to help him with mounting legal bills. A source close to Huang said he did not want to burden his friends with his expenses. But friends say the idea was dropped, in part, because allegations of foreign influence surfaced in the fund-raising controversy.

Suddenly, a man who rallied Asian Americans to seek political power had became a source of division in his own community.

“There’s a lot of internal debate in the community about John,” said Charlie Woo, a Los Angeles toy manufacturer who is president of the professional group Chinese Americans for Self Empowerment.

“There are some who believe that he’s responsible for much of the stereotyping [of Asian Americans],” said Woo, whose own donations were scrutinized by the DNC in attempts to root out foreign donations in December. “And then there are some who believe that he is a victim of the stereotyping.”

Whichever is the case, Huang and his family appear to be feeling the strain.

Huang is by no means a pauper, records show. He owns more than $3 million in property, including two homes in Glendale, condominiums in a Washington suburb and an interest in a San Francisco inn.

But he has acknowledged to friends that his legal expenses are enormous.

During a Christmas party, Huang told Woo he was selling a house to help pay for his legal defense. Woo said Huang’s wife told him she had been crying “a lot” because they would have “to start from nothing again.”

Woo said Huang, when asked about his job prospects, replied: “Who would hire me?”

Sensitive to the stigma his name elicits, he has quietly resigned from the Committee of 100, an exclusive club of Chinese Americans whose roster includes such luminaries as architect I.M. Pei and cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

To his supporters, such gestures confirm what they have always felt about Huang: He is a proud yet humble man, the epitome of good manners and a generous supporter of Asian American community activities.

“John was basically a person who was trying to do good for the community,” said Monterey Park City Councilwoman Judy Chu, a Democratic activist who attended a number of Huang’s fund-raisers. “There may have been mistakes along the way, but over all, he had good intentions.”

While she doesn’t know what happened with Huang’s campaign fund-raising, Chu cannot for a moment imagine that he could have been involved in spying--for the Riady family that control Lippo, for China or for anyone else.

“I just flat-out don’t believe that,” she said.

Huang also has apologized to some friends who made campaign donations through him and then were subjected to irksome inquiries and phone calls from the DNC and news media, questioning their citizenship and sources of money.

“John feels badly not because [he feels] he did something wrong, but because he believes that the investigation has inconvenienced his friends,” said a prominent Los Angeles Chinese American business leader who has known Huang for years. “He feels responsible because he knows we [donated to the DNC] because we know him.”

Under Siege, But Stoic

Huang, a child of the Chinese civil war, fled with his family to Taiwan when he was 4 years old. His father, a major general in the Chinese Nationalist army of Chiang Kai-shek, sent Huang to the United States for graduate school with this advice: “Stay away from money matters and don’t get involved in politics.”

During a New York banquet in June for Taiwan military academy alumni, Huang confessed to disobeying his father’s advice, according to a tape of his speech.

“I got into the Democratic Party,” he said, speaking Mandarin. “Not only that, I went [into the party] to deal with money.”

Still, Huang said, he had no regrets because funding is part of the political process. “Money represents power. . . . Without money, you can’t do anything.”

Money was as pivotal to Huang’s rise as it was to his present predicament.

With a master’s degree in business administration, he rose from a trainee to vice president of a Washington bank in the late 1970s. He eventually went to Lippo, a conglomerate owned by the Riady family, who were friends and supporters of Clinton.

After directing Lippo’s U.S. operations for three years, Huang collected a compensation and severance package of $879,000 and joined the Clinton administration in 1994 as a Commerce Department official. Last year, he become a finance vice chairman for the DNC and distinguished himself as a zealous and effective fund-raiser.

But things began to unravel after The Times disclosed a $250,000 illegal contribution that Huang had arranged from a South Korean businessman. After he had become a lightning rod for allegations of foreign-linked contributions, Huang was let go, along with other fund-raisers, following the November election.

Ten months later, Huang’s life is in limbo. He lives with gnawing uncertainty. And, friends say, he wants more than anything to clear his name.

In the past two months, Huang has appeared at three major Chinese American community events, all of which were covered by Chinese language newspapers.

“John is not a prisoner in his home,” said a friend. “He tries to lead as normal a life as possible under the circumstances.”

But when he is at public events, friends say, relatively few people seem to approach him, a man once sought-after as a guest and speaker in business and political circles.

When he was honored in Los Angeles last month as a past president of a Chinese American bankers’ group, some former associates approached him afterward to express support. “I’m doing all right,” he told them. “Things will turn out all right.”

Huang uses a philosophical analogy to explain his plunge. “When you climb a pyramid, there is only so much room at the top,” he told a friend. “In order to stay at the top, people will push you.”

Acquaintances say Huang has not spoken ill of the DNC or Clinton, who publicly praised him before the controversy but has not come to his defense. They say Huang has continued to display in his living room a photo of himself with the president.

Moreover, he has told people that he was fortunate to have known Clinton and had an opportunity to work for him.

“Only through involvement can Asian Americans be heard,” he has said.

Huang’s New Lifestyle

Although his name has been invoked countless times during the recent congressional hearings, Huang has not been watching the televised proceedings, sources say. Instead, he appears to be making the best of his circumstances.

Huang, who has always driven himself relentlessly, told friends in recent months that he was not working. But he noted that one side benefit is additional time with his family.

When Huang was working in Washington and flying home to California nearly every weekend, associates saw that his eyes were often bloodshot. “You’ve got to see a doctor,” Democratic activist Maeley Tom used to tell him. But he said that Huang replied, “When I have time, I will.”

Now that he has time off, friends say, he looks more relaxed, has put on a few pounds and his pace is slower:

He has found a new interest in puttering in his Chinese garden of pine trees, stone lanterns and a dry ornamental pond. A small American flag is staked in a prominent spot by the front door.

He has taken to walking, running errands and occasionally seeing visitors. In addition to conferring with lawyers, he spends a fair amount of time on the phone with friends and acquaintances. But they say he sounds guarded, as if he suspects the phone may be tapped.

Some longtime Chinese American friends say that while they think of him often, they don’t try to contact him because the situation is so awkward. Others don’t call Huang because of the possibility that investigators may get his phone records and they can’t afford to spend time or money answering questions.

“I just don’t know what to say to John,” said David Lang, a political consultant and friend. “I know he needs money and moral support.”

The Refuge of Family

Huang, his wife, Jane, and their two college-age sons live in a spacious Spanish-tiled home with understated decor. They speak English at home, although Huang is fluent in five Chinese dialects.

Jane Huang comes from a family that has lived in the United States on and off for four generations, friends say. One of her ancestors toiled on the transcontinental railroad and experienced harsh treatment because of the legalized discrimination against the Chinese.

That legacy helped spur Huang’s involvement in politics, according to Yvonne Lee, a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights who has worked closely with Huang.

Lee said Huang wrote the first check when a Chinese American organization was looking for a sponsor for a documentary in 1993 on the Chinese Exclusion Act, the law that barred immigration from China for six decades.

“That’s when he told me about his wife’s family,” Lee said. “John said, ‘We’ve got to get [other] Americans to understand us.’ ”

Without Huang’s seed money, the project, which won an Emmy, would not have gotten off the ground, Lee said.

“There is a very humane side of the man that’s been drowned out by all these sinister things he is alleged to have done,” she said. “That’s not fair to him or the community.”

Given his predicament, he must be going through a living hell, his friends say. But Huang tries not to share his personal burdens.

“John’s a proud man,” said one. “He doesn’t want people to feel sorry for him.”

Lily Lee Chen, a former Monterey Park mayor who lives down the hill from the Huangs, invited them to call on her if they ever needed help. Huang attended Chen’s daughter’s wedding but hasn’t taken her up on the offer for assistance. “They’re the type of people who never want to bother other people,” Chen said. “They’re very private people.”

Last January, during Clinton’s inauguration, television crews camped out at the house, hoping to talk to the president’s most famous fund-raiser. Jane Huang told them her husband was not home but invited them to stay and served them cookies and soft drinks.

A few months later, neighbors say, she was weary of the unrelenting publicity. She returned home from running errands one day and spotted more reporters at her front door. This time, she drove around until the unwanted visitors went away.

Kang and Rosenzweig reported from Los Angeles, Miller from Washington. Staff writer Glenn F. Bunting contributed to this story.

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Profile: John Huang

Born: Jian-Nan Huang, April 14, 1945, in Fujian province of China, son of a major general in Nationalist Chinese army. Fled with family to Taiwan in 1949 after Communist victory. Came to study in the United States in 1969 and became a citizen 1976.

Education: Bachelor’s degree in business administration Tatung Institute of Technology in Taipei, 1967; MBA University of Connecticut., 1971.

Banking career: American Security Bank, Washington, D.C., 1972-1979; manager of Far East operations for First National Bank of Louisville (Ky.) and Union Planters National Bank, Memphis (Tenn.), 1979-1985. Joined Stephens Finance Ltd., Hong Kong, as executive vice president, 1985, then Worthen Bank (Little Rock, Ark.), which were tied to the Indonesian Lippo Group. Served as vice president, Lippo Group, Hong Kong, 1986; headed Los Angeles’ Bank of Trade (renamed Lippo Bank California), 1986-1987; ran Lippo-connected Bank Central Asia Ltd., New York, 1988-1989; directed Lippo Group USA, overseeing Lippo’s interests in U.S., 1990-1993.

Politics and government: Founding member of Pacific Leadership Council, created to expand Asian American political influence; supported unsuccessful 1988 U.S. Senate bid of then-Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy, a Democrat; raised money for Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential race; joined Commerce Department as deputy assistant secretary for international economic policy, 1994-1995; served as Democratic National Committee vice chairman of finance, 1996.

Family: Married Jane Soohoo, 1972; two college-aged sons.

“America is our country. This is the country that has given us the economic opportunities and political freedom which we could not find elsewhere in the world. We all want to reciprocate to this land . . . [At] the same time, no one should deprive us of the privilege to participate in this process.”

--July 1997 in a written statement to an association of Chinese American bankers in Los Angeles