A wrap-up of who knew what and when they first did not recall it.
Given the possibility of some lingering confusion over the double-dealing, Arms for Ayatollahs Cash for Contras sting caper crisis affair, here’s a wrap-up of who knew what and when they first did not recall it.
Senator Inouye said that President Reagan had been a bit more knowledgeable than he had professed to publicly. The White House admitted to preparing a series of inaccurate chronologies. Elliot Abrams said he had given Congress testimony that was honest and wrong. Robert McFarlane acknowledged, but stopped short of admitting, that he had misrepresented the White House role, but said that withholding certain information and using tortured language wasn’t as bad as William Casey’s tactic of playing fast and loose with the facts, while mumbling.
Colonel North maintained that he had misled the Congress in good faith, and that he himself had been “provided with input that was radically different from the truth.” In the end, congressional questioners expressed relief that no one had lied.
The CIA’s Chief of Central American affairs, Allan Fiers, said he knew about arms drops to the Contras that took place while they were prohibited by law. He found out about them, he told the panel, while he was directing them.
Attorney General Meese said he had not talked to Casey or Reagan about their roles because “I didn’t want to ask questions until I knew what had happened.”
President Reagan was said to have been pleased with what General Secord had been doing, without being formally aware of what it was.
There are a lot of people who knew more than we know they knew, and before we knew they knew it. At this hour it appears that the diversion of funds to the Contras was known only to National Hero Lt. Col. Oliver North and Admiral Poindexter. Bud McFarlane, Don Regan, the Defense Department and the CIA may have had an inkling of what was going on, but they were too polite to ask about it. However, it appears that there are a lot of people who knew more than we know they knew, and before we knew they knew it.
President Reagan said initially that to limit perceptions that we traded arms for hostages, he would stop doing it. Asked why arms were shipped every time hostages were freed, he replied, “I can’t get into that question with regard to answering it.” As to the diversion of funds to the Nicaraguan Founding Freedom Fighter Fathers (4F’s), the President said “There has been no use of contradeception on my part, and I will carry my Presidency to term.” He also denied bombing clinics in Nicaragua on behalf of the Right to Lie Movement.
Mr. Reagan also maintained that we have not sold arms to terrorists. We sold them, rather, to individuals, some of them within the Iranian government, all of them moderates, or at least willing to become moderates. Further, he explained, the terrorist nations are Libya and Syria, this week. Iran was a terrorist nation when it bombed our Marines in Lebanon, but we didn’t know that till last week, so it can’t be held against them. Mr. Reagan has asked the courts to appoint an independent counsel, and he will also move to repeal Murphy’s law.
The President, who, to his credit, did not as of this writing know what was going on, made it clear that this is not another Watergate, just as Nicaragua is not another Vietnam. The difference is, he explained, “People likeme.” He earlier had explained that the amount of defensive weapons shipped to Iran could fit in one plane—if it made several trips. Asked whether the planes that actually carried the arms could themselves have been fit into one C-130 cargo plane, the President responded, “I told you the truth once.”
As for the Contra money, the U.S. never had it, Israel never touched it, and the Contras say they never received it. There is a possibility that Oliver North kept it, presumably for anticipated legal expenses. That would not include $2 million per month given by the Saudis to a humanitarian fund, earmarked for arms.
It now appears that in December 1984 Mr. North arranged for the Nicaraguan Democratic Resistance to work with a retired British commando who performed sabotage work for them in Managua, in order to combat terrorism.
Col. North has clarified that the Boland amendment, which prohibited the government from sending band-aids to Freedom Fighters, did not apply to the National Security Council, but only to agencies dealing with intelligence. The amendment also did not apply to private efforts, and General Secord was a private general. He did the bidding of the president, but in a private way; that is, he didn’t tell anybody, including the President.
Congressional hearings on the Affair were marred today by brief demonstrations by spectators who held signs saying “Contras kill families.” Investigators were unable to determine what the slogan referred to or why they had brought the banner to a hearing of the Congressional Committee on Freedom Fighter Funding. In apparent reference to the working group including Marine Lt. Col. North, Admiral Poindexter, former Marine McFarlane, and retired General Secord, a man jumped up in the hearing room and shouted “It’s a military coup!” He was democratically removed from the room, and shot.
In a related development, non-fall guy Nico Minardos and his cohorts in the New York Iran arms sting case were working for Vice President Bush, unbeknownst to Bush, or to the Customs Department, who arrested them, as is their custom. The prosecutors have called the defendants Brokers of Death, clarifying at last what exactly it is that the Vice President does in our system of government.
One key figure appears in both the sting case and the Real Deal: Cyrus Hashemi, an Iranian who arranged both sets of shipments and then mysteriously died in London last July. His death seriously weakens the case against the administration, along with these other possible conflicts of interest:
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- The suggestion that Hashemi’s death was mysterious came from his brother, not exactly a disinterested party.
- The lawyer for the New York defendants, who is calling for “full disclosure” of the “facts,” is William Kunstler, who has a long record of anti-government prejudices, as well as long hair.
- The original arms-for-hostages trade appears to have been hatched at a birthday party in Spain for multi-billionaire Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi. The party was attended by actress Brooke Shields, fueling speculation that the whole story may have been concocted for publicity.
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Meanwhile the speaker of the Iranian parliament is claiming that Iran created the disarray in the United States by breaking the arms caper story in a Lebanese newspaper. Edwin Meese retorted, “That is outrageous. We can create our own crises.”
With one shoe after the other dropping, there will be a lot of bare feet to tread on. Two of these belong to Jeb Bush, son of the Vice President. The younger Bush heads the Republican Party organization in Dade County, Florida, and has admitted sending aid to the Contras. This may clear up what the President meant when he called the Hasenfus Contra connection “a private affair.” It may well have been an example of free enterprise on the part of the Bush family. But with the political fallout swirling around him, the President may now feel that a Bud in Iran is worse than two Bushes.
We have to get on top of it—not to cover it up, but to get to the bottom of it, so we can get out in front of it and get it behind us. To sum up the direction of the scandal, there’s no getting around it, so we have to get on top of it—not to cover it up, but to get to the bottom of it, so we can get out in front of it and get it behind us. (It is believed that at the bottom of it is the White House basement.) The Congress, currently circling a beltway of bloodlust, is clearly beside itself and cannot be gotten around. Analysts suggest there may be one bright spot in all this for the economy. It will ensure full employment for satirists.
It now appears that some figures in the Iran-Contra affair did not want to know some things, and so it must be established when they first did not want to know them and whether they should have known them, or had a constitutional right not to know them. President Reagan has said that he knew nothing, but Senator Hollings said that perhaps in this instance the President overspoke. There is emerging yet another motive in the case: usually reliable sources indicate that President Reagan may have been planning to sell arms to the Soviets for their planned takeover of the United States, as detailed in the ABC miniseries “Amerika.” Reached at the White House, the President declined to comment, saying “I wouldn’t want to spoil the plot.”
And the President has given an address to the nation. It is still 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.