Excerpts From the Iran-Contra Report: A Secret Foreign Policygreenspun.com : LUSENET : Unk's Wild Wild West : One Thread |
Executive Summary January 19, 1994Following are excerpts from the final report of the independent counsel for the Iran-contra affair, Lawrence E. Walsh, including rebuttals:
In October and November 1986, two secret U.S. Government operations were publicly exposed, potentially implicating Reagan Administration officials in illegal activities. These operations were the provision of assistance to the military activities of the Nicaraguan contra rebels during an October 1984 to October 1986 prohibition on such aid, and the sale of U.S. arms to Iran in contravention of stated U.S. policy and in possible violation of arms-export controls. In late November 1986, Reagan Administration officials announced that some of the proceeds from the sale of U.S. arms to Iran had been diverted to the contras.
As a result of the exposure of these operations, Attorney General Edwin Meese 3d sought the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate and, if necessary, prosecute possible crimes arising from them.
The Special Division of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit appointed Lawrence E. Walsh as Independent Counsel on December 19, 1986.
. . . Overall Conclusions
The investigations and prosecutions have shown that high-ranking Administration officials violated laws and executive orders in the Iran/contra matter.
Independent Counsel concluded that:
*the sales of arms to Iran contravened United States Government policy and may have violated the Arms Export Control Act;
In addition, Independent Counsel concluded that the off-the-books nature of the Iran and contra operations gave line-level personnel the opportunity to commit money crimes.*the provision and coordination of support to the contras violated the Boland Amendment ban on aid to military activities in Nicaragua;
*the policies behind both the Iran and contra operations were fully reviewed and developed at the highest levels of the Reagan Administration;
*although there was little evidence of National Security Council level knowledge of most of the actual contra-support operations, there was no evidence that any N.S.C. member dissented from the underlying policy keeping the contras alive despite Congressional limitations on contra support;
*the Iran operations were carried out with the knowledge of, among others, President Ronald Reagan, Vice President George Bush, Secretary of State George P. Shultz, Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger, Director of Central Intelligence William J. Casey, and national security advisers Robert C. McFarlane and John M. Poindexter; of these officials, only Weinberger and Shultz dissented from the policy decision, and Weinberger eventually acquiesced by ordering the Department of Defense to provide the necessary arms;
*large volumes of highly relevant, contemporaneously created documents were systematically and willfully withheld from investigators by several Reagan Administration officials; and
*following the revelation of these operations in October and November 1986, Reagan Administration officials deliberately deceived the Congress and the public about the level and extent of official knowledge of and support for these operations.
. . . The White House and Office of the Vice President
As the White House section of this report describes in detail, the investigation found no credible evidence that President Reagan violated any criminal statute. The O.I.C. could not prove that Reagan authorized or was aware of the diversion or that he had knowledge of the extent of North's control of the contra-resupply network. Nevertheless, he set the stage for the illegal activities of others by encouraging and, in general terms, ordering support of the contras during the October 1984 to October 1986 period when funds for the contras were cut off by the Boland Amendment, and in authorizing the sale of arms to Iran, in contravention of the U.S. embargo on such sales. The President's disregard for civil laws enacted to limit Presidential actions abroad -- specifically the Boland Amendment, the Arms Export Control Act and congressional-notification requirements in covert-action laws -- created a climate in which some of the Government officers assigned to implement his policies felt emboldened to circumvent such laws.
Independent Counsel's investigation did not develop evidence that proved that Vice President Bush violated any criminal statute. Contrary to his public pronouncements, however, he was fully aware of the Iran arms sales. Bush was regularly briefed, along with the President, on the Iran arms sales, and he participated in discussions to obtain third-country support for the contras. The O.I.C. obtained no evidence that Bush was aware of the diversion. The O.I.C. learned in December 1992 that Bush had failed to produce a diary containing contemporaneous notes relevant to Iran/contra, despite requests made in 1987 and again in early 1992 for the production of such material. Bush refused to be interviewed for a final time in light of evidence developed in the latter stages of the O.I.C.'s investigation, leaving unresolved a clear picture of his Iran/contra involvement. Bush's pardon of Weinberger on December 24, 1992, preempted a trial in which defense counsel indicated that they intended to call Bush as a witness.
. . . History of the Investigation Previously Withheld Documents
One of the major difficulties confronting the continuing investigation was the passage of time since the Iran/contra events had occurred, and the corresponding lack of witness recollection of specific details. To combat this problem, the O.I.C. carefully searched for previously unproduced, contemporaneously created documents such as notes that would reflect on Iran/contra matters.
The search for previously undiscovered documents was fueled also by the fact that most significant Iran/contra witnesses were reluctant to provide truthful information unless they were confronted with difficult-to-refute documentary evidence. Much of the early phase of the continuing investigation focused on contradictions between the prior sworn testimony of Reagan Administration officials and contemporaneously created documents.
. . . The Investigation is Closed and Reopened: The Bush Diary
In September 1992, Independent Counsel reported to the special D.C. Court of Appeals panel that appointed him that the investigation was complete, barring unforeseen developments at the upcoming trials of Weinberger and Clarridge. The full resources of the O.I.C. then became trained exclusively on the trial of pending cases and on drafting a final report.
On December 11, 1992, the White House unexpectedly informed Independent Counsel that President Bush had not produced to the investigation previously requested diaries relevant to Iran/contra. The review of Bush's diary notes, and the circumstances surrounding his failure to produce them earlier, required the investigation to reopen.
On December 24, 1992, President Bush pardoned Weinberger, who was to be tried in less than two weeks, and Clarridge, scheduled for trial in March 1993, as well as four others already convicted.
During late December and January 1993 the diaries were produced. They did not justify reopening the investigation. Independent Counsel's efforts to requestion President Bush about Iran/contra matters were thwarted by Bush's insistence that the questioning be limited to the subject of his failure to produce his previously requested diaries. This limitation was unacceptable to the O.I.C., which over the course of its continuing investigation had gathered significant new evidence about which it wanted to question Bush.
President Bush was the first President to grant a pardon on the eve of a trial. The question before Independent Counsel was, and remains, whether President Bush exercised his constitutional prerogative to pardon a former close associate to prevent further Iran/contra revelations. In the absence of evidence that the pardon was secured by corruption, Independent Counsel decided against taking the matter before the Grand Jury.
The continuing investigation resulted in the discovery of large caches of previously withheld contemporaneous notes and documents, which provided new insight into the highly secret events of Iran/contra. Had these materials been produced to congressional and criminal investigators when they were requested in 1987, Independent Counsel's work would have proceeded more quickly and probably with additional indictments.
With the passage of time, mounting office expenses and dwindling staff resources, Independent Counsel decided not to prosecute certain individuals. Prosecutorial decisions were based, primarily on the seriousness of the crimes, the certainty of the evidence, the likelihood that the targeted individual could provide valuable information to the investigation, and the centrality of the individual to the Iran/contra events.
Independent Counsel's decision to pursue the investigation beyond the Poindexter trial resulted in these major findings:
*that there was extensive knowledge of North's contra-support activities by high-ranking officials in the C.I.A., State and Defense departments;
*that false testimony was given to, and highly relevant documents were withheld from, the Congressional and criminal Iran/contra investigations, despite representations of cooperation by the Reagan and Bush Administrations;
*that, contrary to their testimony, Bush, Shultz and Weinberger were kept informed of the details of the Iran arms sales; and
*that senior Administration officials in November 1986 were being invited to conceal President Reagan's involvement in the November 1985 Hawk missile shipment to Iran by Attorney General Meese who believed that it was possibly illegal.
. . . Investigations and Cases: The National Security Council Staff
At the center of the covert Iran and contra operations were three members of President Reagan's National Security Council staff: National Security Adviser Robert C. McFarlane; McFarlane's deputy and successor, Vice Adm. John M. Poindexter; and the deputy director of political-military affairs: Lieut. Col. Oliver L. North.
It is the duty of the national security adviser to brief the President daily on foreign and domestic developments of national security concern, and to integrate and keep him apprised of the views of his National Security Council. The national security adviser heads the N.S.C. staff. The principal members of the N.S.C. in the Iran/contra matters were the President, the Vice President, the Secretaries of State and Defense and the Director of the C.I.A.
Beginning in 1984 through most of 1986, members of the N.S.C staff implemented President Reagan's foreign-policy directive to keep the Nicaraguan contras alive as a fighting force, despite a law -- the Boland Amendment -- prohibiting U.S. aid for their military activities. Largely acting through North, there contra-support activities included approaches to foreign countries and private American citizens for funding; the provision of military and tactical advice and intelligence; and working with private operatives, chiefly retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Richard V. Secord and Albert Hakim, to supply weapons.
In 1985, in what was originally a separate undertaking from the contra-support operation, McFarlane initiated contacts with Israel leading to the sale of U.S. weapons to Iran in an effort to free American hostages held by pro-Iranian terrorists in Beirut; in 1986, the N.S.C. staff under Poindexter continued in this effort through direct U.S. arms sales to Iran. Poindexter authorized North to arrange the diversion of Iran arms sales proceeds to the contras, secretly marking up the prices for U.S. weapons and relying on the excess proceeds to help finance the contra resupply operation, subsequently called the "Enterprise," which was run by Secord and Hakim under North's direction.
The N.S.C. staff members in these operations could not have carried out many of their activities without the support or knowledge of officials in other agencies: most prominently the C.I.A., State Department and the Department of Defense. Nevertheless, after public exposure, the Reagan Administration used the most dramatic dimension of the Iran/contra affair -- the Iran/contra diversion -- to focus public attention and to blame the N.S.C. staff for what went wrong. On November 25, 1986, President Reagan announced the firing of North and the resignation of Poindexter. Attorney General Edwin Meese III then disclosed the Iran/contra diversion, erroneously stating that only three U.S. officials knew about it: North, Poindexter and McFarlane.
The criminal prosecutions showed that members of the N.S.C. staff, although most directly involved in the operations, were not the only participants in Iran/contra matters. Rather, these matters often were not aberrant acts but part of a widespread pattern of covert conduct condoned at the highest levels of Government.
. . . President Reagan
It was concluded that President Reagan's conduct fell well short of criminality which could be successfully prosecuted. Fundamentally, it could not be proved beyond a reasonable doubt that President Reagan knew of the underlying facts of Iran/contra that were criminal or that he made criminal misrepresentations regarding them.
President Reagan created the conditions which made possible the crimes committed by others by his secret deviations from announced national policy as to Iran and hostages and by his open determination to keep the contras together "body and soul" despite a statutory ban on contra aid.
. . . No direct evidence was developed that the President authorized or was informed of the profiteering on the Iran arms sales or of the diversion of proceeds to aid the contras. Yet, it was doubtful that President Reagan would tolerate the successive Iranian affronts during 1986 unless he knew that the arms sales continued to supply funds to the contras to bridge the gap before the anticipated Congressional appropriations became effective. Only Poindexter could supply direct evidence, and he denied passing on this information. The wide destruction of records by North eliminated any possible documentary proof.
As with the Iran initiative, President Reagan was apparently unconcerned as to the details of how his policy objectives for contra support were being carried out by subordinates who were operating virtually free from oversight or accountability.
. . . Independent Counsel found no prosecutable evidence that the President expressly authorized or was informed of the illegal features of North's operational participation in the covert contra-resupply operation and his financing of the operation. President Reagan was aware of and even encouraged some aspects of external funding for the contras, such as solicitation of aid from third countries and contributions from private benefactors. He also was aware that North was the N.S.C.'s action officer on the contras, and he was regularly briefed on the growth of the contra movement during the period when funds to assist the contras were cut off by Boland.
. . . Military and Paramilitary Support to the Contras, October 1984 to October 1986
. . . The Administration was advised by the Attorney General that, absent a quid-pro-quo arrangement, soliciting third-country contributions which would be paid directly to the contras would not violate Boland restrictions. It would obviously be difficult to proceed criminally against a President who operated on the basis of what he considered sound legal advice.
. . . The President denied unequivocally that he was aware of the diversion of funds from the proceeds of the Iran arms sales, or that he authorized it. Independent Counsel could not prove the contrary.
. . . Domestic fund-raising for the contras presented a more complicated picture. There is no doubt that, at least beginning with his appearance at a dinner for the Nicaraguan Refugee Fund in April 1985 and continuing through mid 1986. President Reagan, like North, was a frequent and enthusiastic fund-raiser for contra-related causes. The President's appeals seem to have been confined to nonlethal, "humanitarian" aid.
. . . Proof of President Reagan's authorization or knowledge of North's illegal activities, beyond a reasonable doubt, would have required more than the nonspecific testimony that McFarlane and Poindexter were willing to give and that the few surviving documents would establish. The President's own activities on behalf of the contras were not on the face of it activities forbidden by criminal law.
. . . In the case of the two 1985 Israeli arms transfers, President Reagan knew from the outset that he was acting in conflict with his own announced policies of not rewarding hostage taking and of not selling arms to nations sponsoring terrorism. He knew this activity was politically and legally questionable. Two of his principal advisers, Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger and Secretary of State Shultz, both opposed the initiative for those and other reasons. Nonetheless, the President decided to proceed, and he directed that Congress not be notified.
. . . President Reagan's defiance, if it had been public, would have presented an outright constitutional confrontation with Congress. The question would have been the validity of a statutory restriction upon President Reagan's view of his constitutional powers as commander-in-chief and as the officer responsible for dealing with foreign nations.
Without any criminal sanction specifically provided for A.E.C.A. violations, the question was whether this secret noncompliance with the A.E.C.A. could be said to be a conspiracy to defraud the United States by the President and those assisting him in carrying out the transaction. In Independent Counsel's judgment, prosecution for such noncompliance would not have been appropriate.
. . . The October-November 1986 Coverup of Iran/Contra
Independent Counsel could not prove that President Reagan knew there was Government involvement in the Hasenfus operation. He apparently had been told by Poindexter on several occasions that there was none.
. . . As far as is known, no one on the inside sought to protect the President's credibility by telling him the truth or warning him against falsely denying a U.S. connection.
. . . The foregoing facts would suggest that the President, during the first three weeks in November 1986, knowingly participated or at least acquiesced in the efforts of Casey, Poindexter and North to minimize or hide his advance approval of and participation in the 1985 Israeli arms shipments to Iran without notice to Congress.
Yet, such a conclusion runs against President Reagan's seeming blindness to reality when it came to the rationalization of some of his Iran, and hostage policies. The portrayal of President Reagan in the notes of Regan and Weinberger, and Shultz's readouts to Hill, not only the November 24, 1986, meeting but beginning at least on December 7, 1985, show a consistent reiteration of the President's position. The simple fact is that President Reagan seems not to have been ashamed of what he had done. He had convinced himself that he was not trading arms for hostages, that he was selling arms to develop a new opening with Iran, and that the recovery of the hostages was incidental to a broader purpose. He disdained the restrictions of the Arms Export Control Act. He made that clear as he brushed off Weinberger's concerns about illegality on December 7, 1985. At the November 24, 1986, meeting he was "v[ery] hot under the collar & determined he is totally right."
In his deposition given to Independent Counsel in July 1992, his responses were still consistent with that position. His memory had obviously failed. He had little recollection of the meetings and the details of the transactions. When his diary notes or other documents were presented to him which expressed his 1985 and 1986 position, he was again firm in his statements that they sounded like something he would have said and that he still believed them to be true.
While there is a substantial amount of failure to recall and vagueness in the President's responses, both to the interrogatories and in his later deposition in the Poindexter trial, this standing alone does not warrant a criminal charge. By July 1992, when Reagan agreed to a final, extensive interview with Independent Counsel, it was obvious that the former President truly lacked specific recollection of even the major Iran/contra events which took place in 1984-1987.
. . . Former President Reagan's Reply
President Reagan has never publicly criticized any aspect of the investigation or conduct of Independent Counsel Walsh. . . . It is now appropriate and necessary for former President Reagan to respond.
As many others have commented, and as his final report reveals, the Independent Counsel has permitted his investigation to become both excessive and vindictive. He has abused his authority. He has used his office to intimidate and harass individuals and otherwise to damage the lives of the persons he was given license to investigate. He and his final report have violated the policies of the Department of Justice that he was required by law to uphold, and he has disregarded the standards and ethics imposed uniformly on public prosecutors. . . .
Independent Counsel Walsh found no credible evidence of personal wrongdoing by President Reagan or violation by the former President of any criminal laws. . . . Yet in his final report the Independent Counsel attempts to indict President Reagan for alleged misconduct by others and to hint, without the benefit of any evidence, at wrongdoing by the former President himself. . . . Except for matters already considered by Congress and the courts, the Independent Counsel's speculation and conclusions regarding alleged misconduct by many individuals, including former President Reagan, are without foundation, and reflect, at best, a misunderstanding of the events he has investigated and a slanted and completely misleading rendition of them.
George Bush
On December 24, 1992, 12 days before former Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger was to go to trial, Bush pardoned him. In issuing pardons to Weinberger and five other Iran/contra defendants, President Bush charged that Independent Counsel's prosecutions represented the "criminalization of policy differences."
The criminal investigation of Bush was regrettably incomplete.
. . . In light of his access to information, Bush would have been an important witness. In an early interview with the F.B.I. in December 1986 and in the O.I.C. deposition in January 1988, Bush acknowledged that he was regularly informed of events connected with the Iran arms sales, including the 1985 Israeli missile shipments. These statements conflicted with his more extreme public assertions that he was "out of the loop" regarding the operational details of the Iran initiative and was generally unaware of the strong opposition to the arms sales by Secretary of Defense Weinberger and Secretary of State George P. Shultz. He denied knowledge of the diversion of proceeds from the arms sales to assist the contras. He also denied knowledge of the secret contra-resupply operation supervised by North.
. . . The personal diary of Vice President Bush was disclosed to Independent Counsel only in December 1992, despite early and repeated requests for such documents. This late disclosure prompted a special investigation into why the diary had not been produced previously, and the substance of the diary.
Following the pardons, Bush refused to be interviewed unless the interview was limited to his nonproduction of his diary and personal notes. Because such a limited deposition would not serve a basic investigative purpose and because its occurrence would give the misleading impression of cooperation where there was none, Independent Counsel declined to accept these conditions. A grand jury subpoena was not issued because the O.I.C. did not believe there was an appropriate likelihood of a criminal prosecution. Bush's notes themselves proved not as significant as those of Weinberger and Shultz aides Charles Hill and Nicholas Platt, and the statute of limitations had passed on most of the relevant acts and statements of Bush.
. . . When Bush became aware of Shultz's note production, he responded as follows in his personal diary:
"Howard Baker in the presence of the President, told me today that George Shultz had kept 700 pages of personal notes, dictated to his staff . . . notes on personal meetings he had with the President. I found this almost inconceivable. Not only that he kept the notes, but that he'd turned them all over to Congress. . . . I would never do it. I would never surrender such documents and I wouldn't keep such detailed notes."
This note, which was not among selected diary notes Bush released publicly in 1993, would have been used to question Bush about his cooperation with investigators if he had consented to the requested Independent Counsel deposition in 1993.
. . . While President Bush made numerous public statements extolling his cooperation with the Independent Counsel's investigation, that, in fact, had not been the case: Inside the White House it appears he had little intention of cooperating with Independent Counsel. In August 1992, there were discussions among White House counsel about not allowing the O.I.C. to interview President Bush. According to Janet Rehnquist:
This matter was discussed among Lytton, Schmitz, Gray and Rehnquist. Their position was they were going to tell the O.I.C. to "pound sand" on the Bush interview issue. Their position was that interviews had already been done, that an election was going on and that enough was enough.
Former President Bush's Reply
The investigation conducted by the Office of Independent Counsel under Judge Lawrence Walsh has largely been an inquiry into a political dispute between a Republican Administration and a Democratic Congress.
. . . President Bush has always acknowledged that he was aware that arms were sold to Iran. . . . Inexplicably, however, the report contends that President Bush's public statements conflicted with his deposition testimony and F.B.I. interview, all of which reflected his knowledge of the Iran arms sales. The report is simply wrong.
. . . The report implies that President Bush was aware that his diary dictation was responsive to the O.I.C.'s document requests and purposefully did not produce the material. . . . When the diary was discovered in a personal safe by Patty Presock in September 1992, President Bush, who was in the middle of the campaign, immediately stated: "Let's call Boyden [Gray, his counsel] and he can sort it out." Mr. Gray subsequently reviewed and turned over the diary to the O.I.C.
. . . (continued below)
-- Cherri (jessam5@home.com), February 20, 2001
(continued)Executive Summary January 19, 1994Following are excerpts from the final report of the independent counsel for the Iran-contra affair, Lawrence E. Walsh, including rebuttals:
Three months before the pardons (were) issued, the O.I.C. represented to the Special Panel that the investigation was finished. Thereafter, no circumstances changed that warranted another deposition of President Bush. Certainly, the diary produced in December 1992 did not warrant an additional deposition on the substance of Iran-contra. The O.I.C.'s own report stated: "They (the diaries) did not justify re-opening the investigation."
. . . President Bush's knowledge of Iran-contra has been explored to exhaustion. . . . The O.I.C.'s suggestion that the investigation of President Bush was "regrettably incomplete" is nonsense.
Secretary of State Shultz
. . . The best evidence of Department of State knowledge of U.S. dealings with Iran comes from Hill and Platt's notes. It was their job to bring important information to the attention of Shultz and to communicate to others his guidance and questions. Both Hill and Platt took minute-by-minute notes that document this exchange of information in remarkably detailed fashion.
. . . The 1990 review of Hill's notebooks resulted in the O.I.C. keeping copies of a much greater volume of relevant notes than the Department of State had produced in response to the O.I.C. and Congressional requests in 1986 and 1987. The O.I.C. continued to assume the accuracy of Shultz's well-known testimony regarding his exclusion from information regarding arms shipments to Iran and his (and Hill's) seeming cooperation with the Iran/contra investigation.
. . . It was not until the summer and fall of 1991, in connection with the accelerating investigations of (Elliot) Abrams and several C.I.A. officials, that the O.I.C. realized that Hill's notes were inconsistent with Shultz's testimony. Further investigation revealed that Hill had not produced these notes in 1986 and 1987, and that Platt had not produced corresponding notes of many of the same events. The O.I.C. later obtained notes from other Department of State officials that also had not been produced to Iran/contra investigators.
. . . November 1985, when he said he knew arms sales were debated but was not informed that any took place; from December 1985 to May 1986, when he said he knew the United States was attempting to open a dialogue with Iran but was unwilling to sell arms; and from May 4 to November 3, 1986, when he received no information of arms transfers. In essence, Shultz's testimony centered more on what he did not know than on what he did; it laid the groundwork for the widely held misperception that he and other Department of State officials were largely ignorant of the Iran arms shipments.
. . . The evidence contained in contemporaneous notes supports the thesis that Shultz and others in the department opposed the initiative. But it does not support the commonly accepted corollary: that they were prevented from monitoring the initiative. In fact, Shultz and his senior officials did monitor the initiative. As a result, Shultz and other top department officials had a far better understanding of the initiative than their testimony suggests. Moreover, significant aspects of Shultz's testimony were incorrect: Shultz learned in "phase one" that arms had been shipped; Shultz repeatedly complained during "phase two" that arms were still on the table; and there is strong evidence that, during "phase three," Shultz learned in both late May and late July that arms had been shipped to Iran in exchange for the release of hostages. The evidence shows that Shultz's characterization of each of the three phases set out in his testimony was incorrect: Shultz and others in the department were substantially better informed during each of the three phases than he stated.
. . . Hill's note shows that Shultz was informed that arms transfers in fact had been consummated in connection with the release of Weir. Thus, although Shultz stated as recently as February 1992 that he still believed that Weir was released to bring pressure on Kuwait to release the Dawa prisoners, and not because of the Israeli arms shipments, he could not maintain that he was never informed that Israel made arms shipments at or before the time of the Weir release.
. . . Conclusion
Independent Counsel's investigation established that central and important aspects of Shultz's testimony to Congressional committees in late 1986 and 1987 regarding his knowledge of arms shipments to Iran were incorrect.
Shultz's carefully prepared testimony stated that he received no information regarding arms transfers to Iran during 1985 and 1986. It conveyed the impression that, because of his steadfast opposition to proposals to transfer arms to Iran, National Security Advisers McFarlane and Poindexter and the N.S.C. staff had successfully concealed information from Shultz and the Department of State regarding actual arms transfers to Iran.
The contemporaneous handwritten notes of Hill and Platt demonstrate the inaccuracy of Shultz's assertions and the popular impression regarding his knowledge.
. . . Notwithstanding the gravity of Shultz's errors while testifying before Congress in 1986 and 1987, Independent Counsel declined to prosecute because the evidence did not establish beyond a reasonable doubt that his testimony was willfully false.
. . . Mr. Shultz's Reply
. . . The report is an unwarranted attack on a faithful public servant who tried to prevent the arms-for-hostages debacle from its outset, who took the initiative to disclose to Congress the full story as he knew it, and who finally succeeded in bringing it to a halt.
. . . After the revelations in November 1986, the Secretary argued strongly for full, prompt, and complete disclosure of the facts relating to the Iran arms sales and the contra diversion. This commitment to full public disclosure brought his almost immediately into conflict with others in the Administration.
. . . While these Hill and Platt notes do report on arms-for-hostages information not mentioned in the Secretary's testimony, much of this information varied in quality from rumor to hearsay, and its omission did not materially alter the main thrust of the Secretary's testimony.
. . . Because the report itself acknowledges all of these facts, it is a serious distortion for the report to suggest that the Secretary gave incorrect and misleading testimony for which he was not prosecuted only because a charge of falsity could not have been proven "beyond a reasonable doubt." The truth is that any such charge stands totally disproved by the other findings of the report. The testimony reflected fully the information available to the Secretary at that time.
Caspar W. Weinberger
Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger lied to investigators to conceal his knowledge of the Iran arms sales. Contrary to Weinberger's assertions, a small group of senior civilian officials and military officers in the Department of Defense, comprised of Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger and his closest aides, was consistently informed of the arms shipments to Iran in 1985 and 1986.
The O.I.C. uncovered documents and notes and obtained testimony, which had been withheld from the Tower Commission and the Select Committees. The most important new evidence was Weinberger's own detailed daily diary notes and his notes of significant White House and other meetings regarding arms shipments to Iran. These notes, along with withheld notes of other Administration officials and additional documents that were obtained from D.O.D., revealed that Weinberger and other high-level Administration officials were much more knowledgeable about details of the Iran arms sales than they had indicated in their early testimony and statements.
This evidence formed the basis for the 1992 indictment of Weinberger. It also provided Independent Counsel with valuable, contemporaneous information concerning high-level participation in Iran/contra activities.
. . . On October 10, 1990, Weinberger, accompanied by his counsel, was interviewed by the O.I.C. attorneys in the presence of an F.B.I. Special Agent.
. . . Between the October and December 1990 interviews, the O.I.C. obtained Weinberger's permission to review his papers at the Library of Congress. Assuming that any documents relating to Iran/contra were classified and relying on Weinberger's statements that the few notes he took were scribbled on the back and margins of documents in his briefing books, O.I.C. investigators asked both D.O.D. and Library of Congress personnel where such materials would be located. The investigators were directed to the classified subject list in the library's index to the Weinberger collection. Investigators found no collection of notes among the materials they examined.
When O.I.C. investigators returned to the Library of Congress in November 1991, they reviewed the entire index and found thousands of pages of diary and meeting notes that Weinberger had created as Secretary of Defense. These notes, which contained highly classified information, had been stored in the unclassified section of the Weinberger collection.
Weinberger's notes proved to be an invaluable contemporaneous record of the views and activities of the highest officials regarding those sales. They revealed, among other things, that contrary to his sworn testimony, Weinberger knew in advance that U.S. arms were to be shipped to Israel in November 1985 without Congressional notification, in an effort to obtain the release of U.S. hostages, and that Israel expected the United States to replenish the weapons Israel shipped to Iran. Weinberger's notes also disclosed that, contrary to his sworn testimony, he knew that Saudi Arabia was secretly providing $25 million in assistance to the contras during a ban on U.S. aid.
. . . The Government's trial evidence would have demonstrated that, contrary to the impression created by his false testimony before Congress, Weinberger was a knowing participant in the initiative to send arms to Iran in return for the release of Americans held hostage in Lebanon.
.. . Count Five charged Weinberger with making false statements in the October 10, 1990, interview with members of Independent Counsel's staff and a special agent of the F.B.I.
. . . During the interview, Weinberger was asked repeatedly, in several different ways, about his note-taking practices. He insisted that he rarely took notes; that, as a rule, he did not take any notes when he met with the President or other Cabinet members; and that he specifically did not take any notes during meetings concerning the Iran arms sales.
. . . To establish the deliberate falsity of Weinberger's statements, the Government would have proved at trial that (1) Weinberger maintained voluminous notes of meetings and phone calls, many of which were relevant to Iran/contra; (2) Weinberger knew in 1987 of Congressional requests for his notes and diaries but produced none of them, and went so far as to lie under oath to conceal their existence from Congressional investigators; and (3) on his retirement as Secretary of Defense, Weinberger privately deposited his notes in the Library of Congress where no one could see them without his permission.
. . . Mr. Weinberger's Reply
. . . Notwithstanding former President Bush's pardon almost 12 months ago, and the district court's subsequent dismissal of the charges against him, Mr. Weinberger still confronts a segment of a lengthy report written by Mr. Walsh that asserts he committed various criminal offenses. The very fact that Mr. Weinberger must respond to this report represents, as further described below, the final chapter in a longer line of prosecutorial abuses by Mr. Walsh and his staff.
. . . The contention that Mr. Weinberger did not give the O.I.C. permission to review the unclassified portion of his collection or intended to mislead the O.I.C. is, as the record demonstrates, nothing more than a figment of Mr. Walsh's imagination -- a vivid and engaging one obsessed with the detection of sophisticated conspiracies at the highest levels of government. Mr. Weinberger's written authorization permitting the O.I.C. to inspect and "obtain copies of . . . notes and documents related to the Iran/Contra matter" did not make any distinction between unclassified and classified material. Evidently, when Mr. Mark first went to the Library of Congress, he focused solely on classified material.
. . . Contrary to the impression created by Mr. Walsh in his final report, however, it was not any action by Mr. Weinberger that precluded "discovery" of the notes. Rather, it was the sloppiness and carelessness of the O.I.C. that resulted in its not having the notes until November 1991.
-- Cherri (jessam5@home.com), February 20, 2001.
Cherri,If you'll read the book Compromised by Terry Reed, you'll find that Clinton was heavily involved in the drugs for guns business while governor of Arkansas, along with the Bushes and other noteworthy members of both the Republican and Democratic establishments.
-- Barry Seal (BS@Compromised.con), February 20, 2001.
This explaines why the repugs went after Clinton so hard, from the beginning. Bush thought he was going to get another term in office, and Clinton winning messed up his and the repugs plans. Those plans they are trying to get through fast now before the Democrats find their voices.Barry, If Clinton is involved too, he needs to be exposed too.
-- Cherri (jessam5@home.com), February 20, 2001.