Transcripts For CSPAN3 Iran-Contra 20170401

Scandal was bigger than previously believed. This was reported at the workings institution in 2014. It is about 90 minutes. Good morning. Welcome to the brookings institution. This is an event sponsored by the brookings intelligence project. Our guest today is mr. Malcolm byrne. Im extremely pleased to have him here today. Not only is he a great scholar put a great friend. His official title is Deputy Director of the National Security archive. Nsa. Of course it is not that an that nsa he works for. The nsa york store is one of washingtons greatest gems. It is a place where classified America Needs this maker and is hopefully declassified. It seeks to shine a light on what goes on behind the scenes inside of washington. He is the coauthor of the becoming enemies. He now has a new book, irancontra, which is based on an extraordinary amounts of research and documents and diaries and interviews with individuals with a truly a mountain of material and documents the tunnel think anyone else has ever systematically and seriously looked at. Unless you are a prosecutor. Unless you are a prosecutor. They didnt look at them as well as they should have. The picture that emerges out of this book actually is right there on the cover. Our image ofnk Ronald Reagan. I think it changes in a somewhat disturbing way. Toout from the conclusion, often the president and his aides took action first been worried whether it was proper later. I would add to proper and legal later. At the heart of the irancontra scandal were two secret intelligence operations. One in Central America and one in iran. These intelligence operations were never properly notified to the congress of the United States. They were illegal from the start, particularly of the operation in iran but also in nicaragua. They irancontra scandal had immense consequences. I think it is safe to say that the margin or folly that led to the iraq war in 2003 and is in 2014 can be traced back in many ways to the irancontra intelligence operation that led to the irancontra scandal. Is the oversight. Ystem failed us we didnt get oversight. We got hearings and articles. There was no real systematic effort to prevent future president s and white houses from abusing power. Last but not least, sadly all of this has haunting timely reminders today. United states once again has hostages being held in the middle east by extreme islamist organizations which have demonstrated they are ready to carry out horrific accounts of brutality. Two president s were consumed by hostages years. Barack obama has one today. I would ask you to turn off your cell phones and the formats here today will be simple. Im going to interview malcolm for 40 minutes or so about using the prerogative of the chair. On one open it to you to ask any questions i wasnt smart enough to think of. By asking you about Ronald Reagan. The saga place him in of the irancontra scandal russian mark scandal . Malcolm its an honor to be here, at brookings. I am so happy to be able to talk about this book i worked on for a long time. The picture of reagans emblem medical of where he comes out of this affair and where i see him fitting in is at the top. If a complicated story. There is not a lot of twentysomethings in the room. All of you will remember the hearings were a long drawn out process. Complicated because it affected to Different Countries, three Different Countries if you include israel. Of want garishot ish policy issues and dull matters as the found dragged on for years and years. Keeping on top of what the issues were is a challenge. In judging where reagan fits you what exactly you are talking about. Are you talking about what reagan knew, what people told him . What things happened may be were under his radar . Multilayered story. To put it as briefly as i can, i see reagan has being the driving the scandal. Both elements of the scandal on the iran side, guided primarily by his concern for the hostages. He was widely acknowledged to have been emotional and moved by his meetings with the hostage families, in 1985 especially. This drove him. He wanted for personal reasons and for political reasons, there is no doubting he had political motivations. He was intent on finding a solution to the hostage crisis. On the contra side of things he was less aware of what was happening on the part of his staff and aids from other agencies. There is no doubt that he and the the guidance atmosphere in which people like Robert Mcfarlane and john poindexter, and all the others took inspiration and instructions. You remember the famous phrase back in the congressional hearings, mcfarlane said in 1984 president reagan took him aside and said it is up to you to keep the contras together body and soul in anticipation of stringent restrictions on government aid to the contras that were about to take place. The boland amendment. As you look at the record as i saw it, it was clear to everybody including reagan what was about to happen. This was virtually a complete shutdown of official u. S. Assistance to the contras. Reagan was not about to let them go. He was as emotional about the Freedom Fighters as he was the hostages. He was intent on finding ways to get around congressional prohibitions. Whether he understood everything that was to happen was legal or illegal, we can get into those details. The basic point is that he was at the top of the pyramid and without him i dont think any of this would have happened. Bruce the heart of the iran affair was trading arms for hostages. America has had a long policy. We are not going to negotiate with terrorists. We end up negotiating with terrorists . Even worse, giving them weapons . This is part of the complex story within a story. I want to say that i was surprised, i did what i often do, i scanned the times website and look at the times minutes. Little videos they put together that are helpful to encapsulate particular issues. Hostages one on matters. Advertised itself as showing some of the rare instances where the u. S. Has broken with its policy of not negotiating for hostages. Nowhere in that minute did the phrase irancontra come into play or Ronald Reagan. Have beenecause i buried in the subject, but that seems to have been the most egregious example of the violation of that policy, and yet it was not mentioned. How did we get involved in this . There were many aspects. History is not a simple thing you have many causes in most cases. Several things have to come into play. One was reagans emotional attachment to this issue. Administration, this question had, about how to deal with iran. Mcfarlandnow is that didnt come up with this idea by himself. Ande were others before him other parts of the government who thought this was an idea worth considering. Mcfarlandppened until was approached by an Israeli Foreign Ministry Official named david kimchi. You may remember his name. In theoached mcfarland late spring of 1985 with a message from the Prime Minister to the effect that the israelis were willing to help the americans out in an area where they knew they wanted assistance. Did the u. S. Want any israeli assistance, and if so they had some ideas. Perez says he got this idea from a couple of different coincidences. The appearance and his real of michael the dean, well known with everybody here, who at the time was a consultant to the National Security council on terrorism issues and leftist socialist politics and so on. Had been told by an associate of his who he does not name that the israelis had some ideas about how to approach iran. Israel and talked to a few others to get their sense of things. What do you know, are there ways to get into behind the veil so to speak and so on. Hat was one part the other part was just before dark andof the more gloomy figures of this affair appeared on the scene through a , atle of longtime friends all Schwimmer Adolph schwimmer. He was a flamboyant figure back then. Affair, andl of the arms dealer, shady middleman with ties to who knows who. Wasr people assumed it iranian intelligence. He clearly did have sometimes with iranians in the power structure. Schwimmer and an arms dealer who had been stationed in iran under the shah , he spoke farsi and so on. Through that connection may raise this idea of maybe we can make some money with iran. Iran is in the throes of its war with iraq which started in september of 1980. If that war had not been going on iran would not have needed weapons. Through this coincidence of events, the appearance of these , andes in one place exists. Spark telling him there may be possibilities here. During the course of different conversations the subject comes up, maybe the best approach to showing the iranians goodwill would be if you had some were willing to offer weapons they need. The shah military was based on americas. They had a lot of hot missiles, of highlevelinds equipment the shah had managed to get out of different u. S. President s. Needs. The spark farland not because he is personally interested in the hostages. I think he did think there was a strategic opening at hand. Wrote about the comparison between the possibility of opening up to iran with Henry Kissingers opening to china and everyone suggested he thinks the henry kissinger. I think he thought there was a good possibility. Iran was the most important country in the persian gulf for a lot of reasons. Lots of good reasons to try to see what was possible to achieve. How it got into trading arms for hostages is it comes down to reagan. Reagan may have been told this is a strategic possibility and we should explore it. Fromt support in that idea none other than George Schultz and caspar weinberger, who years deniedrds to this day they ever thought this was any kind of a good idea. In fairness to them it was broached as a possible opening. Both of those two senior cabinet officers essentially said it is ok by us. Go ahead and pursue this. With certain caveats. In the summer of 85 reagan, in the hospital at this point having surgery, he meets with they discussed this idea over the course of a couple of weeks or so. Then it is another story of how it goes from there. Figure you one other have not mentioned. The director of central intelligence. Malcolm who is always in the background. Agency is saying we cant trust these people. The polygraph, not that they are the perfect instrument, but these polygraphs are repeated. Despite his own professionals advise cqs pushing this as well. Given this unique relationship ith reagan, malcolm he is a critical figure. He wanted to be secretary of state. Job but togiven that the cia directorship after it was promised it would be a cabinet level post and he would have a lot of influence. No exaggeration to say that when reagan came and office, casey hit the ground running. Within a month he had a draft president ial findings, documents authorized and covert action on reagans desk and both iran and the nicaragua cases. Those in their way formed the groundwork for what was to come. What iran policy was in the Reagan Administration , if you do i will give you a gold star. There was no iran policy. There were lots of competing ideas. The Reagan Administration, which ,as a surprise to some people. Ow reagan swept into office the Unifying Force he seemed to approach toof a new , froms. Role in the world the testimony of people who experienced it, it was almost pandemonium. Both of these areas in particular. Three basicasically approaches. Overthrow and one cia official who has spoken about this said they probably got between 30 and 40 offers per year from various groups saying we can do this. And weve us the weapons will do it for you. Casey was taken with a particular idea that involve the shop relatives that involved clandestine activities. It would hopefully dislodge the ayatollah. From the get go he was aggressive in terms of how he wanted to approach iran. Quickly, in terms of what the policy ideas were, the second idea was to contain iran. There is whole book about that that we have been a part of. A third approach was another kind of oldschool idea which sounds antiquated now but was critical at the time. Approach. Oviet there were clusters of officials , including at the white house, including al haig who believe that as reagan used to famously saying, when it is time to go to the source we need to eradicate them around the world. There were fears iran was dead center. Believed by a lot of people in washington and in europe that next on the list was iran. We now know that the invasion of afghanistan was a defensive desperate gamble on the assumption it was the United States that was about to go to afghanistan. Talk about perceptions and misperceptions. But this was critical. It was certainly in critical in his thinking to pluck the right chords with president reagan. Have ane then extraordinary step of the National Security advisor going to iran. He was armed with a bible and a cake. Malcolm just a cake. Bruce that is right. There was no bible. Malcolm it is extraordinary to conceive the notion of taking a cake with you. I cant recall another Diplomatic Mission with a cake. It turns out the iranians think they are going to meet with them. They dont meet with them. It comes out, we have the investigation. How would you characterize how the Reagan Administration approached the business of the investigation . I think particularly important issue, how to deflect the president from being at the center of this. Hope we can talk about those details of the trip. As for how they treated the investigation, that takes up a big chunk of this book. Chunk. Big advisers andop everybody else involved. There are virtually no heroes in this story. Even as somebody like George Schultz who was one of the few who repeatedly spoke out against presence, ians have documents that if we have time i will read from. They are dramatic. Oldell prey to the washington scandal habit of toreating into his shell figure out how to minimize his exposure in a way that didnt do him justice. I will throw out the thought that this is another saying i lay at the feet of another thing i lay at the feet of Ronald Reagan. Inabilityingness or to consider the Collateral Damage of the decisions he made. One of those bits of damage was the effect this had on the advisers who worked for him. Who did to their credit repeatedly say this is a dumb idea and it is illegal. Reagan refused. This notion reagan had no advice nefarious in by neerdowells. It is absolute nonsense. Is very clear. D what happened to them i believe was at some point during this process after the natural tightening your defenses and circling the wagon and so on there was a sense that they not only had to protect the president , they had to start protecting themselves. In the course of doing both of those people like schultz and mcfarland, and cia folks, all these other folks , they got the short end of the stick. They were attacking their president , policies and their party. And then themselves. They were basically thrown under the bus as a result. Im not really answering your question here but there was a process that took place. Scandal basically was exposed in three steps. In early october, two years after the main boland amendment was in place cutting off all military aid directly or aircrafty, one of the , north had organized oliver north had organized, he was shot down by a 19yearold an fa seven thing on his shoulder. He was stunned that he actually hit it. It reached his target. Survivor from wisconsin, dragged him in front of International Tv and he bare his soul and said i have been hired by the cia. It is an american operation. That is enough to get the ball rolling. That led to an immediate scramble by those people involved. They had to cut that short. Theirt abrams, counterpart at the cia and others, all who got together to try to minimize the effects, the record shows despite their testimony they all knew about norths connections. They knew about that resupply operation. They did their best to take credit for it. General who was raising money to take some responsibility. He refused. Quiet areaar in a the high doors when that happened. The next event is november 3 as we all remember. News media gets a hold of this story that comes out of iran in domestic politics where somebody who thought that the iranian leaders were losing their taste for the war found out they were dealing with americans, decided to spill the beans. The story gets picked up and printed in a couple of different places. Exposes theat hostages which reagan denies it first. He will say it was to protect hostages lives. I have no doubt that was a part of it. Until longt come out into the investigation was the fact that reagans close advisers were terrified of this was going to lead to his impeachment. They knew the first stage of these shipments, of which the public was only gradually learning bit by bit, the first stage were undoubtedly legal. Illegal you can quickly get into the gray area of the law which im happy to do if you want. How into i will probably learn something. Of thewas part motivation, the motivating force that led the administration as a whole down this dark road to lying about what they did, doing all of these things. It is a sad tale. The are several different chapters to it. Bruce im kind of eager to get to the end story. The implications. ,ere you have Ronald Reagan fully wedding, well aware of what he is doing. Arguably in peach of all. Impeachable. The opposition, the democrats dont want to go there. Here is theat democrats opportunity to bring down the president. I cant imagine in current washington this would be seized on and a nano second. Yet, they decide lets give them a pass. It is a fascinating part of the story. It shows you how far we have come. I happen to see that as in some you had the start nixon and the shenanigans there at least a milestone on the path towards the hyper partisanship and the disjuncture, the dysfunction of official washington that we have today. If you remember, reagan had many aspects to him. On the one side was this jovial personf the kind, yvonne who wants to bring america along. He was a polarizing figure. He wanted to draw a very sick line between his type of thinking and the postvietnam, boast the nonliberals post the nonliberals. Who were innocents responsible for the surge of congressional power grabs that took place in the 1970s. Whatcritical to understand happened. The feeling that congress and the executive , we were atat war war with congress on contra policy. For all of that, i think what someeft unnoticed was of camaraderie. Collaboration among moderate democrats. There were more hardline democrats out for blood and saw this as their chance to get the teflon president. Finally they have done something that is going to stick to him. There was the neverending sense of self protection on capitol hill as well. It wasnt just the executive branch. The democratic leadership was held back on at least two points. Reagan was still a highly popular president. Even though his ratings plummeted after the scandal. The worst drop in president ial history. Worse the next in. He was a popular guy. They were afraid to confront him too much. Ofy also were very afraid being seen as soft on communism. This was one of the most successful ploys Patrick Buchanan and others in the Reagan Administration used. And reagan himself. When it came to any contra vote there was always heightened rhetoric about do you stand with us or against us . Are you useful idiots for the opposition, or are you going to stand up for american values. It had its effect. Throughout thect presidency. Also in the investigative phase where when you look at how both parties chose who was going to be part of the investigative the democratic side it is mostly moderates. One or two people could be considered not so moderate. Several of them voted for contra a in the past. Contra aid in the past. There were a few moderates. There were a few republicans who sided with the democrats who were the majority of that point. Treated as traders s by all theraitor other republicans because the republicans clearly will acknowledgment, they saw their job as to defend president reagan and and his policies. Someone like me who was young at that stage watching these hearings, i had to be schooled in the notion that congressional investigation is about something other than trying to find out what actually happened. I happen to believe the democrats by and large were trying to figure out what happened. It is in their interest to discover things that dont make the opposition look good. On the other hand i think you will be maybe not in this day and age but back then it was stunning to see how much of their precious airtime was used witnesses forning those against reagan and supporting his policies and so on. No interest in finding out if any laws were broken. The story of their attitudes towards north put them in the doghouse. It was shocking, even at the time, to go back and look at it again. Maybe even more so to see in the lead up to norths testimony on capitol hill, after two months of hearings, the democrats did a decent job of constructing an image of how the administration had behaved on the contras and iran. The proof of that was in the statements that several made in the lead up to norths presentation both to the media and at the hearings themselves. Irresponsible. A rogue. Get this job . Uy incomes north and in less than a week he spends the entire room around. Millions of fans among american viewers. Oliver north and clubs get started. Arthur lyman is distraught when he comes in to see during a break in the proceedings members of the Capitol Hill Police force are there having their picture taken with him. These same congressman afterwards turn around and it is like night and day. It is shameful. So much of this affair is typical of what you see under ordinary circumstances. This is not an aberration. It is not the aberration a lot of people think it is. These same institutions have been in place for all these years and the same principles apply and how they conduct themselves. Congress is a political animal. Thats part of the danger. Bruce going to go to the audience but i do want to state that i think that what you just heard is one of the great things about reading this book. It actually is beach reading. It is that great a mystery and a puzzle. Malcolm does a great job of walking you through this. You mentioned him. I want to come back to it. Dick cheney. A small figure in all of this. But will draw some important lessons from all of this. Could you elaborate on what dick cheneys role is, and what dick fromy took as his takeaway the irancontra scandal . One that is right on point, a document from the beginning of the Reagan Administration. Inauguration but after the election, these are a set of notes by james baker who. S going to play a big role notes of his meeting with dick cheney. Baker is going to be chief of staff. He wants to get some pointers from this guy. I cant read his writing anymore. Is thely the point president s standing has been weakened in recent years. Restore power and authority to executive branch. Needs strong leadership. That is a quote from cheney. Baker has put six stars next to fame forsays central years in the presidency. He carries these views into irancontra. Of the houser republican investigating committee. Because on theed senate side he has seen fit to name Lauren Redman as his vice chairman of the committee. Lee hamilton refuses to name cheney has vice chair. Conflict. F a running throughout the hearings cheney makes the point repeatedly that the problem is not the president. The problem is congress. Congress overstepped its bounds in the 1970s, tried to take over president ial power, it was unconstitutional, and it is the cause of a lot of Serious Problems for the american way of doing politics. In the minority report and that report gains when cheney reminds people in 2005. People in the media and the public are still trying to figure out where does this guy come from and what does he think about this stuff . He points out to the press on air force one, he says if you want to know what i think in what the serious issues are about president ial power go back to this littleknown manuscript we put together in the 1980s and that will give you a roadmap. It does. Its a parable message about how the real problems are not excessive and president ial power. It is abuses by congress. That explains a lot about the actions he and president bush took in 2000. Malcolm questions bruce questions . Please identify yourself. Questions not a lecture. You. Ank i wanted to focus on the iran policy aspects of this switch. How people iny the government can take x and y and get c. You have documents that show people arguing that selling arms to iran will somehow promote people in the government who want to overthrow the government. At the same time these same people are expected to get american hostages freed. How can you reconcile these things . Officials inwere the u. S. Government about iran . Malcolm they were very ignorant, as you know. Expression of that was they acknowledged it also. That is why the idea had some traction with a lot of people who thought about these issues. People at the cia. Everybody was after hostages alone. They wanted to see improvement. In the early part of the administration this idea surfaced more than once about getting back in to better relations with iran, using weapons to do it. And 1983. Up in 1982 materials relate to that. There was a recognition we didnt know what was going on there. A reflection of that is the weight given to a document put together by nine none other about the power structures in iran. As somebody who has something to do with iran as a subject of years,n the last 10, 15 when you look at that document it is not that it is off the mark. There is some interesting stuff. Where it is right and wrong may seem subtle to somebody who doesnt know a lot about the subject. But those differences make a huge difference overall. They understood their ignorance when they saw this kind of analysis. They thought this is fantastic. Quoted as this is the real deal. This is a breakthrough. Given where they were, it was kind of a breakthrough. Somebody bruce said he failed polygraphs constantly. The cia wanted nothing to do with him. Failed15 questions he 13. One of them was his name. To fact was he was able establish contacts with no less than an assistant to the Prime Minister of iran at that time, who we all know as the guy who changed his stripes and came out as one of the moderate candidate in the 2009 elections. He was one of the hardliners back then, very interested in getting weapons for the war. Right there you have the kind of disconnect barbaras talking about. How is it that you dont know that even though the israelis are telling you youre going to be dealing with moderate and theyre going to help you unseat this regime, soon after they get started they see they are dealing with somebody like him, people who are selfprofessed members of the revolutionary guards and so on. They are told repeatedly over the course of a year and a half that the people they are meeting with includes some of the hardline factions. They broke it down into factions. Plenty simplistic. Too simplistic to be helpful ultimately. See whatthey refused was in front of them. There was a point after they got it, after the mission to tehran, the americans decide lets ditch this guy and find another channel. They look for the second channel. Nephew ofem to the jani. N traded in interest in having a better relationship with the United States. He had given signals as early as june 1985 when the 847 hijacking took place in the navy diver was executed, and thrown onto the intercededpersonally and helped resolve that crisis. That i was able to establish was registered with people like George Schultz and others, that this was something that probably helped him think Something Like this could pan out. Nephew,n i got to his and they felt they were reaching finally the centers of power, really responsible officials in iran, one of whom was the commander of the air defense forces, they never met with him. He was definitely part of it. They thought we have this breakthrough and we are getting to the right people. It doesnt take long before the that goodls them news, this is reached a point where our side is going to form a commission to deal with this issue in the americans. Over a longer term. Say grace. Who is on the commission . Cap on the same people they have dealt with before. Guards, revolutionary head of intelligence who are still around. Considered such a negative force by the americans that the name they gave him was the monster. He is named to the Commission Said it was to deal with these things. Time and again they are hit with effective who they are dealing with but it never stops them from this misguided adventure. Believe theythey could get the hostages . Probablywell, they would say the proof was in the pudding. They did get three hostages out area it was a long and arduous episode but they did get three hostages out. They clearly had some kind of contact with people who had influence. There was constant frustration because they were always being told you will get all of the hostages out. Promise. It never happened. That is part of why the trip was a bust. He finally said no, were not pointed take this anymore. There was enough of the teas they were willing to go along with it. Three more hostages were taken. It is a mystery to some extent. Do you think the u. S. Arms to iran have tangible or measurable effect on the iraniraq war . Its a good question. The official word from the Reagan Administration was absolutely not. S was a miniscule amount it could easily fit into the cargo bay of an aircraft. Oliver north acknowledges he was tasked to find a plane big enough to make that real. It was a c five transport. Is it had no effect whatsoever. If you talk to iran hands iranians and some american officials, they will acknowledgment believe it did have some affect. I have talked to some iranians who were in the war, at some of , scholars who have studied this. They have done their own interviews with revolution guard commanders. Their belief is that it did have an effect. It helped against tank counterattacks. View of oneis the guy who was a highlevel official who said that he was hawks, they were getting not just from other countries as well, those kinds of weapons did have an effect on iraqi attacks or willingness, or readiness to attack iranian city is. I dont how you know that down to be sure. Was it those missiles to have the effect . Was it Something Else . There is evidence to that effect. The iraqis believe the same thing. Saddam hussein and some of his officials, their papers were taken by American Forces when they occupied the place in 2003. Some of those are now available and they have been studied. Ive listen to some of these tapes of saddam talking to his advisers. I read the transcripts. Thats a whole other aspect to the story. They were shocked to some degree. Saddam claims he wasnt shocked. He knew these people were reprobates. Not surprisingly they believed the weapons had an effect. Wanted take one from further back. Im going to take one from further back. I was at the state department when this was happening. Can you set the scene . Speakerier speec mentioned lebanon. Could set theu scene of the pressure this was putting on the white house on the number of deaths and executions of hostages. Was an understand what essential driver and all of this. They were absolutely at the heart of this. There was great pressure. Pressure. Personal i dont doubt for a second reagans desire to see them come home. As bruce will be able to tell you, from the interviews i have counterterrorism and prevention of hostagetaking was a huge focus for the Reagan Administration. They built up the infrastructure to an extraordinary degree. This, there was a lot to be proud of. Hostages were central as one cia guy said in addition to the personal side, reagan was aware of the Yellow Ribbon phenomenon. We remember that in the iran 1979, tens ofn thousands of Yellow Ribbons all over the United States. There was no question reagan wanted to not see that happen again. The main one being the fate of the cia officer William Buckley reassigned toally beirut shortly after he had left. Violatedrently tradecraft by putting him in danger, relocating him there so soon after he departed. Ine enough he got bundled 1984. This is when that started. Is where this next phase starts. Buckley was the guy who was of most concern. Tortured ands produced from it a 400 page agonizedt of his discussions a that created huge pressure for the intelligence community, as well as for the president. The hope was that buckley would be the first guy released. That was what mcfarland wanted from august 1985. Bruce since casey had sent buckley to beirut, he felt a personal and professional responsibility. I write the mitchell report. Memo about socks, but my argylls were at the laundry. Argyles were at the laundry. There is one name that hasnt come up yet. Where is george h. W. Bush in all this . What does that tell us about the pardons . Bruce malcolm excellent question. Was making sure he left no footprints in the sand wherever he went. I can find a document here he, as you are member, came remember, came under a lot of scrutiny when he was running for president to 1988, and his in whole story was, i didnt know anything. I wasnt in the loop, i wasnt in the cockpit. He was trying to show himself simultaneously as right there with the gipper and yet conveniently offstage when trouble hit. Bush left a diary that was not known about until way late in the investigation. This was a whole other aspect of the saga that partly answers your question of, what was the reaction of the administration to the investigations . The reaction of several key officials was to take their personal note and hide them and withhold them from the independent counsel who was treated as the devil incarnate by a lot of them. There is some controversy over whether weinbergers material was available at the library of congress. It is very clear, at least to me, that these guys knew exactly what they were doing, and they withheld the stuff deliberately in order to protect themselves. Bush was no example. This was a page from his, its called the bush diary. He started keeping at november 4, 19 a six, the november 4, 1986, the day after the irancontra became known. He would dictate onto a tape and a secretary would transcribe it. Notesry second day of his , they came out through the end that council, who eventually recovered the notes and diaries of weinberger and George Schultz schultzs aid, all of whom claimed they never kept any notes. Bushsr 5, this is diary. There is some discussion of bud mcfarlane having being held prisoner in a ron for classroom days. I am one of the few people that know the details, and there is a lot of flak and misinformation out there. It is not a subject we can talk about. Thaterger also has notes show that bush was very must and all very much involved. I would love to try to read some of this lets see. , is ak i wont read it lot of fantastic material out there. This case i am thinking of, there are conversations between schultzand bush, where is coming back from meetings and talking to charlie hill and others going, what is happening here . This is late november, 1986, when trouble has had a fan that has hit thefan fan. Who does he think hes getting . To his credit, he confronts bush , more as a friendly warning. He says, you got to watch out what youre doing. You are treading a very fine line. You know that you approve these things. You got to be careful what you said. I am very careful. True words have never been spoken. You cant be tactically right, you have to be right. B careful where this leads you. Very strong stuff. Not only on the around side, but also on the countryside on the iran side, but also on the side. Ct contra the scandal of dealing with the contras had to deal with higherups, including the Vice President and others, and their attempts to get foreign governments to donate money to congress. Theres a whole legal question about these, known as quid pro quo deals. The question surrounded whether or not it is legal to do a quid pro quo deal with a foreign government. The short answer is no, is not no, it is not. You can have a conversation with a head of state, as reagan did an mcfarlane did beforehand, and that conversation results in the foreign leader saying, i think we can help you out here, and we would like to make a donation, that is ok. But what clearly happened on a number of occasions was american officials going to these guys, andush is one of them saying to them bluntly, we need your help. We need you to keep going with the contras, post them on your territory, get weapons shipments, give us money, and bush is on the record as having made that kind of approach. In each of these cases, the head of state or official is also on paper saying, what is in it for us . How are you going to help us . Fahd is seen as a nice gesture that he gives. I dont i have this document with me. I just recently found a document meeting, and it is discussing the escalation of conflict in the persian gulf. 1985. In may 1984 and february 1985, the saudis tell mcfarland and reagan they are going to get a lot of money to the contras. The first is 1 million a month. Mcfarland reported to reagan. Theneagan myths with d, and theys with fah double it to 2 million a month. Says, we haver just gotten an organ an urgent request from king fahd to help us in these various ways in the persian gulf because shipping is being attacked. It is time for us to step up and do something. This was the subject of the meeting. Take a math genius to add two and two together and see that there is an expectation there. That was the case, even more explicitly, and all these instances, including one case going toh admitted honduras to try to cut the same deal. Bruce if my memory is right, you also described in the book a meeting at the King David Hotel in jerusalem between the Vice President and the israelis. You alluded to this before. 020 in on it a little more. The idea of arms to hostages, arms to iran, arms in general for whatever, would never have stood in washington without the israelis saying, this is the right thing to do. This book is not about Israeli Foreign policy, but how would you characterize the weight which israel had in moving the United States in this direction, the way one ofy in most respected figures the history of israel had in moving us into what turned out to be disaster . Malcolm there is no question they played a key role, not only in helping spark it, but encouraging it as the process went on. Side. Nt completely one they were clearly people on the american side who were uncomfortable about this, and George Schultz was one of them, and george bush was another one skittish about too much of an israeli role. Criticismsltzs which he said in one of his frank written discussions with charlie hill is that the problem is when we do this kind of thing, even if the president says it is minuscule, it opens the door for israel to do even more. There was a past history going back almost immediately after the revolution of israel providing arms and spare parts to iran. Often in spite of american disapproval. I talk about this to some extent as a lead up to it. A lot of pressure from israel saying, let us do it, let us do it. Early on, reagan uses some of the arguments that we can get you intelligence, we continue in with some of these moderates, and we think this can work. Going back to barbaras question, having just a shred of legitimately to this is the israeli argument that one of their best sense of relationship with the old regime was with the military. They still claimed we have friends who are still in the military, and we think they may be able to be helpful. That is a little strand that goes through. It is not one of the interesting things to me about this story is the personal side of it. It is not just the ability of one government to home and on what they think is going to register with the other government, the United States, but it is also the interplay of her salaries of personalities. It is striking how many of these people have twins in Different Countries. Went to israel and interviewed a bunch of people involved, and to a person, they said paris is this crazy, out of the box guy who comes up with these ideas. Has oneering said paris million ideas, 2 of which are really brilliant. He is willing to go out of the box and do this kind of stuff. He doesnt care what the rest of his group thinks. Hes got an arrangement, a powersharing arrangement. They all get together. They dont necessarily like each other or what they are doing, but they know their turn is going to come, so they allow others to go forward. Level, thereional is another separated at birth story, which is a counterterrorism advisor to paris who met an untimely death after this event, that is still the subject of much interest. Norths twins separated at birth. He was this maverick, no experience in the field, made as many lifelong friends as he did enemies, charming and gregarious guy. Able to cozy up to people like paris and others and be able to have a lot of influence. The two of them got together and melded, and worked on all kinds of siebert kinds of secret operations alluded to that never saw the light of day. They had all kinds of wacky ideas about how to expand their operation beyond just the iran side. Bruce more questions, right here. Since you spent so much time thinking about this, and this is a very interesting talk, id be interested to know your opinion on how we are going to move forward as a culture, not just america, but the human population. This has been going on forever. You go that way into our history , everything has been distorted and mismanaged and taking advantage of. Have you come to any ideas about how we can move forward as a human culture to avoid these types of things . Inevitably, its the average person whose money is being misspent and whose lives are being taken. Its a big question, but the you have any thoughts about that . Malcolm fortunately, is a history book, so thats not a policy book or psychology book. But yeah, you cant help but think about the things. Not being an expert in any of those other areas, all i can do is throw out some general reactions which relate to this case. You need to have people in office who take their responsibilities seriously. Population, do a more to hold them accountable. We need to be less enthralled of their arguments that we are facing some kind of crisis. There is always a crisis. 9 11 being an example. Its not that they arent real, but we have to be more aware of how often these kinds of things have happened. Media,p to us, the congress, the court, and the officials themselves to hold themselves and for us to hold them to a higher standard. One of my deep regrets about this whole scandal is i think it cheapens that. It lessened that sense. By letting these guys get away and by giving them, ones who worked so hard to try to andmize the responsibility excuse and justify the actions, by giving them so much credence when the evidence seems so start in the other direction so rk in the other direction and i am not just talking about used torth, who travelers checks when he shouldnt have and took an illegal gratuity and all kinds of liberties but also all the way up to reagan himself, i believe it could not have had any other effect but to give the American People the sense that there doesnt need to be a higher standard for these guys. They are just like you and me. This is why i think the north trial had the result it did. Said, i came out and can put myself in his shoes. Hes just a regular guy at work. We all caps corners and do certain things. Evidence, liehred at every opportunity to our , superiors, counterparts, the public, congress. You should find you are facing serious consequences for that kind of thing. I just got the sense at the time, and reading back into it, that sense of ethical responsibility just took a nosedive after this episode. A couple of years ago, i wrote a book largely about john poindexter. We had a chance to talk about a lot of this. Two questions. I dont think i heard you say in your remarks, maybe you go into it in the book, where you come down on whether reagan knew about the diversion or authorized it, that key question that ricks that links iran and contra together. And how do you think the Obama Administration grappling with this issue of negotiating for terrorists, and there is a lot of gray area about whether ransoms are being paid, what lessons do you think they should be drawing from how the Reagan Administration handled it, and what pitfalls they should hope to avoid . The diversion question, the watergate question of the irancontra scandal. Id argue, and others have argued, that was a mistake to consider that the central question. Several of us, including ollie north, agree that it was ideaally a really clever to divert everybody down the wrong path. The diversion was a diversion. Why . In the course of his , the damagen control operation from november , his aim was to find out what this diversion was all about. Thats when i found this memo where north says, we are going to have this arms sale to iran and i am going to take 12 Million Dollars and give it to the contras. His first question is, was there a cover memo . Why . Because the cover memo would have said the president had seen, or Something Like that. It is an important question because it does identify and act that virtually everybody, except north, sees as blatantly illegal. Deflect from the other key issues that were at play. When meese was able to figure out that the president could deny ever having known anything about the diversion, it became safe to go in front of the public and say, there is this diversion, what a terrible thing. Dont worry, we are on top of it. We have fire the guy who did it. Meese was really worried about, at that point, the realization that reagan had authorized three shipments to terrorists in iran without any of the legal groundwork necessary to do that. A finding,ning reporting to congress, any of that stuff. He says himself that it was a validation a violation. He says, i dont think the president knew about it. Schultz has the same conversation, tauzama, no. , just talked to the president and he said yeah, i knew that. It is a blatant coverup by meese. They have a couple of other meetings with all the other highlevel people and spin the story. Heres what happened, the president didnt know, ok . Nobody says anything. Back saying they are building a wall around the president. At the meeting, nobody says a thing, even though weinberger knew he knew, they all knew. Whether reagan did in fact no, this was a big question and huge disagreement among all concerned. Investigators, anybody you talk to. Half of them cant believe that reagan didnt know about it because this was one of his most important subjects, policy topics. His aides know that. They did nothing but try to go out and get answers to the hostages. Had, as iing you understand it, and with, what are we going to tell the president about where the hostages are . The same with the contras. Its inconceivable that reagan would just stop asking questions about how we were keeping these guys together for two years. Poindexteralf says, was such an arrogant guy that he saw it as fully within his responsibility to decide what the president knew and didnt know. And thats what he said during the hearings. His pipe and saying, the buck stops here with me. I found him completely fascinated. I started leaning in the direction of, maybe he is actually telling the truth. To this day he says, i never told the president , because i knew he needed to liability. Hethe other hand, he says told him Everything Else that happened. And he knew what ollie north was doing and Everything Else. We talk about how the Embassy Staff shouldnt be conducted covert operations. That, to me, makes it an impeachable offense. If he knew about all this stuff , thenaff was doing imagine obama and that situation. How long would obama last that information came out . At least before calls for impeachment came out . Poindexter is willing to admit to all that, what is in it for secretsay i kept that a is that is not true . To my mind, poindexter is a much more loyal servant the north. North used those hearings to spill his guts because he had a smart lawyer who said you are going to go on trial soon, we are getting you immunity for anything you say here. Poindexter didnt take that route. He got found guilty on all of his charges. North didnt. Both had their charges vacated because of the immunized testimony. Poindexter was in a position to do just what north did and save his own skin, and he didnt. He took all of the heat. That gives him some credibility. I dont say i know for sure, but it is a fascinating question. Bruce weve unfortunately thehed bewitching hour witching hour. Maybe i can deflect a little bit and talk about u. S. Iran relations a bit. There are people who know a lot more about this than i do. My sense over the years is that the u. S. Has slowly been learning lessons. The reagan period offered several lessons. There are people there you can talk to. It is not 100 clear what they want from us, but there is enough evidence from people like the retiree from the cia who was part of this mission and others who firmly believe that some iranians wanted more than just weapons. They wanted to talk longerterm. That is a very interesting lesson, and of course the scandal from this put all thought of contacts of that sort into the deep freeze for a while. As one of the bad outcomes of this operation. Seemed to have to discover something for himself. Decided for instance, weve got a new guy, a moderate. Lets try to make an approach to him, but lets do it directly. We wont do it through intermediaries who cant be trusted, the way that reagan did. 1999 ande a letter in helped convey to the iranians indirectly. But it blows up in their face because he isnt the guy you could be addressing. Is the Supreme Leader you should be addressing. Obama seems to have figured that out. What kind of effect that has had, hard to say. But there are these kinds of pieces of evidence that the u. S. Is gradually picking up from each of their predecessors. , i pity the people whose profession it is to try to work this stuff out. In the course of digging through all the weird operations these guys did, there is a lot of material out there about what else was happening in the incredible lengths to which people went to creating these , therent organizations operations of subgroup, the task force. A huge amount of effort when into trying to figure out how to get these ties out these guys out. It always came down to not having enough it always came down to not having enough intelligence. Says is , as i isis is showing, its like everything involved. Although at one point reagan was terrified that the hostages would be executed, just as carter was in fact, there was a great memo from one of these meetings where reagan shows a side that a lot of people may be surprised about. Approves undertaking military strikes and other acts like that against not just hezbollah, but in my reading, against iranian targets as well, if anything happens to those hostages. The meeting ends with poindexter saying if this happens, we are going to conduct these strikes. Reagan snaps his fingers and goes like that. Poindexter says, dont you think we should have one more meeting just to confirm . Reagan goes, nope, only if it doesnt delay the strikes. Of course, there is blacked out text on all sides. To besson is, youve got super careful, because if you isis ist it right, then showing that the stakes are as high as all these folks f ear. I think this last hour and they half has given you just a sample. It is a great book. We have copies on sale here. I want to thank you, malcolm, for coming here today. Malcom thank you. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] announcer on history bookshelf, here from the countrys bestknown American History writers of the past decade, every saturday at 4 00 p. M. Eastern. And you can watch all of our programs at any time when you visit our website, cspan. Org history. You are watching American History tv, all weekend, every weekend, on cspan3. Announcer this weekend on American History tv, james haley, author of captain paradise a history of hawaii, discusses the life of musician, composer, and author liliuokalani. Here is a preview. Way, it was the missionaries who gave them a written language. They went from virtually a stone age society. The missionaries standardized the languages and made everything compact. They had aears, Literacy Rate among the highest in the world. They had native language newspapers. It was amazing. These people are very bright, ready for learning. Lydia mastered this. She also had an extraordinary musical talent. She became a nearconcertquality unionist pianist. She composed between 150 and 160 songs. Ave heard for many years in fact, in preparing this lecture, i discovered a modern lydia, saying, oh, poor after she is toppled from her throne and is imprisoned in the palace and she is so wistful about what she has lost, she writes this song. Farewell my country, it was wonderful. No. Actually, she wrote this on a horseback riding expedition. Hawaii,ave not been to there are tradewinds that blow. The northeast side of all the islands is jungle, and the mountains squeeze out all the rain. The western slope is mediterranean. It looks kind of like arizona on a good day. She was on this trip, and she saw one of their companions give a very affectionate farewell, probably to her younger sister, and she began humming this kind of popular tune called the loan rock by the sea. The song about this purging between two lovers. Lovers. Ng between two she was an amazing student. Also, she was unlike her brother. Very sincere in her profession of christian faith. Watch the entire program this evening at 6 45 p. M. American history tv, only on cspan3. Announcer recently, American History tv was at the american historical Associations Annual meeting in denver, colorado. We spoke with professors, authors, and graduate students about their research. This is about 20 minutes. Bill we are joined by randolph roth, history professor at ohio state university,