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- <text id=89TT3180>
- <title>
- Dec. 04, 1989: American Notes:Iran-Contra
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
- Dec. 04, 1989 Women Face The '90s
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- NATION, Page 49
- American Notes
- IRAN-CONTRA
- And Then There Was One
- </hdr><body>
- <p> A cynic might suspect that one arm of the Government had
- protected another. The CIA swore to Attorney General Dick
- Thornburgh that if Joseph Fernandez, its former station chief
- in Costa Rica, were to use certain classified documents to
- defend himself at his Iran-contra trial, the nation's security
- would be endangered. Thornburgh last week repeated the claim in
- an affidavit to Federal Judge Claude Hilton. So Hilton dismissed
- all charges against Fernandez, even though Independent Counsel
- Lawrence Walsh scoffed that the "fictional secrets" had already
- been disclosed in the press.
- </p>
- <p> Earlier, Albert Hakim, who helped divert millions of
- dollars in U.S. Government profits from Iranian arms sales into
- secret Swiss accounts and siphoned some to the contras, was
- permitted to cop a plea. He admitted being guilty of a mere
- misdemeanor: helping to buy a security fence for Oliver North's
- suburban Washington home. In return, felony charges against him
- were dropped.
- </p>
- <p> That leaves only one Iran-contra defendant still facing
- trial: former National Security Adviser John Poindexter. He
- insists that testimony by former President Ronald Reagan is
- vital to his defense. Reagan is resisting Poindexter's subpoena.
- If Judge Harold Greene rules that Poindexter's ex-boss need not
- testify, the retired admiral presumably will ask to have his
- case dismissed too.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
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