TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/062590/0625106.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 3.9 KB | 85 lines

                                                                                NATION, Page 23

THE PRESIDENCY

His Failure Was Political



By Hugh Sidey


    Retired Admiral John Poindexter, Ronald Reagan's National
Security Adviser, helped weave the Iran-contra web that
ensnared him, yet there was little enthusiasm in Washington
last week at his reckoning. He has legal bills of more than $3
million, has seen four years of his life wasted, and now has
been sentenced to six months in jail. Chances are slim for a
successful appeal of his convictions for deceiving Congress.
A presidential pardon is even more remote. Poindexter is the
seventh person found guilty in this sad drama and the only one
so far to be ordered to jail. He may keep that distinction.

    The feeling is that independent prosecutor Lawrence Walsh's
legal juggernaut, which has cost $21 million and fielded as
many as 60 lawyers and support staff, is running thin on
defendants, new evidence and sympathy. A grand jury may explore
further links to Reagan and George Bush, and Poindexter could
be called to testify with a grant of immunity. People who know
the admiral well are convinced that the effort will come to
naught, that history will have to judge Reagan -- where the
buck really stops -- on the fuzzy story before us. "John
Poindexter was made a flag officer in the U.S. Navy for the
express reason that he would not break in a crisis," says
retired Admiral Clarence Hill Jr., a friend and manager of
Poindexter's legal fund. "He did not. And he is not going to
break in the future. He believes he is right."

    When the news of Poindexter's sentence ran through the
capital, some of his former White House colleagues were in
black tie at the President's Dinner, the Republican Party's
grandest Washington fund raiser. "I felt sick," said one.
"There was not a criminal bone in his body. He was doing what
he thought his Commander in Chief wanted. He got a jail term
for political incompetence. Since when is that a felony?"

    Few people in power have had such a record of personal and
professional competence and honor. Poindexter was first in his
class at the Naval Academy, excelled at sea command and
Pentagon maneuver, and reared five sons (four of whom are
pursuing naval careers); his wife became an Episcopal minister
four years ago. Poindexter was devoted to trying to thwart
terrorists, free American hostages and bring democracy to
Nicaragua. Nobody argued with those objectives. "No defect in
character," declared a former Cabinet officer who worked with
him. "But a defect in judgment. He should not be so punished
for that."

    "There were horrible people down there doing horrible
things," contends Harvard's Richard Pipes, who served two years
on the NSC staff. "It was all piled on his head. He was just
in the wrong job."

    Former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger brushed aside the
suggestion that the lesson of Poindexter is that military men
should not head the NSC staff. "They should do a better job of
teaching constitutional law at the Naval Academy," he said,
noting that Army General Colin Powell successfully held the job
after Poindexter and that retired Air Force General Brent
Scowcroft has the position now. When the picture of the
Iran-contra beast is finally drawn, in all probability it will
not be as large or menacing as many thought. Yet the portrait
will never be complete. These days in the muted luncheon-table
conversations among both prosecutors and defense-team members,
there is the acknowledgment that the one man who really put the
grand plot together has left the scene. That is Bill Casey, the
CIA director who died in May 1987 from pneumonia after surgery
for a brain tumor, a man who loved power, position and a good
mystery. John Poindexter did not have the temperament for the
shady back-alley intrigue that Casey concocted.