TIME: Almanac 1995

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<text id=91TT2711> <title> Dec. 09, 1991: Middle East:Have Cloak, Will Travel </title> <history> TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1991 Dec. 09, 1991 One Nation, Under God </history> <article> <source>Time Magazine</source> <hdr> WORLD, Page 44 MIDDLE EAST Have Cloak, Will Travel </hdr><body> In his zeal to free the Western hostages, Terry Waite was closely involved with U.S.--and Israeli--secret schemes By Bruce W. Nelan--Reported by Michael Duffy and Jay Peterzell/ Washington and William Mader/London Two weeks after his release from 1,763 days as a hostage in Lebanon, Terry Waite remains incommunicado at a Royal Air Force base near London. Outside, unanswered questions are piling up. Considerable evidence has appeared showing that Waite was a willing front man for U.S. efforts--which included swapping arms to Iran--to free the Westerners held prisoner by Hizballah extremists in Lebanon. The central question is whether he knew precisely what he was fronting for. While Waite, during most of his 2 1/2 years as a hostage negotiator, worked intimately with Lieut. Colonel Oliver North, the point man in the Irangate operation, he indicated to his Anglican church colleagues that he assumed Washington was also using other channels in its efforts on behalf of the captives. And to the day he was kidnapped, he insisted that he had not known the U.S. was shipping arms to Iran in return for the piecemeal release of Americans. Waite's friends and colleagues, including North, who directed the arms deals, confirmed his denials. But the picture is murkier. After a meeting with Waite in December 1985, an Israeli diplomat reported to Jerusalem that Waite seemed to know that the U.S. was at least contemplating a deal that would help Iran in its war with Iraq. Waite, according to the diplomat, said he had that word from Washington officials, including some at the highest level--no less than President Reagan and then Vice President George Bush. According to the diplomat, Waite asked to meet him in a European capital in December 1985, apparently to seek Israel's assistance in freeing the hostages. At that meeting, the Israeli reported, Waite confided that senior U.S. officials had told him that if the hostages were released with Iran's help, it "would influence directly the fate of the war" between Iran and Iraq. Waite told the Israeli that the Americans had not spelled out how that influence would be secured, but added, "I assume by giving important strategic armaments" to the Iranians. By that time, Washington had already authorized two shipments from Israel to Iran of TOW antitank and Hawk antiaircraft missiles. Waite gave no indication to his Israeli contact that he knew such shipments had been made. A White House official who sat in on a November 1985 meeting between Waite and Bush denied last week that the topic of exchanging arms for hostages ever came up. "It wasn't an action-oriented conversation," he recalled. "It was general stuff." Another Administration official said Waite occasionally telephoned the White House Situation Room during the mid-1980s and usually asked for North. According to the Israeli diplomat, Waite claimed to know of another covert U.S. plan. In his report of the December 1985 meeting, the Israeli said Waite suggested that the Americans would also use their influence to swap Arab prisoners for the Western hostages. "If the deal were to come off," he quoted Waite as telling him, "they would release all the detainees in Kuwait." Waite did not identify the detainees but seemed to be referring to 17 terrorists imprisoned there for car bombings, including attacks on the U.S. and French embassies, in 1983. Publicly, the Reagan Administration was then supporting Kuwait's adamant refusal to respond to Hizballah demands by making any deals for the 17. A senior official at the White House said last week that the U.S. had little influence with Kuwait at the time and could not have forced it to release the prisoners even if Washington had so desired. Waite, said another official, was "never, never, never" told that the U.S. would contemplate such a deal. Like North, Amiram Nir, the anti-terrorism adviser to then Prime Minister Shimon Peres, apparently found Waite a useful vehicle for pursuing the interests of Israel, which was assisting the U.S. hostage campaign mainly to curry favor with Washington. In November 1985 Nir proposed to his government that it bolster Waite's bargaining power by arranging to free some of the Hizballah members held in El-Khiam prison in southern Lebanon by Israel's proxy militia, the South Lebanon Army. Hizballah had not yet demanded their release as part of a hostage trade, but Nir suggested that Waite appeal directly to General Antoine Lahd, head of the S.L.A., to release Hizballah members who had not been involved in murder; Waite would make his plea on humanitarian grounds, and Lahd would agree, at Israel's behest. Nir felt the proposed releases from El-Khiam would provide a plausible explanation for the hoped-for liberation of Western hostages so the media would not seek out the more important cause: U.S. arms sales to Iran. On Jan. 5, 1987, as Waite prepared for his last trip to Beirut, he spoke by phone with Nir. According to a tape recording of that conversation, Nir, who later died in the crash of a chartered plane in Mexico, informed Waite that the Israeli government had decided to "see if we can do anything to give you more in hand so as to facilitate your chances." Waite replied, "That would be very helpful." According to Samir Habiby, a canon of the American Episcopal Church who worked closely with Waite on behalf of the hostages, Waite hoped to meet Lahd in Lebanon after his trip to Beirut. The plan died when Waite was kidnapped. </body></article> </text>