Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0104/01044.txt

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$Unique_ID{bob01044}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Iran-Contra Affair: The Report
Chapter 11B  The President Signs a Finding}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Various}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{poindexter
president
finding
meeting
iran
arms
secretary
testified
initiative
north}
$Date{1987}
$Log{}
Title:       Iran-Contra Affair: The Report
Author:      Various
Date:        1987

Chapter 11B  The President Signs a Finding

     McFarlane returned to his office on December 3 for the first time after
the Geneva summit.  He had already told the President of his decision to
resign, and he tendered his resignation the following day.  On December 3 and
4, McFarlane had several lengthy meetings with Poindexter.  However, he does
not recall any discussion of the status of the covert action Finding - which
CIA Director William Casey had delivered to Poindexter with a recommendation
that the President sign it and about which McMahon had been anxiously
pestering Poindexter for days.

     On December 5, in one of his first acts as National Security Adviser,
Poindexter presented the Finding to the President at his daily national
security briefing.  The President signed it.  Poindexter's notes of his daily
briefing of the President refer to the Finding.  Chief of Staff Donald Regan
was present at this briefing, but testified that he has no recollection of the
Finding or the President's signing it:

I have racked my brains since I've read about it in the press, that you have
had testimony to that effect.  I've checked with my members of the staff, the
White House staff who were working with me at the time, as to whether they
remember it.  No one can remember seeing that document.

     Poindexter testified that he was never happy with the Finding because it
failed to mention any objectives other than trading arms for hostages. He said
he submitted it to the President without the staffing and review that normally
accompanies a Finding.  In fact, other than Casey and McMahon - who both urged
that the Finding be signed - Poindexter did not recall discussing it with
anyone else.  [McMahon recalled that Sporkin told him he was going to consult
with the Department of Justice and the white House counsel before finalizing
the Finding.  (McMahon Dep., 9/2/87, at 52)  North testified that he believed
that Meese had "seen and approved" this Finding before it was signed.
However, he based this not on personal knowledge but on his understanding that
"[a]ll Findings are reviewed by the Attorney General."  (North Test.,
Hearings, 100-7, Part I, at 71-72)  Both Poindexter and Meese testified that
Meese was not consulted.  (Poindexter Test., Hearings, 100-8, at 125; Meese
Test., Hearings, 100-9, at 8-9).]

     Poindexter testified that, to him, the primary significance of the
Finding was its retroactivity - a feature that was highly unusual, if not
unique.  [Poindexter testified that he could recall only "one or possibly two
other findings that had a retroactive nature to them.  I, frankly, was always
uncomfortable with that, because I thought it didn't particularly make a lot
of sense."  (Poindexter Test., Hearings, 100-8 at 18)  In Executive Session,
Poindexter testified that after further thought, he could not recall any other
retroactive Findings.  (Poindexter Test., Executive Session, 8/6/87, at p. 8)]
He said, "There really wasn't a forward-looking aspect to the Finding."
However, at the time that the Finding was signed, Poindexter was considering
the detailed plan that North had presented for further arms sales, and this
was the subject of a meeting two days later with the NSC principals.

     The original of the signed Finding was kept in Paul Thompson's safe at
the NSC.  Contrary to normal practice, the CIA and other agencies were not
given a copy.  Indeed, no copies were made.  McMahon said that he knew of no
other occasion when this occurred.

     When the Iran initiative was unraveling almost a year later, Poindexter
destroyed this Finding.  He believed that if the Finding came to light it
would cause "significant political embarrassment" to the President because it
would reinforce the emerging picture that the United States had traded arms
for hostages.  In addition, the Finding was evidence of the Administration's
contemporaneous knowledge of the HAWK shipment, a fact that Poindexter, Casey,
North, and others sought to conceal in November 1986.

Poindexter Briefs Shultz

     The same day the President signed the Finding, Poindexter briefed
Secretary of State George Shultz by telephone on the status of the Iran
initiative.  The briefing - Shultz's first from Poindexter on the subject -
was not complete:  Poindexter did not even mention the Finding.  Not knowing
he was hearing only part of the story, Shultz commented at the time to an
aide, "he [Poindexter] told me more than I had known before of what went on in
the latter half of 1985 and I felt this was a good thing and we were off to a
good start."  Shultz told Poindexter that the Iran initiative was a "very bad
idea" and that "[w]e are signaling to Iran that they can kidnap people for
profit."

     That same day, December 5, CIA Deputy Director John McMahon convened a
meeting with several top CIA officials, including Robert Gates, Edward
Juchniewicz, and Chief of the Near East Division (C/NE).  McMahon said that a
meeting with the President was slated for the weekend to "take stock" of U.S.
efforts to free hostages and expand ties with Iran.  He requested that various
facts relating to Iran's military strength and the status of the Iran-Iraq war
be pulled together.  Someone at the meeting reviewed what had already
happened, including the November 24 shipment and the preparation and signing
of the Finding, and the planning for more shipments, including North's
chartering of planes and his upcoming trip to London for more talks.

North Raises Contra Diversion with Israelis

     On the day after the President signed the Finding, December 6, North
remarked during a meeting with Israeli officials that the United States wanted
to use profits from the upcoming arms sale to Iran to fund U.S. activity in
Nicaragua.  The meeting, which was held in New York, concerned replenishment
of Israeli TOWs.  One of the Israeli officials made handwritten notes of this
meeting on December 12, 1985.  According to these notes, the Israelis were
told by North that not only did the United States have no budget to pay for
the 504 TOW missiles (and planned on the Israeli Government's receiving this
money from the Israeli intermediaries), but that in the future the United
States wanted to generate profits from this transaction in order to finance
part of its activity in Nicaragua. According to the Israeli Historical
Chronology, North had a position paper with him at the meeting that he said
was to be presented to the President at a meeting the following day.  [Two of
the Israeli officials at the December 6 meeting, who did not take notes, did
not recall the remarks of North recorded by the other Israeli official in his
notes.  Israeli Historical Chronology.]

     North testified that he recalled no such conversation, though he could
not rule it out:

My recollection was that the first time it [the diversion] was specifically
addressed was during a [later] meeting with Ghorbanifar.  It may well have
come up before, but I don't recall it.

North testified that his "clearest recollection" was that the notion of using
the residuals for the Contras was first suggested by Ghorbanifar in January
1986.

     North flew from New York to London on December 6 and met with Secord,
Ghorbanifar, Kimche, Schwimmer, and Nimrodi to discuss the 50-HAWK, 3,300-TOW
proposal that North had previously presented to Poindexter. Ghorbanifar
acknowledged that the Iranians were having increasing difficulty maintaining
control over the Hizballah captors and pressed vigorously for a quick renewal
of arms shipments.

The President and His Advisers Review the Initiative

     While North was moving full-steam ahead in the negotiations, the
President and his top national security advisers debated the Iranian
initiative at an informal meeting on the morning of Saturday, December 7, in
the White House residence.  Present were the President, Secretaries Shultz and
Weinberger, McMahon (sitting in for Casey, who was out of town), McFarlane,
Poindexter, and Regan.  According to McFarlane, the purpose of the meeting was
"to review what has taken place since the President's approval of August and
the negative viewpoints of the Secretaries of State and Defense to the effect
that we hadn't achieved our purpose, and [that the initiative] was
degenerating into an arms for hostage arrangement."  The discussion that
ensued "was now more specific than it had been in August, and it was about a
specific plan" to trade weapons for hostages.

     Secretary Shultz, Secretary Weinberger, and Regan all voiced strong
opposition to the initiative.  Secretary Shultz advanced multiple policy
reasons for not pursuing it.  His "talking points" for the session stated that
the initiative would "negate the whole policy" of not making "deals with
terrorists"; that he doubted it would buy the United States influence with
moderates in Iran; that it would undoubtedly become public and "badly shake[]"
moderate Arabs when they learned that the United States was "breaking our
commitment to them and helping the radicals in Tehran fight their fellow Arab
Iraq"; and that U.S. allies would be "shocked if they knew we were helping
Iran in spite of our protestations to the contrary."

     Secretary Weinberger also forcefully voiced opposition, including on
legal grounds.  He said the proposed arms deal would violate both the U.S.
embargo against the shipment of arms to Iran and the restrictions on
third-country transfers of U.S.-provided arms in the Arms Export Control Act.
He later testified:  "[T]here was no way in which this kind of a transfer
could be made if that particular Act governed."

     Secretary Weinberger also pressed many of the arguments made by the
Secretary of State:

I ran through a whole group [of specific objections] and raised every point
that occurred to me, including the fact that we were at the same time asking
other countries not to make sales of weapons to Iran, that there was no one of
any reliability or, indeed, any sense with whom we could deal in Iran and the
government, and that we would not have any bargain carried out, that if we
were trying to help get hostages released, why there would be a real worry
that the matter would not be held in any way confidential, that we would be
subjected to blackmail, so to speak, by people who did know it in Iran and
elsewhere, and that we had no interest whatsoever in helping Iran in any
military way, even a minor way, and that in every way it was a policy that we
should not engage in and most likely would not be successful.

Secretary Weinberger told the President that the initiative "wouldn't
accomplish anything, and that they [the Iranians] would undoubtedly continue
to milk us."  McMahon argued that the long-range rationale of the arms
transactions - to bring about a more moderate regime in Iran - was unfounded.

I said that I was unaware of any moderates in Iran, that most of the moderates
had been slaughtered by Khomeini, that whatever arms we give to these
so-called moderates they will end up supporting the present Khomeini regime
and they would go to the front and be used against the Iraqis and that would
be bad.

McMahon "was convinced that all of this was an arms for hostage arrangement,
no matter what you called it . . . ."  There is evidence that McMahon also
argued that Ghorbanifar was unreliable.

     The President, along with McFarlane and Poindexter, spoke in favor of
continuing the initiative.  [Casey was also in favor of continuing the
initiative at this point, according to Poindexter.  Poindexter Test.,
Hearings, 100-8, at 25.]  According to Secretary Shultz:

The President, I felt, was somewhat on the fence but rather annoyed at me and
Secretary Weinberger because I felt that he sort of - he was very concerned
about the hostages, as well as very much interested in the Iran Initiative.

Secretary Shultz testified that the President was "fully engaged" in the
conversation and frustrated with the situation.

     In response to Weinberger's legal objections, Shultz recalls that the
President responded:  "'Well, the American people will never forgive me if I
fail to get these hostages out over this legal question,' or something like
that."  Weinberger replied:  "'[B]ut visiting hours are Thursday', or some
such statement."  [Shultz testified that this "banter" between the President
and Secretary Weinberger did not have the tone of the President advocating
violating the law, but rather "was the kind of statement that I am sure we all
make sometimes when we are frustrated."  Shultz Test., Hearings, 100-9, at
32.]

     The participants left the meeting with different views about whether the
initiative would proceed.  According to Poindexter, the President wanted to
pursue every means of trying to get the hostages back.  But McFarlane recalled
that the President, with disappointment and frustration, approved the position
of no more arms sales to Iran, at least pending the London meeting.  McMahon
said that no decision was made, and that the President left the meeting to do
his Saturday afternoon radio broadcast, telling his advisers to "talk more on
this and see what ought to be done."  Secretary Weinberger testified that he
believed the initiative had been put to rest once and for all.  Indeed, he
returned to the Pentagon after the meeting and told his military aide that
"this baby had been strangled in its cradle, that it was finished."  And
Secretary Shultz "wasn't sure" where things stood after the meeting, but
believed that he and Secretary Weinberger had prevailed.

     A striking aspect of the December 7 meeting was what was not discussed:
According to McMahon and Weinberger, neither the November shipment of HAWK
missiles, nor the Finding that was signed just two days earlier, came up.

     Despite varying impressions of the meeting, the President directed
McFarlane to go to London to meet with Ghorbanifar and others.  Poindexter
testified that the purpose was to "check out" the Israeli channel to Iran so
that the President could have firsthand information on which to base a
decision.  [In fact, the United States already had substantial first-hand
information on Ghorbanifar from both CIA officials and Ledeen.]  McFarlane
testified that his purpose was to stress to Ghorbanifar that the United States
was open to political discourse with Iran but no arms sales.  But there is
evidence of a more specific purpose: McFarlane was to try to talk Ghorbanifar
into arranging a release of the hostages outside the framework of an arms
deal, or at least before any more arms deliveries. Poindexter proposed at one
point during the meeting that McFarlane also have authority, if the Iranians
rejected this approach, to inquire whether the British Government would
perform the replenishment sales to Israel that Weinberger had argued the
United States could not make.  There is no evidence that such an approach was
made.