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This is a scalable context timeline. It contains events related to the event September 17, 2009: Ohio Lawyer Files Complaint against 'Birther' Lawyer. You can narrow or broaden the context of this timeline by adjusting the zoom level. The lower the scale, the more relevant the items on average will be, while the higher the scale, the less relevant the items, on average, will be.
The First General Convention of the neo-Nazi National Alliance (see 1970-1974) is held in Arlington, Virginia. The speakers for the event are Alliance leader William Pierce, Ted O'Keefe, and Mark Weber. O'Keefe and Weber will go on to head the Institute for Historical Review, an Alliance-funded think tank that specializes in denying the Holocaust. [Center for New Community, 8/2002 ]
Entity Tags: Mark Weber, Institute for Historical Review, William Luther Pierce, National Alliance, Ted O'Keefe
Timeline Tags: US Domestic Terrorism
Oil billionaire David Koch runs for vice president on the Libertarian Party ticket. David and his brother Charles are the primary backers of hard-right libertarian politics in the US (see August 30, 2010); Charles, the dominant brother, is determined to tear government "out at the root," as he will later be characterized by libertarian Brian Doherty. The brothers have thrown their support behind Libertarian presidential candidate Ed Clark, who is running against Republican Ronald Reagan from the right of the political spectrum. The brothers are frustrated by the legal limits on campaign financing, and they persuade the party to place David on the ticket as vice president, thereby enabling him to spend as much of his personal fortune as he likes. The Libertarian's presidential campaign slogan is, "The Libertarian Party has only one source of funds: You." In reality, the Koch brothers' expenditures of over $2 million is the campaign's primary source of funding. Clark tells a reporter that the Libertarians are preparing to stage "a very big tea party" because people are "sick to death" of taxes. The Libertarian Party platform calls for the abolition of the FBI and the CIA, as well as of federal regulatory agencies, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Energy. The platform proposes the abolition of Social Security, minimum-wage laws, gun control, and all personal and corporate income taxes; in return, it proposes the legalization of prostitution, recreational drugs, and suicide. Government should be reduced to only one function, the party proclaims: the protection of individual rights. Conservative eminence William F. Buckley Jr. calls the movement "Anarcho-Totalitarianism." The Clark-Koch ticket receives only one percent of the vote in the November 1980 elections, forcing the Koch brothers to realize that their brand of politics isn't popular. In response, Charles Koch becomes openly scornful of conventional politics. "It tends to be a nasty, corrupting business," he says. "I'm interested in advancing libertarian ideas." Doherty will later write that both Kochs come to view elected politicians as merely "actors playing out a script." Doherty will quote a longtime confidant of the Kochs as saying that after the 1980 elections, the brothers decide they will "supply the themes and words for the scripts." In order to alter the direction of America, they had to "influence the areas where policy ideas percolate from: academia and think tanks." [New Yorker, 8/30/2010]
Entity Tags: Libertarian Party, Brian Doherty, Charles Koch, Ronald Reagan, David Koch, William F. Buckley, Ed Clark
Timeline Tags: Domestic Propaganda
The masthead of the Dartmouth Review (2005). [Source: Huffington Post]The Dartmouth Review, an alternative campus newspaper with a conservative slant, is founded by Greg Fossedal, the former editor of Dartmouth College's official student newspaper, The Dartmouth. Fossedal feels that the Dartmouth administration is composed of "Stalinists" who oppose his views. Taking several staffers with him, Fossedal leaves The Dartmouth and founds the Dartmouth Review. The newspaper, which receives no university funding, quickly demands that the university purge most non-Western curriculum materials and coursework, takes a strong stance against affirmative action (claiming that the "administration has given in to every minority demand"), complains that professors are unfairly punishing students who express pro-American and pro-Christian viewpoints, and demands a return to "traditional values." Early issues feature an article calling for the return of the old Dartmouth Indian symbol, and calling modern Native Americans "drunken, ignorant, and culturally lost"; an interview with a former Ku Klux Klan leader, illustrated with a staged photo of a black person lynched from a tree; and an open letter on parents' weekend that says affirmative action at Dartmouth "explains your son's stupid friends." Before long, the Review begins receiving funding from conservative organizations and individuals, beginning with conservative alumni, and eventually receives funding from around the country as part of a program by the right-wing Institute for Educational Affairs to develop conservative publications on college campuses. Early support comes from former Reagan White House staffer Morton Blackwell, whose Leadership Institute will later recruit Review editors to train campus conservatives starting up their own newspapers (including Ann Coulter, who will start a similar publication, the Cornell Review, at Cornell University.) According to a 2006 article by the Dartmouth Free Press, "[t]he Dartmouth Review probably could not have survived without the national publicity it received by claiming Dartmouth was trying to silence its conservative voice." The Review quickly gains a reputation for racism (see March 15, 1982, 1983, and August 2002), anti-Semitism (see October 1982, November 9-10, 1988, and October 4, 1990), homophobia (see 1981, 1984, and 1985), and personal innuendos, such as when it calls one visiting pro-choice speaker "allegedly syphilitic." Relations between the Review and campus administrators sour even further as time goes on. [Nation, 2/17/2003; Dartmouth Free Press, 9/20/2006; AlterNet (.org), 1/15/2010]
Entity Tags: Greg Fossedal, Cornell Review, Ann Coulter, Dartmouth College, Dartmouth Review, Morton Blackwell, Dartmouth Free Press, Institute for Educational Affairs
The federal government passes even more amendments to the 1971 Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA—see February 7, 1972, 1974, and May 11, 1976). The new amendments simplify campaign finance reporting requirements, encourage political party activity at the state and local levels, and increase the public funding grants for presidential nominating conventions. The new amendments prohibit the Federal Election Commission (FEC) from conducting random campaign audits. They also allow state and local parties to spend unlimited amounts on federal campaign efforts, including the production and distribution of campaign materials such as signs and bumper stickers used in "get out the vote" (GOTV) efforts. [Federal Elections Commission, 1998; Center for Responsive Politics, 2002 ] The amendment creates what later becomes known as "soft money," or donations and contributions that are essentially unregulated as long as they ostensibly go for "party building" expenses. The amendments allow corporations, labor unions, and wealthy individuals to contribute vast sums to political parties and influence elections. By 1988, both the Republican and Democratic Parties will spend inordinate and controversial amounts of "soft money" in election efforts. [National Public Radio, 2012] While the amendments were envisioned as strengthening campaign finance law, many feel that in hindsight, the amendments actually weaken FECA and campaign finance regulation. Specifically, the amendments reverse much of the 1974 amendments, and allow money once prohibited from being spent on campaigns to flow again. [Campaign Finance Timeline, 1999]
Entity Tags: Federal Election Commission, Federal Election Campaign Act of 1972
Timeline Tags: Civil Liberties
Robert Sensi's membership card in Republicans Abroad. [Source: Larry J. Kolb]According to a later account by Robert Sensi, a young CIA agent with excellent contacts among prominent Arabs, the Republican National Committee opens what Sensi calls "a secret channel to Iran." Sensi is not only alluding to the secret plans for the US to sells arms to Iran, which is just developing (see Early 1980), but to the "October Surprise" of the November 1980 US presidential elections (see October 1980). Sensi will bring the matter up to author and fellow CIA agent Larry Kolb in a Washington, DC, hotel bar in 1986, but will not go into detail. Sensi will note that CIA Director William Casey has been involved in the US's secret dealings with Iran since the outset, as has Robert Carter, the deputy director of Ronald Reagan's presidential campaign. Sensi will say that Casey, Carter, and the other participants are using the overseas political organization Republicans Abroad as cover for more covert activities. The organization is "a great drawing card," according to Sensi, who is a member. "It gives us access to embassies and a lot of people we would have had a hard time getting to without the cachet of representing the ruling party in the United States." Writing in 2007, Kolb will reflect on the Republican Party's "own in-house team of covert operatives, as capable of conducting espionage and sabotage for the Republican Party as for the CIA. It seemed the Republicans were still doing what they had been caught doing during Watergate. Spying on and sabotaging the Democrats. Ratf_cking, as the Republican operatives called it (see October 7, 1972). Coming just a few years after the Watergate national Passion Play and all it had put our country through, this seemed flagrant and foul, like sleaze squared. And like politics-as-usual." [Kolb, 2007, pp. 28-29]
Entity Tags: Republican National Committee, Central Intelligence Agency, Larry Kolb, Ronald Reagan, William Casey, Robert Carter, Robert Sensi, Republicans Abroad
Timeline Tags: Iran-Contra Affair, Elections Before 2000
President Carter and Ronald Reagan shake hands during the 1980 presidential debate. [Source: PBS]During a campaign debate between President Jimmy Carter (D-GA) and his Republican challenger, Governor Ronald Reagan (R-CA), Carter lambasts Reagan for his decades-long opposition to Medicare (see 1962). "Governor Reagan, as a matter of fact, began his political career campaigning around this nation against Medicare," Carter says. Reagan counters with what author Larry DeWitt calls "a deft quip and a blatant denial." He says, "There you go again." When the laughter subsides, Reagan continues: "When I opposed Medicare, there was another piece of legislation meeting the same problem before the Congress. I happened to favor the other piece of legislation and thought it would be better for the senior citizens and provide better care than the one that was finally passed. I was not opposing the principle of providing care for them. I was opposing one piece of legislation versus another." Reagan is referring to a Republican alternative called "Bettercare" that was little more than a voluntary insurance program funded by Social Security. Carter also states that Reagan had, in his career, advocated making Social Security a voluntary program, which as Carter notes, "would, in effect, very quickly bankrupt it." Reagan had frequently advocated such a position while supporting Senator Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign, and as recently as 1975 during his unsuccessful primary campaign for the presidency, but Reagan now denies taking such a stance: "Now, again this statement that somehow I wanted to destroy it, and I just changed my tune, that I am for voluntary social security, which would mean the ruin of it, Mr. President, the voluntary thing that I suggested many years ago was that a young man, orphaned and raised by an aunt who died, his aunt was ineligible for Social Security insurance, because she was not his mother. And I suggested that if this was an insurance program, certainly the person who's paying in should be able to name his own beneficiaries. And that's the closest I've ever come to anything voluntary with Social Security." Though Reagan's claims are at odds with his previous positions, his denials go virtually unchallenged in the media. [Blevin, 2001; Larry DeWitt, 9/2004; American Presidency Project, 2009]
Entity Tags: Ronald Reagan, James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr., Larry DeWitt, Medicare
Timeline Tags: US Health Care
The anti-abortion National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) issues a series of "voter guides" just before Election Day. The pamphlets are later credited as helping persuade voters to cast their ballots for presidential candidate Ronald Reagan (R-CA) and a number of Republican Senate candidates. In 2012, reporter Jeffrey Toobin will characterize them as "barely concealed works of advocacy," a form of "electioneering" that federal law bans groups such as NRLC from issuing this close to an election. The Federal Election Commission (FEC) later tries to challenge the pamphlet distribution, and the NRLC wins a First Amendment challenge in court under the legal leadership of general counsel James Bopp Jr. As a result of the court case, Bopp becomes interested in challenging campaign finance restrictions (see January 10-16, 2008) as well as abortion rights. [New Yorker, 5/21/2012]
Entity Tags: Federal Election Commission, James Bopp, Jr, National Right to Life Committee, Ronald Reagan, Jeffrey Toobin
Timeline Tags: US Health Care, Civil Liberties, Elections Before 2000
Incoming presidential chief of staff James Baker asks a former chief of staff, Dick Cheney (see November 4, 1975 and After), for advice on handling the job. Baker takes four pages of handwritten notes covering his conversation with Cheney. Most of the notes cover mundane topics such as personnel and managing the president's schedule. But Cheney offers at least one piece of policy advice. According to Baker's notes: "Pres. seriously weakened in recent yrs. Restore power & auth [authority] to Exec Branch—Need strong ldr'ship. Get rid of War Powers Act—restore independent rights." Baker notes Cheney's emphasis of this last idea by marking it with two double lines and six asterisks, and a note in the margin, "Central theme we ought to push." [Savage, 2007, pp. 43]
Entity Tags: Richard ("Dick") Cheney, James A. Baker
KochPAC logo. [Source: KochPAC (.com)]After their stinging loss during the November 1980 presidential campaign, the billionaire Koch brothers, Charles and David, decide that they need to work to inculcate their brand of hard-right libertarianism into the electorate through indirect means (see 1979-1980). Therefore, they begin spending vast amounts of their personal fortunes on what purport to be independent think tanks and other political or ideological organizations. At the same time, the brothers become political recluses, rarely speaking in public and rarely acknowledging the breadth or the direction of their donations. It is hard to know exactly how much the Kochs spend and where they spend it, though public records give some of the picture. Between 1998 and 2008, Charles Koch's foundation spends over $48 million on political funding. The Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation, controlled by Charles and his wife, spends over $28 million. David Koch's foundation spends over $120 million. Koch Industries, controlled primarily by Charles, spends over $50 million on lobbying efforts. Their political action committee, KochPAC, donates around $8 million, almost all of it going to Republicans. In 2010, as in other years, Koch Industries leads all other energy companies in political donations. The brothers spend over $2 million of their personal fortunes on political donations, almost all of it going to Republicans. Ari Rabin-Havt of the progressive media watchdog organization Media Matters will say that the Kochs' effort is unusual in its marshalling of corporate and personal funds: "Their role, in terms of financial commitments, is staggering." Lee Fang, writing for the liberal blog ThinkProgress (an arm of the Center for American Progress), calls the Kochs "the billionaires behind the hate." Some believe that the Kochs have either skirted, or outright broken, laws controlling tax-exempt giving. Charitable foundations must conduct exclusively nonpartisan activities that promote the public welfare. But in 2004, a report by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, a watchdog group, describes the Kochs' foundations as being self-serving, and concludes, "These foundations give money to nonprofit organizations that do research and advocacy on issues that impact the profit margin of Koch Industries." The Kochs also use their charitable foundations to fund hard-right political organizations that, according to reporter Jane Mayer, "aim to push the country in a libertarian direction," including: the Institute for Justice, which files lawsuits opposing state and federal regulations; the Institute for Humane Studies, which underwrites libertarian academics; and the Bill of Rights Institute, which promotes a conservative interpretation of the Constitution. David Koch acknowledges that the family exerts tight ideological control. "If we're going to give a lot of money, we'll make darn sure they spend it in a way that goes along with our intent," he tells a reporter. "And if they make a wrong turn and start doing things we don't agree with, we withdraw funding." [New Yorker, 8/30/2010]
Entity Tags: Institute for Justice, Charles Koch, Bill of Rights Institute, Ari Rabin-Havt, Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation, Institute for Humane Studies, Koch Industries, National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, Jane Mayer, David Koch, Lee Fang, KochPAC
Alexander Haig. [Source: Wally McNamee / Corbis]The newly installed Reagan administration publicly maintains a hard line against Iran, a nation vastly unpopular among Americans who have not forgiven that nation for holding 52 of its citizens hostage for well over a year and murdering a CIA station chief. (Years later, Vice President Bush will call it "an understandable animosity, a hatred, really," and add, "I feel that way myself.") President Reagan's secretary of state, Alexander Haig, says bluntly, "Let me state categorically today there will be no military equipment provided to the government of Iran." Yet within weeks of taking office, Reagan officials will begin putting together a continuing package of secret arms sales to Iran. [New Yorker, 11/2/1992]
Entity Tags: Alexander M. Haig, Jr., George Herbert Walker Bush, Reagan administration, Central Intelligence Agency
Timeline Tags: US confrontation with Iran, Iran-Contra Affair
Douglas Bay, Dominica. [Source: Happy Tellus (.com)]Two of three mercenaries accused of plotting to overthrow the government of the tiny Caribbean island nation of Dominica are found guilty of conspiracy and violation of the Neutrality Act. Stephen Don Black, a prominent Alabama Ku Klux Klan leader, and Joe Daniel Hawkins, a Klansman from Mississippi, are found guilty of the charges. Both are found not guilty of violating five firearms statutes. The plot began in 1979, when the neighboring island country of Grenada was taken over by a socialist regime with ties to the Communist government of Cuba's Fidel Castro. Mike Perdue, a former Marine and prominent white supremacist, discussed retaking Grenada with ousted former Prime Minister Eric Gairy. Perdue sought out Klan Imperial Wizard David Duke, who put him in touch with white supremacist Donald Clarke Andrews, then living in Canada. Andrews had led the white supremacist group Western Guard, and after serving a jail sentence for neo-Nazi activities, founded a new pro-Aryan group, the Nationalist Party of Canada. Andrews convinced Perdue that Dominica might be a good place from which to stage a coup in Grenada. Dominica was in the grip of grinding poverty, having been devastated by a hurricane in 1979 and plagued with racial violence from a splinter group of Rastafarians called the Dreads. The island's government was unstable and, Perdue and Andrews believed, ripe for overthrow. Perdue partnered with another supremacist, Wolfgang Droege, and began planning to stage a coup that would place former Prime Minister Patrick John back in power. Even though John was something of a leftist, and wanted to displace the much more right-wing and pro-American Prime Minister, Eugenia Charles, in September 1980 Perdue and John agreed in writing to commence what they called "Operation Red Dog," a violent coup with the goal of placing John back in charge of the government. The Washington Times will later report: "The coup forged some odd alliances. [It] united right-wing North Americans and Caribbean leftists, white nationalists and black revolutionaries; First World capitalists and Third World Socialists." Canadian writer Stewart Bell later describes Perdue as a man of no real political convictions and a lust for money who routinely lies about his Vietnam experience (he never served in Southeast Asia, and did not tell his companions that he was a homosexual), and Droege as a German-Canadian high school dropout with neo-Nazi sympathies. Others involved in the putative coup are nightclub owner and white supremacist Charles Yanover, gunrunner Sydney Burnett-Alleyne (who supplied the initial connection to John), Black, Hawkins, and a small number of others. The mercenaries' plan was to put John back in power; in return, John would give them license to use the island as a haven for casinos, drug smuggling, and money laundering. Almost from the outset, the conspiracy was infiltrated by two agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF), John Osburg and Wally Grafton, who were alerted to the planned coup by charter boat captain Mike Howell. Perdue had tried to hire Howell to take the mercenaries to Dominica, and told Howell that his was a CIA operation. Members of the operation also talked to others about it; one even gave a "secret" interview to a radio reporter in Hamilton. Osburg and Grafton alerted law enforcement authorities; on the night of the raid, federal authorities overwhelmed the small band of mercenaries, arrested them all, and confiscated a large number of firearms, 10 pounds of dynamite, over 5,000 rounds of ammunition, and a large red-and-black Nazi flag. The operation was later derisively termed the "Bayou of Pigs," a joking reference to the 1961 attempt by right-wing American mercenaries to overthrow Castro's government. John was arrested in Dominica. Perdue and six other participants have already pled guilty to violating the Neutrality Act. Before his sentencing of three years in prison, Black says, "What we were doing was in the best interests of the United States and its security in the hemisphere, and we feel betrayed by our own government." [Time, 5/11/1981; United Press International, 6/21/1981; New Times, 2/19/1998; Washington Times, 10/5/2008; Winnipeg Free Press, 11/2/2008] After serving his jail term, Black will go on to found the influential white supremacist organization Stormfront (see March 1995 and June 22, 2008).
Entity Tags: Eugenia Charles, Washington Times, Eric Gairy, Don Black, David Duke, Charles Yanover, Wally Grafton, US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Wolfgang Droege, Stormfront, Ku Klux Klan, John Osburg, Joe Daniel Hawkins, Mike Howell, Sydney Burnett-Alleyne, Mike Perdue, Donald Clarke Andrews, Stewart Bell, Patrick John
Ben Klassen, the founder and leader of the Church of the Creator (COTC—see 1973), moves the church from Florida to a large lot in Mulberry, North Carolina, opening a post office box in nearby Otto. He chooses the site because he believes Florida is too dangerous to live in. "I think South Florida is due for a lot of turmoil when bloody fighting breaks out," he says. "Actually, I expect the financial collapse of the entire country, and blood will be flowing in the streets." He and fellow COTC members build a personal residence, a three-story church, a small warehouse, and a "school for gifted boys." Klassen begins calling himself "Pontifex Maximus" of the church, a Latin term meaning "high priest," and begins writing a newsletter, "Racial Loyalty." Later in the year, COTC is granted an exemption from state taxes based on its status as a church. [Anti-Defamation League, 1993; Southern Poverty Law Center, 9/1999] In the years to come, the Mulberry site will become a full-fledged "compound." A September 1992 article in Mirabella magazine will observe that the "seventeen-acre landscaped compound… includes small-arms firing ranges, paramilitary barracks, and other buildings.… Inside a large converted barn that serves as headquarters, church founder and leader, Ben Klassen… sits beneath a large painted portrait of Adolf Hitler, 'The greatest leader the white race ever had,' says Klassen.… Since 1990 groups of committed young men have traveled here for extensive political mining under Klassen's tutelage. The recruits wear white berets or cowboy hats, live in the barracks, and practice shooting with automatic weapons on the firing range. Many are older teenagers. 'Exceptional boys,' Klassen calls them." [Anti-Defamation League, 1993]
Entity Tags: World Church of the Creator, Benhardt ("Ben") Klassen
The Dartmouth Review, a conservative weekly student newspaper funded by off-campus right-wing sources (see 1980), runs an article opposing affirmative action that many feel is blatantly racist. The article is titled "Dis Sho' Ain't No Jive, Bro," written by former Review chairman Keeney Jones. The article is the third in a series of attacks on affirmative action by Jones; the earlier articles featured Jones wishing he could medically darken his skin so he could get into medical school, and his claim that he was taking speech lessons to learn how to speak "black." This article is written entirely in Jones's version of "black dialect," and features the following selection: "Dese boys be sayin' dat we be comin' to Dartmut'and not takin' the classics. You know, Homa, Shakesphere; but I hes' dey all be co'd in da gound, six feet unda, and whatcha be askin' us to learn from dem? We culturally 'lightened, too. We be takin' hard courses in many subjects, like Afro-Am studies, women's studies, and policy studies. And who be mouthin' 'bout us not bein' good road? I be practicly knowin' 'Roots' cova to cova, 'til my mine be boogying to da words! And I be watchin' the Jeffersons on TV 'til I be blue in da face." Upon receiving the article, Review board member Jack Kemp (R-NY), a Republican congressman, resigns from the board, saying Kenney's article "relied on racial stereotypes" and undoubtedly offended many readers. "I am even more concerned that others found in it some support for racist viewpoints," Kemp continues, and concludes: "I do not want my name to appear in your paper. I am concerned that the association of my name with the Dartmouth Review is interpreted as an endorsement and I emphatically do not endorse the kind of antics displayed in your article." The Review appears unmoved by Kemp's resignation, with editors saying they hope to replace him with televangelist Jerry Falwell. Editor Dinesh D'Souza says the paper bears no responsibility for any allegations of racism, and tells a New Hampshire reporter, "It is not the Dartmouth Review but the Afro-American Society which is the primary cause of racial tension on campus." The undergraduate council and the faculty later votes to condemn the Review for creating a racially divisive atmosphere; Dartmouth's president will write a letter saying the Review performs "offensive practices," but that the issue cannot be solved by "violence or intolerance." [Dartmouth Free Press, 9/20/2006]
Entity Tags: Dartmouth Review, Dartmouth Afro-American Society, Dartmouth College, Jack Kemp, Jerry Falwell, Keeney Jones, Dinesh D'Souza
Anti-abortion activists Don Benny Anderson (see May 1982), Matthew Moore, and Wayne Moore kidnap Dr. Hector Zevallos of the Hope Clinic for Women (see January 1982) and his wife. The activists hold the Zevalloses for eight days, during which time they force Zevallos to make an anti-abortion speech that is to be videotaped and sent to President Reagan in support of legislation designed to overturn the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion (see January 22, 1973). Threatened with the murder of himself and his wife, Zevallos agrees. According to government documents, this is the first action of the "Army of God," a violent anti-abortion group (see 1982, Early 1980s, and July 1988). [Kushner, 2003, pp. 38; Extremist Groups: Information for Students, 1/1/2006] Anderson and Matthew Moore will plead guilty to multiple felonies in regards to the incident; Anderson will tell the court that he has been told by God to "wage war on abortion." The three will also be convicted of kidnapping Zevallos and his wife. Anderson will receive 30 years for the kidnapping, and 30 additional years for firebombing two Florida abortion clinics. [Extremist Groups: Information for Students, 1/1/2006; National Abortion Federation, 2010]
Entity Tags: Matthew Moore, Don Benny Anderson, Army of God, Wayne Moore, Hector Zevallos
Timeline Tags: US Health Care, Domestic Propaganda, US Domestic Terrorism
President Reagan and Dartmouth Review editor Dinesh D'Souza, 1988. [Source: Exiled Online (.com)]The Dartmouth Review, a conservative weekly student newspaper funded by off-campus right-wing sources (see 1980), publishes a satirical piece called "Grin and Beirut," that compares an Israeli settlement in West Beirut to a temporary structure just erected by Jewish students at Dartmouth to celebrate the harvest and saying it was built on "the West Bank of College Hall." The structure, known as a sukkah, is where the students gather for meals during the eight-day Succoth holiday. "The Zionists have gone too far with the erection of a ceremonial 'sukkah' settlement on the West Bank of College Hall," the Review writes. Two days later, unidentified vandals destroy the structure. Many Dartmouth students and faculty members believe the Review's apparent anti-Semitism incited the vandalism, including a rabbi with the university. Even the conservative Manchester Union-Leader, one of New Hampshire's staunchest press supporters of the Review, criticizes the Review for its writings. One of the article's co-authors says he regrets writing the piece, and the Review publishes an apology saying that it is "committed to fighting not only vandalism but also the psychological bigotry that can precipitate it." [Boston Globe, 10/5/1990; Dartmouth Free Press, 9/20/2006] In 2006, the Dartmouth Free Press will write that Review staffers may have destroyed the sukkah. The reporter will note that any contrition or commitment to "fighting vandalism [and] psychological bigotry" was not in evidence in later years, when Review staffers used sledgehammers to destroy shanties built by students as part of protests against apartheid in South Africa. [Dartmouth Free Press, 9/20/2006] The Review is currently edited by Dinesh D'Souza, who will go on to become a policy adviser in the Reagan administration and a prominent conservative speaker and pundit. [Know Your Right-Wing Speakers: Dinesh D'Souza, 2/25/2005]
Entity Tags: Dartmouth College, Manchester Union-Leader, Dartmouth Review, Dinesh D'Souza
The Dartmouth Review, a conservative weekly student newspaper funded by off-campus right-wing sources (see 1980), publishes an article about African-American professor William Cole titled "Bill Cole's Song and Dance." The article calls Cole incompetent, and says, referring to his hair, that he looks like a "used Brillo pad." [Dartmouth Free Press, 9/20/2006]
Entity Tags: William Cole, Dartmouth Review
Gordon Kahl. [Source: Anti-Defamation League]Posse Comitatus (see 1969 and 1983) member and anti-tax protester Gordon Kahl (see 1967 - 1973) and three Posse members gun down two US marshals who are attempting to arrest Kahl in a confrontation near Medina, North Dakota. The two marshals are among a group of six attempting to apprehend Kahl in a 1977 income tax case after he violated his probation by refusing to file a tax return (see 1975 - 1981); he has been a fugitive since 1981. Initial Attempts to Negotiate Peaceful Surrender Fail - In that year, Kahl refused to turn himself over to North Dakota federal marshal Harold "Bud" Warren after a number of telephone conversations in which Kahl insisted that he had been "illegally" convicted by the "forces of Satan." Warren decided that Kahl's probation violation was "hardly a serious crime" and decided not to pursue it, partially because he knew Kahl was a crack shot and feared he would lose officers in any attempt to arrest him. Increasing Involvement in Posse Activities - Kahl moved to Arkansas, where he visited the compound of the white supremacist Covenant, Sword, and Arm of the Lord organization. A member of that organization, Leonard Ginter, hid Kahl from federal authorities. Kahl's wife, under tremendous stress from the situation, tried and failed to negotiate a settlement with the IRS, resulting in her excoriation by her 23-year-old son Yorie, who accused her of cooperating with "the tithing collectors of the Jewish-Masonic Synogogue [sic] of Satan." Kahl became more and more involved in Posse Comitatus activities, traveling to Kansas and Colorado. Return to North Dakota, Confrontation with Police - In January 1983 he and Yorie Kahl returned to North Dakota with the intention of setting up a Posse "township" near Medina, which they envisioned as being free from state and government control. Kahl's station wagon is observed by Stutsman County deputy sheriff Bradley Kapp, who informs the Marshal Service in Bismarck. Warren's successor, Kenneth Muir, authorizes Kahl's arrest, and drives to Medina with Deputy Marshal Carl Wigglesworth to join two other deputy marshals, Robert Cheshire Jr. and James Hopson Jr. Kapp is spotted by some of his Posse colleagues, who quickly join him in planning to forcibly resist any arrest attempt. Reportedly, they receive the assistance of Medina police chief Darrell Graf, who is allegedly a Posse sympathizer. Kahl, Yorie Kahl, and Posse members David Broer and Scott Faul flee Medina in two Posse members' cars, but the ruse only briefly confuses the marshals, and two police cars with flashing lights quickly apprehend Kahl and Broer. One car is driven by deputy police chief Steve Schnabel; the other by Muir and Wigglesworth. Kapp, Cheshire, and Hopson are close behind in a third vehicle. Kahl and Broer turn off the road into a driveway, and Kahl, armed with a modified Ruger Mini-14 assault rifle, prepares to open fire on the approaching police officers. The others leap out of their cars and, armed with Mini-14s, take up positions in a ditch. When the marshals arrive moments later, they get out of their cars and order the Posse members to lay down their weapons. One of the Posse members opens fire, and in the 30-second volley that ensues, Kahl and his fellow Posse members lay down a deadly fire that inflicts heavy damage on the outgunned marshals. Kahl wounds Kapp and Schnabel with two shots, and kills Muir with a shot to the heart. Muir fires off a single shot that gravely wounds Yorie. Hopson is struck in the head by a ricocheting bullet that causes permanent brain damage. Rifle fire from Yorie and Faul fatally wounds Cheshire. Kapp, severely injured, manages to shoot Yorie three more times, then takes cover. Kahl executes the dying Cheshire with a shot to the head, then points his rifle at the downed Schnabel, but chooses not to kill him, instead taking his police cruiser and fleeing the scene. He takes the injured Yorie to a Posse member, Dr. Clarence Martin; Yorie and Kahl's wife Joan are arrested later that night at the hospital, and Yorie tells FBI agents some details of the confrontation. Faul, Broer, and Posse member Vernon Wegner are also arrested; Faul refuses to tell police or FBI investigators where Kahl might have fled to. Police find Schnabel's abandoned police cruiser. Two days later, police surround Kahl's farmhouse and bombard it with tear gas, only to find it abandoned. They do find a store of weapons and ammunition, and a collection of Posse Comitatus pamphlets and related documents. Kahl's family insists that law enforcement efforts to apprehend Kahl are unfair, and complain that he is being "hunted like a dog." Joan Kahl appears on television and tearfully pleads with her husband to surrender, to no avail. FBI and US Marshals descend on the local Posse Comitatus headquarters, and offer a $25,000 reward for information leading to his arrest, but Kahl has disappeared into the shadows of the far-right militia network. [Ian Geldard, 2/19/1995; Southern Poverty Law Center, 12/2001; Levitas, 2002, pp. 194-200; Nicole Nichols, 2003; Anti-Defamation League, 2011] Kahl's murder of the marshals will be used by Posse Comitatus leader James Wickstrom to promote the anti-tax movement (see February 14-21, 1983). Four months later, Kahl will die in a bloody standoff with police officers in Arkansas (see March 13 - June 3, 1983).
Entity Tags: Robert Cheshire Jr, Steve Schnabel, Scott Faul, Yorie Kahl, Posse Comitatus, Vernon Wegner, Leonard Ginter, Kenneth Muir, Covenant, Sword, and Arm of the Lord, Carl Wigglesworth, Bradley Kapp, Joan Kahl, Darrell Graf, Clarence Martin, Gordon Kahl, James Hopson Jr, James Wickstrom, Harold ("Bud") Warren, David Broer
Gordon Kahl, an anti-tax protester, Posse Comitatus member (see 1967 - 1973 and 1975 - 1981), and federal fugitive who killed two US Marshals in a February shootout in North Dakota (see February 13, 1983 and After), arrives at a farm in Mountain Home, Arkansas. The farm owner, Arthur Russell, is a member of another white supremacist organization, the Covenant, Sword, and Arm of the Lord (CSA), and willingly hides Kahl, who is facing a second warrant for his arrest issued March 11. Kahl spends two months hiding at Russell's farmhouse, studying the Bible, watching television, and spending time with Russell's daughter Karen. While Kahl is in hiding, his family and colleagues in the Posse who were involved in the shootout are tried in May 1983; his son Yorie Kahl and colleague Scott Faul are convicted of second-degree murder and six other related charges; David Broer is convicted of conspiracy and of harboring a fugitive; and his wife Joan Kahl is acquitted of conspiracy and harboring a fugitive. FBI Learns of Kahl's Whereabouts - In late May, after the convictions, Kahl leaves the Russell farm with his CSA friend Leonard Ginter and Ginter's wife Norma. Ginter, an unemployed carpenter, belongs to a small anti-government group called Americans for Constitutional Enforcement, but is not too ideologically rigid not to accept food stamps for himself and his wife. Kahl and the Ginters drive to Smithville, Arkansas, a tiny Ozark town where the Ginters have a concrete house with a vegetable patch and a chicken pen. After Kahl leaves, Karen Russell calls the FBI and informs them of his whereabouts. Final Confrontation - On June 3, FBI agent James Blasingame organizes a group of US Marshals and local lawmen at the Lawrence County courthouse to plan how best to apprehend Kahl and the Ginters. Twenty-eight law enforcement officials, including 15 US Marshals, six FBI agents, three state police officers, and four county lawmen descend on the Ginter home. While en route, they encounter Ginter, driving away from the house in a car with a rifle in the backseat; he has a cocked and loaded pistol in his lap. Ginter is apprehended without incident, but lies to the police, saying Kahl is not at the house. Unfortunately, the officials believe his story. At the officials' request, Ginter drives back to the house, with five officials behind. Ginter parks his car, as do the officials; Ginter gets out and shouts: "Norma, come out. The FBI wants to talk to you." He emphasizes the word "FBI" as loudly as possible, alerting Kahl to their presence. Norma Ginter comes out and is escorted away. Lawrence County Sheriff Gene Matthews, departing from the plan, enters the house through a utility room off the garage, with US Marshal James Hall and Arkansas State Police investigator Ed Fitzpatrick following him. Kahl is waiting in the kitchen, armed with a formidable Ruger Mini-14 assault rifle. When Matthews enters the kitchen, the two men see each other and open fire simultaneously; Kahl wounds Matthews fatally with two shots to the chest and Matthews kills Kahl with a bullet to the head. Hall and Fitzpatrick, unsure of what has happened, begin firing wildly, striking Matthews with buckshot. Matthews manages to get to a police cruiser before collapsing, and gasps, "I got him." But the other officials are unsure if Kahl is actually dead, and if others may be in the house as well. They open fire on the house and let loose a barrage of tear gas. They then set the house afire with a can of diesel fuel; the fire ignites several thousand rounds of ammunition stored inside the house and the house is all but gutted by the conflagration. Eventually, officials are able to enter the house and find what remains of Kahl's body in the kitchen. Posse Comitatus leader William Potter Gale, asked by a reporter about Kahl's death, says that Kahl was murdered for helping farmers and belonging to the group. Another Posse member, Richard Wayne Snell, will later claim that Matthews had been killed by FBI agents after interrupting them during their torture of Kahl. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 12/2001; Levitas, 2002, pp. 217-220; Anti-Defamation League, 2011] Episode Destabilizes Posse Comitatus - The Kahl episode receives national attention and helps destabilize the Posse Comitatus (see 1984). The media quickly learns of Kahl's racist and anti-Semitic past, and reprints a letter he wrote the same night he killed the marshals and later sent to reporters. In his letter, Kahl announced that it was time to begin killing Jews: "We are engaged in a struggle to the death between the people of the Kingdom of God, and the Kingdom of Satan. We are a conquered and occupied nation; conquered and occupied by the Jews, and their hundreds or maybe thousands of front organizations doing their un-Godly work. They have two objectives in their goal of ruling the world. Destroy Christianity and the White race. Neither can be accomplished by itself, they stand or fall together." In an attempt to exonerate his son and Faul, Kahl took credit for all the fatal shots. Kahl's espousal of violence and anti-Semitism causes a backlash when some Posse Comitatus members attempt to portray him as a martyr. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 12/2001; Levitas, 2002, pp. 217-220]
Entity Tags: Ed Fitzpatrick, Scott Faul, William Potter Gale, David Broer, Arthur Russell, Americans for Constitutional Enforcement, Richard Wayne Snell, Posse Comitatus, Yorie Kahl, Leonard Ginter, James Blasingame, Gordon Kahl, Gene Matthews, Covenant, Sword, and Arm of the Lord, Norma Ginter, James Hall, Karen Russell, Joan Kahl
Vice President George Bush hosts a secret meeting with his foreign policy adviser, Donald Gregg (see 1982), and former CIA agent Felix Rodriguez. The meeting is the first impetus of the National Security Council (NSC)'s initiative to secretly, and illegally, fund the Nicaraguan Contras in an attempt to overthrow that country's socialist government. Rodriguez agrees to run a central supply depot at Ilopango Air Base in El Salvador. In a memo to NSC chief Robert McFarlane, Gregg will note that the plan is rooted in the experience of running "anti-Vietcong operations in Vietnam from 1970-1972." Gregg will also note that "Felix Rodriguez, who wrote the attached plan, both worked for me in Vietnam and carried out the actual operations outlined above." [Spartacus Schoolnet, 12/28/2007] Rodriguez and Gregg, along with others such as Watergate burglar Frank Sturgis (see April-June 1972), were part of the CIA's "Operation 40," an assassination squad that operated in Cuba and the Caribbean during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Rodriguez tried at least once, in 1961, to assassinate Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. In 1967, Rodriguez interrogated and executed South American revolutionary Che Guevara. He was part of the infamous and shadowy Operation Phoenix during the Vietnam War. [Spartacus Schoolnet, 1/17/2008]
Entity Tags: Felix Rodriguez, Donald Gregg, Contras, Robert C. McFarlane, Fidel Castro, Frank Sturgis, George Herbert Walker Bush, Ché Guevara, 'Operation 40', National Security Council, 'Operation Phoenix'
Timeline Tags: Iran-Contra Affair
Robert Jay Mathews, a white supremacist and activist (see 1980-1982), gives a speech at the National Alliance convention in Arlington, Virginia, reporting on his efforts to recruit farmers and ranchers into the "white racialist" movement (see 1969). Mathews receives the only standing ovation of the convention. He also renews his acquaintance with Thomas Martinez, a former Ku Klux Klansman from Philadelphia, and becomes close friends with him. [HistoryLink, 12/6/2006] Mathews will go on to found The Order, one of the most violent anti-government organizations in modern US history (see Late September 1983). He will die during a 1984 standoff with FBI agents (see December 8, 1984).
Entity Tags: Robert Jay Mathews, National Alliance, The Order, Thomas Martinez
The logo of 'The Order.' [Source: Eye on Hate (.com)]Robert Jay Mathews, a white supremacist and activist (see 1980-1982 and September 1983), invites eight men to his property in Metaline Falls, Washington: neighbor and best friend Kenneth Loft; former Ku Klux Klansman David Edan Lane; Daniel Bauer; Denver Daw Parmenter; Randolph George Duey and Bruce Carroll Pierce of the Aryan Nations; and National Alliance recruits Richard Harold Kemp and William Soderquist. Mathews and his eight guests found a new organization called, variously, "The Order," "The Silent Brotherhood" or "Bruder Schweigen," and "The White American Bastion." The group uses the story depicted in the novel The Turner Diaries as its framework, determining to use violence and crime to destabilize the US government and establish a whites-only society. In the novel, "The Organization" finances its revolution by armed robberies, counterfeiting, and other crimes designed to disrupt the US economy. Mathews decides his group will use the same plan. Mathews is also inspired by real crimes, such as a failed 1981 armored car heist by the Black Liberation Army. [Kushner, 2003, pp. 222-223; HistoryLink, 12/6/2006]
Entity Tags: The Order, Daniel Bauer, Bruce Carroll Pierce, David Edan Lane, Denver Daw Parmenter, Kenneth Loft, Randolph George Duey, William Soderquist, Robert Jay Mathews, Richard Harold Kemp
Bruce Pierce, a member of the white supremacist guerrilla group The Order (see Late September 1983), is arrested in Yakima, Washington, for passing counterfeit $50 bills at a local mall. Pierce obtained his counterfeit bills from an operation coordinated with the Aryan Nations in western Idaho. Pierce is interviewed by a Secret Service agent, but refuses to give him any real information. Order leader Robert Jay Mathews (see Late September 1983), worried that Pierce might talk to police or another prisoner, tries to finance Pierce's bail by robbing a bank north of Seattle. Mathews escapes with over $26,000, but most of the money is ruined when an exploding dye pack stains the bills. Pierce eventually posts a $250 bond and is released. [HistoryLink, 12/6/2006] Pierce will later murder Denver radio host Alan Berg (see June 18, 1984 and After).
Entity Tags: Robert Jay Mathews, Alan Berg, Aryan Nations, Bruce Carroll Pierce, The Order
The Dartmouth Review, a conservative weekly student newspaper funded by off-campus right-wing sources (see 1980), publishes a front-page story proclaiming an "Exclusive Report on the GSA," the Gay Straight Alliance. In 1981, Review editors had published the names of GSA officers, many of whom wished to keep their homosexuality a secret (see 1981). This article features a transcript of a private GSA meeting, recorded by Review staffer Teresa Polenz, who was sent by Review editor Laura Ingraham. The accompanying illustration depicts a man peering over a bathroom stall; Ingraham's accompanying prose calls the GSA "cheerleaders for latent campus sodomites." The state of New Hampshire opens an investigation into whether Polenz had violated wiretapping laws, an investigation that is later dropped when the New Hampshire Supreme Court hands down a ruling in an unrelated wiretapping case. Dartmouth College chooses not to discipline any students, and merely issues a request that the Dartmouth community "censure" the Review for its "insensitivity." The Review will display little sensitivity towards gays, often referring to them as "sodomites." In 1997, Ingraham, who has become a prominent conservative talk radio host and pundit, will write an article for the Washington Post recanting her views on homosexuals, saying she changed her mind in light of her brother revealing himself as gay (see April 1997). In 2006, former Review editor and conservative pundit Dinesh D'Souza will say that while the Review was never racist (see March 15, 1982 and 1983) or anti-Semitic (see October 1982, November 9-10, 1988, and October 4, 1990), it could at times edge towards espousing homophobia: "[T]his antigay thing is a little bit tricky," D'Souza will say, and add that the Review sometimes published comments about gays he wishes it had not. However, he will say, "It's not clear the Review's target was homosexuals per se." [Dartmouth Free Press, 9/20/2006; Huffington Post, 6/9/2008]
Entity Tags: Laura Ingraham, Dartmouth College, Dartmouth Gay Straight Alliance, Dinesh D'Souza, New Hampshire Supreme Court, Dartmouth Review, Teresa Polenz
Bruce Pierce, a member of the secretive white supremacist organization The Order (see Late September 1983), pleads guilty to passing counterfeit currency (see December 3-23, 1983). He believes he will receive a light sentence as this is his first criminal offense, but because he shows no remorse for his actions and refuses to divulge information about his connections to the Aryan Nations, he is sentenced to two years in federal prison. Instead of reporting to prison, Pierce holes up with Order leader Robert Jay Mathews and becomes a federal fugitive. [HistoryLink, 12/6/2006] Pierce will later murder Denver radio host Alan Berg (see June 18, 1984 and After).
Entity Tags: The Order, Aryan Nations, Robert Jay Mathews, Bruce Carroll Pierce
Robert Jay Mathews, the leader of the violent white supremacist group The Order (see Late September 1983), journeys to Seattle, Washington, with six of his followers to rob a second armored car (see March 16, 1984). Mathews has new recruit Gary Lee Yarborough manufacture small bombs to be used as diversions. On April 19, Yarborough sets off a bomb in an adult theater near the mall where the truck will be; on April 23, Mathews calls in another bomb threat to divert police. The same day, the group successfully robs the armored truck, securing $536,000, though over $300,000 of this money is in checks, which the group destroys. Mathews and another colleague go to Missoula, Montana, where they buy firearms, ammunition, other weapons, and a state-of-the-art computer to give The Order access to the Internet. [HistoryLink, 12/6/2006]
Entity Tags: Gary Lee Yarborough, Robert Jay Mathews, The Order
Two members of the white supremacist group The Order (see Late September 1983), Bruce Pierce and Richard Kemp, bomb the Congregation Ahavath Israel Synagogue in Boise, Idaho. They use the first bomb Pierce has assembled, and it does little damage. Order leader Robert Jay Mathews is angry over the bombing, not because he disapproves, but because he feels the bomb should have destroyed the building. [HistoryLink, 12/6/2006] Pierce will later murder Denver radio host Alan Berg (see June 18, 1984 and After).
Entity Tags: Congregation Ahavath Israel Synagogue, Alan Berg, Bruce Carroll Pierce, Robert Jay Mathews, The Order, Richard Harold Kemp
Robert Jay Mathews, the founder and leader of the secretive white-supremacist group The Order (see Late September 1983), has decided the group should murder Denver radio host Alan Berg. Berg, a Jewish liberal with a confrontational style, has frequently sparred with white supremacists and neo-Nazis on the air, and for this reason Mathews has decided he must die. Mathews sends Order member Jean Margaret Craig to Denver to observe Berg's movements and determine if he is a viable target. Mathews decides that the "hit" on Berg will take place in June. [HistoryLink, 12/6/2006] Mathews and three Order members will kill Berg a month later (see June 18, 1984 and After).
Entity Tags: Jean Margaret Craig, Robert Jay Mathews, The Order, Alan Berg
Alan Berg. [Source: Denver Post]Alan Berg, a Jewish, progressive talk show host for Denver's KOA 850 AM Radio, is gunned down in his driveway as he is stepping out of his car. The murder is carried out by members of the violent white-supremacist group The Order (see Late September 1983), a splinter group of the Aryan Nations white nationalist movement. Berg, who was described as often harsh and abrasive, regularly confronted right-wing and militia members on his show. Federal investigators learn that The Order's "hit list" includes Berg, television producer Norman Lear, a Kansas federal judge, and Morris Dees, a civil rights lawyer and co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Radio producer Anath White later says that some of Berg's last shows were particularly rancorous, involving confrontational exchanges with anti-Semitic members of the Christian Identity movement (see 1960s and After). "That got him on the list and got him moved up the list to be assassinated," White will say. [HistoryLink, 12/6/2006; Rocky Mountain News, 5/1/2007; Denver Post, 6/18/2009] Preparing for the Murder - Order leader Robert Jay Mathews had already sent a colleague to Denver to determine if Berg was a viable target (see May 17, 1984). The four members of the assassination team—Mathews, Bruce Pierce, David Lane, and Richard Scutari—assemble at a local Motel 6 to review their plans. Pierce, the assassin, has brought a .45 caliber Ingram MAC-10 submachine gun for the job. All four men begin to surveill Berg's townhouse. Gunned Down - At 9:21 p.m., Berg drives his Volkswagen Beetle into his driveway. Lane, the driver, pulls up behind him. Mathews leaps out of the car and opens the rear door for Pierce, who jumps out and runs up the driveway. Berg exits his vehicle with a bag of groceries. Pierce immediately opens fire with his submachine gun, pumping either 12 or 13 bullets into Berg's face and body before the gun jams. (Sources claim both figures of bullet wounds in Berg as accurate.) Pierce and Mathews get back into their car, rush back to the Motel 6, gather their belongings, and leave town. Three of the four members of the "hit squad" will soon be apprehended, charged, and convicted. Pierce is sentenced to 252 years in prison, including time for non-related robberies, and will die in prison in 2010; Lane is given 150 years, and will die in prison in 2007. Neither man is prosecuted for murder, as the evidence will be determined to be inconclusive; rather, they will be charged with violating Berg's civil rights. Scutari, accused of serving as a lookout for Pierce, and Jean Craig, accused of collecting information on Berg for the murder, will both be acquitted of culpability in the case, but will be convicted of other unrelated crimes. Mathews will not be charged due to lack of evidence of his participation; months later, he will die in a confrontation with law enforcement officials (see December 8, 1984). [Rocky Mountain News, 5/1/2007; Denver Post, 6/18/2009; Denver Post, 8/17/2010] In sentencing Pierce to prison, Judge Richard Matsch will say of the murder, "The man [Berg] was killed for who he was, what he believed in, and what he said and did, and that crime strikes at the very core of the Constitution." [Denver Post, 8/17/2010] Re-Enacting a Fictional Murder? - Some will come to believe that the assassins may have attempted to re-enact the fictional murder of a Jewish talk-show host depicted in The Turner Diaries (see 1978). [Rocky Mountain News, 5/1/2007; The Moderate Voice, 11/30/2007] 'Opening Shot ... of a Truly Revolutionary Radical Right' - Mark Potok of the SPLC will characterize Berg's murder as an early event leading to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). "In a sense, it was one of the opening shots of a truly revolutionary radical right," Potok will say, "perfectly willing to countenance the mass murder of American civilians for their cause." [Denver Post, 6/18/2009] Berg's ex-wife, Judith Berg, will travel around the country in the years after her ex-husband's murder, speaking about what she calls the "disease and anatomy of hate," a sickness that can infect people so strongly that they commit horrible crimes. In 2007, she will tell a reporter that Berg's murder was a watershed event that inspired more hate-movement violence. "What happened to Alan in the grown-up world has reached into the youth culture," she will say. "It opened the door to an acceptance of violence as a means of acting on hate.… While our backs are turned toward overseas, hate groups are having a heyday. People are very unhappy; they're out of work and jobs are scarce. They're ripe for joining extremist groups. We need to understand what happened to make sure it doesn't happen again." [Rocky Mountain News, 5/1/2007] White later says of Pierce, Lane, and their fellows: "It's left me to wonder what makes somebody like this. I think these people didn't have much opportunity in their lives and scapegoat. They blame others for not making it." [Denver Post, 8/17/2010]
Entity Tags: Norman Lear, Robert Jay Mathews, Richard Scutari, Morris Dees, Richard P. Matsch, Mark Potok, Jean Margaret Craig, Judith Berg, Alan Berg, Anath White, Aryan Nations, Bruce Carroll Pierce, David Edan Lane, KOA 850 AM Radio, The Order
David Lane, a member of the secretive white supremacist group The Order (see Late September 1983) and one of the group members responsible for murdering Denver radio host Alan Berg (see June 18, 1984 and After), gives $30,000 in counterfeit bills (see December 3-23, 1983) to Thomas Martinez in Philadelphia. Martinez is not a member of The Order, but has reluctantly agreed to pass on the bills on the group's behalf. Martinez ignores Lane's advice to pass on the bills in New Jersey and not his own neighborhood, and passes over $1,500 in neighborhood stores. On June 28, he is arrested after a liquor store owner alerts authorities about the fake bills. Martinez is questioned by the Secret Service, but though he is fully aware of The Order's array of crimes, tells his questioners nothing. He telephones Order leader Robert Jay Mathews, asking that he give him $1,600 for an attorney. Mathews tells Martinez to be patient, that the group is planning another robbery (see March 16, 1984 and April 19-23, 1984), and he will then send him the money. [HistoryLink, 12/6/2006]
Entity Tags: David Edan Lane, Alan Berg, Robert Jay Mathews, US Secret Service, Thomas Martinez, The Order
Congress passes the second Boland Amendment, which outlaws the use of "third-party nations" to support the Contras. The bill also bars the use of funds by the CIA, the Defense Department, or any intelligence agency for "supporting, directly or indirectly, military or paramilitary operations in Nicaragua by any nation, group, organization or individual." [PBS, 2000] The amendment is largely in response to the efforts of the Reagan administration to get around the restrictions of the first amendment (see December 1982), and the CIA's mining of three Nicaraguan harbors. This amendment is far more restrictive than the first, saying flatly, "During fiscal year 1985, no funds available to the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense, or any other agency or entity of the United States involved in intelligence activities may be obligated or expended for the purpose or which would have the effect of supporting, directly or indirectly, military or paramilitary operations in Nicaragua by any nation, group, organization, movement, or individual." [New York Times, 7/10/1987; House Intelligence Committee, 2005; Savage, 2007, pp. 53] "There are no exceptions to the prohibition," says Edward Boland (D-MA), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and the primary sponsor of the amemdment. Contra supporters in Congress denounce the bill, with Dick Cheney (R-WY) calling it a "killer amendment" that will force the Contras "to lay down their arms." After President Reagan signs it into law, Cheney launches a lengthy, determined effort to persuade his colleagues to rescind the amendment. Inside the White House, particularly in the National Security Council, a number of Reagan officials, including National Security Adviser John Poindexter and his aide Colonel Oliver North, begin conspiring to circumvent the amendment with a complex scheme involving selling arms to Iran at inflated prices in exchange for American hostages held by Lebanese militants, and using the profits to fund the Contras. [Savage, 2007, pp. 53]
Entity Tags: US Congress, US Department of Defense, Richard ("Dick") Cheney, National Security Council, John Poindexter, Edward Boland, Contras, Central Intelligence Agency, Ronald Reagan, Reagan administration, Oliver North
Three FBI agents in a green US Forest Service truck drive onto the wooded Idaho property of Gary Yarborough, a member of the white supremacist group The Order (see August 1984 and After). They are met with gunfire and retreat. They return in the evening with a search warrant. Yarborough has fled into the woods (and will escape to join leader Robert Jay Mathews), but in his cabin the agents find a large collection of evidence of The Order's crimes, including documents, explosives, gas grenades, cases of ammunition, pistols, shotguns, rifles, two Ingram MAC-10 submachine guns with silencers, gas masks, knives, crossbows, assault vests, radio frequency scanners, and other equipment. Among the cache of weapons is the MAC-10 used to kill Denver radio host Alan Berg (see June 18, 1984 and After). Based on the evidence found in Yarborough's cabin, the FBI decides to begin arresting members of The Order. [HistoryLink, 12/6/2006]
Entity Tags: Robert Jay Mathews, Alan Berg, Gary Lee Yarborough, The Order, Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Supreme Court, in the case of Federal Election Commission v. NCPAC, rules that political action committees (PACs) can spend more than the $1,000 mandated by federal law (see February 7, 1972, 1974, and May 11, 1976). The Democratic Party and the FEC argued that large expenditures by the National Conservative Political Action Committee (NCPAC) in 1975 violated the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA), which caps spending by independent political action committees in support of a publicly funded presidential candidate at $1,000. The Court rules 7-2 in favor of NCPAC, finding that the relevant section of FECA encroaches on the organization's right to free speech (see January 30, 1976). Justice William Rehnquist writes the majority opinion, joined by fellow conservatives Chief Justice Warren Burger, Sandra Day O'Connor, and Lewis Powell, and liberals Harry Blackmun, John Paul Stevens, and William Brennan. Justices Byron White and Thurgood Marshall dissent from the majority. [Oyez (.org), 2012; Moneyocracy, 2/2012]
Entity Tags: Federal Election Commission, William Brennan, William Rehnquist, Byron White, Federal Election Campaign Act of 1972, US Supreme Court, Warren Burger, Sandra Day O'Connor, Harry Blackmun, John Paul Stevens, Thurgood Marshall, National Conservative Political Action Committee, Democratic Party, Lewis Powell
Neoconservative academic Michael Ledeen, who left the Defense Department under suspicion of engaging in espionage on behalf of Israel (see 1983), gains a position at the National Security Council. His boss is Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North (see July 7-10, 1987 and May-June, 1989). According to Iran-Contra investigators, it is Ledeen who suggests to North "that Israeli contacts might be useful in obtaining release of the US hostages in Lebanon" (see November 4, 1979-January 20, 1981). Ledeen is granted high-level security clearance. [CounterPunch, 2/28/2004]
Entity Tags: Michael Ledeen, National Security Council
Timeline Tags: Iran-Contra Affair, Neoconservative Influence
Robert Jay Mathews. [Source: Wikimedia]Robert Jay Mathews, the leader of the neo-Nazi, white supremacist group The Order (see Late September 1983 and June 18, 1984 and After), is killed during a standoff with federal authorities at a rented vacation home near Smugger's Cove on Whidbey Island, Washington State. Mathews has been on the run after escaping from federal custody in November 1984 and in the process wounding an FBI agent in the leg (see November 23-24, 1984). On December 3, the FBI's Seattle office received an anonymous tip that Mathews and other Order members were hiding in three hideouts on Whidbey Island, and were heavily armed. The FBI dispatched 150 agents to the island to ensure none of the members escaped. By December 7, the FBI had all three hideouts located and surrounded. Four members of the group surrender without incident, but Mathews refuses, instead firing repeatedly at agents from inside the Smuggler's Cove house. After 35 hours of fruitless negotiations, agents fire three M-79 Starburst illumination flares into the home, hoping that the house will catch fire and drive Mathews out. Instead, Mathews either chooses to remain inside the house, or is unable to leave. He dies in the flames. The FBI recovers his charred body the next morning. News reports about the siege are the first many Americans hear of The Order and its war against what it calls the "ZOG," or Zionist Occupation Government, which Mathews and others characterize as a "Jewish cabal" running the US government. [HistoryLink, 12/6/2006] In 2003, researcher Harvey Kushner will write of Mathews, "For many on the racist right, he died a martyr." [Kushner, 2003, pp. 223]
Entity Tags: Harvey Kushner, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Robert Jay Mathews, The Order
Donald Gregg, Vice President Bush's national security and foreign policy adviser and one of the architects of the secret plan to fund the Nicaraguan Contras (see March 17, 1983), introduces his partner Felix Rodriguez to Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North of the National Security Council (NSC). North will head the NSC's Contra resupply and funding operations. [Spartacus Schoolnet, 12/28/2007]
Entity Tags: Oliver North, Contras, Donald Gregg, National Security Council, George Herbert Walker Bush, Felix Rodriguez
After the death of Robert Jay Mathews, the founder and leader of the white supremacist group The Order (see December 8, 1984), federal authorities decide to "roll up" the group. Federal prosecutors from six states meet secretly in Seattle and decide to use the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) against Order members. Under RICO statutes, all defendants are considered co-conspirators and are jointly responsible for all the crimes committed by the group (see October 28, 1983, December 3-23, 1983, March 16, 1984, April 19-23, 1984, April 29, 1984, May 27, 1984, June 18, 1984 and After, June 24-28, 1984, July 19, 1984, and November 23-24, 1984). The RICO Act also allows the government to seize and forfeit all property and assets used by the criminal organization to further its goals. Between December 1984 and March 1985, the Justice Department builds a massive conspiracy case against The Order. On April 15, 1985, a grand jury in Washington State returns a 20-count indictment against 23 members of The Order with racketeering, conspiracy, and 67 separate offenses. By this time, 17 members of The Order are in custody; by the month's end, all but one member, Richard Scutari (see March 19, 1986), are in custody. [HistoryLink, 12/6/2006]
Entity Tags: Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Richard Scutari, Robert Jay Mathews, US Department of Justice, The Order
Dartmouth College chaplain Richard Hyde files a libel and invasion of privacy lawsuit against the conservative Dartmouth Review, a student newspaper funded by off-campus conservative sources (see 1980). Hyde files the suit in response to the Review's repeated characterization of him as a supporter of the North American Man Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), an organization that promotes pedophilia and child pornography. The Review has often characterized Hyde as homosexual. It eventually settles the case out of court and prints an apology. [Dartmouth Free Press, 9/20/2006]
Entity Tags: Dartmouth College, North American Man Boy Love Association, Richard Hyde, Dartmouth Review
David Tate, one of two members of the now-defunct white supremacist group The Order to escape the government's massive prosecution of its members (see Late December 1984 - April 1985), is stopped by two Missouri state troopers conducting random vehicle and license checks. He is trying to flee to a Christian Identity (see 1960s and After) survivalist compound called the Covenant, the Sword, and the Arm of the Lord (CSA). Tate opens fire on the two officers with a MAC-10 submachine gun, killing one and critically wounding the other. He is captured five days later hiding in a city park in Arkansas. He will be convicted of assault and murder, and sentenced to life without parole. Federal authorities will use the Tate incident to arrest the CSA leadership (see 1983); the organization will soon fold. [Anti-Defamation League, 2005; HistoryLink, 12/6/2006]
Entity Tags: David Charles Tate, The Order
Secretary of State George Shultz offers prominent neoconservative and State Department official Elliott Abrams (see Early 1970s) the position of assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs (ARA), overseeing the department's South and Central American issues and initiatives, as well as those for the Caribbean. Abrams accepts and, according to State Department notes of the meeting, promises to "manage the emergence of EA [Abrams] as King of LA [Latin America]." Abrams begins his duties in July 1985, and quickly becomes one of the State Department's most vocal supporters of Nicaragua's Contra movement, often appearing before Congress as an emissary of the Reagan administration to ask for funds for the insurgent group. [Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters: Chapter 25: United States v. Elliott Abrams: November 1986, 8/4/1993]
Entity Tags: George Shultz, Contras, Reagan administration, US Department of State, Elliott Abrams
Graham Fuller. [Source: Ohio University]The US tilts ever more sharply towards Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war, even though the Reagan administration continues to maintain a posture of overt neutrality in the conflict. The administration has provided covert military aid for both sides in the struggle (see 1981 and October 1983), and has been divided over which regime to support (see January 14, 1984). It is already involved in "Operation Staunch," a program designed by Secretary of State George Shultz to stem the flow of weapons to Iran. Now, some officials are arguing that it is time to reverse that course. Graham Fuller, the CIA's national intelligence officer for the Middle East, writes two controversial secret memos advocating that the administration begin providing support for Iran against Iraq. Fuller is presenting a position long held by national security director Robert McFarlane and two of McFarlane's aides, Oliver North and Howard Teicher. This pro-Iran group has recently been joined by CIA director William Casey. Both McFarlane and Casey are supportive of Fuller's memo. Fuller writes in a May 17 memo, "Our tilt to Iraq was timely when Iraq was against the ropes and the Islamic revolution was on a roll. The time may now have to come to tilt back." Fuller argues that the US should once again authorize Israel to ship US arms to Iran. Ironically, this is the mirror image of Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger's argument in favor of supporting Iraq: the US must counter one covert policy with another (see Early 1982). The pro-Iranian coalition within the administration gives scant consideration to the hostage-taking of seven Americans by Hezbollah, a Lebanese Shi'ite militant group with strong ties to Iran's theocratic regime. On May 20, Fuller circulates a second memo, called a "Special National Intelligence Estimate" (SNIE), that is only read by a handful of senior White House officials (Ronald Reagan is one of the recipients; George Bush is not). Fuller's memo is written almost entirely for Reagan's benefit, and in its arguments, becomes a basis for renewed arms sales to Iran and the resulting Iran-Contra scandal. Fuller evokes one of Reagan's favorite themes, the trouncing of the Soviet Union in the global arena: "We know that the USSR views Iran as 'the prize' in the Gulf. Moscow will improve relations when and where it can… until it gains major influence in that state. The disturbing possibility is that the USSR is far more likely than the US to be first in finding opportunities to improve its ties to Iran." Interestingly, in 1991, during Robert Gates's Senate hearings on becoming the director of the CIA, it is learned that Fuller's memo contradicts the views of career Soviet analysts at the agency, who believe that the Soviet Union has no real hope of making inroads into the Iranian regime. The USSR is the chief arms supplier for Iraq, Iran's bitter enemy and current opponent in a long and bloody war. Iran is arming the Afghan mujaheddin, the Islamist resistance fighters viewed as a threat by Saddam Hussein. Several CIA analysts will later testify that they believe Fuller deliberately slanted his memo for political reasons. In 1992, Fuller himself will admit that he was wrong, but will deny any politicization. Regardless, Fuller's memo becomes a critical document shaping the Reagan policy to arm Iran. It is not clear whether Vice President Bush ever saw the memo, but whether he did or not, beginning in 1985 he takes part in numerous White House meetings where the arming of Iran is discussed. If he has objections to the policy, he never voices them. [Time, 11/17/1986; New Yorker, 11/2/1992]
Entity Tags: Ronald Reagan, Saddam Hussein, William Casey, Robert M. Gates, Oliver North, Reagan administration, Robert C. McFarlane, George Herbert Walker Bush, Graham Fuller, Central Intelligence Agency, Howard Teicher, Caspar Weinberger, Hezbollah, George Shultz
Lewis Tambs becomes the US Ambassador to Costa Rica. Tambs is under orders to open what is called a "southern front" for the Nicaraguan Contras; a small force of Contras is striking into southern Nicaragua from northern Costa Rica, and the Costa Rican government wants them out of their territory. Tambs believes that the orders for the "southern front" come from National Security Council (NSC) officer Oliver North, Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams, and their Restricted Interagency Group (RIG—see Late 1985 and After). Tambs, with the assistance of North's liaison in Central America, Felix Rodriguez (see Mid-September 1985), secures permission from the Costa Rican government to build an airstrip for use by the Contras in northern Costa Rica, as long as it is not close enough to the border to allow the Contras to use it as a staging area for ground raids. One of Abrams's first questions to North after being tasked to "monitor" the NSC officer (see September 4, 1985) is why the Costa Ricans are allowing the airstrip. The airstrip will be built at Santa Elena, Costa Rica, by the Udall Corporation, one of the private firms controlled by North's partner, retired General Richard Secord (see November 19, 1985 and February 2, 1987), and will be called "Point West." Abrams will later testify, falsely, that no US officials were involved in securing permission to build the airstrip. Notes taken by the US Ambassador to El Salvador, Edwin Corr, about discussions concerning the airstrip, will prove that Abrams lies under oath about the airstrip. [Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters: Chapter 25: United States v. Elliott Abrams: November 1986, 8/4/1993]
Entity Tags: Felix Rodriguez, Contras, Edwin Corr, Elliott Abrams, Richard Secord, Lewis Tambs, Udall Corporation, Restricted Interagency Group, Oliver North
Timeline Tags: US International Relations, Iran-Contra Affair
Tensions between the pro-Iran and pro-Iraq factions in the White House (see January 14, 1984) come to a head after Robert McFarlane's National Security Council staff drafts a presidential directive advocating that the US help Iran obtain weapons. The opposing faction, led by Secretary of State George Shultz and Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, protest angrily, with Weinberger calling the proposal "almost too absurd to comment on…." But the arms-for-hostage deal will go forward over Shultz's and Weinberger's objections (see July 3, 1985). [New Yorker, 11/2/1992]
Entity Tags: National Security Council, Robert C. McFarlane, George Shultz
David Kimche. [Source: Mark Leighton / Bettmann / Corbis]David Kimche, the director general of Israel's Foreign Ministry, meets secretly with National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane to advise him that Israel may be able to use its influence with Iran (see 1981) to engineer the release of American hostages currently held by Hezbollah. Kimche's outreach is the final piece in the complex arms-for-hostage deal between the US, Israel, and Iran. [New Yorker, 11/2/1992] Israel is a logical conduit for arms to Iran, as it has been selling arms to Iran periodically since 1979, originally as part of its efforts to get Iran to allow Iranian Jews to emigrate to Israel. Like the US, Israel hopes to gain influence with Iranian moderates who will presumably take power after the aged, ailing Islamist radical Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini dies. (Earlier attempts to sell US-made arms to Iran had been blocked by the Carter administration.) According to Israeli sources, this Israeli offer began with a group of Israeli businessmen informing Prime Minister Shimon Peres in early July that they had been in contact with Iranian officials, and thought they could facilitate an arrangement to swap US arms for American hostages. The Israelis say that the US point man for the deal is John Poindexter, the deputy national security adviser, and Poindexter tapped National Security Council aide Oliver North to be the US liaison to Israel. Peres quickly authorized the Israeli businessmen to resume their contacts with the Iranians, and the businessmen contacted Saudi arms merchant Adnan Khashoggi. Khashoggi obtained a long list of desired military equipment from the Iranians, including Hawk antiaircraft missiles and radar-guidance equipment for them, antitank missiles, and spare parts for jet fighters. [Time, 11/17/1986]
Entity Tags: Oliver North, Carter administration, Adnan Khashoggi, David Kimche, John Poindexter, Robert C. McFarlane, Shimon Peres, Hezbollah
After Hezbollah takes two more Americans hostage in Lebanon, Ronald Reagan angrily charges that Iran (the sponsor of Hezbollah) is a member of what he calls a "confederation of terrorist states… a new, international version of Murder Incorporated." He asserts, "America will never make concessions to terrorists." But unbeknownst to the public, a group of senior White House officials are working to begin providing military aid to Iran (see May 1985). [New Yorker, 11/2/1992]
Entity Tags: Reagan administration, Ronald Reagan, Hezbollah
Congress modifies the Boland Amendment (see October 10, 1984) by authorizing a one-time appropriation of $27 million for humanitarian aid for the Nicaraguan Contras. On August 29, 1985, President Reagan creates the Nicaraguan Humanitarian Assistance Office (NHAO) in the State Department for the purpose of administering the $27 million. [Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters: Chapter 25: United States v. Elliott Abrams: November 1986, 8/4/1993]
Entity Tags: Contras, Nicaraguan Humanitarian Assistance Office, US Department of State, Ronald Reagan
A major meeting to codify the arms-for-hostage deal with Iran takes place in Ronald Reagan's private White House quarters, after Iranian officials sent requests to open negotiations with the US through backchannel sources. Reagan, recovering from intestinal surgery and wearing pajamas and a bathrobe, is joined by Vice President Bush, Secretary of State George Shultz, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, White House chief of staff Donald Regan, and National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane. McFarlane, passing along information he has received from Israel (see 1981), says the Iranians will see to it that Hezbollah releases four American hostages in return for US and Israeli arms. McFarlane has long supported arms sales to Iran, and is most supportive of the deal; Weinberger and Shultz, who support dealing with Iraq, are firmly against it. But the deal will go through (see September 15, 1985). [Time, 11/17/1986; New Yorker, 11/2/1992]
Entity Tags: George Shultz, Caspar Weinberger, Donald Regan, George Herbert Walker Bush, Ronald Reagan, Robert C. McFarlane
Newly ensconsced Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams (see April 19, 1985 and After) meets with Secretary of State George Shultz, Shultz's executive assistant Charles Hill, and Shultz's executive secretary Nicholas Platt. In this meeting, Abrams learns that National Security Council official Oliver North is conducting covert actions to support the Nicaraguan Contras (see December 6, 1985 and April 4, 1986). According to Abrams's notes from the meeting, Shultz tasks him to "monitor Ollie." Abrams will later testify to the Iran-Contra investigative committee (see May 5, 1987) about this meeting, saying that he asks, "All these accusations about Colonel North, you want me to try to find out whether they are true and what he is up to, or do you want me to sort of leave?" Shultz replies, "No, you have got to know." During the meeting, Abrams notes that Shultz does not want White House officials to know too much about North's activities in funding the Contras. Abrams notes that Shultz says to him: "We don't want to be in the dark. You [are] suppose[d] to be mgr [manager] of overall CA [Central America] picture. Contras are integral part of it. So y[ou] need to know how they [are] getting arms. So don't just say go see the WH [White House]. It's very risky for WH." Platt, too, takes notes of the meeting. According to his notes, Shultz says: "What is happening on other support for Contras for lethal aid etc.—E. Abrams doesn't have the answer. Stayed away let Ollie North do it. Fundraising continuing—weapons stocks are high. We have had nothing to do with private aid. Should we continue? Hate to be in position, [Shultz] says, of not knowing what's going on. You are supposed to be managing overall Central American picture. Ollie can go on doing his thing, but you, [Abrams], should know what's happening." The notes from Abrams and Platt, and Abrams's own testimony all confirm that Abrams is aware of North's activities by September 1985, though he will subsequently lie to Congress about possessing such knowledge (see November 25-28, 1986). Abrams will later testifz that he has a very good idea about North's activities from working with North in an interagency group (see Late 1985 and After). [Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters: Chapter 25: United States v. Elliott Abrams: November 1986, 8/4/1993]
Entity Tags: Elliott Abrams, Charles Hill, Contras, Reagan administration, Nicholas Platt, National Security Council, George Shultz, Oliver North
The National Security Council's Oliver North persuades former CIA officer Felix Rodriguez to help him divert funds and weapons to the Nicaraguan Contras (see December 6, 1985 and April 4, 1986). Rodriguez agrees to set up the servicing of CIA transport planes and other aircraft at the Ilopango Air Base in San Salvador, El Salvador. Rodriguez works out of Ilopango, helping the Salvadoran Air Force in its own counter-insurgency activities. Rodriguez was placed at Ilopango by Donald Gregg, a former CIA agent who now serves as the foreign policy adviser to Vice President Bush (see March 17, 1983). While in El Salvador, Rodriguez uses the alias "Max Gomez." [Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters: Chapter 25: United States v. Elliott Abrams: November 1986, 8/4/1993]
Entity Tags: National Security Council, Donald Gregg, Felix Rodriguez, George Herbert Walker Bush, Oliver North, Central Intelligence Agency, Contras
The first meeting of the State Department's Nicaraguan Humanitarian Assistance Office (NHAO) is held. Two aides to Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams (see April 19, 1985 and After and September 4, 1985) attend the meeting. During the meeting, National Security Council (NSC) officer Oliver North offers the services of former CIA agent Felix Rodriguez to assist in distributing the $27 million in humanitarian aid recently approved for the Contras (see August 1985). Rodriguez is helping North channel illegal funds to the Contras (see Mid-September 1985). The agreement is to channel the funds to the Contras through El Salvador's Ilopango Air Base, Rodriguez's center of operations. By early 1986, the legal NHAO fund distribution will merge with the illegal North fund distribution (see December 6, 1985 and April 4, 1986). [Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters: Chapter 25: United States v. Elliott Abrams: November 1986, 8/4/1993] Some of the $27 million is never used for humanitarian purposes, but instead used to buy weapons, both for the Contras and for the mujaheddin in Afghanistan. [Spartacus Schoolnet, 12/28/2007]
Entity Tags: Oliver North, Elliott Abrams, Felix Rodriguez, Nicaraguan Humanitarian Assistance Office, Contras, US Department of State
In Ann Arbor, Michigan, research assistant Nicklaus Suino of the University of Michigan suffers burns and shrapnel wounds when he opens a package bomb at the home of psychology professor James V. McConnell. [BBC, 11/12/1987; Washington Post, 1998] The bombing will later be shown to be the work of Theodore "Ted" Kaczynski, the so-called "Unabomber" (see April 3, 1996). McConnell may be one of Kaczynski's most personal targets. McConnell is a rich, flamboyant, and somewhat eccentric professor who espouses controversial theories about human behavior modification based on his research with flatworms. McConnell taught at the University of Michigan when Kaczynski was taking graduate courses in mathematics there. The package mailed to McConnell's house comes with a one-page letter taped to the top, bearing a Salt Lake City postmark and reading in part: "I'd like you to read this book. Everybody in your position should read this book." McConnell asks Suino to open it. The resulting explosion injures Suino; McConnell escapes with slight, temporary hearing loss but is profoundly shaken by the incident. [Washington Post, 4/14/1996]
Entity Tags: Theodore J. ("Ted") Kaczynski, James V. McConnell, Nicklaus Suino, University of Michigan
Retired Air Force Major General Richard Secord becomes deeply involved in organizing a covert supply operation for Nicaragua's Contras under the name "Airlift Project." Secord later testifies to the Congressional Iran-Contra Committee that the project's money comes from private donations and friendly foreign governments. [New York Times, 11/19/1987]
Entity Tags: Contras, Joint House-Senate Iran-Contra Committee, Richard Secord
Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams (see April 19, 1985 and After) joins the National Security Council (NSC)'s Oliver North and the CIA's Central American Task Force chief Alan Fiers as the principal members of a Restricted Interagency Group (RIG) which works on Central American affairs for the Reagan administration. Abrams, a staunch supporter of Nicaragua's Contras, becomes aware of North's machinations to divert US funds to the Contras (see December 6, 1985 and April 4, 1986) in spite of Congress's prohibition on such funding (see October 10, 1984). Abrams will also become directly involved in secret, illegal efforts to secure funding for the Contras from other nations (see June 11, 1986). [Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters: Chapter 25: United States v. Elliott Abrams: November 1986, 8/4/1993]
Entity Tags: Restricted Interagency Group, Contras, Oliver North, Elliott Abrams, Alan Fiers
Oliver North, the National Security Council staffer who handles the Iran-Contra dealings, tells Israeli Defense Ministry officials that he plans to use profits from future arms sales to Iran to fund the Nicaraguan Contras. [New York Times, 11/19/1987] North will not inform his supervisor, National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane, for five more months (see May 29, 1986).
Entity Tags: Oliver North, Robert C. McFarlane
Wreckage from the Gander crash. [Source: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation]Shortly after takeoff from Gander, Newfoundland, Arrow Air Flight 1285 stalls and crashes about half a mile from the runway. All 256 passengers and crew on board are killed, including 248 US soldiers. The plane was coming from Egypt and refueling in Newfoundland before continuing on to the US. The crash will initially be widely reported to have been an accident, caused by icing on the airplane wings. Official US and Canadian investigations will also support this conclusion. However, information will later come out suggesting it was not an accident: Members of Islamic Jihad, a branch of the Hezbollah militant group (not to be confused with the Islamic Jihad group headed by Ayman al-Zawahiri), immediately take credit for the crash. In one call to the Reuters news agency in Beirut, the caller knows details of the plane flight not yet mentioned in the press. Within hours of the crash, Major General John Crosby arrives at the crash site and reportedly tells maintenance workers he wants to "bulldoze over the crash site immediately." The White House also quickly publicly claims there is "no evidence of sabotage or an explosion in flight," despite the fact that Hezbollah has just taken credit for the crash and the investigation is just beginning. While the site is not bulldozed, there is no effort to meticulously sift the wreckage for clues, which is standard procedure for such air crashes. An FBI forensic team flies to Newfoundland within hours of the crash, but then merely sits in a hotel room. After 36 hours, the team accepts a declaration that terrorism was not involved and returns home. The FBI will claim the Canadian government did not allow its team to visit the site. [Time, 4/27/1992] In 1988, the nine-member Canadian Aviation Safety Board will issue a split verdict. Five members will attribute the crash to ice formation and four members will claim it was the result of an explosion. A former Canadian Supreme Court justice will be appointed to decide if there should be a new investigation. He will conclude that the available evidence does not support ice on the wings as being a cause, let alone a probable cause, of the crash. But he will also rule against a new investigation, saying it would cause more pain to the victims' families. [Time, 4/27/1992; Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 12/12/2005] Later declassified autopsy reports will show that soldiers had inhaled smoke in the moments before they died, indicating there was a fire on board before the plane hit the ground. [Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 12/12/2005] Five witnesses in the remote location where the plane crashes will sign sworn statements that they saw the plane burning before it fell. An examination of the fuselage will show outward holes, indicating an explosion from within. Four members of the refueling crew will assert there was no icing problem before the plane took off. The plane crashed about one minute after take off. Six heavy crates were loaded into the plane's cargo bay in Egypt without military customs clearance. Witnesses will claim that weapons, including TOW anti-tank missiles, were being stockpiled in Egypt near where the plane took off. At the time, the US was secretly selling these types of missiles to Iran as part of an arms-for-hostages deal. In the wake of public exposure of the Iran-Contra affair, it will be revealed that Arrow Air is a CIA front company and was regularly used by Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North to ship arms. Most of the crash victims are US Airborne troops returning from multinational peacekeeping duties in Egypt, but more than 20 Special Forces personnel were also on board. They were from elite counterterrorist units often used on hostage rescue missions. Just days before the crash, Iranian officials threatened to retaliate after North sent them a shipment of the wrong missiles. North wrote three days earlier that he was determined to continue arms shipments. "To stop now in midstream would ignite Iranian fire," he wrote, adding, "Hostages would be our minimum losses." One theory will be that Iran used militant surrogates connected to Hezbollah to punish North for sending the wrong missiles. [Time, 4/27/1992] Gene Wheaton, a private investigator hired by victims' relatives unsatisfied with the official explanation, will claim that a duffel bag stuffed with US currency was found in the wreckage. Two men in civilian clothes, who other personnel at the crash cite believe were from the CIA, took custody of the money. Neither the money nor the heavy crates will be mentioned by the official investigation. In the early 1990s, two Time magazine reporters will be writing a book about the BCCI bank scandal. They will develop a reliable source, a private arms dealer using the alias Heinrich. Heinrich will tell them that a large amount of cash was on the Gander flight and he will tell them this before any accounts of cash being on the plane are reported in the media. Heinrich, who takes part in numerous arms deals with high-level BCCI officials, will tell the reporters: "This money on the plane was money that [BCCI founder Agha Hasan] Abedi, money that the bank had provided US intelligence for covert operations. The money was being used by the American military. I have no idea what for. You don't ask these kinds of questions of these people.…. One of the bank men—perhaps I should call him an associate of the bank men—was a little angry about this money. He believed it was being, ah, appropriated, by some of the Special Forces soldiers. Someone else thought perhaps it was being diverted to another operation. I only know that the subject of the Gander crash came up and these people talked about BCCI money going down with it." [Beaty and Gwynne, 1993, pp. 231-233]
Entity Tags: Federal Bureau of Investigation, "Heinrich", Agha Hasan Abedi, Central Intelligence Agency, Oliver North, Bank of Credit and Commerce International, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad Organization, Gene Wheaton, John Crosby
Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, Iran-Contra Affair
Carl Messick, the "security chief" of the Church of the Creator (COTC—see 1973 and 1982-1983), fires 19 shots at the car of a Georgia couple who accidentally drive onto the COTC grounds. Messick will later be sentenced to seven years in prison. This is the first reported problem a COTC member has with the law. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 9/1999]
Entity Tags: World Church of the Creator, Carl Messick
John Poindexter. [Source: US Navy]In a meeting between President Ronald Reagan, Vice President George Bush, Secretary of State George Shultz, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, CIA Director William Casey, and new National Security Adviser John Poindexter, the participants discuss whether to sell 4,000 Israeli-owned, US-made antitank missiles to Iran as another arms-for-hostages deal (see September 15, 1985). Shultz and Weinberger, as they have before, oppose any dealings with Iran. Bush, according to records of the meeting, fails to express any views at all, but Shultz will recall Bush supporting the deal. In 1988, Bush will tell a reporter that he doesn't remember any such conflict over the arms sales, saying, "I never really heard them that clearly. And the reason is that the machinery broke down—it never worked as it should. The key players with the experience weren't ever called together… to review the decisions that were made at a lower level." It is hard to imagine any higher levels of the executive branch of government than what is represented in this meeting. In 1987, Bush will tell the Tower Commission investigating the deal that he didn't know enough about the arms-for-hostages deals to be able to express an informed opinion about the decision to make the deals, and doesn't remember the meeting as a "showdown session," testimony contradicted by both Weinberger and Shultz in their own statements to the commission. [New Yorker, 11/2/1992]
Entity Tags: George Shultz, Caspar Weinberger, George Herbert Walker Bush, Ronald Reagan, Tower Commission, William Casey, John Poindexter
National Security Council officer Oliver North, running the secret and illegal network that diverts funds from US-Iranian arms sales to the Nicaraguan Contras (see December 6, 1985 and April 4, 1986), has a phone conversation with CIA official Alan Fiers (see Summer 1986). A diary entry by North documenting the conversation reads in part, "Felix talking too much about V.P. connection." "Felix" is CIA agent Felix Rodriguez, a key member of North's network (see May 27, 1987). It is not clear whether the "V.P." notation refers to Vice President George H. W. Bush or to former CIA official Donald Gregg, now Bush's foreign policy adviser and a liaison to Rodriguez. In later testimony before the Iran-Contra Congressional committee (see May 5, 1987), Gregg will deny that Bush's office was involved in recruiting Rodriguez to work with North. [Time, 7/22/1991] Gregg has a long and clandestine relationship with Rodriguez, going back as far as 1959, when the two were involved in "Operation 40," a CIA-led attempt to overthrow Cuba's Fidel Castro. [Spartacus Schoolnet, 2/3/2008] Gregg also worked with Rodriguez in covert operations during the Vietnam War. [Spartacus Schoolnet, 12/28/2007]
Entity Tags: Fidel Castro, Contras, Central Intelligence Agency, Alan Fiers, Donald Gregg, Felix Rodriguez, National Security Council, Oliver North, Joint House-Senate Iran-Contra Committee, George Herbert Walker Bush
Albert Hakim. [Source: Bettmann / Corbis]During a morning intelligence briefing, President Ronald Reagan signs the authorization for the US to allow Israel to sell Iran 4,000 US-made antitank missiles (see January 7, 1986). As they have consistently done before, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and Secretary of State George Shultz register their opposition to the arms deals with Iran. National Security Adviser John Poindexter notes in a February 1986 e-mail that Vice President George Bush supports the arms-for-hostages deals with Iran, writing that the "President and VP are solid in taking the position that we have to try." The reasons the various administration officials have for agreeing to sell arms to Iran are complex. Reagan is motivated by his belief that supporting Iran thwarts Soviet plans for Middle East domination (see May 1985), and by his own personal sorrow over the plight of the hostages. Others have more overtly political motives primarily fueled by the upcoming midterm elections. If, as in 1980, the American hostages currently held by Islamist radicals can be freed before the elections, the Republicans would likely reap the political benefits. Iranian-born arms merchant Albert Hakim, who is involved in the arms deals, will later tell Congress's Iran-Contra committee, "We had to meet a deadline in releasing hostages, because the elections were coming up." Even National Security Council aide Oliver North, one of the chief facilitators of the deals with Iran, will admit to the committee, "There are political concerns." The US insists that before it deliver any of the antitank missiles, all of the hostages must be released. Iran refuses, and a deadlock ensues that will last for months. [New Yorker, 11/2/1992]
Entity Tags: John Poindexter, Caspar Weinberger, George Herbert Walker Bush, Iran-Contra Committee, National Security Council, Ronald Reagan, George Shultz, Oliver North
CIA and State Department officials begin learning, to their dismay, about the illegal merging of legitimate Congressional funding of the Nicaraguan Contras with the illegal funding operation driven by National Security Council (NSC) official Oliver North (see October 1985). A senior CIA official in Central America cables Washington reporting the emergency landing of one of North's Caribou transport planes on a road in El Salvador, and the potential embarrassment of reports from United Press International (UPI) about the plane. The official reports that North's liaison in El Salvador, former CIA agent Felix Rodriguez (see Mid-September 1985), is "'coordinating' all of this with Ollie North (one supposes on open phone). [I] had to say, honestly, that [I] knew nothing of this Caribou and indeed had not heard anything from [CIA official Alan Fiers—see Late 1985 and After ] on the subject for two weeks. Rodrigues [sic] has just called [an embassy official] to advise that UPI is on the downed Caribou and wants a story. Charge's position is that he has no knowledge re this A/C [aircraft]. God knows what Felix Rodrigues [sic] is saying." William Walker, the deputy for Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams (see September 4, 1985), discusses the matter with the US Ambassador to El Salvador, Edwin Corr, expressing the same concerns. Walker says that "Ollie and Max," referring to North and Rodriguez (by his pseudonym, "Max Gomez"), "are to have nothing to do w/humanitarian assistance deliveries, etc." Walker tells Corr to "impress on Fiers that we cannot proceed in this 'fouled up manner.' This is the 3d recent screw up & Washington being surprised by unknown & uncoordinated activities." It is unclear as to what other "screw ups" Corr is referring. Walker will later testify, falsely, that he had never heard of Felix Rodriguez until August 1986. [Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters: Chapter 25: United States v. Elliott Abrams: November 1986, 8/4/1993]
Entity Tags: William Walker, US Department of State, Alan Fiers, Central Intelligence Agency, United Press International, Contras, Elliott Abrams, Felix Rodriguez, Edwin Corr, Oliver North
Congress narrowly defeats a measure pushed by, among others, Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams (see September 4, 1985), for $100 million in military and other aid for the Nicaraguan Contras. Abrams, National Security Council officer Oliver North (see December 6, 1985 and April 4, 1986), and senior CIA official Alan Fiers (see Late 1985 and After) quickly fly to Central America to reassure Contra officials that they will continue to receive funding from the Reagan administration. [Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters: Chapter 25: United States v. Elliott Abrams: November 1986, 8/4/1993] Congress will approve the funding three months later (see June 16, 1986).
Entity Tags: Elliott Abrams, Contras, Oliver North, Reagan administration, Alan Fiers
Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, the National Security Council staffer who facilitates the secret Iran arms deals, helps divert $12 million in money from those arms sales to the Nicaraguan Contras. The deal is documented in a memorandum located in North's desk by investigators for Attorney General Edwin Meese (see November 21-25, 1986). Meese will inform President Reagan and top White House officials of the memo, but many of the cabinet members and top officials he will inform already know of the transaction. [United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, 8/4/1993] National Security Adviser John Poindexter, the recipient of the memo, will later testify that President Reagan never saw the memo. Reagan will deny knowing anything about the diversion of arms profits to the Contras until November 1986 (see November 10, 1986 and After and November 13, 1986). [New York Times, 11/19/1987]
Entity Tags: John Poindexter, Edwin Meese, Contras, Oliver North, Ronald Reagan, Reagan administration
Gene Wheaton, a former Marine and CIA asset who served as a counter-terrorism adviser to the Shah of Iran and the current co-owner of a cargo airline called National Air, had agreed to help the Reagan administration run supplies and arms to the Nicaraguan Contras. However, Wheaton sours on the deal when he learns that retired General Richard Secord is heading that portion of the operation (see November 19, 1985). Wheaton formed a poor opinion of Secord and Secord's colleague, the National Security Council's Oliver North, during a 1985 attempt to win federal contracts to supply humanitarian aid to insurgents such as the Contras and the mujaheddin of Afghanistan. Wheaton reveals his knowledge of the secret Contra supply program to William Casey, the head of the CIA. But Casey says the government is not involved in the program, and refuses to take action. Wheaton will discuss his limited knowledge of the program with reporters from the San Francisco Examiner, resulting in embarrassing questions for Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger. [Spartacus Schoolnet, 12/28/2007; Spartacus Schoolnet, 12/29/2007]
Entity Tags: National Air, Caspar Weinberger, Central Intelligence Agency, Gene Wheaton, William Casey, Oliver North, Richard Secord, Reagan administration
Senior White House officials attend a National Security Planning Group (NSPG) meeting on the subject of Central America. Attending the meeting are President Reagan, Vice President Bush, Secretary of State George Shultz, Treasury Secretary James Baker, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, CIA Director William Casey, and White House Chief of Staff Donald Regan. The interests of the Nicaraguan Contras are represented by Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams (see September 4, 1985), NSC officer Oliver North (see December 6, 1985 and April 4, 1986), and senior CIA official Alan Fiers (see Late 1985 and After). According to minutes of the meeting, North reminds the group that under the 1986 Intelligence Authorization Bill, the State Department can legally approach other countries for non-military funding for the Contras. During the ensuing discussion, Reagan asks, according to the minutes: "What about the private groups who pay for ads for the contras? Have they been contacted? Can they do more than ads?" This indicates that Reagan is well aware of the private, illegal funding being channeled to the Contras. Fiers will later give a somewhat different version of events in his testimony to the Iran-Contra grand jury (see July 17, 1991), recalling Reagan asking about "Ollie's people" working with the Contras and asking if they could help with funding. Fiers will recall the question causing tension among the group, and then someone quickly responding, "that's being worked on." After the meeting, North becomes more outspoken in his descriptions of his illegal funding of the Contras. [Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters: Chapter 25: United States v. Elliott Abrams: November 1986, 8/4/1993]
Entity Tags: William Casey, Contras, Caspar Weinberger, Alan Fiers, Donald Regan, Ronald Reagan, Elliott Abrams, James Baker, George Herbert Walker Bush, George Shultz, Oliver North, Reagan administration
After a National Security Planning Group (NSPG) meeting that covered the need for further monetary assistance to the Nicaraguan Contras, Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams, in a discussion with his boss, Secretary of State George Shultz, broaches the idea of soliciting donations from other nations. Shultz is receptive, but warns Abrams that he does not want donations from a country that receives large amounts of US aid, as such solicitations might appear to be kickbacks from such aid. And Shultz does not want a right-wing dictatorship such as Taiwan or South Korea to contribute because it would create a potentially embarrassing link between those countries and the Contras. Abrams suggests asking the Sultan of Brunei, Hassanal Bolkiah, for funds. Brunei is a tremendously rich Muslim oil state in Southeast Asia. Shultz is planning on visiting Brunei in late June anyway, and Abrams says the visit is a perfect opportunity for Shultz to ask for donations. Shultz agrees (see June 11, 1986), but will not ultimately ask the Sultan for money during the visit (see June 23-24, 1986). After the discussion, Abrams meets with National Security Council officer Oliver North, and asks where the money should be sent should the Sultan agree to provide funds. North tells Abrams to wait until he can clear the solitication with his boss, NSC chief John Poindexter. North tells Poindexter that he has "the accounts and the means by which this thing [transfer of solicited funds] needs to be accomplished." Poindexter will approve the solicitation. [Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters: Chapter 25: United States v. Elliott Abrams: November 1986, 8/4/1993]
Entity Tags: George Shultz, Contras, Elliott Abrams, John Poindexter, Hassanal Bolkiah, Oliver North, National Security Planning Group
Robert McFarlane. [Source: Shelly Katz / Time Life / Getty Images]A delegation secretly sent to Iran by the White House to break the arms-for-hostages deadlock (see November 3, 1986) returns to Iran. The two countries have been at an impasse since January, when President Reagan authorized the sale of 4,000 antitank missiles to Iran but US officials insisted that all of the American hostages held by Hezbollah be freed before the missiles would be delivered, a condition the Iranians have refused (see January 17, 1986). The US delegation—actually the third such delegation to secretly visit Tehran—includes former National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane; McFarlane's longtime supporter and current National Security Council member Oliver North; CIA expert George Cave; and North's NSC colleague, Howard Teicher. Israel, which will facilitate the arms transfer, sends Amiram Nir, a counterterrorism adviser to Prime Minister Shimon Peres. [Time, 11/17/1986; New Yorker, 11/2/1992] McFarlane and North bring with them more spare parts for Iran's Hawk anti-aircraft missiles. They attempt, and fail, to persuade the Iranians to facilitate the release of all American hostages. [New York Times, 11/19/1987] The delegation's mission has borne no fruit, as the Iranians insisted on "sequencing," or releasing the hostages two at a time as arms shipments were delivered. Part of the problem surrounds the Iranians' belief that they are being charged outrageous prices for the missiles, a perception given credence by the fact that profits from the weapons sales are being used to fund Nicaragua's Contra rebel movement. [Time, 11/17/1986; New Yorker, 11/2/1992] Unusual Negotiation Tactics - Part of the negotiations involves North, the NSC staffer who coordinates the administration's dealings with the Contras, offering the Iranians a Bible signed by President Reagan and a chocolate cake. In response, the Iranians stall. Hezbollah will release a few US hostages and take others hostage, maintaining the status quo. [Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 65] Explicit Briefing of President, Vice President - McFarlane later briefs both Reagan and Vice President Bush on the arms-for-hostage negotiations (see May 29, 1986).
Entity Tags: Shimon Peres, Ronald Reagan, Robert C. McFarlane, Oliver North, Hezbollah, George Herbert Walker Bush, National Security Council, Amiram Nir, George Cave, Howard Teicher
Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, the NSC staffer running the Iran-Contra arms deals, informs National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane that money from the sales of arms to Iran is being diverted to the Nicaraguan Contras (see April 4, 1986). [PBS, 2000] North informed Israeli officials of the diversion five months before (see December 6, 1985).
Entity Tags: Contras, Robert C. McFarlane, Oliver North
Alan Fiers, the head of the CIA's Central America task force, learns of the Reagan administration's illegal diversion of funds from the sale of weapons to Iran to the Nicaraguan Contras (see December 6, 1985 and April 4, 1986). Fiers informs his superior, Deputy Director of Operations Clair George. Instead of acting on the knowledge, George orders Fiers to conceal his knowledge of the diversions. George will order Fiers to lie to Congress about it in November 1986 (see November 25, 1986). Fiers will later plead guilty to lying to Congress (see July 17, 1991). [Time, 7/22/1991]
Entity Tags: Clair George, Alan Fiers, Central Intelligence Agency
Hassanal Bolkiah, the Sultan of Brunei. [Source: Attar Maher / Corbis Sygma]National Security Adviser John Poindexter advises the National Security Council's Oliver North that the Sultan of Brunei, Hassanal Bolkiah, will donate an unspecified sum of money to the Contras (see After May 16, 1986). Poindexter says the deal was brokered by Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams; Poindexter has discussed the deal over lunch with Abrams. [New York Times, 11/19/1987; Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters: Chapter 25: United States v. Elliott Abrams: November 1986, 8/4/1993]
Entity Tags: Hassanal Bolkiah, Elliott Abrams, John Poindexter, Oliver North
Unaware of the White House machinations with Iran and the Nicaraguan Contras (see 1984, May 1984, October 10, 1984, November 19, 1985, December 6, 1985, Mid-1980s, April 4, 1986, May 29, 1986, and June 11, 1986), Congress approves a $100 million appropriation for military and non-arms aid to the Contras. [New York Times, 11/19/1987]
Entity Tags: Reagan administration, Contras
To facilitate the donation of funds from the Sultan of Brunei to the Nicaraguan Contras (see After May 16, 1986 and June 11, 1986), Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams obtains bank account information from the National Security Council's Oliver North, on a card typed by North's secretary, Fawn Hall. Hall accidentally transposed two numbers in the account, resulting in the eventual transfer of the funds to the wrong account. [Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters: Chapter 25: United States v. Elliott Abrams: November 1986, 8/4/1993]
Entity Tags: Oliver North, Contras, Elliott Abrams, Fawn Hall, Hassanal Bolkiah
National Security Council (NSC) officer Oliver North has become far more outspoken among government officials about his illegal funding of the Nicaraguan Contras (see May 16, 1986). During a meeting of his Restricted Interagency Group (RIG—see Late 1985 and After), CIA official Alan Fiers, a member of the group, is discomfited at North's straightforward listing of the many activities that he is causing to be conducted on behalf of the Contras, everything from supplying aircraft to paying salaries. Fiers is even less sanguine about North's frank revelations about using illegally solicited private funding for the Contras (see May 16, 1986). North goes down the list, asking if each activity should be continued or terminated, and, according to Fiers, making it very clear that he can cause his Contra support program (which he now calls PRODEM, or "Project Democracy") to respond as he directs. North also begins arranging, through Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams, for $2 million in stopgap funding for the project. North will confirm the $2 million in an e-mail to NSC Director John Poindexter. North will conduct similar meetings in August and September 1986, at least one of which will include Assistant Defense Secretary Richard Armitage (see July 22, 1987) and other Defense Department officials (see November 13, 1990). [Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters: Chapter 25: United States v. Elliott Abrams: November 1986, 8/4/1993] It is not until Fiers testifies in 1991 about North's behaviors that verification of North's discussion of such specifics about Contra activities and funding will be made public (see July 17, 1991).
Entity Tags: John Poindexter, Alan Fiers, Contras, Elliott Abrams, Restricted Interagency Group, National Security Council, Richard Armitage, Oliver North
George H.W. Bush. [Source: George Herbert Walker Bush.net]CIA Director William Casey meets with Vice President George Bush (himself a former CIA director). Casey is a hardline conservative, nominally at odds with the more traditional, moneyed conservatism of Bush, but Casey has learned to trust Bush's abilities. "Casey knew there was nobody in government who could keep a secret better," a former CIA official will observe. "He knew that Bush was someone who could keep his confidence and be trusted. Bush had the same capacity as Casey to receive a briefing and give no hint that he was in the know." Casey wants Bush to run a secret errand to Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi dictator, as part of a scheme Casey has concocted to force the hand of Iran (see July 23, 1986). Specifically, Casey wants Bush to have Hussein step up his bombing of Iranian territory. Bush is already going to the Middle East to, as Bush told reporters, "advance the peace process." Casey's idea is to force Iran's hand by having Hussein escalate his air strikes into the heart of that nation; in return, Iran would have to turn to the US for missiles and other air defense weapons. That would give the US leverage in negotiating with Iran for the release of the US hostages it holds. Two Reagan administration officials later say that Casey is also playing two rival policy factions within the administration (see January 14, 1984). Bush complies with Casey's request; in doing so, Bush, as reporters Murray Waas and Craig Unger will write in 1992, puts himself "directly in the center of action—in a role at the very point where a series of covert initiatives with Iraq and Iran converge[s]." [New Yorker, 11/2/1992; Affidavit. United States v. Carlos Cardoen, et al. [Charge that Teledyne Wah Chang Albany illegally provided a proscribed substance, zirconium, to Cardoen Industries and to Iraq], 1/31/1995 ; MSNBC, 8/18/2002]
Entity Tags: William Casey, Central Intelligence Agency, George Herbert Walker Bush
Timeline Tags: US confrontation with Iran
Vice President Bush, planning to leave for Iraq on a secret errand to persuade Saddam Hussein to escalate his bombing of Iranian targets in order to increase pressure on Iran to release American hostages (see July 28-August 3, 1986), is briefed by two top National Security Council aides, Oliver North and Howard Teicher, before leaving for the Middle East. Teicher will later recall: "We told him what the status was, that [US] arms had gone to Iran. We were preparing him for a possible briefing by either [Shimon Peres, the prime minister of Israel] or [Amiram] Nir [Peres's counterterrorism adviser]. We didn't want him to discuss it with anyone else, for security reasons. He asked us some questions, but he didn't express any opinions." While Bush will repeatedly deny ever discussing the Iranian arms sales with William Casey (see July 23, 1986), a former CIA official will say in 1992 that Casey did brief Bush extensively about the program. "Casey felt Bush had a methodical, orderly manner for the task," the official will say. "[Casey] had great confidence in him to carry it out. He said he briefed Bush in great detail about the initiative to bomb Iran." [New Yorker, 11/2/1992]
Entity Tags: Howard Teicher, Amiram Nir, George Herbert Walker Bush, Shimon Peres, Oliver North, William Casey, Saddam Hussein
Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams meets with the Deputy Minister of Defense of Brunei, General Pengiran Haji Ibnu Ba'asith, to discuss a secret donation from the Sultan of Brunei to the Nicaraguan Contras (see After May 16, 1986). Ibnu was told earlier that an emissary from the US would call him using the pseudonym "Kenilworth." Abrams calls Ibnu, using the false name, and meets with Ibnu in London. Ibnu oversees the donation of $10 million from the Sultan of Brunei's Citibank account to a Swiss bank account in the Eaux Vives branch of the Credit Suisse bank, to account number 368430-22-1. But the money is deposited in the wrong account (see Late June, 1986). [Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters: Chapter 25: United States v. Elliott Abrams: November 1986, 8/4/1993]
Entity Tags: Contras, Pengiran Haji Ibnu Ba'asith, Elliott Abrams
Former CIA agent Felix Rodriguez, the liaison between the Nicaraguan Contras and the National Security Council (see Mid-September 1985), comes to Washington to argue that retired General Richard Secord (see November 19, 1985 and February 2, 1987) is providing shoddy airplanes and goods to the Contras at exorbitant prices. Rodriguez meets with his patron, Donald Gregg, the foreign affairs adviser to Vice President Bush (see March 17, 1983 and October 10, 1986). Gregg then meets with other administration officials to discuss Rodriguez's concerns. Officials discuss Rodriguez's claim that his "working w/VP [Bush] [is a] blessing for CIA," indicating that despite later denials (see December 1986 and August 6, 1987), Bush is well aware of Rodriguez's activities on behalf of the Contras and may be facilitating them. According to Gregg's notes, he is particularly concerned that Rodriguez is "go[ing] around to bars saying he is buddy of Bush… we want to get rid of him from his [involvement] w[ith] private ops. Nothing was done so he still is there shooting his mouth off." [Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters: Chapter 25: United States v. Elliott Abrams: November 1986, 8/4/1993]
Entity Tags: Donald Gregg, Contras, National Security Council, Richard Secord, George Herbert Walker Bush, Felix Rodriguez
President Reagan signs legislation that bans arms sales to nations that support terrorism (such as Iran), and strengthens US anti-terrorism measures. [PBS, 2000] The law, entitled the Omnibus Diplomatic Security and Antiterrorism Act of 1986 [White House, 8/27/1986] , does not halt the Reagan administration's sales of arms and weapons to Iran; the arms sales go forward in spite of the law explicitly prohibiting them (see September 19, 1986, Early October-November, 1986, October 5, 1986, Early November, 1986, and November 3, 1986).
Entity Tags: Ronald Reagan
Costa Rica's newly elected president, Oscar Arias Sanchez, a foe of the Nicaraguan Contras, is outraged to learn of the deal made by his predecessor for a Contra airstrip in the northern portion of his country (see Summer 1985). He stops its use for Contra resupply. On September 6, 1986, CIA agent Felix Rodriguez, the liaison for National Security Council officer Oliver North in the region (see Mid-September 1985), informs North and CIA official Alan Fiers that Arias intends to hold a press conference denouncing the airstrip, revealing its construction by North's partner, retired General Richard Secord, and announcing that its existence is a violation of Costa Rican law. North discusses the impending conference with Fiers, Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams, and the US Ambassador to Costa Rica, Lewis Tambs. They mull over informing Arias that he will never be allowed in the White House, and will never get any of the $80 million promised to Costa Rica by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) if the airstrip is revealed. Tambs passes along these threats, and the press conference is initially canceled. Fiers later testifies (see July 17, 1991) that he, North, and Abrams are worried that the public revelation of the airstrip will expose the connections between the Contras, North, and the White House. [Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters: Chapter 25: United States v. Elliott Abrams: November 1986, 8/4/1993] In late September, Costa Rica will publicly reveal the existence of the airstrip (see September 25, 1986).
Entity Tags: Felix Rodriguez, Alan Fiers, Contras, Elliott Abrams, Oscar Arias Sanchez, US Agency for International Development, Oliver North, Richard Secord, Lewis Tambs
A meeting of Oliver North's Restricted Interagency Group (RIG—see Late 1985 and After) takes place in the office of Assistant Defense Secretary Richard Armitage. As in previous RIG meetings, North details the specific activities of the Contras, and asks for approval for each activity (see July 1986 and After). But in this meeting, North makes an extraordinary proposal. Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega has offered to conduct sabotage inside Nicaragua on behalf of the Contras for $1 million in cash. According to later testimony from RIG member Alan Fiers, a senior CIA official (see July 17, 1991), it is clear that the $1 million will not come from duly appropriated US funds, but from North's so-called "Project Democracy," which collects private funds from US citizens and other governments to fund the Contras. The sabotage would be conducted by mercenaries. Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams meets with two aides to Secretary of State George Shultz, M. Charles Hill and Nicholas Platt, to discuss the Noriega proposal. Hill's notes of the meeting read in part: "Noriega offers to do some sabotage (electric pylons) that we training contras to do but which they can't do for 18 mos. Wd [would] get us on the map fast—by Oct. [1986]. Do it via mercenaries who may not know who employers are. Brits. Wd do it for cash (not from USG [US government]). Wants our go-ahead. Ollie will meet him w/approval of Pdx. [John Poindexter, the head of the National Security Council]." Ultimately, the idea is rejected. [Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters: Chapter 25: United States v. Elliott Abrams: November 1986, 8/4/1993]
Entity Tags: Restricted Interagency Group, Contras, Charles Hill, Alan Fiers, Elliott Abrams, Oliver North, George Shultz, Manuel Noriega, Richard Armitage, John Poindexter, Nicholas Platt, National Security Council
Antonin Scalia. [Source: Oyez.org]Appeals court judge Antonin Scalia is sworn in as an Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court. [Legal Information Institute, 7/30/2007] Although Scalia is an ardent social conservative, with strongly negative views on such issues as abortion and homosexual rights, Scalia and Reagan administration officials both have consistently refused to answer questions about his positions on these issues, as President Reagan did at his June announcement of Scalia's nomination. [Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, 6/17/1986] Scalia's nomination is, in the words of Justice Department official Terry Eastland, "no better example of how a president should work in an institutional sense in choosing a nominee…." Eastland advocates the practice of a president seeking a judiciary nominee who has the proper "judicial philosophy." A president can "influence the direction of the courts through his appointments" because "the judiciary has become more significant in our politics," meaning Republican politics. [Dean, 2007, pp. 132] Scalia is the product of a careful search by Attorney General Edwin Meese and a team of Justice Department officials who wanted to find the nominee who would most closely mirror Reagan's judicial and political philosophy (see 1985-1986).
Entity Tags: Ronald Reagan, Edwin Meese, Antonin Scalia, Terry Eastland, US Department of Justice
Terry Waite. [Source: BBC]Negotiations between Iran and the US for more arms sales hit another snag, with the Iranians merely releasing some American hostages and kidnapping more (see September 19, 1986). CIA Director William Casey decides to reprise the earlier strategy of exhorting Iraq to escalate its air strikes against Iran, thus forcing Iran to turn to the US for more military aid (see July 23, 1986). Casey secretly meets with two high-level Iraqi officials, Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz and Iraq's ambassador to the US, Nizaar Hamdoon, to urge that the Iraqis once again intensify their bombing runs deep into Iranian territory. The Iraqis comply. But the Iranians' return to the bargaining table is complicated by the October 5 shooting down of a CIA transport plane in Nicaragua, and the capture by the Sandinistas of the lone survivor, a cargo hauler named Eugene Hasenfus, who tells his captors of the US involvement with the Nicaraguan Contras (see October 5, 1986). Soon after, the Iranians release a single American hostage, but the Hasenfus revelation is followed by that of the Iran-US arms-for-hostages deals by a Lebanese newspaper, Al Shiraa (see November 3, 1986), and similar reports by US news organizations. With the public now aware of these embarrassing and potentially criminal acts by the Reagan administration, support for Iran within the administration collapses, most of the pro-Iranian officials leave government service, and the pro-Iraqi wing of the executive branch, led by Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and Secretary of State George Shultz, wins out. The closing months of the Reagan administration will feature a marked tilt towards Iraq in the war between Iraq and Iran. The Reagan administration will, in coming months, provide Iraq with a remarkable amount of military and economic aid, including technology to develop long-range ballistic missiles, chemical weapons, and even nuclear weapons. [New Yorker, 11/2/1992] Interestingly, one of the terrorist groups holding American hostages, the Islamic Jihad Organization (a group closely affiliated with Hezbollah and not the group led by Ayman al-Zawahiri), who released American captive David Jacobson in early November, urged the US to "proceed with current approaches that could lead, if continued, to a solution of the hostages issue." Reagan officials publicly deny that anyone in the US government has made any "approaches" to Iran or anyone else. As a side note, the release of Jacobson also shows the efforts of Terry Waite, the Archbishop of Canterbury and a former hostage himself, to facilitate the release of the hostages in a different light. Waite's untiring efforts have obviously been sincere, but never as effective as publicly portrayed. Instead, both the US and Iran have used Waite's efforts as cover for their secret negotiations. One Israeli official calls Waite's efforts the "cellophane wrapping" around the hostage releases. He says: "You cannot deliver a gift package unwrapped. That is why there will be no more hostage releases until he returns to the region." (Waite has temporarily suspended his attempts to free the hostages, complaining about being used as a pawn in international power games.) [Time, 11/17/1986]
Entity Tags: Terry Waite, William Casey, Reagan administration, George Shultz, Islamic Jihad Organization, David Jacobson, Caspar Weinberger, Al Shiraa, Nizaar Hamdoon, Eugene Hasenfus, Hezbollah
Timeline Tags: US-Iraq 1980s, Iran-Contra Affair
Eugene Hasenfus sits among the weapons captured from his downed cargo plane. His Sandinista captors surround him. [Source: Nancy McGirr / Reuters / Corbis]A CIA C-123 transport plane (see November 19, 1985) is shot down in southern Nicaragua by a Sandinista soldier wielding a surface-to-air missile. The transport plane left an airfield in El Salvador with arms and other supplies intended for the Nicaraguan Contras. Three crew members—US pilots William Cooper and Wallace Sawyer, Jr, and an unidentified Latin American—die in the crash, but one, a "cargo kicker" named Eugene Hasenfus, ignores CIA orders and parachutes to safety—and capture by the Sandinistas. Hasenfus is a construction worker from Wisconsin who signed on to do temporary work with CIA contractors, and has no intention of "going down with the plane." The next day, newspapers around the world run stories with Hasenfus's face peering out from their front pages. Reveals US's Arming of Contras - The Hasenfus shoot-down will break the news of the Reagan administration's secret arming of the Contras in their attempt to bring down the democratically elected Socialist government of Nicaragua. [New York Times, 11/19/1987; Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters: Chapter 25: United States v. Elliott Abrams: November 1986, 8/4/1993; Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 64] Damage Control - Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams (see Late 1985 and After) is the designated US spokesman on the Hasenfus shootdown. Abrams coordinates with his fellow Contra supporters, the NSC's Oliver North and the CIA's Alan Fiers, and with the US Ambassador to El Salvador, Edwin Corr, on how to handle the situation. Between the three, they coordinate a denial from the Salvadoran military about any Salvadoran or US involvement in the Hasenfus flight. As for themselves, they agree not to flatly lie about anything, because they cannot be sure of what Hasenfus will say, but they agree to remain as quiet as possible and hope the media sensation surrounding Hasenfus dies down with little long-term effect. According to notes taken by Corr during one meeting, everyone knows that a leak—"eventually someone in USG [the US government] will finally acknowledge some 'winking.' Salv role now more public"—is inevitable. It is eventually decided that the Contras themselves will take all responsibility for the flight. Fiers worries that the flight will be connected to previous humanitarian aid supplied to the Contras (see October 1985). They also confirm that Felix Rodriguez, North's liaison to the Contras in Central America (see Mid-September 1985), is in Miami, hiding from the press. Hasenfus will later acknowledge making at least ten supply flights into Nicaragua (see October 9, 1986). [Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters: Chapter 25: United States v. Elliott Abrams: November 1986, 8/4/1993]
Entity Tags: Eugene Hasenfus, Central Intelligence Agency, Elliott Abrams, Contras, Reagan administration
CIA cargo handler Eugene Hasenfus, in the custody of Nicaraguan officials after his transport plane filled with weapons and supplies for the Contras was shot down (see October 5, 1986), publicly states that he had made ten other trips to ferry arms and supplies to the Contras. Six of those were from the Ilopango airfield in El Salvador (see Mid-September 1985). He also states that he worked closely with two CIA agents, "Max Gomez" and "Ramon Medina." "Gomez" is actually Felix Rodriguez, who serves as the liaison between the Contras and National Security Council officer Oliver North. "Medina" is another CIA operative, Rafael Quintero. Hasenfus says that Gomez and Medina oversaw the housing for the crews, transportation, refueling, and flight plans. The same day as Hasenfus's public statement, Nicaraguan officials reveal that one of Hasenfus's crew members, who died in the crash, carried cards issued by the Salvadoran Air Force identifying them as US advisers. And, the Nicaraguans claim, one of the crew members had a business card identifying him as an official with the US's Nicaraguan Humanitarian Assistance Office (NHAO—see October 1985). [Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters: Chapter 25: United States v. Elliott Abrams: November 1986, 8/4/1993; Spartacus Schoolnet, 12/29/2007]
Entity Tags: Felix Rodriguez, Contras, Eugene Hasenfus, Rafael Quintero, Nicaraguan Humanitarian Assistance Office, Oliver North
Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams is interviewed by conservative columnist Robert Novak and Novak's partner, Rowland Evans. Novak, who is openly sympathetic to the Nicaraguan Contras, asks Abrams about his knowledge of the connections between the US government and the Contras as revealed by the downing of a CIA transport plane over Nicaragua (see October 5, 1986). Abrams, who provides false testimony to Congress today and in the following days, tells a similar story to Novak. Abrams goes further with Novak than he does with Congress, denying that any such person as "Max Gomez," the CIA liaison to the Contras, even exists (Gomez is actually former CIA agent Felix Rodriguez—see October 10-15, 1986). "Whoever that gentleman is, he certainly isn't named Max Gomez," Abrams notes. Abrams also denies that "Gomez" has any connection to Vice President Bush (see October 11-14, 1986). Abrams adds that whoever this "Gomez" is, "he is not on the US government payroll in any way." Novak asks if Rodriguez has any connection to the National Security Council or any other government agency, and Abrams says: "I am not playing games.… No government agencies, none." In June 1987, Abrams will admit that he lied to Novak. [Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters: Chapter 25: United States v. Elliott Abrams: November 1986, 8/4/1993]
Entity Tags: Rowland Evans, Contras, Elliott Abrams, Robert Novak, National Security Council, Felix Rodriguez
After the press identifies former CIA agent Felix Rodriguez as Contra liaison "Max Gomez" (see October 10-15, 1986), and learns that Rodriguez reports to Vice President Bush's foreign policy adviser, Donald Gregg (see October 10, 1986), Bush denies any knowledge of Rodriguez's involvement with the Contras. Bush admits to having met Rodriguez a few times, but refuses to clarify what relationship, if any, they may have. Bush tells one reporter that Rodriguez is a US counter-insurgency adviser working with the government of El Salvador, an assertion strongly denied by the Salvadoran government. Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams, who has lied repeatedly to Congress about the government's role in supplying and supporting the Contras (see October 10-15, 1986), tells the House Intelligence Committee that he knows nothing of any link between Rodriguez and Bush that concerns the Contras. [Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters: Chapter 25: United States v. Elliott Abrams: November 1986, 8/4/1993]
Entity Tags: Elliott Abrams, Donald Gregg, House Intelligence Committee, Felix Rodriguez, George Herbert Walker Bush
The Reagan administration, reeling from the revelation that it has illegally armed the Nicaraguan Contras (see October 5, 1986), attempts to conceal its workings in Nicaragua. In a closed session of the House Intelligence Committee, Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams, joined by CIA officials, assures committee members that the US government is not involved in supplying the Contras. According to the witnesses, the CIA claims it had nothing to do with Eugene Hasenfus, the cargo handler who survived the recent downing of a CIA transport plane and in doing so revealed the existence of the illegal arms deals. Supposedly, the only involvement by US officials was to offer public encouragement. The committee Democrats do not believe anything Abrams or the CIA officials say, but at least one committee member, Dick Cheney (R-WY) offers his support. According to the summary written by the administration staffer taking notes that day, "Mr. Cheney said he found our ignorance credible." There is far more going on than the committee Democrats know—or than Cheney will tell them. For years, Cheney has been urging Congress to authorize aid to the Contras, but the majority Democrats have been inconsistent in their support. As authors Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein will later characterize the situation, Abrams, a self-described former socialist turned enthusiastic neoconservative, and others in the administration, such as National Security Council staffer Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, have now taken matters into their own hands (see October 5, 1986), in direct violation of US law. Committee Democrats are as yet unaware that Reagan officials such as North have also been negotiating arms-for-hostages deals with Iran, in a covert three-way deal involving Iran, the US, and the Contras (see November 3, 1986). [Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 65]
Entity Tags: Eugene Hasenfus, Central Intelligence Agency, Contras, Elliott Abrams, Reagan administration, Oliver North, House Intelligence Committee, Lou Dubose, Jake Bernstein, Richard ("Dick") Cheney
The Danish Union of Seamen claims that Danish cargo ships have carried at least five loads of arms and ammunition from Israel to Iran. The union's deputy chairman, Henrik Berlau, says, "It appears that the shipments this year have been carried out on the orders of the US to win the release of hostages in Lebanon." Danish cargo ships have the reputation of being able to deliver questionable cargo quietly to most parts of the world. Berlau tells the story of an October voyage, where a Danish cargo ship picked up 26 containers of ammunition from the Israeli port of Eilat and delivered them to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas. A Danish sailor told Berlau, "We all knew there was ammunition on board." But Israeli authorities in Eilat kept the nature of the cargo secret: "The Israeli harbor authorities told us to take off all markings that could show we had been in Israel, including the markings on the food we had taken aboard and on the weapons containers. We even had to remove the JAFFA markings on the oranges." Uniformed Israelis, said the Danish seaman, forced the cargo ship to temporarily change its name (from Morso to Solar) until the ship reached the Persian Gulf on October 21, just before it delivered its cargo. [Time, 11/17/1986]
Entity Tags: Henrik Berlau, Danish Union of Seamen
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. [Source: GlobalSecurity.org]The Lebanese weekly Al Shiraa publishes an article reporting that the US has been sending spare parts and ammunition for US-made jet fighters to Iran in return for Iran facilitating the release of American hostages held by the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah (see September 15, 1985). It also reports that national security adviser Robert McFarlane and four other US officials, including his aide Oliver North, visited Tehran in September 1986 and met with several high-level Iranian officials, who asked for more US military equipment (see Late May, 1986). After the meeting, the report says, four C-130 transports airlifted the arms to Iran from a US base in the Philippines. The flight of the transports has never been confirmed, but the rest of the report is essentially factual. It is unclear where Al Shiraa got its information; the publication has close ties to Syrian officials, and it is possible that the Syrians leaked the information in order to destabilize any possible thawing of relations between the US and Iran, perhaps with an eye to increasing Syria's own influence in Iran. Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the speaker of the Iranian parliament, quickly confirms McFarlane's visit, but adds elements to the story that many from all sides of the issue find hard to believe, including claims that McFarlane and his companions used Irish passports to enter Iran, and were posing as the flight crew of a plane carrying military equipment Iran had purchased from international arms dealers. Rafsanjani claims that McFarlane and his companions brought gifts of a Bible signed by Ronald Reagan, a cake shaped like a key (to symbolize an opening of better relations between Iran and the US), and a number of Colt pistols to be given to Iranian officials. Rafsanjani says that he and other Iranian officials were outraged at the visit, kept McFarlane and his party under virtual house arrest for five days, and threw them out, sparking the following complaint from McFarlane: "You are nuts. We have come to solve your problems, but this is how you treat us. If I went to Russia to buy furs, [Mikhail] Gorbachev would come to see me three times a day." US officials say that Rafsanjani's embellishments are sheer invention designed to humiliate the US and bolster Iran's perception around the world. They confirm that McFarlane, North, and two bodyguards did visit Tehran, but bore neither Bible, cake, nor pistols; they did stay in Tehran four or five days, and met with numerous Iranian officials, perhaps including Rafsanjani. The officials are unclear about exactly what was accomplished, though apparently no new deals were concluded. US Arms Deals with Iran Revealed - Though Rafsanjani's account may be fanciful in its details, the effect of the Al Shiraa report is to blow the cover off of the US's complex arms-for-hostage deals with Iran. While Al Shiraa does not mention the hostage deal, Rafsanjani does, saying that if the US and France meet certain conditions—the unfreezing of Iranian financial assets and the release of what he calls political prisoners held "in Israel and other parts of the world," then "as a humanitarian gesture we will let our friends in Lebanon know our views" about the release of American and French hostages. On November 17, Time magazine will write of the Al Shiraa revelation, "As long as the deep secret was kept—even from most of the US intelligence community—the maneuver in one sense worked. Iran apparently leaned on Lebanese terrorists to set free three American hostages… . But once the broad outlines of the incredible story became known, the consequences were dire. The administration appeared to have violated at least the spirit, and possibly the letter, of a long succession of US laws that are intended to stop any arms transfers, direct or indirect, to Iran. Washington looked to be sabotaging its own efforts to organize a worldwide embargo against arms sales to Iran, and hypocritically flouting its incessant admonitions to friends and allies not to negotiate with terrorists for the release of their captives. America's European allies, the recipients of much of that nagging, were outraged. Moreover, the US was likely to forfeit the trust of moderate Arab nations that live in terror of Iranian-fomented Islamic fundamentalist revolutions and fear anything that might build up Tehran's military machine. Finally, the administration seemed to have lost at least temporarily any chance of gaining the release of the missing six US hostages in Lebanon, or of cultivating the Iranian politicians who might sooner or later take over from [the Ayatollah] Khomeini." [Time, 11/17/1986; New York Times, 11/19/1987; New Yorker, 11/2/1992] 'Cowboy' Operation in the West Wing - The arms-for-hostages deal is run from the National Security Council by a small group of NSC staffers under the supervision of North; the group is collectively known as the "cowboys." A government official says in November 1986, "This thing was run out of the West Wing [of the White House]. It was a vest-pocket, high-risk business."
Entity Tags: Hezbollah, Hashemi Rafsanjani, Seyyed Ruhollah Khomeini, Robert C. McFarlane, Ronald Reagan, Oliver North, Al Shiraa, Reagan administration
The Reagan administration, led by CIA Director William Casey and National Security Adviser John Poindexter (Robert McFarlane's replacement), decides to downplay and deny any arms-for-hostages deals as reported in the world press (see November 3, 1986), while maintaining the secret negotiations with Iran. President Reagan accepts their advice. In notes Reagan takes during a clandestine meeting about the situation, he writes, "Must say something because I'm being held out to dry." [Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 65-66]
Entity Tags: William Casey, John Poindexter, Reagan administration, Robert C. McFarlane, Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan speaks to the nation. [Source: Bettmann / Corbis]President Reagan addresses the nation on the Iran-Contra issue (see October 5, 1986 and November 3, 1986). "I know you've been reading, seeing, and hearing a lot of stories the past several days attributed to Danish sailors (see Early November, 1986), unnamed observers at Italian ports and Spanish harbors, and especially unnamed government officials of my administration," he says. "Well, now you're going to hear the facts from a White House source, and you know my name." But despite his direct introduction, Reagan presents the same half-truths, denials, and outright lies that his officials have been providing to Congress and the press (see Mid-October, 1986 and November 10, 1986 and After). 'Honorable' Involvement - He admits to an 18-month "secret diplomatic initiative" with Iran, for several "honorable" reasons: to renew relations with that nation, to bring an end to the Iran-Iraq war, to eliminate Iran's sponsorship of terrorism, and to effect the release of the US hostages being imprisoned by Hezbollah. He calls the press reports "rumors," and says, "[L]et's get to the facts." Falsehoods Presented as Facts - The US has not swapped weapons to Iran for hostages, Reagan asserts. However, evidence suggests otherwise (see January 28, 1981, 1983, 1985, May 1985, June 11, 1985, July 3, 1985, July 8, 1985, August 6, 1985, September 15, 1985, December 6, 1985, December 12, 1985, Mid-1980s, January 7, 1986, January 17, 1986, Late May, 1986, September 19, 1986, and Early October-November, 1986). Reagan also claims the US has not "trafficked with terrorists," although Iran is listed as a sponsor of terrorism by the State Department. It "has not swapped boatloads or planeloads of American weapons for the return of American hostages. And we will not." Reports of Danish and Spanish vessels carrying secret arms shipments, of Italian ports employed to facilitate arms transfers, and of the US sending spare parts and weapons for Iranian combat aircraft, all are "quite exciting, but… not one of them is true." Reagan does admit to his authorization of "the transfer of small amounts of defensive weapons and spare parts for defensive systems to Iran," merely as a gesture of goodwill. "These modest deliveries, taken together, could easily fit into a single cargo plane," he says. (In reality, the US has already sent over 1,000 missiles to Iran over the course of a number of shipments.) He says the US made it clear to Iran that for any dialogue to continue, it must immediately cease its support of Hezbollah and other terrorist groups, and to facilitate the release of US hostages held by that group in Lebanon. Evidence exists, Reagan says, of the Iranians ramping down their support of terrorism. And some hostages have already been freed, a true statement, though he fails to mention that others have been taken. Admission of May Meeting - Reagan admits that former National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane met with Iranian officials (see Late May, 1986). According to Reagan, McFarlane went to Iraq "to open a dialog, making stark and clear our basic objectives and disagreements." He presents no further information about the meeting, except that the talks were "civil" and "American personnel were not mistreated." Exposure Risks Undermining Efforts to Facilitate Peace - The public disclosure of these "honorable" negotiations has put the entire US efforts to broker peace between Iran and Iraq in jeopardy, he says. In negotiations such as these, there is "a basic requirement for discretion and for a sensitivity to the situation in the nation we were attempting to engage." Reagan Says Congress Not Lied to - Reagan says that there is no truth to the stories that his officials ever lied to members of Congress about the Iranian negotiations (see Mid-October, 1986). The members of Congress who needed to know about the negotiations were informed, as were the "appropriate Cabinet officers" and others "with a strict need to know." Since the story has now broken, "the relevant committees of Congress are being, and will be, fully informed." [Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, 11/13/1986; Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 65-66]
Entity Tags: US Congress, Robert C. McFarlane, Hezbollah, Contras, Ronald Reagan, US Department of State
Attorney General Edwin Meese. [Source: Doug Mills / Bettman / Corbis]Attorney General Edwin Meese undertakes an internal fact-finding investigation focused on President Reagan's involvement in the November 1985 sale of Hawk missiles to Iran (see 1985). Meese is apparently not interested in finding facts, because he refuses a request to assist from the FBI, and takes no notes during his interviews of administration officials. 'Shredding Party' - Additionally, during his investigation, National Security Council documents are altered or destroyed, including a presidential finding from December 1985 that retroactively authorized US missile sales to Iran (see November 24-25, 1985 and December 5, 1985); National Security Adviser John Poindexter will later admit to destroying this document. Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North holds what is later called a "shredding party," destroying thousands of documents that would likely implicate White House officials in a criminal conspiracy to break the law (see November 21-23, 1986). The Iran-Contra investigative committee will later fault Meese for departing from "standard investigative techniques" during his investigation. Document Linking Iran Arms Sales, Contra Supplies Survives - Meese also finds a potentially explosive document in the desk of North, the National Security Council staffer who managed the Iran arms deals. The document, an undated memorandum apparently from April 1986, outlined "a planned diversion of $12 million in proceeds from the Iran arms sales to the Nicaraguan contras" (see April 4, 1986). Meese's investigation now diverges onto two tracks, one a continuation of the Hawk shipments, and the second an investigation into who knew about, and who had approved, the diversion. Reagan Courting Impeachment? - Meese confirms from North that the $12 million had indeed been given to the Contras, and informs Reagan, Chief of Staff Donald Regan, and Vice President Bush. Reagan is reportedly shocked by the revelation, in part because he knows he could face impeachment for violating the Boland Amendment (see October 10, 1984). Meese informs the cabinet the next day. Apparently Meese does not want to know if any senior White House officials knew of the diversion, because he does not ask them about it. When Poindexter informs Meese that before December 1985, his predecessor Robert McFarlane handled the Iran arms sales "all alone" with "no documentation," Meese accepts his word. Several White House officials present at the meeting—Reagan, Regan, Bush, Poindexter, Secretary of State George Shultz, and Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger—all know that Poindexter is lying, but none correct him. After the meeting, Shultz tells his aide, Charles Hill: "They may lay all this off on Bud [McFarlane].… They [are] rearranging the record." Investigative counsel Lawrence Walsh will later write: "The Select Committees viewed this as an isolated error. It was not." 'Case for Deniability' for Reagan - In Walsh's opinion, Meese is not conducting an investigation at all, but instead is "building a case of deniability for his client-in-fact, President Reagan." Walsh will characterize Meese's actions as "an effort to obstruct a congressional inquiry." In 2006, authors Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein will write, "The two strands of an illegal policy came together in that memo." The authors refer to the US arms sales to Iran and the diversion of the profits from those sales to the Contras. [New York Times, 11/19/1987; United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, 8/4/1993; PBS, 2000; Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 66]
Entity Tags: Charles Hill, Edwin Meese, Caspar Weinberger, Ronald Reagan, Robert C. McFarlane, Oliver North, Federal Bureau of Investigation, George Herbert Walker Bush, George Shultz, Jake Bernstein, Contras, Donald Regan, Lou Dubose, Lawrence E. Walsh, John Poindexter
Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams, who has already lied repeatedly under oath to Congress about third-party funding of the Contras (see October 10-14, 1986), lies again to the Senate Intelligence Committee about his knowledge of any such funding (see August 9-19, 1986). Appearing before the committee with senior CIA official Alan Fiers, who has himself lied to Congress about the same activities, Abrams tells the committee: "Well, we—after the Hasenfus shootdown (see October 5, 1986) we were asked about, you know, what did you know about the funding of Hasenfus and his operation. And the answer here is the same answer. That is, that we knew there were private contributions coming in, because they sure weren't surviving on the money that we were giving them, which at one time was nothing and then the 27 million came along (see August 1985). So there was money coming in. But there was no reason to think it was coming from foreign governments, and I certainly did not inquire as to which individuals it was coming from." Abrams denies ever discussing third-party funding with anyone on the National Security Council staff, which would include Oliver North, Abrams's partner in the $10 million Brunei deal (see June 11, 1986). A frankly disbelieving Senator Bill Bradley (D-NJ) says: "Well, you would say gee, they got a lot of problems, they don't have any money. Then you would just sit there and say, what are we going to do? They don't have any money. You never said, you know, maybe we could get the money this way?" Abrams replies: "No.… We're not—you know, we're not in the fundraising business." Two weeks later, Abrams will "correct" his testimony, but will still insist that he knows nothing of any such third-party funding. [Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters: Chapter 25: United States v. Elliott Abrams: November 1986, 8/4/1993]
Entity Tags: Bill Bradley, Alan Fiers, Oliver North, Senate Intelligence Committee, Elliott Abrams, Contras
Barbara Walters, in a 1988 photo. [Source: Raul Vega / Corbis]ABC News reporter Barbara Walters covertly provides the White House with documents from Iranian arms merchant Manucher Ghorbanifar, according to a Wall Street Journal article published in March 1987. The documents, prepared by Walters and given to the White House at Ghorbanifar's request, report that Ghorbanifar believed, correctly, that National Security Council staffer Oliver North diverted profits from the sale of arms to Iran to Nicaragua's Contra insurgents (see April 4, 1986). Walters will provide the White House with further documents on the arms sales in January 1987. The documents are given to Walters either just before or just after her interviews with Ghorbanifar and Saudi businessman and arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi for the ABC News program 20/20. The documents will eventually be turned over to the Tower Commission (see February 26, 1987). The White House will claim that the documents contain little more than reiterations of Ghorbanifar's comments to Walters in the interview. ABC News will say that Walters's actions—essentially acting as an information peddler or middleman between the Arab arms merchants and the US government—are "in violation of a literal interpretation of news policy.… ABC policy expressly limits journalists cooperating with government agencies unless threats to human lives are involved.… Ms. Walters believed that to be the case." ABC does not explain why Walters believes "threats to human lives" were involved; this assertion also contradicts ABC's assertions that the documents contained little more that what was said in the interview. [New York Times, 3/17/1987; Nation, 3/28/1987]
Entity Tags: Barbara Walters, Contras, Manucher Ghorbanifar, Oliver North, Reagan administration, Adnan Khashoggi, ABC News
The Supreme Court rules in Federal Election Commission v. Massachusetts Citizens for Life that an anti-abortion organization can print flyers promoting "pro-life" candidates in the weeks before an election, and that the portion of the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA—see February 7, 1972, 1974, and May 11, 1976) that bars distribution of such materials to the general public restricts free speech. In September 1978, the Massachusetts Citizens For Life (MCFL) spent almost $10,000 printing flyers captioned "Everything You Need to Vote Pro-Life," which included information about specific federal and state candidates' positions on abortion rights, along with exhortations to "vote pro-life" and "No pro-life candidate can win in November without your vote in September." The Federal Election Commission (FEC) ruled that MCFL's expenditures violated FECA's ban on corporate spending in connection with federal elections. A Massachusetts district court ruled against the FEC, finding that the flyer distribution "was uninvited by any candidate and uncoordinated with any campaign" and the flyers fell under the "newspaper exemption" of the law. Moreover, the court found, FECA's restrictions infringed on MCFL's freedom of speech (see January 30, 1976 and April 26, 1978). An appeals court reversed much of the district court's decision, but agreed that the named provision of FECA violated MCFL's free speech rights. The FEC appealed to the Supreme Court. By a 5-4 vote, the Court affirms that FECA's prohibition on corporate expenditures is unconstitutional as applied to independent expenditures made by a narrowly defined type of nonprofit corporation such as MCFL. The Court writes that few organizations will be impacted by its decision. The majority opinion is written by Justice William Brennan, a Court liberal, and joined by liberal Thurgood Marshall and conservatives Lewis Powell, Antonin Scalia, and (in part) by Sandra Day O'Connor. Court conservatives William Rehnquist and Byron White, joined by liberals Harry Blackmun and John Paul Stevens, dissent with the majority, saying that the majority ruling gives "a vague and barely adumbrated exception [to the law] certain to result in confusion and costly litigation." [Federal Election Commission, 2011; Moneyocracy, 2/2012]
Entity Tags: Federal Election Commission, William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, Federal Election Campaign Act of 1972, US Supreme Court, William Brennan, Sandra Day O'Connor, Harry Blackmun, John Paul Stevens, Thurgood Marshall, Massachusetts Citizens for Life, Byron White, Lewis Powell
Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams, testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, says that before the Iran-Contra revelations of October 1986 (see October 5, 1986, October 10-15, 1986, and October 11-14, 1986) he had never even heard of CIA agent Felix Rodriguez, the liaison between the Nicaraguan Contras and the National Security Council (see Mid-September 1985). As he has done so many times before, Abrams is lying. When he took his position in July 1985 (see April 19, 1985 and After), Rodriguez was already working out of the Ilopango airfield in El Salvador. Notes taken by the US Ambassador to El Salvador, Edwin Corr, indicate that Abrams knew of Rodriguez by September 1985 at the latest (see September 4, 1985). During that month, Abrams and Corr discussed Rodriguez in at least one meeting. (Corr will later say he cannot recall any such meeting.) Rodriguez was also a frequent topic of discussion in meetings held in late 1985 by the Restricted Interagency Group (RIG—see Late 1985 and After) chaired by Abrams. And Abrams was aware of concerns within the government about Rodriguez's involvement in disbursing humanitarian funds allocated by the US Congress to the Contras (see October 1985). [Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters: Chapter 25: United States v. Elliott Abrams: November 1986, 8/4/1993]
Entity Tags: Elliott Abrams, Contras, Edwin Corr, Restricted Interagency Group, Felix Rodriguez, National Security Council, House Foreign Affairs Committee
CIA Director William Casey, one of the key figures in the Iran-Contra affair, undergoes surgery for a brain tumor (see December 15, 1986). [PBS, 2000] The lymphoma tumor will be removed and proven to be malignant. Doctors will refuse to give details about the size and placement of the tumor, any possible cognitive or physical loss caused by the tumor, or any prognosis for possible recovery. The particular cancer is a "B-cell lymphoma of the large cell type," a quite rare and extraordinarily aggressive form of cancer. Experts say that most cancers of this type occur in people whose immune systems have been compromised, often by treatment for other cancers or people who suffer from AIDS. Casey may have undergone treatment for cancer at an earlier date [New York Times, 12/24/1986] ; it will later be learned that Casey had undergone treatment for prostate cancer. [New York Times, 5/7/1987] Casey will resign as CIA director shortly after his cancer treatments begin (see February 2, 1987). He will die six months after the surgery (see May 6, 1987).
Entity Tags: William Casey
Congress announces the creation of a special counsel to investigate the Iran-Contra affair. Lawrence Walsh is named the special prosecutor in charge of the investigation. [New York Times, 11/19/1987] Walsh, a retired federal judge, later says that he is worried from the outset about the potential for what he calls a "carnival atmosphere" surrounding the hearings. In creating the special counsel and the concurrent Congressional investigation (see January 6-7, 1987), Speaker of the House Jim Wright (D-TX) and Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd (D-WV) want to head off any possibility of impeachment. "That is the last thing I wanted to do," Wright later recalls. "Ronald Reagan had only two years left in his [second and final] term. I was not going to allow a procedure that would lead to his impeachment in his final year in office." [Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 67-68]
Entity Tags: Lawrence E. Walsh, Ronald Reagan, Robert C. Byrd, James C. ('Jim') Wright, Jr.
A young Timothy McVeigh, wearing quasi-military garb. [Source: ForbiddenTruth (.com)]Timothy McVeigh, a distant, solitary young man in Pendleton, New York, takes a job as a security guard with an armored car company after graduating from Starpoint High School in 1986. (Some sources will inaccurately give his home town as nearby Lockport, New York; he did live there for a time as a child.) He grew up as an outgoing and easygoing young man, but began to withdraw into himself after his mother began leaving home (and having extramarital affairs) in 1977. McVeigh began retreating into himself even more after his parents separated in 1984 and his mother left for Florida with his two sisters. He received his first rifle, a .22 caliber gift from his gun-collector grandfather, when he was 13, and was immediately fascinated with the weapon, though he never became interested in hunting, as so many others in the area were (McVeigh always displayed a strong empathy towards animals). He joined the National Rifle Association in 1985. In high school, he told counselors he wanted to be a gun shop owner; though he earned a Regents Scholarship upon graduating, he only spent a few months at a nearby business college before deciding further schooling was not for him. McVeigh has already begun to turn his father's home into a survivalist compound, stockpiling water, gunpowder, and other items in the basement and amassing a collection of magazines like Guns & Ammo and SCOPE Minuteman, a local publication distributed by a Niagara County gun advocacy organization. His father, William "Bill" McVeigh, will later explain: "I guess he thought that someday a nuclear attack or something was going to happen. That was my feeling. You know, he was ready for anything." [New York Times, 5/4/1995; Stickney, 1996, pp. 44, 49, 65-66, 70; Serrano, 1998, pp. 11-20; Douglas O. Linder, 2006] First Exposure to African-Americans, Survivalism - McVeigh, a 19-year-old sometimes called by the disparaging nickname "Noodle" who is unable to connect with women on almost any level due to his shyness, works for a firm currently called Burke Armor Inc., which will later rename itself as Armored Services of America, though he has a considerable amount of expertise with computers and conceivably could have landed a job in that field. McVeigh works out of a depot in Cheektowaga, near Buffalo, mostly delivering money to and from banks and stores, quickly earning a reputation as a reliable, hardworking employee. He works for eight months with a partner, Jeff Camp. This job gives him his first opportunity to work closely with African-Americans; the region of upstate New York he resides in is almost devoid of African-Americans, and the area has long supported a large and active Ku Klux Klan chapter. McVeigh learns from some of his fellow employees about inner-city strife and other related racial and economic issues. Later, he will recall making special deliveries at the beginning and end of each month to check-cashing firms; sometimes he would have to wade through long lines of African-American welfare recipients, and on occasion would brandish his gun to get through the lines. He often drives by African-American homes and sees the residents sitting on their porches, one of the reasons he begins calling African-Americans "porch monkeys." He also begins reading "survivalist" books such as The Turner Diaries (see 1978), The Anarchist's Cookbook, and The Poor Man's James Bond. Discomfits Co-Workers with Militia-Style Appearance - Several months into the job, as Camp will recall, McVeigh begins coming to work "looking like Rambo." McVeigh has frequently expressed an interest in guns—some sources say he calls guns "the great equalizer[s]"—and has a licensed handgun for his job along with other weapons, including an AR-15 assault rifle. On one particular morning, he comes in with a sawed-off shotgun and ammunition bandoliers slung in an "X" over his chest, apparently as a joke meant to surprise and discomfit his colleagues. "It looked like World War III," Camp will recall. McVeigh's supervisor refuses to let McVeigh go out on the truck, angering him. Camp will later recall: "He used to bring in two or three guns that he carried all the time. He had a .45 and a .38. He had a Desert Eagle [pistol]. That thing was huge." (McVeigh will later sell the Desert Eagle, calling it "unreliable.") McVeigh, Camp will continue, is "intense.… He ate a lot. I don't know if it was nervousness. Sometimes he could be quiet. Some days he was hyper, some days he wouldn't say a word." Buys Property for Shooting Range - After getting his first gun permit, McVeigh buys 10 acres of wooded property north of Olean, New York, with a partner, David Darlak, and the two use it as a shooting range. As teenagers, he and Darlak formed their version of a "survivalist group" after watching movies such as The Day After, a television movie about the aftermath of a nuclear strike in Kansas. A neighbor, Robert Morgan, later recalls his father calling the police to complain about the incessant gunfire. "My dad turned him in," Morgan will recall. "One day it sounded like a war out there. Sometimes he'd come down during the week, sometimes the weekend. He had on hunting clothes. Camouflage." McVeigh continues his shooting activities even after Darlak loses interest. Joins US Army - On May 24, 1988, spurred by his partner Darlak, he joins the Army (see March 24, 1988 - Late 1990). [New York Times, 5/4/1995; Stickney, 1996, pp. 54-57, 72, 82; PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; Serrano, 1998, pp. 20-24; Douglas O. Linder, 2006]
Entity Tags: Timothy James McVeigh, Robert Morgan, Armored Services of America, David Darlak, William ("Bill") McVeigh, Jeff Camp
Warren Rudman and Daniel Inouye. [Source: Time & Life Pictures / Getty Images]Both the House and Senate name special committees to investigate the Iran-Contra affair. [New York Times, 11/19/1987] Avoiding Impeachment - The two investigations will quickly merge into one joint, unwieldy committee. Neither Speaker of the House Jim Wright (D-TX) nor Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd (D-WV) have any intention of allowing the investigations to become impeachment hearings against President Reagan (see December 19, 1986). They decide to combine the House and Senate investigations in the hopes that the investigation will move more quickly and limit the damage to the presidency. They envision a bipartisan committee made up of wise, sober lawmakers able to prevent the investigation from becoming a witch hunt. Wright will remember telling the Republican minority leadership, "You appoint and we appoint and we can maintain some control." Choosing Chairmen, Members - Byrd chooses Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI), a decorated World War II veteran who had served on the Senate Watergate Committee (see February 7, 1973) and the Senate Intelligence Committee. In turn, Inouye names Warren Rudman (R-NH), a former federal prosecutor, as his vice chairman, promising to share all the powers and responsibilities of the chairmanship with him. According to authors Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein, Rudman "would overshadow" the self-effacing Inouye. For the House side, Wright names conservative Lee Hamilton (D-IN) to chair that portion of the committee. Both Hamilton and Inouye have a deep conviction that to accomplish anything of lasting import, decisions must be arrived at in a bipartisan fashion. Wright names several powerful Democratic committee chairmen to the House committee; their responsibilities as committee chairmen will interfere with their ability to devote the proper time and effort to the investigation. House Minority Leader Robert Michel (R-IN) chooses his members with a very different agenda in mind. Michel, himself a relatively moderate Republican, chooses Dick Cheney (R-WY) as the ranking member of the House investigation. Cheney is well-informed about intelligence and foreign affairs, and, in Dubose and Bernstein's words, "ruthlessly partisan." In addition, Cheney will function as the White House "mole" on the committee, alerting White House officials as to the thrust and direction of the investigation and allowing them time to prepare accordingly. Michel salts the House committee with right-wing ideologues, including Henry Hyde (R-IL) and Bill McCollum (R-FL). Few of Michel's House committee members have any intention of pursuing the facts behind Iran-Contra; instead, they are bent on undermining the Democrats on the committee and ensuring that the committee achieves few, if any, of its goals. Loss of Leverage - From the outset, Wright and Byrd's opposition to any consideration of presidential impeachment, no matter what evidence is unearthed, loses them their biggest advantage in the proceedings. Not only will committee Republicans feel more confident in pulling the investigation away from sensitive and potentially embarrassing matters, the committee will ignore important evidence of Reagan's own involvement in the Iran-Contra decision-making process, including recordings of telephone conversations showing Reagan discussing financing the Contras with foreign leaders. Hamilton in particular will be an easy mark for the ideologues in the Republican group of committee members; his biggest worry is whether Reagan "would be able to govern" after the investigation, and his relentless bipartisanship makes him easy for the committee Republicans to manipulate and sway. As for the Republicans, even fellow GOP committee member Rudman will become disgusted with their naked partisanship and their refusal to pursue the facts. "It was obvious that Dick Cheney and others were more interested in protecting the president than in finding out what had happened," Rudman will later recall. Dubose and Bernstein add that Cheney has another agenda as well: preserving the powers of the presidency against Congressional encroachment. Cheney's Influence - Cheney has always succeeded in lulling his opposition with his unruffled demeanor. He is able to do the same thing on the investigative committee. "We totally misread the guy," a Democratic staffer later recalls. "We thought he was more philosophical than political." [Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 68-69]
Entity Tags: Robert C. Byrd, James C. ('Jim') Wright, Jr., Jake Bernstein, Henry Hyde, Daniel Inouye, Contras, Bill McCollum, Joint House-Senate Iran-Contra Committee, Lee Hamilton, Ronald Reagan, Robert Michel, Warren Rudman, Richard ("Dick") Cheney, Lou Dubose
CIA Director William Casey abruptly resigns due to terminal brain cancer (see December 18, 1986). Casey's illness makes him unavailable to testify before the Congressional Iran-Contra investigation, a huge boon for committee Republicans who are determined to keep the truth of Iran-Contra from being revealed (see January 6-7, 1987). Casey had been one of the prime movers behind the Iran arms sales, and was National Security Council staffer Oliver North's prime supervisor in what insiders call "the Enterprise"—the ad hoc organization run by North and retired General Richard Secord (see November 19, 1985) that trained, supplied, and even at times fought for Nicaragua's Contras. North and Secord's organization managed to evade Congressional oversight and ignore laws passed to limit US involvement in the Nicaraguan insurgency (see October 10, 1984). According to upcoming testimony from North, Casey saw "the Enterprise" as such a success that it should serve as a model for other US covert operations around the globe. It was Casey's idea to have foreign countries such as Saudi Arabia (see July, 1984) and Brunei (see June 11, 1986) supply money to the Contras, over the objections of White House officials such as Secretary of State George Shultz, who told Casey in reference to the phrase "quid pro quo" that he should remember that "every quid had a quo." As one Democratic congressmen later puts it, Casey was the "godfather" of the entire Iran-Contra operation, and his unavailability to the committee is a tremendous blow to its ability to find the truth. [Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 70]
Entity Tags: George Shultz, Contras, William Casey, Richard Secord, Oliver North, Joint House-Senate Iran-Contra Committee
The Democratic and Republican leaders of Congress's joint Iran-Contra investigation begin meetings to discuss the logistics of the upcoming public hearings (see May 5, 1987). Speaker of the House Jim Wright (D-TX) later recalls that House committee chairman "Lee Hamilton and I bent over backwards to be fair to the Republicans." Many of the committee Republicans are not predisposed to return the favor. Moderate Republican Warren Rudman (R-NH), the co-chairman of the Senate committee, recalls that deep divides were forming between the committee's moderate Republicans and the more hardline Republicans led by Dick Cheney (R-WY). "The meetings were very, very intensive," Rudman will recall. Cheney helps put together the Republican committee members' staff, and includes a number of hardline Reagan loyalists: the Justice Department's Bruce Fein; the former assistant general counsel to the CIA, David Addington; and others. Notably, it is during the Iran-Contra hearings where Cheney and Addington form their lasting professional association. Artificial Deadline - The first battle is over the length of the hearings. Cheney's hardliners want the hearings over with quickly—"like tomorrow," one former staffer recalls. Hamilton will recall: "Did I know Dick wanted to shorten it? Yes, I knew that." Committee Democrats, fearful of extending the proceedings into the 1988 presidential campaign and thusly being perceived as overly partisan, agree to an artificial ten-month deadline to complete the investigation and issue a final report. Authors Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein later write that the deadline is "an invitation to the administration to stall while simultaneously burying the committee under mountains of useless information." When, in the fall of 1987, the committee receives large amounts of new information, such as White House backup computer files, Cheney's hardliners will succeed in insisting that the committee adhere to the deadline. Jousting with the Special Prosecutor - The committee also has trouble co-existing with the special prosecutor's concurrent investigation (see December 19, 1986). The special prosecutor, Lawrence Walsh, wants a long, intensive investigation culminating in a round of prosecutions. The committee worries that in light of Walsh's investigation, key witnesses like Oliver North and John Poindexter would refuse to testify before the committee, and instead plead the Fifth Amendment. Rudman and committee counsel Arthur Liman want Walsh to quickly prosecute North for obstruction of justice based on North's "shredding party" (see November 21-25, 1986). Rudman believes that he can get his Republican colleagues to agree to defer their investigation until after North's trial. But Walsh declines. Rudman later says: "Walsh might have been more successful if he had followed our suggestion.… But he had this grand scheme of conspiracy." As such, the committee has a difficult choice: abort the investigation or grant North immunity from prosecution so he can testify. Cheney and his hardliners, and even some Democrats, favor not having North testify in deference to his upcoming prosecution. "People were all over the place on that one," Rudman will recall. Hamilton is the strongest proponent of immunity for North. "He believed that North had information no one else had," a staffer will recall. Hamilton and the moderate Republicans are more interested in finding the details of the Iran-Contra affair rather than preparing for criminal prosecutions. The committee eventually compromises, and defers the testimony of North and Poindexter until the end of the investigation. Another committee staffer later recalls, "Hamilton was so fair-minded and balanced that in order to get agreements, he gave ground in areas where he shouldn't have." North Deal 'Dooms' Investigation - Dubose and Bernstein later write, "The deal the committee struck with North's canny lawyer, Brendan Sullivan, doomed Walsh's investigation and the hearings." The committee offers North "use immunity," a guarantee that his testimony cannot be used against him in future prosecutions. The committee also agrees, unwisely, to a series of further caveats: they will not depose North prior to his testimony, his testimony will be strictly limited in duration, the committee will not recall North for further testimony, and he will not have to produce documents to be used in his testimony until just days before his appearance. [Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 70-72, 77]
Entity Tags: Oliver North, Jake Bernstein, David S. Addington, Bruce Fein, Brendan Sullivan, Arthur Liman, James C. ('Jim') Wright, Jr., John Poindexter, Joint House-Senate Iran-Contra Committee, Lawrence E. Walsh, Richard ("Dick") Cheney, Warren Rudman, Lee Hamilton, Lou Dubose
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