JOHN STOCKWELL INTERVIEWED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000201100001-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 17, 2010
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: December 16, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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~ RADIO lv REPORTS, INC.
4701 WILLARD AVENUE, CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND 20815 [phone]
STAT
PROGRAM CBS Morning News
WUSA-TV
CBS Network
December 16, 1986 8:10 A.M. CITY Washington, D.C.
SUBJECT I (John Stockwell Interviewed
SANDY HILL: The Iran arms deal. This is not the first
time that the United States has secretly supplied weapons to a
foreign country. The CIA was doing it ten years ago in Angola.
Arms were funneled through Israel. And if that sounds familiar,
this will too. There were secret bank accounts. A major
difference between Iran and Angola, though: the Congress
approved CIA actions in Angola, not so in Iran.
The covert Angola operation is described in a book, "In
Search of Enemies: A CIA Story." The author, John Stockwell,
whu worked for the CIA and was chief of the Angolan Task Force.
And he is joining us this morning to tell us how these covert
operations are run.
And many of us will look forward to the opportunity of
beinq taken out of this murky land and try to understand.
You said, though, as we sat down here, you've never had
so much fun reading the newspaper in years. Strong sense of deja
vu.
JOHN STOCKWELL: But fun, also sadness. 4 e made
mistakes in the Angolan operation. Even though the Congress was
involved in the proper way, we lied to them about details. So we
broke the law, too.
HILL: Purposefully lied.
STOCKWELL: Purpose -- to cover up illegal activity.
HILL: Let's deal with this, the money, which everyone
wants to follow a little bit. In your operation, how high a
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level did you have to go? What was the level of authority that
sanctioned movement of money?
STOCKWELL: The National Security Council. Henry
Kissinger, the Secretary of State, then was dominant in our
foreign affairs. He was approving everything we did in
principle. The National Security Council was supervising it.
They had a subcommittee set up to supervise it. Ana you have
auditors who are bird-dogging the money.
In the current operation, they're doing it -- Colonel
Oliver North was outside of the bureaucracy that's structured to
have controls to do these things properly. But at the same time,
there still are controls.
H ILL : But let's go back to your operation. Okay . You
say there were auditors bird-dogging the money. So, at your
level, how much money could you sign fur, in fact?
STOCKWELL: None, without the controls. You have to go
to the Office of Finance. You have to make up the forms.
They have to be approved.
If you're getting into large sums of money, the
subcommittee has to meet and decide and approve it, or the CIA
Director, or the people right under him.
HILL: An increment of money so small as a matter of
thousands of dollars.
HILL: You still have to have the OMB right there
bird-dogging it to insure...
STOCKWELL: You have to have -- you have a process...
HILL: It's just fascinating.
STOCKWELL: Yes. Yes.
HILL: So, how high a level do you think was involved
with Colonel North, in terms of the amounts of money here?
STOCKWELL: I think the approvals -- it was set in
motion by William Casey. That's clear. He wrote the memo at the
outset advising Mr. Reagan keep it away from the Congress. And
then he bowed out of it so that he would have plausible denial
now. This is what Mr. Casey is doing now.
But as the operation was approved and set up and then it
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began to run, Poindexter, Admiral Poindexter certainly supervised
Colonel North's activities. Donald Regan certainly would have
known what was happening in the White House. And for the
dynamics of the nature of President Reagan, his interest in these
things, his obsession with Nicaragua, certainly he knew and was
involved.
HILL: Can we clarify for a moment-here? Because almost
from the beginning, the CIA has said, "Yes, we had the account
set up." I mean everyone -- there's concert that the shipment of
arms to Iran, they were involved in. It's the money that came
from some of those arms, that 10 to 30 million dollars, that no
one seems to know where it went, what Swiss account it ended up
in.
What's your best guess, which it is -- ten years have
elapsed, or more, since you were involved -- what's your best
guess of where that is or what happened to it and how it was
diver eted?
STOCKWELL: Well, it appears the profits the diverted
through the Israeli arms dealers to accounts in Switzerland which
the CIA had set up. The accounts apparently, from what I'm
reading, being in Colonel North's name.
HILL: Okay. Well, Colonel North, retired General
Secord, and...
STOCKWELL: Secord and...
HILL: ...Hakim.
STOCKWELL: Yeah, and Albert Hakim.
HILL: Okay.
STOCKWELL: Now, this is getting very, very murky. For
one thing, leave us not forget that the head of the Druq
Enforcement Administration hs said publicly that the Contras are
known to be smuggling drugs. Let's not forget, also, that the 27
million in humanitarian aid is being investigated by the OMB now,
and they're reporting that large sums are missing, have been
diverted. And now you have $30 million, perhaps, deposited not
in a U.S. Government official account, but in the private names
of one person working for the White House and two others who are
not associated...
HILL: There's so little time, and it only adds to the
confusion, doesn't this? We know all of these things, or learned
some of the things going on.
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You are very angry, really, that Poindexter and North
have chosen to take the Fifth Amendment.
STOCKWELL: No, they cannot do that, even if they have
to go to jail. These are officers in our military. Especially
Colonel North, wearing his uniform, he cannot plead the Fifth in
uniform.
HILL: John Stockwell, thank you.
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