ANALYSIS OF IRAN-CONTRA DEALINGS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00901R000600290002-2
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 10
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 6, 2006
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: December 8, 1986
• Content Type: TRANS

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FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS STAFF
PROGRAM The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour STATION
December 8, 1986 7:00 P.M.
Analysis of Iran-Contra Dealings
WE TA-TV
PBS Network
Washington, D.C.
JIM LEHRER: The Associated Press labeled today's Shultz
appearance and testimony "extraordinary." We get three other
analyses of the event now from James Schlesinger, who served
Democratic and Republican Presidents as Secretary of Defense,
Secretary of Energy, and head of the Central Intelligence Agency,
among other things; retired Navy Admiral Stansfield Turner, who
was Director of the CIA in tle Carter Administration; and from
Capitol Hill, Senator Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah and a
member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, now holding
closed-door hearings on the Iran arms affair.
Mr. Schlesinger, did you find what Secretary Shultz had
to say extraordinary in any way?
JAME S.I~ ESI It was indeed. He attempted to
support and defend his President, but he very clearly was
separating himself from the policies that were embraced by the
Administration. I think that from a foreign policy standpoint
this is probably useful, in that it enhances Shultz's credibility
in Europe. On the other hand, it doesn't help the
Administration.
LEHRER: Senator Hatch, what's your view of that on
Capitol Hill?
SENATOR ORRIN HATCH: Well, I thought it was extra-
ordinary. And I think that Secretary Shultz spoke fairly
candidly today. He talked about why -- what was really behind
the policy and that they still have a policy of trying to, of
course, end the war between Iran and Iraq, stop Soviet and halt
Soviet expansionism, halt terrorism, get our hostages back. I
would add to that, obtain intelligence, obtain military equipment
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that we might be able to obtain, open channels with, hopefully,
the moderates, or at least a group of successors to the Khomeini
regime, and of course to continue to try to have a better
relationship with Iran.
But, you know, some of the admissions that he made today
I thought were quite interesting. And he was very candid. I
give him credit for that. I think President Reagan is trying to
be as candid as he can be and as much as he knows about it. And
I suspect that we'll continue up on Capitol Hill finding out more
and more about this.
LEHRER: But Senator, as a Republican and as a strong
supporter of President Reagan, what does it do to his situation
when his Secretary of State goes on national television and says
what we just heard him say?
SENATOR HATCH: Well, I don't know that anything is
going to resolve this until we find out what Colonel North and
Admiral Poindexter really have to say, and maybe some others,
such as General Secord. It seems to me that they're the people
who have the knowledge. And I believe the President, and I think
there's reason to believe the President, when he said he did not
know about the transfer to the Nicaraguans.
I might say this, that, you know, the foreign policy
objectives that I just reiterated are worthy ones. They're good
ones. Whether or not you use the modest deliveries of equipment
to the Iranians in your desire to bring about a negotiated
settlement of the Iran-Iraq war, to end Soviet expansionism, end
terrorism, get the hostages back, etcetera, etcetera, whether or
not that's good policy -- I guess since it's been exposed, it
probably looks like it wasn't. But had it been completed, had
they been successful in what they did, then it seems to me people
would be saying, "What a bold, wonderful foreign policy
initiative that they got some of these things accomplished."
So, it's the nature of covert action that, you know,
when it's exposed it looks bad. When it accomplishes what it
should accomplish, it looks good.
The real problem here is the Nicaraguan transfer of
funds. And that's illegal.
LEHRER: Speaking of covert action, Admiral Turner, you
also heard what the Secretary of State just said about he was
shocked to discover that his Ambassador, or the U.S. Ambassador
to Lebanon was dealing with the NSC, etcetera, in all of this
without the knowledge of the State Department. And he said this
was a very unique situation.
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unique?
Based on your experiences running the CIA, is it that
ADMIRAL STANSFIELD TURNER: It's not unique for the
National Security Council and/or the State Department to use CIA
communications channels for privacy. I think it is unique to
exclude people in the chain of command in that process and was a
very improper thing.
If the National Security Council adviser wants to talk
to an ambassador, that's perfectly all right to do privately, in
my view, through the CIA channels, as long as the Secretary of
State is kept advised of it.
LEHRER: Never in your experience or running the CIA did
you do a similar kind of thing?
ADMIRAL TURNER: I never would allow anyone to use CIA
communications channels to communicate with CIA people without my
being involved in it. But I didn't interfere with their using my
channels within their own organizations when they needed privacy
and we could provide that service to them.
LEHRER: You mean State-to-State, Defense-to-Defense,
ADMIRAL TURNER: Or National Security Council to any one
of those others.
LEHRER: But what I meant was, did the CIA ever go to an
ambassador in a country and say, "Look, we'd like fur you to do
something with us. Let us -- tell us what you're doing, but
don't tell the Secretary of State"?
ADMIRAL TURNER: Oh, heavens no.
LEHRER: Heavens no under your -- at your watch too, Mr.
Schlesinger?
SCHLESINGER: That's true from my watch. But the
circumstances to which the Secretary of State referred today are
not unique. It occurred on other occasions. They are rare.
What the Secretary refers to as the chain of command is not
really the chain of command. It's the normal chain of command.
And the normal chain of command has been violated.
In the case of our adventures in Chile in 1971, you may
recall, when there was a dual-track strategy. In fact, another
dual-track strategy. Somebody in the White House two weeks ago
referred to this as a dual-track strategy. But the State and
Defense Departments were cut out of the activities, knowledge of
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the activities that were going on in Chile. And the defense
attache in Chile was used as the man to deal with the presumed
organizers of the insurrection.
In that case, however, the Ambassador was so out out.
So the State Department was cut out, but the Ambassador's
subordinate was kept instructed through such channels.
And it has occurred on other occasions, but it is rare.
SENATOR HATCH: I think I could add something there.
During the downfall of the Shah, Ambassador Sullivan had prepared
a coup, was working with a coup, according to Gary Sick's. book
"All Fall Down," which many consider the only authoritative work
in this area, to take over and throw the Shah out and put
Khomeini in. And it became so bad that, actually, the Secretary
of Defense, as I understand it, a that report disclosed, if I
recall correctly, the Secretary of Defense had to send a special
observer over to watch the Ambassador so that he didn't bring
this about.
So, you know, it's not unique. It really shouldn't
happen, in my opinion, but it has happened in the past. And I
suspect it will probably happen in the future.
LEHRER: Do you agree, going back to one of Mr.
Schlesinger's points earlier, Admiral Turner, that what Secretary
Shultz did today, separating himself from the, quote, mistakes of
this adventure, is really a good thing for the United States in
the lung run?
ADMIRAL TURNER: I think getting everything out in the
open certainly is. But I think the question we all ought to be
looking at, Jim, is less "who knew what" than "who should have
known what." And it seems to me Mr. Shultz hoisted himself by
his own petard today, that he gave admission that he knew more
about these activities than he'd ever acknowledged before, and he
gave admission today that he knew so much that I don't see how he
could have helped from asking the right questions in between
these periods of when he'd met with the President on this subject
to find out what was really happening.
To me, it's like the famous story of Lord Nelson, the
British admiral, who when he received a signal in the Battle of
Copenhagen telling him to do something he didn't want to do, he
put his telescope up to his blind eye and failed to see the
signal, and went on and did what he wanted. We've had some blind
eyes in this Administration.
LEHRER: Well, Senator Durenberger, your colleague,
Senator Hatch, suggested that very thing today, that some members
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of the Cabinet just deliberately stayed dumb on some of these
things in order to protect themselves. Is that what Secretary
Shultz has dune?
SENATOR HATCH: Well, I think at first George kind of
indicated that he didn't know anything about anything. Maybe
that's a little bit unfair to him. But then, all of a sudden, I
think McFarlane testified, and I think testified today, that he
believed that a lot of these people did know a lot about the plan
and the policy in Iran.
But I think the important part of George Shultz's
testimony, and really the only part, I think, where mistakes have
been seriously made, other than questions of policy -- you might
disagree with transferring some arms for hostages, as well as
trying to complete those other foreign policy objectives. But
the only real mistake, it seems to me, that the President was
referring to was these people, these rogue elements of the NSC
who actually went and made -- and there isn't real evidence of
this thus far -- actually were intending to make transfers of
funds to the Contras.
Now, George distinguished himself and made it very clear
that he was not part of that. I think that that was significant.
And we need to get to the bottom just who was part of that.
LEHRER: All right, gentlemen. Don't go away. We'll be
back in a few minutes.
[Excerpts from testimony of Robert McFarlane]
LEHRER: ...Mr. Schlesinger, Mr. McFarlane said that he
knows that the President did not authorize this illegal transfer
of funds to the Contras. And yet he also knows that Admiral
Poindexter wouldn't have done it on his own. '4hat does that
answer add up to you to?
SCHLESINGER: Well, I think that Mr. McFarlane is
pinpointing the Chief of Staff at the White House. There is
only one person of higher authority between Admiral Poindexter
and the President.
Is that what it sounded like to you?
ADMIRAL TURNER: I think Mr. McFarlane is saying that
Colonel North and Admiral Poindexter were so persuaded that the
President wanted these policies carried out, especially the
support provided to the Contras, that they felt confident they
had the President's blessing. The President had previously
blessed very marginally legal activities of Colonel North in
soliciting support for the Contras during a period in which the
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Congress prohibited that totally. And we all knew that. It came
out in the newspapers in August of 1985 that North was involved
in these efforts to solicit funds from private citizens and from
other governments. And because the Administration, from the
President down, tolerated that, I think it was easy for North and
Poindexter to say, "Well, we've got a new deal here. We can even
make the Ayatollah pay for this instead of our private citizens
or friendly countries. Let's go ahead and do this. And we're
good military officers. We want to keep the Commander-in-Chief
from having to get into all these details. And he would support
this. So let's go."
LEHRER: Does that make sense to you, Senator Hatch?
SENATOR HATCH: Well, I think if Admiral North and -- or
Colonel North and Admiral Poindexter admitted that, I think
people would probably forget them, because it was
well-intentioned to try and help the Contras because we know
what's going to happen to this hemisphere if we allow the
Sandinistas to run unchecked.
But I kind of agree with Admiral Turner, to a degree.
It reminds me a little bit about Henry II complaining about his
friend Thomas a Becket and saying, "Who's going to rid me of this
infernal priest?" And a couple of his supporters went out and
rid him of him and killed Thomas a Becket. And maybe there's
more truth to that than you think.
But you know, you still come back to just what was done
here. I notice that most everybody stays away from the policy in
Iran. Look, let's jsut be honest about it. In order to Iran you
have to deal with it covertly. We're the Satan to them, or at
least to the leadership over there. You have to deal covertly.
We have the additional problem of trying to get the
hostages out. We have additional problems of trying to resolve
all of these foreign policy objectives of stopping the Iran-Iraq
war, negotiating a settlement, getting the Russians to not expand
into that area and to get into the Persian Gulf, protect the
Southern states, the Arab states, to get the hostages out, and of
course to do a whole raft of other things. All of which you find
not too much criticism of because anybody who thinks about it
knows that any President worth his salt has got to try and do
something over there. This President has tried.
Now, if he has a couple rogue elements who go off
thinking, well-intentioned, that they were serving the President
well and they transfer funds to the Contras, then that's illegal
and that's something that has to be stopped.
LEHRER: Let's talk about that, the policy questions
here, Mr. Schlesinger.
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Do you agree that the only thing, really, here that went
wrong was the rogue exercise to the Contras?
SCHLESINGER: No. There is a set of policies here and
all of them wound up being mistakes. In the first place, the
policy of dealing with the Iranians under the illusion that one
was dealing with moderates. Actually, one was dealing indirectly
with Rafsanjani, who seems to have been acting under the
instructions of the Ayatollah himself.
LEHRER: Rafsanjani is the Speaker of the Parliament.
SCHLESINGER: Speaker of the Parliament. He is not
getting very far away.
We were being diddled by the Iranians. That's one
A second mistake is this combination of policies, in
which we wind up with arms for the Ayatollah, arms for ransom of
the hostages, raising funds, contributions from Ross Perot and
others, in order to ransom the hostages, and put that into the
Contra operation. All three things were combined and placed as a
ticking time bomb right next to the presidency in the White House
complex. That is a major disaster for the President and the
country.
SENATOR HATCH: Let me say something about that. I
think -- I have a great deal of respect for Mr. Schlesinger.
We're old friends, and I know what a bright man he is and what he
does. But let me just say this to you. It looks to many that
the successor to come in, he already has been blessed, his name
is Mantazari (?). And I might add...
LEHRER: Who? What's his name?
SENATOR HATCH:
LEHRER: Mantazar
SENATOR HATCH: And I might also add that Rafsanjani, as
bad as some people think he may be, is considered to be more
moderate than Mantazari.
And I might also add that there are other people over
there that they were dealing with, some of whom are not known at
this point to the general public. And I can tell you that it's a
lot more than just trying to play into the hands of Khomeini.
Let's be honest about it. Two hostages came out. It's
apparent that wasn't the total policy. But any President worth
his salt is going to do everything he can for those hostages.
It's that simple.
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SCHLESINGER: We should recognize that two hostages came
out. Subsequently, after these dealings, three more Americans
were seized. And this was not the end of a set of mistakes. The
instructions to the Director of Central Intelligence nut to
inform the Congress was a mistake. The collection of money from
Mr. Perot was a serious mistake.
SENATOR HATCH: I don't disagree with that. I don't
disagree with that.
SCHLESINGER: I don't disagree with that.
LEHRER: Where do you come in on this, Admiral Turner?
ADMIRAL TURNER: I think it was naive to think that at
this time we were able to open some avenues to moderates who were
going to either topple the successors to Khomeini or topple
Khomeini. I have heard no evidence whatsoever that Iran is in
that fragile a state or that Rafsanjani is the kind of a person
who's going to turn on the Ayatollah. He's part of the
Ayatollah's community.
But mainly, it was also foolish to think we had to give
them arms in order to do what? To have a discussion? To prove
our bona fides? Come on now, that's carrying things much too
far. And it's very inconsistent to say that, on the one hand,
these people were sort of dissidents within the government; yet
on the other hand, they were going to get our hostages out that
are controlled by the government.
SENATOR HATCH: Well, let me interject again, if I can,
especially after Admiral Turner.
Admiral, during your own administration under Jimmy
Carter, on October 11th, 1980, there was a message sent by Carter
and Muskie to Warren Christopher in Bonn, which I believe had
your blessing, to allow and permit the transfer of $150 million
of spare aircraft parts for hostages.
So, it's a little sanctimonious, and maybe even
hypocritical, to come here today and say, "Well, this is a
terrible thing that the Reagan Administration has tried to do."
I might add...
LEHRER: Let's let him respond to that.
SENATOR HATCH: Well, sure. I'd like to have
ADMIRAL TURNER: The circumstances were entirely
different because...
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SENATOR HATCH: What was different?
ADMIRAL TURNER: We had already had a demonstration of
the bona fides of the negotiator we were dealing with in Bunn
because he had said tomorrow Khomeini is going to do so-and-so,
and tomorrow Khomeini did that. He was speaking withsume
authority. Whereas we have no indication of any authority here.
SENATOR HATCH: Then you don't deny that you approved a
$150 million arms transfer, without informing Congress, for
hostages back in 1980. And here you are complaining about this
Administration.
ADMIRAL TURNER: That's not true at all.
SENATOR HATCH: Well, it is true.
ADMIRAL TURNER: No, it isn't true.
SENATOR HATCH: WeII, if you didn't approve of
certainly...
ADMIRAL TURNER: First of all, I didn't have any -- I'm
not a policymaker. I was an intelligence officer and don't get
into...
SENATOR HATCH: Did you know about
Did you know
ADMIRAL TURNER: There were no arms transferred. This
was a negotiataing position which was never consummated.
HATCH: Mr. Turner, Mr. Turner, that's not the point.
Did you know about it? Isn't it true that Carter and Muskie sent
a message to Warren Christopher approving a $150 million transfer
for hostages? Not fur these other foreign policy objectives.
ADMIRAL TURNER: That's not true.
HATCH: Well, that is true.
LEHRER: Mr. Schlesinger, you've been listening to this.
Whatever happened in 1980 and whatever happened now, were they
both wrong?
SCHLESINGER: [ think they were both wrong. They were
wrong then. They were wrung now. Dealing with the Iranians is a
very tricky route to follow. And it is particularly wrong today
because the United States Government has been out there asking
the British, the French, the Germans, the Italians, all of the
nations in the Middle East not to deal with these terrorist
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states. And we, who are the leader of the Free World, are found
violating the policy that we are urging our followers to follow.
That is what makes it so bad in this case.
LEHRER: Senator Hatch, quickly. We only have a few
seconds left. You're the only politician in the group. You
heard what Mr. McFarlane said. He said he still believes in his
policy. The only mistake he made was he got ahead of the body
politic of the United States. Do you agree with him?
SENATOR HATCH: Well, I'll say this. I think that Jim
Schlesinger has summed it up pretty well. You can disagree with
the overall policy, but you can't disagree with the aims and the
goals that they were trying to do. Tne fact of transferring
arms, anybody can disagree with that. But any President worth
his salt has got to do something to try and resolve those foreign
policy objectives. And frankly, the only leverage we have is to
deal with what they want, and in this case they wanted spare
parts and arms that wouldn't make a difference in that war.
That's not bad.
LEHRER: All right.
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