Word: ayatullah
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...White House." Said Buchanan: "Ronald Reagan and Ed Meese are the Woodward and Bernstein of this. They ought to get the Pulitzer Prize." At a Miami rally of some 3,000 Cuban Americans that night, he heated up his rhetoric. "If Colonel North ripped off the Ayatullah and took $30 million and gave it to the contras," he declared, "then God bless Colonel North...
...accounts to handle the financial end of the deals. Despite its embargo, the U.S. appeared to look the other way. Administration officials seemed interested in Israel's notion that the arms sales would help foster ties with leaders in the Iranian military who might topple the regime of the Ayatullah Khomeini. But by mid-1982 the U.S. was pressuring Israel to comply with the ban on weapons sales. Israel said it halted its shipments to Iran, but the transactions had created a network of eager arms agents on both sides...
Ironically, the Israelis may have had little to do with Weir's freedom. According to the Repatriation Front, the release was arranged by the Ayatullah Hussein Ali Montazeri, a religious radical and Khomeini's heir apparent. Montazeri was evidently chagrined by his rival Rafsanjani's diplomatic overtures and decided to one-up the mullah by showing that he had sufficient influence to win freedom for an American hostage. "It is clear that the Americans did not understand who they were dealing with," says one knowledgeable dissident. "It seems they thought they were still dealing with one Iranian government, just...
Though North once cracked that the Ayatullah Khomeini was "an old man who watches Donald Duck movies," he prided himself on his ability to deal with revolutionaries, saying he could talk their language. He apparently also spoke the language of the President, who last week described him to TIME as "an American hero." North claimed to be in that select company of White House aides who could call the President directly...
...meeting Reagan agreed to give the Secretary of State full control of future Iranian policy. It was more a symbolic than a practical victory. Since arms sales have been ended and Shultz is not eager to resume diplomatic contacts with Tehran, even supposing Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini would allow any, there is no longer much of an Iranian policy to be in charge of. The State Department nonetheless exultantly trumpeted its triumph and announced that Shultz now planned to stay in office until the "end of the Administration." Well, maybe: the Secretary is still under fire at a displeased White House...