Word: contras
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...intriguing question arising at Oliver North's Iran-contra trial goes beyond whether Ronald Reagan was aware of the secret policy his subordinates carried out in his name. Put bluntly, the new question is, Did the former President not only approve of the policy but lie about it in 1987 when he told the Tower commission that he did not know of the National Security Council's assistance to the rebels...
...been blocked -- Wyoming has two entrenched Republicans in Malcolm Wallop and Alan Simpson -- so Cheney has concentrated on climbing the House leadership ladder. Voted minority whip last December, he was considered a likely successor to minority leader Bob Michel. He defended the Reagan Administration during Congress's 1987 Iran-contra investigation and joined several G.O.P. colleagues in a harsh dissent from the panel's final report...
While it's obviously in North's self-interest to demand the release of classified information that might absolve him, such actions make him look like a first-class hypocrite, not the American hero his supporters have called him. During the 1987 congressional Iran-contra hearings, North argued that his lying to Congress was justified because it prevented predictable leaks which could endanger lives. Now, when the publicizing of such secret information remains equally as risky, North has no qualms calling for its release...
That kind of prescience comes with the territory. Gorey is, after all, no stranger to Capitol controversies involving senatorial indiscretions. Since he last covered Congress, he has kept TIME's readers abreast of a number of national scandals, from Chappaquiddick to Watergate to Iran-contra. Although last week's vote against Tower ran strictly along party lines, Gorey hastens to point out that the flap is not as partisan as it may seem. "Senators are co-workers who see one another daily, travel together and become friends," Gorey explains. "Senators do not exult in the fall of a colleague...
...members of his Administration -- among them Secretary of State George Shultz, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane, CIA Director William Casey and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General John Vessey -- "personally and directly" took part in arranging deals to have other countries aid the Nicaraguan contras at a time when help from the U.S. was forbidden by law; they then allegedly ordered the arrangements kept secret. Sullivan hopes to show with this classified material that North was just following orders when he lied to Congress about his contra activities...