Word: contras
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Blip. The Reagan side of the picture disappeared. The President's helicopter, Americans were told, would lift off the White House lawn and bear him away, toward a speech in Connecticut that had nothing to do with the Iran- contra hearings. It was a strange effect, a kind of moral vanishing. Reagan at that moment became an absence...
...question: If the Constitution's system of checks and balances demands this kind of congressional surveillance of the presidency, why do the hearings so often lose their way in labyrinthine detail? Why don't Congressmen examine larger social and moral and political issues? The dense tangle of the Iran-contra affair, with its elaborate deceits and boxes within boxes, is, in the light of day, fairly simple. It involves two issues...
Ironically, Oliver North won more support for the contras in four days of testimony than Ronald Reagan has been able to stir up in six years. While North was testifying last week, the dispirited contra lobby in Washington came alive and mobilized its mailing lists again...
...will prove to be the most important witness the Iran-contra committees hear? No, not Oliver North -- at least not according to Warren Rudman, vice chairman of the Senate panel. After listening to North for four days last week, the New Hampshire Republican repeated a longstanding prediction: the crucial witness will be Ollie's old boss, former National Security Adviser John Poindexter, who follows North to the stand this week...
Even after the Iran-contra affair thrust him into the headlines last November, Poindexter maintained his silence. He quietly resigned from the National Security Council and pleaded the protection of the Fifth Amendment when initially called before congressional investigators. He accepted a lowering in rank to rear admiral and the loss of one of his three stars. To remain a vice admiral, Poindexter, 50, would have had either to take early retirement or transfer to a job requiring Senate confirmation. Said a colleague: "Can you imagine him taking the Fifth at his own confirmation hearing...