Word: contras
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...investigator this week will even pose in so many words some of the numerous questions raised by North's career on the NSC. The committees, to be sure, are prepared to give their star witness a tough, at times caustic, grilling. But their investigation is limited to the Iran- contra affair, and their attention is focused on such matters as whether and how much President Reagan knew about the diversion of Iranian arms-sales profits to the Nicaraguan rebels. That complex scandal, however, points to broader problems that also deserve investigation: What do North's many escapades say about...
Whatever details about Iran-contra emerge from this week's testimony, the outline of the larger problem has become increasingly clear. Ronald Reagan and some of his top aides, notably the late CIA Director William Casey, came to ! power committed to step up the murky struggle with the Soviet Union in the back alleys of the world. They were determined not just to contain but to roll back what they saw as a pattern of alarming Communist advances. They quickly grew impatient with congressional restrictions and the inbred caution of the State Department, the Pentagon and even the CIA. They...
...result, says Livingstone, North "came into the NSC as an easel carrier and ended up as the world's most powerful lieutenant colonel." Witnesses before the Iran-contra committee have testified that they got a strong impression North was working more for Casey than for his nominal bosses, McFarlane and his successor as National Security Adviser, John Poindexter. "Covert actions were pretty much left to Casey and ((CIA Deputy Director)) John McMahon, with little if any top-level discussion or review," says one former Administration policymaker. According to this official, even Reagan was cut out of the loop: "The President...
...really explains Ollie's rise to prominence." Watching the gung-ho Marine employ such methods made at least some of his colleagues uneasy. "Oliver North is going to get the President in real trouble," an NSC aide told a friend two years ago. Last year, before the Iran-contra scandal became public, the aide repeated the warning: "Just remember -- it's going to happen...
...Shackley denies any wrongdoing in the Iran-contra affair. "I have had nothing to do with what Secord has chosen to call 'the enterprise,' " Shackley told TIME last week. "I have had nothing to do with North." Nonetheless, North's projects freely used private operators. Secord, for example, retained the services of American National Management Corp. to fly supplies to the contras in Nicaragua. That company was founded and run by Colonel Richard Gadd, a retired Air Force cargo-plane pilot who was a longtime associate of Secord's. Gadd had also worked for the U.S. Army Special Operations Forces...