Word: contras
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...foretaste of the hard work and challenges ahead. As the biggest Washington story in years broke last week, much of TIME's Washington bureau staff gathered in Bureau Chief Strobe Talbott's office to watch Ronald Reagan announce that funds from Iranian arms sales had been diverted to the contra rebels in Nicaragua. Even as the President spoke, Talbott was on the line to Nation Editor Walter Isaacson, who was watching the disclosures with writers and editors in New York City. Among the most intense watchers: Senior Writer George Church, whose job was to weave the week's events...
Vice President George Bush has kept quiet since Election Day, four weeks ago, avoiding any public comment on the arms-hostages-contra flap. Last Friday he broke his silence in a 45-minute telephone interview from his vacation home in Kennebunkport, Me., with Washington Bureau Chief Strobe Talbott and White House Correspondent Barrett Seaman...
...Meese, the profits from the deal -- that is, the difference between the cost owed to the U.S. and the price charged by the Israelis, which is anywhere between $10 million and $30 million -- were deposited into numbered Swiss bank accounts that were "under the control of representatives" of the contras. The Attorney General claimed that Israeli middlemen had put the slush funds directly into the contra account. "No American," he said, "handled any of the funds that went to forces in Central America...
...determined the markup on the arms, and who set up the Swiss contra ! account? The Israelis contend they neither set the price for the weapons nor managed the accounts. According to Israeli sources, an Iranian straw company in Switzerland deposited its payment for the arms in an escrow account just before the shipment was made. After the delivery, the Iranians reimbursed the Israelis through a Swiss bank for the book value of the cargo, plus generous insurance and freight charges. The Israelis, in turn, used part of these funds to pay the U.S., depositing its payment into a Swiss account...
Meanwhile, the Iranians transferred some or all of what remained in escrow to a Swiss account. Whether the Iranians then moved the funds into the contra account is not known, but the Israelis stoutly deny that they made the deposits. "The Americans cheated on us," says an Israeli source. "They didn't tell us anything about money transferred to the contras. They only said they needed the money quickly and asked us to pressure the Iranians. Now we know...