Word: coverted
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Cave's negative view of Ghorbanifar failed to prevent the Iranian from becoming the linchpin of the covert operation. By November 1985 the Israelis, who had checked out Ghorbanifar at the request of Adnan Khashoggi, a Saudi Arabian businessman who deems himself a peacemaker, had convinced the NSC staff that Ghorbanifar was too well connected in Iran to be ignored. The NSC undertook the Iran initiative, with the now obviously disastrous results...
...mainly the operatives at the Iran desk who transformed the idea of an arms-hostage exchange, originally ^ conceived as a test of mutual goodwill, into a principal objective of the dialogue with Tehran. This mistake eventually left the initiative mired in Iranscam. Says a recently retired senior CIA official: "Covert operatives despise grand strategy. They prefer tangible results that make them look good." The arms swap was sharply opposed by both Clarridge and Allen...
...France the scandal specialty for years has been covert mayhem committed by barbouzes, shadowy secret government agents with false beards or other disguises. The gem of these was surely the Greenpeace affair of 1985, in which two teams of French secret service frogmen blew up a trawler belonging to the environmental organization Greenpeace in Auckland harbor. The resulting international uproar shook Francois Mitterrand's Socialist government and forced the sacking of its intelligence chief and the resignation of its Defense Minister. Unlike Iranscam, however, that was the extent of it. Parliament never pursued it further. Indeed, the two French agents...
While Hashemi, former chief of the Tehran bureau responsible for exporting Islamic-style revolution, is an expendable power broker, the case against him has wider political significance. The Iranscam affair became public knowledge after radical supporters of Hashemi reportedly leaked the story of Iran's covert diplomatic and military dealings with the U.S. to ash-Shiraa, the Lebanese magazine that Ronald Reagan subsequently described as "that rag in Beirut." Moreover, Khomeini's public support for punishing Hashemi has been interpreted by some observers as evidence that the radicals in the Iranian leadership are losing ground to the pragmatists...
...years following his return from Southeast Asia, North continued to crave action. After joining the NSC in 1981, he became known for his overt patriotism and his covert activities. North seemed to pop up at every trouble spot around the world: cheerleading for the contras in Honduras and stalking terrorists in Lebanon. He helped plan the invasion of Grenada, the secret mining of Nicaraguan harbors and the hijacking of the plane carrying the Achille Lauro terrorists. Later, North became the point man for the private network financing the Nicaraguan rebels...