Word: coverts
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Covert operations have been a hallmark of the Reagan Administration from its inception. Members of Congress widely estimate that 50 to 60 presidential "findings" authorizing such operations are in force at any given time. (Descriptions of covert operations are supposed to be communicated to the Senate and House Intelligence Committees. But at least some, like the sale of U.S. arms to Iran authorized by a January 1986 finding, were kept secret.) Several legislators believe the number of known findings is more than in any previous Administration. More important, the operations have grown steadily in size, importance and cost. Covert operations...
...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 the foreign policy of the Reagan Administration? How much did that policy depend on covert operations, hidden not only from Congress and the public but from much of the official Government? And how did such improbable figures as North and his bizarre retinue of private operators come to play such major roles...
...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 turned increasingly to covert operations, including some not subject to the checks and balances of normal Government. That, combined with sloppy management from the President on down, opened the way to, if it did not make inevitable, the ascendancy of a can-do zealot like Ollie North...
...belief that students should be entirely locked out of the decision making process because of their inability to evaluate individual cases is reminiscent of North's belief that it was fine to hide covert foreign policy maneuvers even from Congress. But unlike Harvard professors deciding tenure, even North has to report to somebody--namely the Congress...
...hands of private citizens and arms merchants whose yearning for profits may have exceeded their patriotism. Seemingly accountable to no one, these operatives used their secrecy, in Foley's view, "not to thwart our adversaries but to thwart the legitimate institutions of our Government. It was a covert action by the U.S. against the U.S." Fawn Hall's insistence that "it was a policy of mine not to ask questions" echoed the attitudes of other witnesses. Even Cabinet officials showed little curiosity about the questionable activities of their subordinates or timidly shrugged off decisions with which they sharply disagreed. Secretary...