Word: iran-contra
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...GEORGE SHULTZ + I opposed -- Bill Casey, Ed Meese + VP favored -- as did Poindexter." With those words, taken from his personal handwritten notes of the Jan. 7, 1986, White House meeting about the notorious Iran arms-for- hostages deal, former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger contradicted both his own sworn statements that he had any evidence relevant to the Iran-contra affair and the assertions by George Bush that he was not aware of the proposed swap. As a result, Weinberger was indicted by a Washington grand jury on one additional felony count of making false statements to Congress. The revelation also...
When Larry Gelbart's Broadway comedy MASTERGATE opened three years ago, it was deemed a parody of the Iran-contra hearings. With the passage of time -- and a sharp TV adaptation for Showtime -- it seems bigger than that: a definitive satire of the obfuscating language of government and the media. The setting is a congressional hearing investigating a CIA diversion of funds, but the details are drowned in dialogue that sounds like a cross between Orwell and the Marx Brothers. "My involvement was strictly limited to the extent of my participation," huffs one official. A TV anchorman anticipates a witness...
...confidential FBI data to an Oklahoma journalist. Yet he still managed to rise to the post of FBI associate deputy director for investigation. In the 1980s, Revell came under scrutiny after he received calls from Oliver North, who was seeking to sidetrack federal probes that threatened to reveal the Iran-contra mess. But no proof surfaced that Revell meddled in the cases. Then, in 1988, Revell acknowledged in a Senate hearing that the FBI had been misled by an undercover informer whose "concocted" data led to a two-year surveillance program against Americans opposed to U.S. policies in Central America...
...begin with the granddaddy of Bush's ethical difficulties--his mysterious role in the Iran-contra debacle. Bush has said that he was out of the loop with respect to the diversion of funds from arms sales to the contras. We can take the president at his word on this, even though Bush's position at the time on the National Security Council and his close contact with those involved makes his assertions a little hard to believe...
Second, when the alleged violations of the two are compared, Bush's seem more serious. Lying about Iran-contra versus lying about a 20-year-old's draft status. Waffling on abortion versus waffling on federal abortion funding. Fudging free trade versus fudging a treaty with China...