Word: iran-contra
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Last year at this time the world worried about German unification, a U.S. appeals court overturned Oliver North's Iran-contra conviction, and Pete Rose was headed for jail. Saddam Hussein was ranting about Kuwait's excessive oil production, but few believed even he would choose the sword so soon after the end of Iraq's eight-year conflict with Iran. In fact, Saddam's bellicosity ("O God almighty, be witness that we have warned them") was barely noted. The big news from the Middle East was the possibility that Syria's Hafez Assad might finally be serious about negotiating...
Today Germany is peaceful, Iran-contra is threatening Robert Gates' nomination to head the CIA, Pete Rose is out of jail, and the big news from the Middle East again concerns the possibility of a negotiated peace among Arabs and Jews. And, of course, there is still Saddam -- beaten but unbowed, as arrogant and ruthless as ever, a defiant, devious tyrant tempting another U.S. strike that would aim to complete the job begun in January...
...Western and Middle Eastern intelligence agencies. The strange and still murky ties between B.C.C.I. and the intelligence agencies of several countries are so pervasive that even the White House has become entangled. As TIME reported earlier this month, the National Security Council used B.C.C.I. to funnel money for the Iran-contra deals, and the CIA maintained accounts in B.C.C.I. for covert operations. Moreover, investigators have told TIME that the Defense Intelligence Agency has maintained a slush-fund account with B.C.C.I., apparently to pay for clandestine activities...
Those unsettling questions have become the focus of the investigation by Lawrence E. Walsh, who has been the Iran-contra independent counsel since December 1986. His inquiry is being assisted by Alan Fiers, former head of the CIA's Central American Task Force, who has admitted misleading Congress about when the agency first learned of the diversions. Fiers now says he became aware of the fund transfers during the summer of 1986 and warned the agency's deputy director of operations, Clair E. George, about them. But he charges that George ordered him to deny any knowledge...
Even if ROBERT GATES shakes off the Iran-contra allegations that have stymied his chances to be head of the CIA, will his spy staff ever respect a guy who flunked Surveillance 101? When Gates was a young CIA trainee in the early 1960s, one of his early attempts to tail a suspect was notably unsuccessful, according to a former classmate. Gates was assigned to shadow a man in Richmond. But the local police became curious about the apprentice spy loitering on a street corner and hauled Gates in for questioning. Hours later, after a CIA instructor intervened, the spook...