Word: libya
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...feather soon fluttered across the President's desk. Justice Department documents indicated that Billy had claimed that Jimmy had shown him State Department cables about his 1978 trip to Libya, saying that he had been a fine good-will ambassador. After an embarrassingly vague White House statement claiming that "the President does not now recall" whether he had shown the cables to Billy, Press Secretary Jody Powell jubilantly passed around copies of the papers, which turned out to be harmless. In fact, they had been given to Columnist Jack Anderson 14 months ago in response to a suit brought...
...worst enemy by raising doubts about its credibility. After White House spokesmen insisted that all details of the matter had been made public, members of the House Judiciary Committee, who have been examining Justice Department documents, reported that Billy had State Department cables commenting on his visit to Libya in September 1978. The Congressmen found a record of an interrogation of Billy conducted by Joel Lisker, chief of the Justice Department's foreign agents registration unit. According to this document, Billy "commented that he had seen all the State Department cable traffic on his trip." When asked by Lisker...
...available to reporters and businessmen. Still, both the President and his brother challenged Lisker's account, Billy in undiplomatic terms on national television: "Lisker is full of s-." But Billy later admitted that "someone in the White House" gave him a State Department cable regarding the trip to Libya. When asked if he had received it from Jimmy, Billy replied, "It was over a year ago and I don't remember...
...week's end the White House reversed itself and admitted that one cable had been given to Billy. Presidential Press Secretary Jody Powell released a copy of a State Department message that bore a handwritten note from Jimmy praising Billy for his abstemious behavior in Libya. Powell lamely explained that everyone at the White House had forgotten about the annotated cable, which had been mailed to Billy on Oct. 11, 1978, until Billy's lawyers turned up a copy...
...mounting controversy. The whole batch, said Powell, "would not have amounted to a hill of beans." Powell was right. In the earliest cable, Washington merely alerted the U.S. embassy in Tripoli that Billy Carter was coming its way on a private trip. After Billy and his delegation arrived in Libya, a dispatch from the embassy noted that "some members of the Georgia delegation obviously are interested in relieving Libya of some of its petrodollars. Though they do not seem to have made much progress yet." The most important cable, and the only one stamped CONFIDENTIAL, was sent...