http://www.cooperativeresearch.org The Center for Grassroots Oversight aims to provide the public with a means to collaborate on investigations at the grassroots level. en-us http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a032089cheneysecdef#a032089cheneysecdef http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a032089cheneysecdef#a032089cheneysecdef Former Representative Dick Cheney (R-WY) becomes secretary of defense under President George H. W. Bush. Cheney is the second choice; Bush's first consideration, former Texas senator John Tower, lost key Senate support when details of his licentious lifestyle and possible alcoholism became known. Cheney was the choice of, among others, Vice President Dan Quayle and National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, who both feel that Bush needs someone in the position fast, and the best way to have someone move through the confirmation process is to have someone from Congress. Although Cheney never served in the military, and managed to dodge service during the Vietnam War with five student deferments, he has no skeletons in his closet like Tower's, and he has the support of Congressional hawks. His confirmation hearings are little more than a formality. Cheney's House colleague, Republican Mickey Edwards, later reflects, "The whole world we live in would be totally different if Dick Cheney had not been plucked from the House to take the place of John Tower." Cheney was "in line to become the [GOP's] leader in the House and ultimately the majority leader and speaker," Edwards will say. "If that [had] happened, the whole Gingrich era wouldn't have happened." Edwards is referring to Newt Gingrich (R-GA), the future speaker of the House who, in authors Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein's own reflections, "ushered in fifteen years of rancorous, polarized politics." While Cheney is as partisan as Gingrich, he is not the kind of confrontational, scorched-earth politician Gingrich is. According to Edwards, no one can envision Cheney moving down the same road as Gingrich will. As the Pentagon's civilian chief, many will reflect on Cheney's tenure as perhaps his finest hour as a public servant. "I saw him for four years as [defense secretary]. He was one of the best executives the Department of Defense had ever seen," later says Larry Wilkerson, who will serve in the Bush-Cheney administration as chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell. "He made decisions. Contrast that with the other one I saw [Clinton Secretary of Defense Lester Aspin], who couldn't make a decision if it slapped him in the face." Cheney will preside over a gradual reduction in forces stationed abroad--a reduction skillfully managed by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell. Cheney asks one of Tower's putative hires, Paul Wolfowitz, to stay; Wolfowitz, with fellow Pentagon neoconservatives Lewis "Scooter" Libby and Zalmay Khalilzad, will draft the Pentagon's 1992 Defense Planning Guide (DPG) , a harshly neoconservative proposal that envisions the US as the world's strongman, dominating every other country and locking down the Middle East oil reserves for its own use. Though the DPG is denounced by President Bush, Cheney supports it wholeheartedly, even issuing it under his own name. "He took ownership in it," Khalilzad recalls. Cheney also brings in his aide from the Iran-Contra hearings, David Addington , another neoconservative who shares Cheney's view of almost unlimited executive power at the expense of the judicial and legislative branches. blackmax 2008-08-26T23:57:31-07:00 http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a022087surprised#a022087surprised http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a022087surprised#a022087surprised President Reagan sends a memo to the Tower Commission in an attempt to clarify his previous rambling and incoherent testimony (see and ). The memo does not improve matters. It reads in part: "I don't remember, period. ... I'm trying to recall events that happened eighteen months ago, I'm afraid that I let myself be influenced by others' recollections, not my own. ... The only honest answer is to state that try as I might, I cannot recall anything whatsoever about whether I approved an Israeli sale in advance or whether I approved replenishment of Israeli stocks around August of 1985 . My answer therefore and the simple truth is, 'I don't remember, period.'" blackmax 2008-08-26T23:55:43-07:00 http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a020287caseyresigns#a020287caseyresigns http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a020287caseyresigns#a020287caseyresigns CIA Director William Casey abruptly resigns due to terminal brain cancer . Casey's illness makes him unavailable to testify before the Congressional Iran-Contra investigation, a huge boon for committee Republicans who are determined to keep the truth of Iran-Contra from being revealed . Casey had been one of the prime movers behind the Iran arms sales, and was National Security Council staffer Oliver North's prime supervisor in what insiders call "the Enterprise"--the ad hoc organization run by North and retired General Richard Secord that trained, supplied, and even at times fought for Nicaragua's Contras. North and Secord's organization managed to evade Congressional oversight and ignore laws passed to limit US involvement in the Nicaraguan insurgency . According to upcoming testimony from North, Casey saw "the Enterprise" as such a success that it should serve as a model for other US covert operations around the globe. It was Casey's idea to have foreign countries such as Saudi Arabia and Brunei supply money to the Contras, over the objections of White House officials such as Secretary of State George Shultz, who told Casey in reference to the phrase "quid pro quo" that he should remember that "every quid had a quo." As one Democratic congressmen later puts it, Casey was the "godfather" of the entire Iran-Contra operation, and his unavailability to the committee is a tremendous blow to its ability to find the truth. blackmax 2008-08-26T23:55:21-07:00 http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a050687caseydies#a050687caseydies http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a050687caseydies#a050687caseydies Former CIA Director William Casey dies as a result of his inoperable brain cancer. Casey was a key figure in the Iran-Contra machinations. Authors Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein will later write, "In death he would become a helpful scapegoat for Oliver North and a resting place for missing information that would have filled out the contours of the scandal." Casey had been named as one of the architects of the scheme to use profits from illegal arms sales to Iran to secretly fund the Nicaraguan Contras . He had been hospitalized since April 25, and unable to testify in the Iran-Contra hearings. The immediate cause of death is what doctors call "aspiration pneumonia," which may mean that Casey inhaled food or food particles in his lungs that set up a toxic chemical reaction. A physician not involved in Casey's treatment says that Casey may have had trouble swallowing properly. The hospital in Glen Cove, Long Island refuses to give any more details. Despite the swirling Iran-Contra controversy, President Reagan says of his longtime colleague and friend: "His nation and all those who love freedom honor today the name and memory of Bill Casey. In addition to crediting him with rebuilding America's intelligence capability, history will note the brilliance of his mind and strategic vision, his passionate commitment to the cause of freedom and his unhesitating willingness to make personal sacrifices for the sake of that cause and his country." blackmax 2008-08-26T23:54:56-07:00 http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a082785reaganantiterror#a082785reaganantiterror http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a082785reaganantiterror#a082785reaganantiterror President Reagan signs legislation that bans arms sales to nations that support terrorism (such as Iran), and strengthens US anti-terrorism measures. The law, entitled the Omnibus Diplomatic Security and Antiterrorism Act of 1986 , does not halt the Reagan administration's sales of arms and weapons to Iran; the arms sales go forward in spite of the law explicitly prohibiting them . blackmax 2008-08-26T23:53:04-07:00 http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a1286waltersghorbanifar#a1286waltersghorbanifar http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a1286waltersghorbanifar#a1286waltersghorbanifar ABC News reporter Barbara Walters covertly provides the White House with documents from Iranian arms merchant Manucher Ghorbanifar, according to a Wall Street Journal article published in March 1987. The documents, prepared by Walters and given to the White House at Ghorbanifar's request, report that Ghorbanifar believed, correctly, that National Security Council staffer Oliver North diverted profits from the sale of arms to Iran to Nicaragua's Contra insurgents . Walters will provide the White House with further documents on the arms sales in January 1987. The documents are given to Walters either just before or just after her interviews with Ghorbanifar and Saudi businessman and arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi for the ABC News program ''20/20''. The documents will eventually be turned over to the Tower Commission . The White House will claim that the documents contain little more than reiterations of Ghorbanifar's comments to Walters in the interview. ABC News will say that Walters's actions--essentially acting as an information peddler or middleman between the Arab arms merchants and the US government--are "in violation of a literal interpretation of news policy. ... ABC policy expressly limits journalists cooperating with government agencies unless threats to human lives are involved. ... Ms. Walters believed that to be the case." ABC does not explain why Walters believes "threats to human lives" were involved; this assertion also contradicts ABC's assertions that the documents contained little more that what was said in the interview. blackmax 2008-08-26T23:47:59-07:00 http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a120186towercommission#a120186towercommission http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a120186towercommission#a120186towercommission President Reagan appoints former Senator John Tower (R-TX) to head a commission to investigate the Iran-Contra affair. The so-called "Tower Commission" will issue its final report three months later . Tower left the Senate in 1985 and attempted to win the position of defense secretary for Reagan's second term. Instead, Reagan appointed him to lead the US team of arms reduction negotiators in Geneva. Tower also became very rich very quickly lobbying for a variety of defense contractors. Between his overt lobbying for the defense industry and his notoriously libertine lifestyle--even consorting with prostitutes known to be KGB agents--Tower was unable to secure the position of defense secretary. But he is a Reagan loyalist, and well-known to the White House from their thorough vetting of his background and private life; perhaps this makes Tower a good administration choice to lead the investigative commission. blackmax 2008-08-26T23:45:27-07:00 http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=asum1980sensigopabroad#asum1980sensigopabroad http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=asum1980sensigopabroad#asum1980sensigopabroad According to a later account by Robert Sensi, a young CIA agent with excellent contacts among prominent Arabs, the Republican National Committee opens what Sensi calls "a secret channel to Iran." Sensi is not only alluding to the secret plans for the US to sells arms to Iran, which is just developing , but to the "October Surprise" of the November 1980 US presidential elections . Sensi will bring the matter up to author and fellow CIA agent Larry Kolb in a Washington, DC, hotel bar in 1986, but will not go into detail. Sensi will note that CIA Director William Casey has been involved in the US's secret dealings with Iran since the outset, as has Robert Carter, the deputy director of Ronald Reagan's presidential campaign. Sensi will say that Casey, Carter, and the other participants are using the overseas political organization Republicans Abroad as cover for more covert activities. The organization is "a great drawing card," according to Sensi, who is a member. "It gives us access to embassies and a lot of people we would have had a hard time getting to without the cachet of representing the ruling party in the United States." Writing in 2007, Kolb will reflect on the Republican Party's "own in-house team of covert operatives, as capable of conducting espionage and sabotage for the Republican Party as for the CIA. It seemed the Republicans were still doing what they had been caught doing during Watergate. Spying on and sabotaging the Democrats. Ratf_cking, as the Republican operatives called it . Coming just a few years after the Watergate national Passion Play and all it had put our country through, this seemed flagrant and foul, like sleaze squared. And like politics-as-usual." blackmax 2008-08-26T23:43:15-07:00 http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a012687reaganadmits#a012687reaganadmits http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a012687reaganadmits#a012687reaganadmits President Reagan testifies before the Tower Commission. His chief of staff, Donald Regan, had previously told the commission that the US had not given its approval for the August 1985 sale of TOW missiles to Iran via Israel (see and ), but Reagan shocks both Regan and White House counsel Peter Wallison by admitting that he had indeed approved both the Israeli sale of TOWs to Iran and had agreed to replenish the Israeli stocks. Reagan uses the previous testimony of former National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane as a guide. After Reagan's testimony, Regan attempts to refocus Reagan's memories of events, going through the chain of events with Reagan and asking questions like, "Were you surprised" when you learned about the TOW sales? Reagan responds, "Yes, I guess I was surprised." Regan hammers the point home: "That's what I remember. I remember you being angry and saying something like, 'Well, what's done is done.'" Reagan turns to Wallison and says, "You know, I think he's right." blackmax 2008-08-26T23:42:29-07:00 http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a012487threehostages#a012487threehostages http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a012487threehostages#a012487threehostages Four teachers at Beirut University College--Americans Alann Steen, Jesse Turner, and Robert Polhill, and Indian-born US resident Mithileshwar Singh--are kidnapped by Hezbollah militants. blackmax 2008-08-26T23:42:03-07:00