by David Crist
Ayatollah Khomeini learned of the secret dealings with the Americans and Israelis after the shipment of the second batch of TOW missiles. He sided with the pragmatic Rafsanjani. What McFarlane had missed and Ghorbanifar had obfuscated was that a “moderate” wing never existed in Iran. Every faction leader knew of the dealings, and the supreme leader endorsed them. For Khomeini, it was never about a strategic opening but rather about beating Iraq and spreading the revolution. He had no compunction about turning America’s own weapons on their maker.
Enticed, the Iranian pushed for more arms. Ghorbanifar’s shopping list included advanced air-to-air missiles, Harpoon antiship missiles, and an improved variant of the American-made Hawk antiaircraft missile, which he falsely claimed Iran needed to counter Soviet Bear bombers that repeatedly violated Iranian airspace. It was the type of argument that might appeal to the Cold War hawks in the administration.15 To sweeten the pot for the Americans, Ghorbanifar introduced Ledeen to Hassan Karoubi, whom Ghorbanifar claimed to be the leader of the “middle way,” as he termed the supposed moderate faction within the Iranian government.16 Karoubi claimed to be a close adviser to the supreme leader, spending three days a week at Khomeini’s home.17 He was the type of senior official that McFarlane hoped to contact. While McFarlane balked at selling some of the more sophisticated weapons, Reagan authorized eighty Hawk antiaircraft missiles to be sent to Iran via Israel.
On the evening of November 22, Duane Clarridge awoke to a call from Oliver North. “Look, I’ve got a problem, and it involves Portugal. I need to see you right away.” North and Clarridge were friends, occasionally meeting for a drink at a bar called Charley’s Place in McLean, Virginia.18 A few hours after the phone call, the two men met at Clarridge’s office at CIA headquarters. North explained that he needed Clarridge’s assistance in facilitating an Israeli delivery of oil drilling equipment to Iran. In truth, the plane was carrying the Hawk missiles. It was to land in Portugal, where the missiles would be transferred to another, neutral aircraft before being flown to Tehran. But Israel had sent the aircraft without obtaining landing rights, and the Portuguese government suspected the plane carried more than oil drilling equipment and prohibited the aircraft from landing in Lisbon.
To avoid Portugal, Clarridge ordered aircraft from a CIA proprietary company, St. Lucia Airlines, to fly the missiles directly from Israel to Tehran. The plane, flown by a West German pilot, landed in Tehran in the wee hours of November 25. On the tarmac to meet the jet was no less than Prime Minister Mousavi. The smaller CIA aircraft could carry only eighteen missiles, and the Israelis had sent an antiquated version replete with Hebrew markings and the Star of David stenciled on each missile. Mousavi went ballistic. He called Ghorbanifar, who in turn called Ledeen. Near hysterical, Ghorbanifar yelled repeatedly that the United States had cheated them. The Hawk debacle should have ended the entire Iran arms affair. Instead, it only convinced those who supported it of the need for the United States to take a more direct role in the arms transfers.
On Saturday, November 30, 1985, President Reagan had finished pruning a large walnut tree in the front yard of his ranch in California, when a letter addressed for his eyes only arrived. Bud McFarlane was tendering his resignation, stating the long-standing Washington rationale of wanting to spend more time with his family. In announcing McFarlane’s departure to the press five days later, on December 4, President Reagan quipped prophetically: “I should warn you that I’ll probably be calling on you from time to time for your wise counsel and advice.”19 Reagan announced that McFarlane’s deputy, Navy Vice Admiral John Poindexter, would be the new national security adviser, the fourth man to hold the position thus far in his administration. Poindexter was unquestionably brilliant. He’d graduated first in his class at Annapolis before going on to earn a doctorate in nuclear physics from Caltech in 1964. An incessant pipe smoker, he displayed a quiet and reflective demeanor. But Weinberger believed Poindexter was out of his element as national security adviser: “He possessed no strong credentials in foreign policy.” Poindexter had done an effective job at managing the NSC staff, however, and had proven to be a loyal subject to the White House. He also shared his good friend Bill Casey’s disdain for congressional meddling in foreign affairs.
Poindexter and Reagan had discussed the Israeli arms-transfer debacle in November. Both agreed that the Israelis had fouled up the shipment. The solution would be for the United States to take a more active role. On the morning of December 7, both Pearl Harbor Day and the day of the annual Army-Navy game, Reagan met again with McFarlane, Shultz, Weinberger, Poindexter, and CIA Deputy Director John McMahon, filling in for Casey, who was in New York being treated for cancer. The meeting degenerated into a remarkably freewheeling exchange between the president, Shultz, and Weinberger. Shultz made an impassioned argument against dealing with terrorists. “We need to put this operation aside,” he said. “The operation should be stopped. We are signaling to Iran that they can kidnap for profit.”
Reagan turned to Caspar Weinberger. “What do you think?”
“Are you really interested in my opinion?” the defense secretary responded, knowing full well that the president knew he had opposed the idea from the outset.
“Yes,” Reagan replied, without amplification.
Weinberger echoed Shultz’s comments and proceeded to blast continuing the Iranian contacts. The Iranian regime remained viscerally anti-American. “This will undermine Operation Staunch and our entire effort to contain Iran. We will lose all credibility with our allies. There are legal problems here, Mr. President, in addition to the policy problems. It violates the Arms Export Control Act, even if done through the Israelis. It violates our arms embargo against Iran. It is illegal.”20
Frustrated by Weinberger and Shultz’s strenuous objections, Reagan replied, “Well, the American people will never forgive me if big, strong President Reagan passed up a chance to free the hostages over this legal question.”
“Then, Mr. President, visiting hours are on Thursday,” Weinberger responded sardonically.
Reagan vacillated. Weinberger’s handwritten notes taken during the meeting reflect that the president believed any weapons would go to moderate elements within Iran and not to the Revolutionary Guard. At the end of the meeting, Weinberger believed his rare cooperation with Shultz had carried the day with the president. Upon his return to the Pentagon, his military adviser, Colin Powell, came in and asked how it went. Weinberger replied with a slight grin, “I believe the baby has been strangled in its cradle.”
But Reagan remained reluctant to give up on what appeared to him to be the only thread of hope to secure the release of the hostages. Despite all the broken promises, the arms deals had secured the release of one of those held in Beirut; Reagan simply could not bring himself to admit there was little the United States could do to influence Hezbollah.21
“No one outside of the White House believed that there were moderate Iranians we could work with,” Poindexter recalled. “My view, and I think the president agreed with me, was that we should try.” Bill Casey concurred. “It’s risky,” he told the president, “but most things worth doing are.”
Rather than strangling the Iran baby, the NSC under Poindexter gave it new life. On January 17, 1986, Reagan signed a new finding of covert action. It tasked the CIA with taking charge of the arms-transfer effort. The goal remained unchanged. Reagan wanted to strengthen moderate elements within the Iranian government “by demonstrating their ability to obtain requisite resources to defend their country against Iraq and intervention by the Soviet Union.”22 Rather than use Israeli weapons, the United States would sell the TOWs or Hawks directly to Iran through the Israelis, who in turn would transfer them to Ghorbanifar’s intermediaries in Tehran.23
The CIA director brought in retired Air Force Major General Richard Secord to help facilitate the transfer of American weapons to Iran. An arms peddler, Secord was also providing weapons to the Contras for both Casey and North. The release of the h
ostages was listed as a tangential benefit in the finding, but this aspect remained paramount in Reagan’s mind. As the president noted in his diary about signing the finding prior to heading to Bethesda for a physical: “Only thing waiting was NSC wanting decisions on our effort to get our five hostages out of Lebanon. Involves selling TOW anti-tank missiles to Iran. I gave a go ahead.”24
Ghorbanifar relayed a new request from his contacts in Tehran. The Iranians wanted intelligence about Iraq. McMahon had gone over to the White House to see Poindexter and voice his strong objection to providing Iran with any intelligence. “Providing defense missiles was one thing,” McMahon argued, “but when we provide intelligence on the Iraqi order of battle, we are giving the Iranians the wherewithal for offense action.” This could cause the Iranians to win the war, with “cataclysmic results” for the United States. Poindexter did not dispute this, but countered that it was an opportunity that should be explored, adding, “A map of Iraqi order of battle is perishable anyway.”
That afternoon, North met with the CIA’s Robert Gates, John McMahon, and Tom Twetten to discuss what type of intelligence to provide Iran. Gates called over a secure phone to Charles Allen, an experienced CIA officer assigned as the national intelligence officer for counterterrorism, requesting that he work with some analysts in the Near East Division to put together some limited intelligence for Iran. The request, Gates stated, was coming from the White House, but he emphasized to Allen to make sure that the intelligence provided “would give no significant advantage to the Iranian military.”25
The next day, Allen handed Gates a map laying out the disposition of Iraqi forces along the Iranian border, including the locations of Iraqi division headquarters and key military installations.26 To try to mitigate the damage, it showed details of one Iraqi division’s front line in central Iraq, well away from the decisive southern front near Basra. A few days later, it was passed to Ghorbanifar and then into the hands of the Iranian military, who used the windfall to launch a night attack that drove the Iraqi forces back a mile and a half. Iraq had to commit its corps armored reserves to restore the front line, which it managed to accomplish but at the cost of over one thousand casualties.27 Iran was also given the complete order of battle of Iraqi ground and air forces, the information coming from the unwitting Defense Intelligence Agency.28
The CIA’s rank and file distrusted Ghorbanifar. Charlie Allen met with Ghorbanifar at Ledeen’s home on January 13 to ascertain the Iranian’s true knowledge of the Iranian government. Allen concluded that the Iranian businessman was a “cheat and a crook.”29 This feeling was shared by the head of the Iran desk, Jack Devine, who requested another polygraph. Ghorbanifar failed again on thirteen of fifteen key questions regarding his access and the accuracy of his statements about the Iranian government. But the CIA director remained committed to the enterprise. Ghorbanifar might be exaggerating his influence within the Iranian government, but if he could provide any credible access to the government, it was worth the risk. “Well, maybe this is a con man’s con man,” Casey countered. And with that the operation went forward.30
With the president’s finding, an unhappy Weinberger directed Powell to work with the army to transfer four thousand TOW missiles to the CIA. Powell coordinated the delivery with the vice chief of staff of the army, General Maxwell Thurman.31 On February 15, an unassuming white aircraft with “Southern Air Transport” adorning its fuselage picked up the first batch of five hundred TOW missiles at Kelly Air Force Base, near San Antonio, Texas, and flew them to Israel. There, a ground crew transferred the TOWs to an Israeli plane for the final leg to Iran, arriving on February 17. Ten days later, a second installment of five hundred TOWs arrived at the joint military-civilian airport at Bandar Abbas. Despite one thousand missiles sold to Iran, not one hostage emerged from the back alleys of Beirut.
North and Poindexter, however, remained optimistic. On February 25, Ghorbanifar arranged a meeting at the Sheraton Hotel in Frankfurt between North and an adviser from Prime Minister Mousavi’s office, Mohsen Kangarlou, accompanied by an Iranian Revolutionary Guard officer, Ali Samii, and two senior Iranian military intelligence officers. Two days of talks ensued, with the Americans pushing for the release of the hostages and a very suspicious Kangarlou advocating for the United States to provide Iran advanced air-to-air missiles for its fleet of F-14 fighters. North gave the Iranians the CIA-produced map of Iraqi units positioned along the central front and repeatedly tried to impress upon them the threat posed to their country by the Soviet Union, hoping it would strengthen the possible cooperation between the United States and Iran in the Cold War. The meeting adjourned with both sides agreeing to another high-level meeting on the Iranian Persian Gulf island of Kish.
North sent an upbeat e-mail to McFarlane’s home classified computer: “While all this could be so much smoke, I believe that we may well be on the verge of a major breakthrough—not on the hostages/terrorism but on the relationship as a whole.”32
“Roger Ollie,” McFarlane replied to North’s e-mail. “Well done—if the world only knew how many times you have kept a semblance of integrity and gumption to U.S. policy, they would make you Secretary of State.”
Nothing in this tortuous affair developed as planned. The meeting at Kish never materialized. Now Ghorbanifar demanded an array of even more weapons be sent to Iran. This included 240 different spare-part items for Hawk missiles, air-to-air missiles, and sophisticated Harpoon antiship missiles. North accepted this request and worked out a convoluted scheme whereby money, hostages, and weapons would be exchanged in a series of sequential operations, but this too failed to move beyond discussions.
Casey decided to augment North and assigned the CIA’s elder Iran analyst, George Cave, to the Iran initiative in March 1986. Casey had argued that they needed an experienced operations officer fluent in Farsi. Cave held a dim view of Ghorbanifar, having witnessed his failed polygraph test in January, and was incredulous that the Israelis had vouched for him.
Cave flew to Paris and met with Ghorbanifar and the new Israeli interlocutor, Amiram Nir. In his mid-thirties, good-looking with thick curly black hair, Nir briefly served as a military correspondent on Israeli television before casting his political lot with the Labor Party. In 1984, Peres elevated him to adviser on counterterrorism. In this capacity, he worked closely with Oliver North during the Achille Lauro hijacking and, in the fall of 1985, played a supporting role for Kimche in working with Washington on selling weapons to Iran. Nir’s role would be to keep the Americans using Ghorbanifar.
Cave pulled Nir aside and asked, “Have you fully vetted Ghorbanifar?”
“Yes, he’s trustworthy,” Nir answered, but Cave remained unconvinced.
Knowledge of both the presidential covert action finding and the subsequent arms shipments remained tightly held by the NSC and the CIA. Worried that the NSA might uncover the details of the arms transfers, Oliver North wanted access to any intercepted communications limited, and ordered the agency’s director, William Odom, to exclude both Shultz and Weinberger. To North’s annoyance, Odom refused. “I work for the defense secretary and the president, not Bill Casey or Ollie North,” the stubborn Odom replied. He had the pertinent intercepts hand carried to Powell. “Weinberger knew of each transfer within a few days by the signals intercepts.”33
Odom considered offering the same information to Secretary Shultz, but the secretary of state refused. He vigorously opposed the arms deals, and the less he knew, the happier and better Shultz felt. But his department certainly knew of the gist of the dealings. Assistant Secretary of Defense Armitage spoke daily to his counterpart at State, Arnold Raphel, about the significant developments from the intelligence reports on the secret dealings with Iran.34
Odom thought the entire idea was foolhardy. In Weinberger’s office one afternoon, the two men discussed the arms-for-hostages operation. “You know this is going to leak, and I hate to say it, but it is going to cause a great crisis,” said Odom. “Why don’t yo
u go over and convince the president to call it off. There is no chance it will succeed.”
“Bill, I’ve tried,” a frustrated Weinberger replied. “He just can’t be convinced.”
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff William Crowe remained the one man in the dark on the shenanigans. He accidently discovered the affair in July 1986. His executive assistant, Lieutenant General John Moellering, had attended an NSC meeting in which North let slip a reference to Iranian arms sales. After the meeting, he and Rich Armitage drove back to the Pentagon together.
“What was that reference to Iran and arms?” Moellering asked.
“You don’t know what they’ve concocted? When we get back, come up to my office and I’ll fill you in.”
Moellering promptly told Crowe, who confronted Weinberger.
“I was against it,” shrugged Weinberger, “but the decision had been made and the president wasn’t going to change his mind. I saw no point in bringing you in.”35
In April, Ghorbanifar appeared to achieve a breakthrough. He returned from Iran and proposed a meeting in Tehran with senior Iranian officials, including a meeting with the speaker of the Iranian parliament, Rafsanjani, and Prime Minister Mousavi as part of a final exchange of weapons for the hostages. Initially, Cave and North were to fly first to Tehran with Ghorbanifar to lay the groundwork for the larger meeting with McFarlane. Ghorbanifar offered use of a Lear jet and a house to stay in in Tehran. But Poindexter overruled this as too risky, perhaps fearing news would leak before McFarlane’s more important meeting.36
North sent a memo to Poindexter: “I believe we have succeeded. Thank God—he answers prayers.”37