My American Journey

by Colin L. Powell

  When the memo came back, I felt proud of my boss. Across the cover memo Weinberger had written: “This is almost too absurd to comment on…. It’s like asking Qaddafi to Washington for a cozy chat,” referring to Libya’s anti-American strongman.

  Normally, Weinberger found Bud McFarlane about as communicative as a stone, one reason he disliked dealing with him. But after this dismissal of his brainstorm, McFarlane asked for an appointment with Weinberger. I watched the usually phlegmatic Bud make an earnest pitch to Weinberger, who sat behind his Pershing desk with a “show-me” impassivity. This bold initiative could win over Iranian moderates, McFarlane argued. It could get us back into Iran before the Soviets filled the power vacuum we had left there; and it could achieve the release of seven American hostages currently held in Beirut.

  “The only moderates in Iran,” Weinberger answered, “are in the cemetery.” It was foolish to expect good faith in obtaining the release of hostages from the same regime that had countenanced their seizure. The Khomeini regime, he told McFarlane, was equaled in evil only by the Soviet Union. As McFarlane left, Weinberger turned to me and said that he hoped we had heard the last of this nonsense. George Shultz at State had condemned the arms deal with equal force; it was one of the few areas where he and Weinberger agreed.

  It was Weinberger’s habit to keep a record on little white pads of what happened during his day. The notes ranged from entries like “McFarlane meeting on NSDD” to “Call the vet for Kiltie.” As he completed a pad, he put it into the middle right-hand drawer of his desk. When the drawer was filled, he stored the pads in a closet. He once told me he had followed this practice for years. Did this small mountain of notes constitute a “diary”? As a result of McFarlane’s arms-for-hostage plan and the subsequent Iran-contra scandal, the question would one day have legal implications for Caspar Weinberger—and for me.

  One afternoon that summer, John Wickham, now Army Chief of Staff, called me on his hot line. He had some news. I was supposed to put in two years as military assistant, and the time was just about up. Consequently, I was expecting orders, and Wickham’s news was good indeed. I was going to be sent to Germany to take command of the 8th Infantry Division (Mechanized). I was to replace Major General Charles W. “Bill” Dyke, one of the Army’s most dynamic officers. I went home to Fort Myer that night floating on air. I was going to leave the Beltway behind to return to real soldiering and, after nearly twenty-seven years, go back to Germany. In a subsequent trip to West Germany with the Secretary, I took the opportunity to drop in on Bill Dyke for a briefing. I could not wait to take over the division.

  My euphoria lasted three weeks. Wickham came down to my office, which struck me as a bad sign. “Colin,” he said, “I have no doubt about your ability to command.”

  “Yes, but…” I said.

  “But Secretary Weinberger has been talking to me. You have the man’s total trust. He relates to you in an extraordinary way. You play as vital a role here as you would in any field command. I’m afraid I’ve come with good news and bad news.”

  I did not need tea leaves to guess the bad news.

  “I can always find another division commander,” Wickham went on. “And the Secretary needs you here. So, you’ll be staying. The good news is that in about a year, we’ll give you a full corps, without your going through a division command.”

  Wickham left, and I went in to find the Secretary nibbling on a chocolate bar. He greeted me like a father who has just prevented a foolish son from running away from home. “Then it’s decided. You’ll stay,” he said. “And next year, instead of one division, you’ll have two.” People like the Secretary understood the politics of defense. But they do not always understand the culture of the Army. My skipping a division and going directly to a corps would not necessarily elicit admiration from my peers. Some, in fact, would resent this move and mutter, quite rightly, about “politics.” Wickham had assured me that I was different, and could pull off the move without enraging the old bulls. I was not convinced. I still remembered the White House Fellow who had been promoted to colonel through political pressure, which effectively finished his military career. For the next year, however, I would be commanding nothing but a desk outside the Secretary’s office.

  Every morning I received a black plastic case stamped “Top Secret” containing the choicest intelligence winging around the world and intercepted by our electronic eavesdropping enterprise, the National Security Agency. Vice Admiral Arthur Moreau, the assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, came to me one morning with an odd revelation. The Secretary’s office was not getting some of the most curious traffic that the NSA plucked out of the air. On his own hook, Art had decided to share this withheld material with me. What I read amazed me. Foreign intermediaries were, for a price, evidently cooking up arms deals between Reagan administration officials and the alleged Iranian “moderates.” McFarlane’s initiative, evidently, was very much alive. The content of the messages was startling enough, but what troubled me just as much was why the Secretary’s office should be cut out of the loop.

  I started showing the intercepts to Weinberger. Each time he called McFarlane, trying to find out what was going on, the National Security Advisor remained close-mouthed. Finally, an exasperated Weinberger summoned me one day and said, “Colin, who are we getting these messages from?” I explained that they were bootlegged to us by Admiral Moreau, who got them from the NSA.

  “Indeed,” Weinberger said. “And don’t I control the National Security Agency?”

  He did, I said. It was under the Department of Defense. The NSA’s director, Lieutenant General William Odom, was Weinberger’s subordinate. “Would you call General Odom,” Weinberger said, “and remind him who he works for?”

  I phoned Odom as soon as I got back to my office and asked him what was going on. I sensed the discomfort of a man being tossed between two reefs. McFarlane’s NSC, using the authority of the White House, had instructed Odom to give these intercepts the narrowest circulation, excluding the Secretary of Defense. We straightened that matter out in a hurry.

  Weinberger continued to rail against the Iranian arms deal, which appeared to have attracted the sleaziest sort of rug merchants. Still, loyalty to the President remained the dominant element in Cap’s mind.

  The proposed arms deal was a bad idea. But at the time, it was bad policy, not a criminal act liable to bring down the presidency. Senior officials cannot fall on their swords every time they disagree with a President. And this scheme looked, at the time, as if it would die of its own foolishness anyway. But we underestimated the President’s support for the plan or the determination of the NSC staff to pull it off.

  The greatest appeal of the arms deal to Ronald Reagan was the possibility it offered of freeing the hostages. Their families came to the White House and followed him on his speaking trips. Their appeals affected him. He wanted the hostages freed, and was willing to take political risks to do it. I myself believe that hostages taken by terrorists represent individual tragedies, and we must do what we can to obtain their freedom. Nevertheless, hostage taking and terrorism cannot be allowed to drive foreign policy decisions. Ransom, however euphemized, is still ransom and should never be paid. Giving in to hostage takers and terrorists can only demonstrate to them that their weapons work.

  Early in December 1985, Bud McFarlane decided to resign as National Security Advisor. We were hardly encouraged by his likely successor. I was with Weinberger in Europe for a NATO meeting when he took a call from William J. Casey, head of the Central Intelligence Agency. Casey was upset, Cap told me after he hung up. Admiral John Poindexter, McFarlane’s deputy, was the leading candidate to replace Bud. “He’s not up to it, Cap,” Casey had said. Poindexter lacked the depth and breadth the job demanded. Casey wanted Weinberger to use his influence with the President to help him derail Poindexter’s appointment.

  I had dealt with John Poindexter and had my own opinion of his suitability. He was brilliant, but
in a narrow, technical sense. Poindexter would rather communicate with a colleague next door by computer than talk to the person face-to-face. I had to call him one day to discuss a troublesome story on the front page of the Washington Post. “I don’t read the Washington Post,” he informed me.

  “You don’t have to agree with what you read,” I said. “Often I don’t either, but you have to know what papers like the Post and the New York Times are saying to operate in this town.”

  “I don’t read the New York Times either,” John answered.

  Weinberger did put through a call to the White House. “Mr. President,” Weinberger said, “I understand Bud has left and that you’re planning to go with John Poindexter. Bill Casey has called me, and Bill doesn’t think John is up to the job. So Bill asked me to call you.” I watched Weinberger nodding as President Reagan apparently gave his reasons for sticking with Poindexter. Weinberger closed saying, “Mr. President, if you’re comfortable with John, I’m sure we’ll all get along just fine.”

  In mid-December 1985, Weinberger had two issues to discuss with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the super-secret F-117 Stealth fighter and a military cellular phone system. The British had developed a phone system called Ptarmigan, and the French had a similar system called Rita. Both were well ahead of anything we could develop for years. Consequently, the Army had taken bids from these two allies to buy one of their cellular systems off the shelf, a $4-billion-plus deal. It fell to Weinberger to explain to Prime Minister Thatcher why the British had lost the contract to the French. I accompanied him to Britain, and as he prepared to leave the American embassy for 10 Downing Street, Weinberger said, “Colin, I think you should come with me. I’ll want good notes on this matter.” Our ambassador, Charles Price, accompanied us.

  We were admitted to Mrs. Thatcher’s receiving room, a quiet, comfortable place with two couches facing each other, a scattering of easy chairs, and a blazing fireplace. We were greeted by the PM’s private secretary, Charles Powell, who pronounced his name “Pole.” The prime minister, perfectly coiffed, came in wearing a suit that managed to look both feminine and businesslike.

  Cap Weinberger started easing his way into his unpleasant task, talking first about the F-117. He had barely opened his mouth when the PM cut him off.

  “My dear Cap, I want you to know how very, very distressed I am by this shabby business of the Ptarmigan,” Mrs. Thatcher began. “Nothing you can say will convince me that there wasn’t dirty work at the crossroads. We’ve been cheated. Do you hear me? Cheated. And don’t try to tell me otherwise.”

  The two admired and liked each other, especially after Cap’s vigorous support of Thatcher in the Falkland Islands War. He remained stoic as she continued the mantra of “dirty work” and “cheating.” When she stopped long enough to catch her breath, Weinberger started explaining the U.S. decision, but the PM cut him off at the knees. “The French!” she said, as if the word were an epithet. Those awful people had obviously done something improper. “I’m sure they did not play fair.” She turned to me. “Don’t write that down, young man.” Her opinions of the French and her expressions of disappointment with her American cousins continued unbroken for ten more minutes. Finally, Weinberger tried explaining again, patiently, sensibly. “But Cap,” she said, like a schoolteacher upbraiding a pupil, “I say there was dirty work at the crossroads! Didn’t I tell you not to tell me otherwise? Haven’t you been listening?”

  The performance was fascinating to the spectator. Not so pleasant for the target, I suspect, from the wilted look on Weinberger’s face. Margaret Thatcher was every bit the Iron Lady of her public image, certainly one of the most formidable leaders I have ever met; and I had seen her swing her famous verbal handbag right at Weinberger’s head.

  Every time we thought the Iran-arms proposal had a stake through the heart, Weinberger would return from the White House to report that it had risen. After one such return, he asked me to figure out how, if the Israelis gave the Iranians arms from their stocks, we might replenish them. I went to Hank Gaffney, in the Defense Security Assistance Agency, the Pentagon office that sold and supplied arms to other nations, and I asked him to prepare a memo describing the legal implications of various transfers. Reflecting Weinberger’s lack of enthusiasm, I asked Gaffney to accentuate the negative. The response came back that the proper way to carry out a replenishment was through the Arms Export Control Act, which would require notification of Congress as to both the immediate and ultimate destination of such arms transfers. This was precisely the information that the NSC did not want to reveal. I gave the memorandum to Weinberger just as he was headed for another White House meeting, hoping that this time we had a stake that would kill the beast.

  On January 17, 1986, the President signed a top-secret “Finding of Necessity,” declaring that the covert sale of arms to Iran was in our country’s interest. The scheme was still foolhardy, but now legal. Illegality, in what came to be known as the Iran-contra affair, grew out of other elements, namely the diversion of funds to the Nicaraguan contras and perjured testimony given by participants before Congress. The day after the President signed the finding, Weinberger was told to start implementing it. He directed me to arrange for the transfer to the CIA of 4,000 (later raised to 4,508) TOW missiles, an antitank weapon. The TOWs were to go to the CIA under a federal law called the Economy Act, which allowed government agencies to transfer material to each other. This stratagem was legal as far as the Army was concerned. The TOWs were then to be transferred by the CIA to Iran.

  Weinberger supported the indirect approach because he felt that the clandestine supply of weapons to another country was the CIA’s line of work, not his department’s. “I want nothing to do with the Iranians,” Weinberger told me. “I want the task carried out with the department removed as much as possible.” We treated the TOW transfer like garbage to be gotten out of the house quickly.

  I called General Max Thurman, now vice chief of staff of the Army, and asked him to make the TOWs available to the CIA. I told him nothing more. I had known for months that the arms plan was kicking around. But it was not until the moment Weinberger directed me to carry out the transfer that I knew the President had definitely decided to go ahead with it and send the weapons to Iran.

  Soon after delivery of the first batch of TOWs, I got a call from a worried Lieutenant General Arthur Brown, director of the Army staff. “We don’t know where this stuff is going,” Brown said, “but it sure as hell isn’t staying with the CIA. The Army general counsel has advised us that you should be aware that if arms in that amount are going to a foreign country, Congress has to be notified.”

  “Put all that in a memo,” I told Brown. On getting his memo, I decided that the course of wisdom was to draft a memo of my own to Poindexter repeating the legal requirement that Congress must be notified if these arms went to a foreign country. I showed the memo to an unhappy Weinberger. Precisely what he had warned against was coming home to roost, the risking of the administration’s credibility in a reckless cause. I handed the memo to Poindexter personally at the weekly breakfast meeting the NSC chief held with Weinberger and George Shultz. What we did not know was that Poindexter and company did plan to notify Congress—in the last week of the Reagan administration, three years off. Timely congressional notification might have blown this scheme out of the water.

  Throughout the early months of 1986, I operated in a twilight zone, carrying out my job while at the same time planning to leave it. My daily routine would have made no sense as a job description. I might start out the day deciding which memoranda Weinberger should see and finish the day editing the Secretary’s next speech. In between, I would stroke a disgruntled chief’s ego, arrange to have the parade ground reseeded, and integrate the Secretary’s dining-room staff, which consisted entirely of Filipino waiters and must have looked like raw racism to our foreign visitors.

  Most of my tasks and a thousand and one phone calls would evaporate with time. Bu
t I did leave one mark. The Secretary’s office is located in the Eisenhower Corridor of the Pentagon. I have always felt a special affinity for Dwight Eisenhower, a war hero who did not have to bark or rattle sabers to gain respect and exercise command, a President who did not stampede his nation into every world trouble spot, a man who understood both the use of power and the value of restraint and who had the secure character to exercise whichever was appropriate. It was Ike, for example, who had resisted pressure to intervene in Vietnam when the French went under at Dienbienphu. I admired him as a soldier, a President, and a man.