The Twilight War: The Secret History of America's Thirty-Year Conflict with Iran (108 page)

44.
Armitage interview.

C
HAPTER 10
A
RMS FOR THE
A
YATOLLAH

1.
Weinberger interview.

2.
McFarlane interview.

3.
Soon to be deputy director of the CIA John McMahon noted that the Israelis had raised this to him in early 1980, when during a visit to Israel officials tried to convince McMahon of the advantages of selling weapons to Iran. In May 1982, for example, Defense Minister Ariel Sharon met with Secretary Shultz to discuss Iran and the two countries’ differences over the war. Sharon freely admitted that Israel provided matériel as a means of maintaining its contacts with the Iranian military, as well as of keeping alive the prospect of influencing a post-Khomeini regime and of protecting Iranian Jews. At the same time, he tried to persuade the United States against encouraging arms being sent to Israel’s archfoe Saddam Hussein. Of particular concern, Sharon said, was a recent massive arms sale of Egyptian T-62 tanks to Iraq, with the United States backfilling by providing newer U.S.-built M-60 tanks to Cairo. Following an hour of frank discussions, in the end this meeting, and others similar, concluded inconclusively, with both sides agreeing to disagree. American Embassy Paris message to Secretary of State, “Allegation in French Press of Israeli Sales of U.S. Arms to Iran” (191109Z), August 1983; American Embassy Tel Aviv message to Secretary of State, “Reports of Alleged U.S. Arms Supplies to Iraq via Egypt—Possible Items on the Agenda for MINDEF Sharon’s Visit” (241534), May 1982; U.S. Department of State briefing memorandum, “Your Meeting with Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, Tuesday, 25 May,” May 1982; Ambassador Samuel W. Lewis, Foreign Affairs Oral History Program, Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, August 9, 1998.

4.
Oliver North, “Special Project Re: Iran,” December 5, 1985. John Poindexter said this as well during a meeting in the Oval Office on November 10, 1986.

5.
The Reagan administration briefly flirted with the same idea at the beginning of the administration. On July 21, 1981, the State Department proposed encouraging third, other, countries to provide arms to Iran. The idea had originated with Secretary Alexander Haig. His rationale was similar to McFarlane’s logic four years later: encouraging pro-Western states to provide weapons would lessen Iran’s dependency on the Soviets and reduce the opportunity for Moscow to increase its influence. However, the Joint Chiefs stridently opposed the idea. In a memo for the secretary of state’s special assistant, a youthful thirty-nine-year-old L. Paul Bremer, who would later be elevated to the senior U.S. official in Iraq following the invasion in 2003, the chairman wrote: “Rather than adding to the prospects for peace, increased supplies of arms may encourage Iran to intensify its military actions and continue to reject the negotiated settlement option.” The military’s opposition carried the day for the next four years. Lieutenant General Paul Gorman memorandum for L. Paul Bremer, “Arms Transfer Policy toward Iran,” September 3, 1981.

6.
CIA message, “Fabricator Notice—Manuchehr (Gorbanifar),” July 25, 1984, pp. 1–3,
www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB210/index.htm
.

7.
Michael Ledeen,
Perilous Statecraft: An Insider’s Account of the Iran-Contra Affair
(New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1988), p. 120.

8.
McFarlane contacted both Shultz and Weinberger. On Saturday, July 13, he called on a secure telephone to the defense secretary’s home in McLean, Virginia. Weinberger was sitting in his garden going through some papers he had taken home to work on over the weekend. In the first of five phone calls to Weinberger—and one more to Powell—McFarlane relayed the Israeli proposal. Ayatollah Karoubi could attain the release of the seven U.S. citizens held hostage in Lebanon, but he wanted a hundred TOW missiles from Israel so he could show his supporters some positive result from their dealings with the West. Weinberger’s reply to McFarlane remains a mystery, as he later denied any memory of the repeated phone calls from McFarlane. But Shultz, who was traveling to Australia, expressed cautious support for the Israeli proposal. “I agree with you that we should make a tentative show of interest without commitment. I do not think we could justify turning our backs on the prospect of gaining the release of the other seven hostages and perhaps developing an ability to renew ties with Iran under a more sensible regime—especially when presented to us through the prime minister of Israel.” Later Bud McFarlane tried to exaggerate this initial positive response from Shultz as proof that the secretary of state initially supported the arms deal with Iran. In truth, Shultz advocated caution in his message back to McFarlane, but was not going to reject out of hand what might be a promising diplomatic opening, especially when he was halfway around the world in Canberra. But upon his return to Washington and once time afforded a fuller examination of the arms offer proposed by the Israelis, Shultz lined up with Weinberger in vehement opposition to the Iranian arms
scheme. While Weinberger denied any knowledge of the calls from McFarlane in his book
Fighting for Peace
, in 1991 the Office of the Independent Council found a note taken by the secretary mentioning the calls on July 13. See Weinberger,
Fighting for Peace
, p. 366;
Final Report of the Independent Council for Iran/Contra Matters
[hereafter referred to as Walsh Report], Part VIII, “Officers of the Department of Defense,
U.S. vs. Caspar Weinberger
and Related Investigations,” footnote 9; George Shultz message to Robert McFarlane, “Reply to Backchannel No. 3” (142333Z), July 1985;
The Iran Contra Scandal: The Declassified History
(Washington D.C.: National Security Archive, 1993), p. 261.

9.
Robert McFarlane,
Special Trust
(New York: Cadell and Davies, 1994), p. 27; Walsh Report,
Chapter 1
.

10.
Weinberger interview; Weinberger,
Fighting for Peace
, pp. 368–69; McFarlane,
Special Trust
, pp. 32–33.

11.
Attorney General Edwin Meese III, Grand Jury, November 20, 1987, p. 83.

12.
McFarlane,
Special Trust
, p. 34.

13.
They were delivered by the Pakistani foreign minister, Japanese foreign minister, and the deputy German foreign minister.

14.
Poindexter interview.

15.
But neither the CIA nor the DIA agreed. Both intelligence agencies concluded that no Soviet plane had overflown Iran. While complete fiction, Ghorbanifar’s falsehood served to stimulate the Soviet suspicions of Casey and others of a similar vein in the administration about Moscow’s intentions in Iran.

16.
At the end of October, Ledeen met with Karoubi in Geneva. While multiple versions exist about what was discussed at this meeting, Ghorbanifar clearly reiterated the Iranian government’s willingness to release all the remaining hostages in return for this batch of sophisticated American weaponry. Ledeen back-briefed both North and McFarlane. Oliver North’s handwritten notes of the meeting remarked that Karoubi “wants to be U.S. ally—has support in Tehran.” While Ledeen had become uncomfortable at the arms-for-hostages angle, he urged McFarlane to support the effort as an opening to the Iranian government.

17.
Trita Parsi,
Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the U.S.
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008), p. 118.

18.
Clarridge,
Spy for All Seasons
, p. 309; Clarridge interview.

19.
“Remarks Announcing the Resignation of Robert C. McFarlane as Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and the Appointment of John M. Poindexter,” December 4, 1985,
Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: President Ronald Reagan, 1985
, p. 1440.

20.
Weinberger Diary, December 7, 1985.

21.
Instead Reagan decided to send McFarlane and North to London, where North was already meeting with Ghorbanifar and the Israelis. Meeting in a Victorian-era building in London’s West End, McFarlane took an immediate dislike to Ghorbanifar, whom he later described as “kind of a north end of a southbound horse.” “The United States,” McFarlane began, “welcomes discussions with Iran and improvement of relations. We are interested in establishing contact with political figures committed to changing Iranian policy. Whenever you and your colleagues are ready for this, they should say so. But until that time, we have no interest in transferring more arms.” Ghorbanifar exploded. He pounded his fist on a small wooden table. “What are you talking about?! Are you crazy? My contacts want change but they are too weak now for political talk with you. They must get strong and take power. If I take this back to my colleagues they will go mad. They might just say, ‘To hell with the hostages! Let Hezbollah kill them!’” Kimche took a similar, albeit more measured, view. He expressed confidence that this would produce change within the Iranian leadership over time. “I think you’re missing a big opportunity. These movements take time to consolidate; and these people are delivering to us important items, information, and we see signs from our intelligence that they’re making headway.” McFarlane flew back to debrief the president. As one of the principal architects of the arms sales to Iran, he left the London meeting convinced that Ghorbanifar was corrupt and duplicitous. His sole interest lay in acquiring weapons for the Iranian regime.

22.
Ronald Reagan, “Finding Pursuant to Section 662 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 as amended, Concerning Operations Undertaken by the Central Intelligence Agency,” January 17, 1986, p. 1.

23.
North memorandum to John Poindexter and Robert McFarlane, “Next Steps,” December 9, 1986,
The Iran-Contra Scandal: The
Declassified History
, pp. 280–82.

24.
Reagan Diaries
, entry for January 17, 1986, p. 384.

25.
Charles Allen testimony,
Hearings on the Nomination of Robert Gates to Be Director of Central Intelligence
, volume 2, p. 4.

26.
President’s Special Review Board Interview of Robert Gates, Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, January 12, 1987;
Hearings on the Nomination of Robert Gates to Be Director of Central Intelligence
, U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 1991, pp. 319–20.

27.
Lang interview.

28.
Ibid.

29.
Allen interview.

30.
Charles Allen, quoted in Weiner,
Legacy of Ashes
, p. 404;
Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair
, p. 206.

31.
Office of the Inspector General, Department of the Army,
Final Report of Investigation into the Facts and Circumstances Surrounding the Sale and Transfer of Missiles, Spare Parts, and Other Related Equipment to Selected Middle East Countries
, February 3, 1987, p. 6; Colin Powell,
My American Journey
(New York: Random House, 1995), p. 311.

32.
North to McFarlane, February 27, 1986,
Joint Hearings before the House Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran
, Appendix A, p. 1179.

33.
Odom interview.

34.
Walsh Report,
Chapter 24
, “The Investigation of State Department Officials: Shultz, Hill and Platt,”
www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_24.htm
, accessed December 12, 2010.

35.
Armitage interview; William J. Crowe,
The Line of Fire: From Washington to the Gulf, the Politics and Battles of the New Military
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993), pp. 300–301.

36.
Theodore Draper,
A Very Thin Line: The Iran-Contra Affairs
(New York: Hill and Wang, 1991), p. 314.

37.
North e-mail to Poindexter, May 6, 1986, cited in
Report on the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair
, p. 231.

38.
Rafsanjani’s nephew Ali Hashemi Bahramani mentioned this to George Cave during a later meeting.

39.
Notes by Oliver North, cited in Walsh Report,
Chapter 1
, “United States v. Robert C. McFarlane,”
fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh
; George Cave memorandum on the McFarlane mission to Tehran, May 30, 1986, National Security Archive Document Reader, pp. 295–96. According to the Bahramani, they looked to the embassy records and could find nothing about McFarlane, but did come across George Cave from his time in Iran a decade earlier. So they decided to meet with them.

40.
McFarlane message to Poindexter, May 27, 1986, cited in
Report on the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair
, p. 238.

41.
McFarlane message to Poindexter,
Joint Hearings before the House Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran
, Appendix A, p. 1270, column 1.