Playing Politics? You be the Judge

Last Wednesday, a reader caught me alleging facts not in evidence when I said that Ronald Reagan played politics with the Iranian hostages to win the election. It is a fascinating story with a current nexus that makes it timely. Bob makes the valid point that there is no proof that Mr. Reagan, his vice president, George H. W. Bush, and future CIA director, William Casey, negotiated with the Iranians to delay the release of the 52 Americans held for 444 days in the American Embassy in Teheran. There is no proof because there was no trial.

After the Shah fell, 500 or so Iranian “students” took over the American Embassy on November 4, 1979. President Carter embargoed purchases of Iranian crude and froze about $80 billion in Iranian assets in the U.S. while seeking a negotiated settlement. The death of the Shah and Iraq’s invasion of Iran made it possible for Algeria to broker negotiations. The Carter position was that the Iranians would be better off dealing with them than with Reagan who was on the record as being anti-Iran. The hostage release would have been put down to Carter’s negotiations but for Iran-Contra.

Oliver North’s harebrained scheme to sell Iran weapons to raise money for our horror show in Central America, forced Congress to look into the Reagan administration’s relations with Iran.
Despite the face that the Reagan administration started shipping weapons to Iran as soon as it took office, Lee Hamilton, the same Lee Hamilton George W. Bush picked to look into how we were caught unprepared by 9/11, refused to look into the arms for hostages allegations because he thought such an investigation would tear the country apart. That was the same argument advanced by another good and decent former House member, Gerald Ford, to support his pardon of Richard Nixon. Both President Ford and Representative Hamilton can be faulted for having too little faith in the American people and our system of government. Mr. Hamilton seems to be making a career of it, having twice failed to look into all charges.

After the Iran-Contra hearings, evidence began to emerge which said Reagan had played an illegal role in the negotiations. Israeli, Iranian and French sources said that Mr. Bush and Mr. Casey met with Iranian representatives in Madrid in July, 1980. Bob Woodward and Walter Pincus of the Washington Post reported that Reagan campaign officials met with Iranians at the L’Enfant Plaza Hotel in Paris on October 2.

Reagan’s Attorney General, Edwin Meese 3d, tried to stop investigations by claiming Congress had no authority to investigate whether Reagan campaign aides had sought to delay the release of American hostages in Iran in 1980. He also said the charges were politically motivated fraud.

Since we were denied hearings, it all boils down to who do you believe. Since there is evidence that Mr. Bush lied when he said he was “out of the loop” on Iran-Contra, I think the evidence favors the Woodward-Pincus account.

Tom Gordon
tsg0008@sbcglobal.net