Memory Lane--Bush, you liar, we'll set your ass on fire!
IN HIS OWN WORDS: BUSH'S ROLE IN ARMS SHIPMENTS
Dec. 3, 1986 -- "I was aware of our Iran initiative and I supported the President's decision. I was not aware of and oppose any diversion of funds, any ransom
payments or any circumvention of the will of Congress." -- Speech to the American Enterprise Institute
Feb.11, 1987 -- "The key players around there know that I expressed certain reservations on certain aspects, but I also see some things in the media that I know not to
be true about my role." -- News conference in Lansing, Mich.
Aug. 6, 1987 -- "I'f I'd have sat there and heard George Shultz and Cap express it strongly maybe I would have had a stronger view. But when yoiu don't know
spomething it's hard to react ... we were not in the loop." -- In The Washington Post
Jan. 7, 1988 -- "It wasn't planning and discussing and going over all these details like a National Security Council meeting. ... That never took place. That's one of the
mistakes." -- When asked about the briefings he received on the arms shipments.
Jan. 14, 1988 -- "I was not at meetings in 1985, especially the Dec. 7, 1985, meeting when objections were apparently forcefully stated. ... Had there been any
strenuous objection (at other meetings) I am sure I would have remembered it." -- In The Washington Post.
May 1987 -- "I was asked by reporters why I didn't know more. The answer was and is that the people running the operation had it compartmentalized, like pieces of a
puzzle. My first real chance to see the picture as a whole didn't come until December 1986 when Dave Durenberger, then chairman of the Senate Intelligence
committee, briefed me on his committee's investigation of the affair. ... What Dave had to say left with the feeling, expressed to my chief of staff, Craig Fuller, that I'd
been deliberately excluded from key meetings involving details of Iran-contra operation." -- in his autobiography
May 1987 -- "As it turned out, George Shultz and Cap Weinberger had serious doubts, too. If I had known that and asked the President to call a meeting of the N.S.C.,
he might have seen the project in a different light, as a gamble doomed to fail." In his autobiography
Dec. 5, 1987 -- "I never really heard them that clearly. And the reason is that the machinery broke down. It never worked as it should. They key players with the
experience weren't ever called together the review the decision that were made at a lower level." -- in an interview with David Frost, about why he didn't heed
objections by Caspar Weinberger and George Shultz to the arms shipments.
Jan. 30, 1988 -- "The initiative first came to my attention in 1985, but I have no precise recollection of when I had my first conversation on the subject. ... I have never
indicated that I opposed the effort to open a channel to factions in Iran. In fact, I have said a number of times that I supported the initiative." -- in The New York
Times.
June 9, 1988 -- "I didn't say I didn't know anything that was going on. I said it never became clear to me, the whole arms-for-hostages thing, until it was fully
debriefed, investigated and debriefed by Durenberger." -- On the ABC program "Nightline"
Sept. 25, 1992 -- "I believe I've levelled with the American people, and I have nothing to add to it. ... Clearly, if I'd done anything wrong ... you can bet that the
Democrats in Congress would have had me before the bar." -- In an interview with Chicago radio station WBBM
The New York Times
September 26, 1992, Saturday, Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section 1; Page 1; Column 4; National Desk
LENGTH: 2511 words
HEADLINE: Ex-U.S. Aide Says He Told Bush Of Iran Arms-for-Hostage Swap
BYLINE: By DAVID JOHNSTON, Special to The New York Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON, Sept. 25
BODY:
A former national security aide in Ronald Reagan's White House said today that he told George Bush in the spring of 1986 that the United States was trading arms to
Iran in exchange for the release of hostages.
This new information from Howard R. Teicher, who worked on the National Security Council staff as a Middle East expert, contradicts Mr. Bush's repeated assertions
that he knew generally about the arms sales to Iran when they were taking place but did not realize that they involved a direct swap of arms for hostages.
Mr. Teicher said that Mr. Bush appeared interested in the topic and asked pertinent questions but seemed reluctant to get involved in decision making on hotly debated
issues.
'Begin With What I Knew'
Mr. Bush has always said that he was "not in the loop," as he put it in 1987. He provided his most detailed account of his knowledge of the affair in his book, "Looking
Forward" (Doubleday, 1987).
"Begin with what I knew and when I knew it," he wrote. "What I knew was that, working through the Israelis, an effort had been made to 'reach out' to one of the
Iranian factions, that there had been a weapons sale, and that in some way the hostage issue had become part of the project."
In the book, Mr. Bush explained that he did not know more because "the people running the operation had it compartmentalized, like pieces of a puzzle." When he finally
realized the full dimensions of the affair, he was left with the feeling that "I'd been deliberately excluded from key meetings involving details of the Iran operation."
Other officials have said that Mr. Bush, then Vice President, was present at meetings where the Iran initiative was discussed, but Mr. Teicher is the first to describe, in
detail, direct briefings. He said in a telephone interview that Mr. Bush was fully engaged in the discussions, asked pointed questions, and seemed to understand the
implications of the arms trade.
The arms sales did not become public until almost six months after Mr. Teicher says he briefed Mr. Bush on the matter.
Today, Mr. Bush adopted a defensive posture on the issue during an interview with WBBM-AM in Chicago, saying that he had already "leveled with the American
people about the affair."
Mr. Teicher, who accompanied Robert C. McFarlane, the former National Security Adviser, as a note-taker on an ill-fated hostage-release mission to Teheran in May
1986, said he was forced to resign after the affair was made public. But he said he bore no animosity toward Mr. Bush, and he denied suggestions by White House
aides that his comments might have been inspired by Democratic opponents.
Mr. Teicher said he is registered as an independent and has not decided for whom he will vote in November. He said that no one had tried to persuade him to make
critical comments about Mr. Bush. He said he discussed the issue when he was approached in recent days by a news organization that was re-examining the Bush
record in the Iran-contra affair.
"I briefed him in detail on aspects of the Iran initiative on several occasions," said Mr. Teicher, who worked at the White House from 1982 to 1987 and now operates a
computer software company here. "He was extremely well informed about foreign affairs and extremely interested, yet I found a pattern of behavior that was a desire
to be very well informed but not to be involved on any issue that was controversial."
Testified Twice
Mr. Teicher, who is writing a book about his White House years, has discussed his role in the affair both in a sworn deposition for Congress, which was made public
at the conclusion of the Iran-contra hearings, and to a grand jury investigating the affair. On Thursday he discussed his dealings with Mr. Bush in an interview on the
ABC News program "Nightline," and today he provided a fuller account of his meetings with Mr. Bush. But he has never been as explicit in public about what he told
Mr. Bush as he was in the interview today.
Mr. Teicher's comments provide the latest provocative piece of information in an accumulating body of evidence, compiled in Congressional investigations and in
criminal prosecutions, suggesting that Mr. Bush had a firmer grasp of the arms sales to Iran than he has acknowledged publicly.
In his campaign autobiography, in speeches and in answers to reporters' questions, Mr. Bush has tried over the years to explain his actions, asserting that he had
nothing to hide.
A New York Times/CBS News poll on Sept. 15 found that 55 percent of those surveyed said that the President was hiding things the public needed to know about the
affair.
Of No Legal Consequence
There is no public evidence that Mr. Bush engaged in any wrongdoing during the affair, nor is there any indication that he was aware of the most sensational single
aspect of the affair, the diversion of millions of dollars in proceeds from the arms sales to the Nicaraguan rebels.
And Mr. Teicher's account appears to be of no legal consequence to Mr. Bush since the independent prosecutor in the affair, Lawrence E. Walsh, has announced he
does not plan to seek further indictments.
But the President could pay a political price. After the Republicans pounded Bill Clinton on his shifting responses to questions about his draft status during the Vietnam
War, Democrats seem ready to show that Mr. Bush may have similar vulnerabilities over his candor on the Iran-contra affair.
"At the very least it raises questions about the completeness, accuracy and credibility of the President's entire statements," said George J. Mitchell of Maine, the Senate
Democratic leader. Mr. Mitchell was a member of the panel that investigated the affair, and he was the co-author of a book that included a chapter casting doubt on
Mr. Bush's contention that he was at the periphery of decision-making.
As Vice President when the Iran-contra operations took place, Mr. Bush had no operational authority, and as Mr. Reagan's understudy he was not expected to disagree
with the President on important policy issues, at least not openly. To have done so, Mr. Bush said in his book, would have been "the worst kind of cheap-shot
opportunism."
Still, Mr. Bush stood apart from most of Mr. Reagan's top advisers as an official who had dealt with some of the issues raised during the affair. As a past Director of
Central Intelligence, he had direct experience in covert operations. And he was regarded as a student of diplomacy in the Middle East as former ambassador to the
United Nations.
A review of his past statements about the affair in light of the public record raise questions about Mr. Bush's truthfulness about several significant elements of the
Iran-contra scheme. Mr. Bush says he felt excluded from key meetings and had only a hazy grasp of the affair, but records show he attended important meetings in
which the affair was discussed.
Mr. Teicher said that in his discussions with Mr. Bush he told the Vice President and other officials explicitly that arms were exchanged for hostages in order to fulfill
the broader strategic purpose of the project, to begin a dialogue with moderates in Iran about improving relations.
"It was clear that without the U.S. providing something tangible to the Iranians, the Iranians were not prepared to take the risk they thought might exist," said Mr.
Teicher. "This was not complex. We're not talking here about quantum mechanics. What really stunned me was how all these principals suddenly knew nothing about
what was going on."
Memos and other documents from the period also suggest that Mr. Bush was often present at Mr. Reagan's daily national security briefings, where the Iran-arms deal
was discussed.
Moreover, when Mr. Bush missed a session, John M. Poindexter, the national security adviser, often provided Mr. Bush with the information he had missed, Mr.
Poindexter's lawyers testified in hearings in advance of his criminal trial in which they unsuccessfully sought to subpoena Mr. Bush as a witness.
In addition, internal memos uncovered during the Iran-contra Congressional hearings showed that Mr. Bush was present at a White House meeting on Jan. 6, 1986,
when Mr. Poindexter advised the President of a plan to sell 4,000 anti-tank missiles to Iran. Mr. Bush also attended a meeting on Jan. 17, 1986, when Mr. Reagan
signed a legal order authorizing the transfer of arms to Iran in exchange for hostages.
Had Comprehensive Overview
On July 29, 1986, in a meeting at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, Amiram Nir, an Israeli counterterrorism expert, provided Mr. Bush with a comprehensive
overview of the progress of the arms deals. A memo on the meeting by Mr. Bush's aide, Craig Fuller, said that Mr. Nir "described the details of the effort from last year
through the current period to gain the release of the U.S. hostages."
In the weeks after Attorney General Edwin Meese 3d disclosed the affair in a White House news conference, Mr. Bush stood by Mr. Reagan, saying that he supported
the Iran initiative. "When the flak gets heavy out there," Mr. Bush said in an interview with Time magazine in December 1986, "the wingman doesn't go peeling off and
pull away from the flight leader."
In succeeding months, Mr. Bush subtly shifted his stance, appearing to walk a tightrope between loyalty and independence, saying that his support for the policy had
not stopped him from voicing "reservations" about "certain aspects" of the Iran initiative that he did not explain.
The public record provides no evidence of Mr. Bush's misgivings, although it is possible that he expressed these views during his regular Thursday lunches with Mr.
Reagan, in conversations they have never discussed.
There is evidence that Mr. Bush endorsed the arms sales. On Feb. 1, 1986, Mr. Poindexter wrote in an internal memo that George P. Shultz, the Secretary of State, and
Caspar W. Weinberger, the Defense Secretary, disagreed with the arms deals. But he said that William J. Casey, the Director of Central Intelligence, Donald Regan, the
chief of staff, Mr. Meese and Mr. Poindexter himself were "fully on board this risky operation."
"But most importantly," said Mr. Poindexter's memo. "President and VP are solid in taking the position that we have to try."
Last month Iran-contra prosecutors, working in connection with Mr. Weinberger's coming trial on perjury charges, disclosed that they had found a hint that Mr. Bush
might have embraced the arms sales more enthusiastically than he has acknowledged.
Papers filed by the prosecutors mention notes of a conversation in August 1987 between Mr. Shultz and Mr. Weinberger. The notes, taken by an aide to Mr. Shultz,
depict Mr. Weinberger and Mr. Shultz reacting indignantly to Mr. Bush's remarks playing down his role in the arms sales in an interview with The Washington Post
Mr. Bush said in the interview that he had not opposed the arms deals because he did not realize that Mr. Shultz and Mr. Weinberger had raised serious objections.
The notes show that Mr. Weinberger said that Mr. Bush's remarks were "terrible" and that the Vice President "was on the other side" in the internal battle over the arms
sales.
The aides notes also tipped off prosecutors to the existence of Mr. Weinberger's private diaries, the prime piece of evidence against him. In 1987, Mr. Shultz told the
Presidential review board investigating the affair that after the White House meeting he knew that Mr. Reagan, Mr. Bush and other senior advisers "all had one opinion,
and I had a different one and Cap shared it."
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