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Politics : Bill Clinton Scandal - SANITY CHECK -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Zoltan! who wrote (8070)	10/8/1998 2:29:00 PM
From: Borzou Daragahi	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 67261

Memory Lane Part III, suggestion that Bush lied. Those Walsh indictments violated Justice Department guidelines because they were issued the weekend before the election and they were leaked to the Clinton campaign - all in an effort to illegally influence the election. Since when have you been so concerned about the ethics and rules of the investigation? Starr's investigation was dirty as hell. And since when have you been concerned about leaks? Starr is under investigation for leaks. Up to that point Bush was gaining and many think that act of a spiteful prosecutor gave Clinton the election. Like any of the electorate ever gave a damn about Iran-Contra. The New York Times October 23, 1992, Friday, Late Edition - Final SECTION: Section A; Page 14; Column 1; National Desk LENGTH: 933 words HEADLINE: A Secret Memo Hints Bush Was Close to Hostage Deals BYLINE: By DAVID JOHNSTON, Special to The New York Times DATELINE: WASHINGTON, Oct. 22 BODY: A classified White House memorandum dated Nov. 26, 1985, shows for the first time how national security aides involved George Bush in their plans to use Terry Waite, the Church of England envoy, to win the release of Americans held hostage in Lebanon. The memorandum was prepared for John M. Poindexter, then the deputy national security adviser, by Oliver L. North, a National Security Council aide. It was written to familiarize then-Vice President Bush with Mr. Waite's hostage-release activities in advance of Mr. Bush's hastily arranged meeting with the Anglican emissary on the afternoon of Nov. 26. It is not entirely certain that Mr. Bush read the memo, but if he did the contents are not in conflict with his past statements. All along, Mr. Bush has said he knew about the efforts to gain the release of American hostages being held in Lebanon. But the memo is significant because it shows that White House aides gave Mr. Bush a wealth of details about their secret efforts to free the hostages, raising more questions about Mr. Bush's recent assertions that he was "not in the loop" about the Iran-contra affair. Mention of 17 Terrorists Although the memorandum did not refer to the arms-for-hostages deal with Iran that was getting under way at that time, through arms sales arranged with Israel, it does ask Mr. Bush to discuss with Mr. Waite some of the ancillary demands the Iranians had made as part of hostage negotiations. It also includes a cryptic hint that Mr. Bush was told of plans to encourage Mr. Waite to persuade the Kuwaiti Government to exchange "blood money" for the release of 17 Moslem terrorists they had in prison, one of Iran's demands. If the reference to paying "blood money" was in effect a ransom, that would have been a contravention of the United States policy that forbade bargaining with hostage takers. C. Boyden Gray, the White House counsel, said he would not talk about the contents of the document. "Since it is apparently classified, I should not discuss it," he said. The memorandum also sheds more light on the puzzling relationship forged between Mr. North, the cocksure Marine lieutenant colonel working in the White House, and Mr. Waite, the headstrong church official who risked his life traveling to Beirut to meet with the hostages' captors, only to become a hostage himself. Since Mr. Waite's release last year, some news accounts have suggested that Mr. North manipulated Mr. Waite as a kind of false front, crediting him with hostage releases that were obtained through the sales of arms to Iran. But both men have said Mr. Waite was just what he appeared to be: a private emissary. Four Meetings With Captors The memo described Mr. Waite's harrowing experiences during four meetings with the captors in Beirut. But it focuses primarily on how Mr. North and Mr. Poindexter planned to use Mr. Waite to address one of the Iranians'and the hostage-holders' thorniest demands, the release of the Moslem terrorists held in Kuwaiti jails. That issue proved to be an intractable sticking point as Kuwait refused to release the men who came to be known as the Dawa prisoners. Mr. Bush did meet Mr. Waite, although news accounts of their meeting quoted Mr. Waite as saying that he provided Mr. Bush with only a "general briefing." The memorandum regarding Mr. Bush's meeting with Mr. Waite remains "secret" and was among a number of classified papers about the affair that someone sent anonymously to The New York Times. Current and former government officials who were interviewed about the documents said they appeared to be genuine. Many of the documents have been already released in edited form by the Iran-contra Congressional investigating committees, or by prosecutors in the trials of Reagan Administration officials charged with wrongdoing. But some have never been disclosed. Request Is Denied On Tuesday, officials at the Justice Department and representatives of the office of Lawrence E. Walsh, the Iran-contra independent prosecutor, asked The Times to surrender the documents. Lawyers for the newspaper declined. The Government withheld most Iran-contra documents relating to dealings between Reagan Administration officials and Mr. Waite, fearing, while he was in captivity, that any confirmation of his association with Reagan Administration officials might endanger his life. He was kidnapped in January 1987 and released in November 1991. The memo indicated that Mr. Waite's "principal contact" among the captors was an American-educated Shiite, "who continues to emphasize that their main objective is the release of the 17 Dawa party prisoners held in Kuwait." The document said that American efforts to intervene with Kuwait to arrange a meeting between Mr. Waite and Kuwaiti officials had failed, though Mr. Waite had not given up. The memo advised Mr. Bush that Mr. North and Mr. Poindexter had urged Mr. Waite to continue his efforts and, if successful, return to Beirut, where he should "seek a new point of departure for discussions with the captors." One provocative passage in the memo said that American officials wanted to encourage Mr. Waite to explore "alternatives" with the Kuwaitis to allow "the payment of 'blood money' or the release of at least some of the Dawa prisoners as a humantiarian gesture during a religious holiday." The memo warned that "we can in no way be publicly associated with this latter course," but it said that, "Waite should be be encouraged to proceed in this direction since it may offer the best chance for the Kuwaitis in the future."