The Watchers (58 page)

55
Poindexter knew the president saw things much more simply, as a straight exchange of missiles for influence:
This may be one of the most misunderstood points of the entire Iran-Contra affair. For as much as the administration tried to portray the Iran operation as more than a simple arms-for-hostages swap, the president always saw it that way. It's clear from my interviews with Poindexter, as well as Reagan's inability to articulate the reasons for the initiative after it was exposed, that the president always saw the plan as a simple quid pro quo. To me, the fact that Poindexter also knew this and yet tried to articulate a broader rationale in the second finding reveals two important truths: First, he believed that the American public was up to the task of understanding a complex, multifaceted policy. And second, he believed that the president would never be forgiven if it turned out that his ostensibly elaborate plan was actually very simple. In both these assumptions, Poindexter erred. Iran-Contra was so convoluted that not even its participants discerned all the moving parts. And as it turned out, while Reagan's legacy was certainly tarnished by the scandal of a cover-up, his basically good intentions to bring Americans home shone through, and perhaps helped save his presidency.

I once asked Poindexter, If you could do anything over again from the Iran-Contra days, what would it be? He thought a moment and said, “I'd have come up with a public relations strategy, because we always knew that if we were exposed, we'd have a hard time explaining to people what we'd been doing.” I think that Poindexter thought too much. He probably takes that criticism as a point of pride. “Nobody is obliged to be ignorant,” he has told me on several occasions. But Poindexter often puts unrealistic demands on people, and sets impossible expectations. The fact is, he is vastly smarter than most, and he has lived most of his life being rewarded for that intelligence. But during Iran-Contra, and years later, it betrayed him.

57
“You can meet with anyone in our government at any time,” Poindexter promised the relatives. . . . “He's a classy guy,” the daughter of one hostage told a reporter:
Joan Mower, “Families of Hostages in Lebanon Visit White House, Embassies, Capitol Hill,” Associated Press, January 21, 1986.

58
They were lies. Or, in the most charitable light, deliberately misleading partial truths:
See Walsh's Iran-Contra report. Walsh called these claims, as well as “virtually identical” statements in a letter sent September 12, 1985, to Rep. Michael Barnes, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs, “false denials of contra-aid activities.” Walsh writes, “In addition to written representations, McFarlane on September 5, 1985, met with leaders of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and assured them no laws had been broken and no NSC staff member had aided the contras or solicited funds on their behalf. On September 10, 1985, he made similar assurances in a meeting with Hamilton and other House Intelligence Committee members; the Hamilton meeting was followed up with written questions and answers, in which McFarlane again misrepresented the facts. In these responses, he stated that North had not helped facilitate the movement of supplies to the contras and that no one on the NSC staff had an official or unofficial relationship to fund-raising for the contras.” Walsh also notes that “McFarlane later admitted that his responses to Congress were ‘too categorical' and they were at the least, overstated. He claimed, however, that he did not lie.” On March 11, 1988, McFarlane pleaded guilty to four misdemeanor counts of withholding information from Congress. He was sentenced to two years' probation, $20,000 in fines, and 200 hours community service. Reagan pardoned him on December 24, 1992.

59
Poindexter expressed his satisfaction to North in an electronic mail message: “Bravo Zulu,” the naval signal for “well done”:
See
The Iran-Contra Scandal: The Declassified History
for communications between North and Poindexter. In an interview Poindexter emphasized, regretfully, that he hadn't meant to seem to praise North for successfully lying to members of Congress. He didn't believe that he'd done so. Rather, Poindexter thought North had performed well by not revealing the operation while still answering the committee's questions.

59
The sole survivor, an American named Eugene Hasenfus, told his Sandinista captors that he worked for the CIA:
See Walsh's Iran-Contra report.

60
Administration officials told Congress that Hasenfus did not work for the CIA, which was true. He worked for North:
Ibid.

60
in due course discovered that their Iranian contacts were utter charlatans:
After McFarlane and company had played out the charade with their alleged intermediaries, it was clear that Ghorbanifar could not make good on his promises because he was in no position to assist the Americans with gaining the hostages' release. Walsh also notes that Ghorbanifar was unfavorably regarded in the intelligence community well before he became the NSC staff's “first channel” among Iran, the United States, and Israel. “Ghorbanifar was . . . well known to the American intelligence community as a prevaricator. The CIA had concluded, after past interaction with Ghorbanifar, that he could not be trusted to act in anyone's interest but his own. So strong were the CIA's views on Ghorbanifar that the Agency issued a ‘burn notice' in July 1984, effectively recommending that no U.S. agency have any dealings with him.”

61
Look on the bright side, North encouraged:
See Walsh's Iran-Contra report.

61
“Oh shit,” McFarlane thought:
Ibid.

61
George Shultz, the secretary of state, was apoplectic:
For a recounting of the tense meeting in which Poindexter pushed back at Shultz, see Woodward's
Shadow.

63
But as the mock journalists volleyed questions at the president, he forgot his lines:
Interview with Poindexter. Also see Larry Speakes's memoir, cowritten with Robert Pack,
Speaking Out: Inside the Reagan White House
(New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1988), and Edmund Morris's
Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan
(New York: Random House, 1999).

64
“Oh, shit,” Meese said:
See Woodward's
Shadow.
Walsh's independent counsel report also chronicles how Meese and his colleagues exposed the link between the Iran and Contra operations, but it omits the former attorney general's expletive.

65
With the click of a button, he deleted them:
Interviews with Poindexter in 2004 and 2008. Also see Walsh's Iran-Contra report.

65
Reagan took his pen and across the top of the article scrawled a note of praise: “Great—RR”:
Poindexter kept the original copy with Reagan's note; he showed it to me and gave me a copy.

66
Poindexter fixed his eyes on the twenty-five-year-old jury foreman:
David Johnston of the
New York Times
provided the most vivid accounts of the trial that I found. His rendering of the day of the verdict ran on April 7, 1990, under the headline “Poindexter Is Found Guilty of All 5 Criminal Charges for Iran-Contra Cover-up.”

67
“an overwhelming set of facts”:
Another Johnston piece, “Foreman of the Jury in Poindexter's Trial Discusses the Case,” ran on April 9, 1990.

71
There was a time when everyone was linked to a lug nut, and the agents of the FBI liked it that way:
My reporting on the evolution of telecommunications and surveillance technology, beginning in the mid-1980s, involved interviews over the years with dozens of law enforcement officials, technology experts, telecom executives, and lawyers. But I make special note here of a few who were instrumental in helping me to understand the issues involved in the subject of this chapter, the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act: James Kallstrom, who ran wiretapping operations for the FBI in its New York field office; Jerry Berman, an attorney who helped craft the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and CALEA and who founded the Center for Democracy and Technology; Beryl Howell, who worked for Senator Patrick Leahy on the CALEA legislation; and Al Gidari, a lawyer who represented wireless telecom carriers. Interviews with all these experts took place in 2008. I'm especially grateful to Berman, who hosted me at his home for an afternoon and provided contacts to more sources of expertise and history.

71
Agents had insinuated themselves into the inner workings of their targets by surreptitiously snatching their own words off copper phone lines:
Kallstrom provided valuable, firsthand accounts of the relationship between FBI agents and the telecom companies. He also gave me vivid descriptions of the telephone switching stations.

71
“Go up on RR326”:
Kallstrom's words.

72
The FBI's friends in the phone company put the bureau on notice:
Kallstrom recalled that this was a period of tremendous anxiety within the bureau and especially in the New York field office.

73
“If we don't do something, we'll be out of the wiretapping business”:
Interview with Kallstrom. These were his words to officials in Washington.

75
Beginning in August 1994, senior law enforcement officials sat down for meetings in Washington with a coalition:
Interviews with Berman and Howell, as well as others involved in the negotiations who asked not to be named here.

76
He held up a glass jar full of rocks and asked the room, “How many of you would say this jar is full?”:
Interview with David Johnson, attorney and telecommunications expert, in 2008.

78
Freeh made the political call: Let's take what we can get here:
Interview with Kallstrom.

78
He thought it looked like the Cadillac of wiretaps:
Interview with Gidari. He also provided firsthand accounts of the tense meetings between federal officials and telecom employees.

Unless otherwise noted, statements, thoughts, and actions attributed to John Poindexter in this chapter came from interviews conducted mostly in 2008, as well as from electronic message exchanges.

81
He had occasion to thank George H. W. Bush personally for not pardoning him: “I'm glad I did it on my own”:
This account of the White House encounter with Bush and Reagan comes from Robert Timberg,
The Nightingale's Song
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995).

82
“The buck stops here with me,” he intoned:
See the “Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters,” by Lawrence Walsh. This is perhaps Poindexter's most memorable line.

82
He smoked throughout the proceedings, lighting the bowl with a silver Zippo that was mailed to him by the owner of the company, an ardent political supporter:
The lighter was a gift from Harriett Wick, who in addition to having the perfect name for the head of a lighter manufacturer was also the daughter of the Zippo's inventor. Poindexter told me that during the Iran-Contra hearings Wick sent him a rare, solid-gold lighter that the company had manufactured to celebrate its fiftieth anniversary. She had apparently seen him smoking a pipe on television and offered the token as a show of support; it was engraved with his initials. Poindexter was still an active-duty military officer and unable to accept such an expensive gift—his lawyers had the lighter appraised at nine hundred dollars. He sent the Zippo back to Mrs. Wick with his thanks and regrets. She replied with a silver lighter valued at about ninety dollars, below the threshold of acceptable gifts to military officers. Poindexter kept this lighter and used it for years.

84
One afternoon, Poindexter headed over to the DARPA offices to meet with Brian Sharkey, a taciturn ex-submarine hunter:
Sharkey spoke to me about his history with Poindexter and their work together in 2004.

86
In 1992, State's inspector general chided Clarke:
See “Arms-Export Reports Further Strain U.S.-Israeli Ties,” by Thomas Friedman in the
New York Times
, March 15, 1992. Also see “Israel Arms Sales Illegal, U.S. Finds,” by David Hoffman and R. Jeffrey Smith in the
Washington Post
, March 14, 1992.

87
Clarke's first test on terrorism came quickly:
See Richard Clarke's memoir,
Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror
(New York: Free Press, 2004).

90
Officials also found three attaché cases containing liquid, fans, vents, and batteries in a Tokyo subway station:
For a detailed chronology of the cult's activities, see “Global Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction: A Case Study on the Aum Shinrikyo” by the U.S. Senate Government Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, from October 31, 1995,
www.fas.org/irp/congress/1995_rpt/aum/index.html
.

91
Clarke would have understood as well as anyone how intelligence often was abused and misused by human analysts:
As a seasoned security official, Clarke would have had many occasions to witness the political uses of intelligence. Perhaps the most famous instance occurred in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. In Clarke's memoir, he describes at length his opinion that the Bush administration stretched the facts and cherry-picked intelligence in order to find a connection between Al Qaeda and the Iraqi government, one that he believed didn't exist.

92
But upon first glance, she thought he could have been an English professor as easily as a former national security adviser:
Interview with Mary McCarthy in 2008.

92
Poindexter briefly gave McCarthy the rundown on the Genoa program:
Interviews with McCarthy and Poindexter.

92
McCarthy had published articles connecting this systemic problem to high-profile intelligence failures:
McCarthy's writings are some of the most prescient essays on the future threat of terrorism to the United States that I've read. They are frequently cited by intelligence historians in academic and professional journals. See McCarthy's papers “The National Warning System: Striving for an Elusive Goal,” published in the
Defense Intelligence Journal
in 1994, as well as “The Mission to Warn: Disaster Looms,” published in that journal's fall 1998 edition.