Patriotic Crime: Iran-Contra

...That I didn't want to know anything about the funding for the contras...

...Gary Sick reports in October Surprise that in 1980 the Reagan-Bush campaign was worried that President Carter would win by negotiating the release of the Teheran embassy hostages just before the election...

...The sense of distance a group feels makes it easy for it to pursue its own ends without consideration for others...

...A Very Thin Line: The Iran-Contra Affairs, by Theodore Draper...

...Illegal...

...That is to say, even in a capitalist society there are spheres of life where success is not measured solely in economic terms...

...When the subordinate makes his report, he is often told: "I think you can do better than that," until the subordinate has worked out all the details of the boss's predetermined solution, without the boss being specifically aware of "all the eggs that have to be broken...

...He reported only to MacFarlane and later Poindexter, and so "was free from the usual bureaucratic restraints of a staff position...

...This notion describes a situation in which members of a group deliberately avoid knowledge of an illicit act committed by one of their own number...

...SPRING • 1992 • 249...

...In addition, the Reagan White House was a hermetic environment...

...in his testimony before the Hearings Committees Poindexter said that "the bureaucracy" was unwilling to recommend "high-risk operations" because of "their fear of failure," and, therefore, "I feel that in the very real world we live in, the NSC staff has got to be the catalyst that keeps the process moving forward...

...Although such acts are typically "illegal," they are regarded as "licit" or "lawful" by operators...

...Their title is taken from a Justice Brandeis decision: "The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachments by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding...

...the military profession is highly vulnerable to the simplicities of patriotic passion...

...The responses resemble the classic reaction of a Westinghouse executive convicted of price-fixing in 1961...

...MacFarlane, Poindexter, and North, whose entire adult lives were spent in the Navy and Marines, are products of this culture, wholly committed to cold war perceptions of the world...

...It is also reinforced by the relative isolation of the military which insulates them from other "definitions of reality...

...More important, the relative autonomy of the Executive Office permitted Poindexter and North to act on their professional prejudices...

...In 1984, after the passage of the Boland Amendments, Reagan instructed MacFarlane "to make sure to keep the contras together 'body and soul.' " It was a typical Reagan order...

...These comments echo North's shock on first hearing that he might face criminal charges: "it had never entered my mind that this could be contemplated as criminal behavior...

...The structure of the White House, the Executive Office of the President, permitted the free play of those prejudices...

...By October, the campaign had "agents . . . [in] the Pentagon, the intelligence agencies, the State Department, The White House . . . providing regular intelligence reports on the most highly classified policies and operations...

...An elect is chosen and enlightened...

...But the Reagan White House was not unique in this respect...

...Passion, though, submerges both reason and a recognition of limits: "My country, right or wrong" is an inherent simplistic tendency of patriotism...

...If we also recall the public response to North's congressional testimony, the absence of protest about his and Poindexter's escape from punishment, and the many expressions of relief that "we have this behind us," it is clear that the political culture is coming to accept as proper behavior what was once condemned as morally unacceptable...

...Thus, in addition to their professional biases and the freedom offered them by an insulated White House, the secrecy of their own actions conspired to protect them psychologically from the constraints that other views of reality impose...

...A sociologist, James William Coleman, defines white-collar criminals as persons who commit "violations of the law . . . in the course of a legitimate occupation" and who hold "respected positions in their communities...

...Yes, but not criminal . . I assumed that criminal action meant damaging someone, and we did not do that...

...The insulation of the staff permitted North to create what was essentially "a miniature CIA...

...Nor was Congress the only object of Poindexter's contempt...

...In this sense the military subculture since World War II has been a fertile soil for patriotic crime...

...To receive early warning of an "October surprise," Richard V. Allen, who later became Reagan's first National Security Adviser, organized "an extensive and sophisticated intelligence operation" inside the government...

...The theft of Carter's briefing book before the debate with Reagan was another result of this operation...

...In 1972 the Nixon campaign, afraid that the Democrats possessed information damaging to his reelection, instigated the break-in of the Democrats' party offices...

...Patriotism is a passionate devotion to one's country...

...Thus, to claim that Reagan must not have known of the diversion of funds because there was no "evidence of such complicity," as Edwin Meese still contends in a letter to the New York Times (August 1991), makes sense only to those who ignore the dynamics of modern organizations...

...As a professional military man he was suspicious of civilian bureaucracies...

...The structure easily allowed Poindexter to claim that the staff's "only loyalty is to the President," which is a conventional bureaucratic outlook in spite of his self-image as a member of "a breed apart," as Draper characterizes the junta's self-assessment...

...It is no accident that it was a military man who first proclaimed, "My country, right or wrong...

...North, Poindexter, and MacFarlane functioned, even within the White House, as a sort of secret society...

...We may expect to see more Watergates and Iran-contra affairs...

...As a long-time bureaucrat Poindexter knew just how much superiors had to be told, and even Ronald Reagan was enough of an executive to know the benefits of remaining ignorant of a subordinate's action...

...Operational codes are central not only to intelligence agencies but also to more ordinary organizations...

...I thought that we were more or less working on a survival basis . . . to keep our SPRING • 1992 • 245 plant and our employees...

...Allen that I didn't want to hear anything more about it...

...The military is always convinced that Congress cannot appreciate the nation's risks, even in times of actual war—a distrust intensified by Vietnam...

...The only thing they have ever been accused of was lying to Congress, which is a very delicate issue and isn't criminal in my opinion...

...there is, for example, no mandated congressional oversight...

...But there can be a tempered patriotism that recognizes that even love of country has bounds that must be respected...

...Now, there was a small group that functioned like a junta, to use Draper's term...

...Personal recognition may result from the action, for example, military promotion, but it will not result in significant economic gains...

...The justification for the existence of armies is that a nation is always threatened by enemies or potential enemies...

...that is, Iran-contra can be traced to the predispositions of its leading actors...

...By analogy, we may think of Iran-contra as "patriotic crime," a type of white-collar crime in which violations of the law are committed by people holding respected positions in the community who act not to further their own economic interests but for the benefit of the nation out of altruistic motives...

...Fawn Hall smuggles official documents out of Oliver North's office in the waistband of her panty hose...

...It implies that if there had been no MacFarlane, John M. Poindexter, and Oliver North, Iran-contra would not have happened...

...But the staff is effectively shielded from scrutiny...

...When Congress challenged cold war policies, it rubbed an old sore in the relationship between the armed forces and the civilian establishment...

...Executives convicted in the 1961 prosecution of price-fixing in the electrical equipment industry "almost invariably testified that they came new to a job, found price-fixing as an established way of life, and simply entered into it as they did into other aspects of their jobs...

...In a capitalist society business people are exposed to a cultural environment that encourages white-collar criminality...

...In his analysis of bribery Riesman points out, "There is nothing inherent in capitalism that would prohibit trusts, price-fixing, kickbacks or bribery...

...Excessive enthusiasm is substituted here for "management style...

...The critical question in a capitalist calculus is whether such actions are efficient in terms of production or profit...

...MacFarlane, for example, initially doubted whether the NSC staff should be used against the Sandinistas, and when he was asked why he didn't tell Reagan of his doubts replied, "To tell you the truth, probably the reason I didn't is because if I had done that, Bill Casey, Jeane Kirkpatrick, and Cap Weinberger would have said I was some kind of commie...

...and North tells the Hearings Committees, "I am not ashamed of anything in my professional or personal conduct" —all are testifying to the propriety of actions legally or ethically impermissible but approved by an operational code...

...Nor does it consider the extent to which Iran-contra resembles everyday practices in other institutional spheres...

...Consensual ignorance, a dark thread running through all of Iran-contra, is important for understanding Reagan's role in the affair...

...To understand white-collar crime it is necessary, following Coleman, to examine "the work related subcultures that expose members to a particular worldview while providing some degree of insulation from the generally accepted definitions of reality...

...These are comforting memories because their sheer looniness suggests Iran-contra is an exception to the normal course of events even in the twilight zones of international politics...

...M]y first reaction was to tell Mr...

...The same idea is expressed by Coleman, who says that an analysis of white-collar crime "must be rooted in the political economy of industrial capitalism...

...690 pp...

...Nixon's White House was governed by the same operational code that later governed Reagan's...

...A full understanding of the Iran-contra affair requires that it be placed within a broader social and cultural context...

...The contempt for Congress made it easy for Poindexter and North to lie to its committees...

...All this shows the fallacy of believing that the absence of a "smoking gun" acquits an executive of responsibility for an illegal action...

...Some can more easily recognize and abide those limits than can others...

...One of Draper's conclusions is that Irancontra was brought on by the belief that "the president and his agents can do anything they please in foreign policy...

...In a classic essay Georg Simmel wrote that the possession of a secret "gives one a position of exception," a position that emphasizes separateness from others...

...Ray Cline, a former deputy director of intelligence, didn't think that "people like George should be indicted...

...Robert Gates, for example, at the hearings on his first nomination to head the CIA in 1986, was asked about his response to being told by a colleague that money was being diverted to the contras by the White House...

...a former deputy director of the CIA thinks that "lying to Congress . . . is a very delicate issue and isn't criminal...

...A president who openly expressed his contempt for "the bureaucracy" and defined Congress as an enemy played into these institutional prejudices...

...This suggests that Iran-contra is another instance of a more familiar phenomenon...

...Secrecy has its own dynamics...

...A superior will say to a subordinate, for instance, "Give me your best thinking on the problem with [X...

...Even if one overlooks, as not proven though highly probable, the agreement with Iran to release the hostages minutes after the inauguration, the continuity in thought and action between Watergate and Iran-contra is obvious...

...In his Moral Mazes Robert Jackall says that among corporate managers SPRING • 1992 • 247 [s]uperiors do not like to give detailed instructions to subordinates . . pushing down details relieves superiors of the burden of too much knowledge, particularly guilty knowledge...

...This is true, but it misses something close to the heart of the matter...

...In the Reagan 248 • DISSENT White House there were few constraints on this simple-minded patriotism...

...Even North's own position "was created for him alone, insulated from the rest of the staff...

...Patriotic crime must be seen in a similar fashion as having its roots in patriotism...

...Unfortunately, if we remember George Bush's appeal to American racism and simple-minded patriotism during the 1988 campaign, to say nothing of his behavior since, it seems that nothing has changed...

...An operator is someone who knows the code in his own social setting—certain lawyers, some police officers, some businessmen, an agent, a kid at school...

...Another instance of consensual ignorance occurred at a later stage of the affair when Poindexter did not inform Reagan that North was diverting funds to the contras...

...The Boland Amendments, which limited military aid to the contras, were simply another instance of Congress's "ignorance of the world...

...It does not consider the structure of the National Security Council (NSC) staff and the role played, within that setting, of the beliefs and attitudes that the leading actors brought with them from their professional backgrounds...

...Senators William S. Cohen and George J. Mitchell in Men of Zeal draw a related conclusion...

...Indeed, their oath of loyalty demands that they rescue others from darkness...

...Smoking guns" may not exist simply because executives deliberately avoid detailed orders that might provide them with guilty knowledge...

...It is a view of the world highly congruent with the cold war mentality...

...MacFarlane later claimed that "the President had made clear he wanted a job done," and, since the Boland Amendments made it impossible for the Defense Department or the CIA to do the job, it fell to the NSC staff...

...These circumstances encouraged recourse to a code of conduct similar to that found in the CIA and other institutional spheres...

...The junta's operation, then, is not surprising: it merely operated in terms of what had become acceptable behavior in the White House...

...27.95...

...Here again a major emphasis falls on the personal characteristics of the protagonists...

...If we can believe Poindexter, once Reagan gave him a general mandate, he did not tell Reagan how, and Reagan did not bother to ask him how, it was being implemented...

...he "disliked matters of detail and was satisfied to make his wishes known without giving his subordinates a clear idea of how to carry them out...

...Only on occasions of major scandals, for example, Watergate, do the public and Congress get glimpses of how the Executive Office functions...

...As Poindexter later told the Hearings Committees, after working in the White House very closely with the President for many years, "I was convinced that I understood the President's thinking on this and that if I had taken it to him that he would have approved it...

...It is reinforced by an institutional investment in holding on to the idea of a powerful enemy, since it means that the armed forces have to continuously expand in order to maintain the necessary state of readiness...

...Nixon's angry "I am not a crook" was an early variation on Ray Cline's later assertion that lying to Congress was not a crime, just as Allen's intelligence operation was another version of the Watergate capers...

...In Folded Lies, an analysis of the white-collar crime of bribery, a legal scholar, W. Michael Riesman, points out that along with the legal and ethical codes there is an "operational code . . . that tells 'operators' when, by whom, and how certain 'wrong' things may be done...

...The combination of elite status and possession of secret information about "the real world" gave the junta, in the words of Draper's shrewd insight into North's self-image, a sense of being part of "an embattled elect...

...others exist in a world of darkness from which they must be rescued by the elect...

...But to focus on this makes the affair seem like something outside the mainstream of American society...

...246 • DISSENT It had the advantage of being made up of private citizens who did not have to testify before congressional committees...

...The operator does not see his actions, Riesman says, as "a violation of an oath to serve an organization, but rather the ultimate affirmation of that loyalty...

...There is firmly entrenched in the White House an operational code that allows the president and his people to define as lawful deviant actions that further their own narrow ends or supposed national interests...

...It's wrong...

...Although technically the NSC staff belongs to the National Security Council, it has become since Dwight Eisenhower's time part of the president's staff...

...Although North controlled the distribution of enormous sums of money, Draper notes that "he seems to have permitted the money to flow freely to everyone but himself...

...A more significant form of consensual ignorance occurs when superiors, nominally responsible for enforcing the rules, structure a situation so that they can maintain a willful ignorance of a subordinate's illicit actions...

...New York: Hill and Wang, 1991...

...Thus Clair George orders a subordinate to lie to a congressional committee...

...The most complete description, and the one that will remain the best and most authoritative for some time to come, is Theodore Draper's A Very Thin Line.* Draper adopts Casper Weinberger's phrase, "people with their own agenda," and he says that it "sharply expresses what was most significant about the Iran-contra affairs—the takeover of government policies by a few strategically placed insiders infatuated with their own superiority and incorruptibility...

...When told of the indictment of Clair E. George, a high-ranking CIA official at the time of the affair, the head of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers complained, "Here is a man who served his country in danger who is essentially being pilloried as a common criminal...

...MacFarlane probably never did tell Reagan everything that North did, thus sparing Reagan guilty knowledge of North's broken eggs...

...This muting of the more serious implications of the affair is also apparent in the report of the first official inquiry by the Tower Board, which blamed President Ronald Reagan's "management style...

...Such ways of life go hand in hand with patterns of "consensual ignorance...

...This idea percolated down simplistically to Poindexter and North and made them feel that they were empowered to act with impunity in the president's name...