The Committee That Couldn't Shoot Straight
Waldman, Steven
The Committee That Couldn't Shoot Straight by Steven Waldman The Iran-contra committee preened before the television lights, dished out immunity, let lackluster lawyers lead the charge—and let...
...In a few months Reagan will be saying good-bye to a misty-eyed nation, Poindexter's lawyers will be thinking of ever more creative ways of avoiding trial, and North will be getting higher lecture fees and longer ovations...
...The Committee That Couldn't Shoot Straight by Steven Waldman The Iran-contra committee preened before the television lights, dished out immunity, let lackluster lawyers lead the charge—and let North & Co...
...Without Democratic counterbalances, no wonder Americans lost sight of why it's important that the National Security Council obey laws...
...Poindexter testified that not only did North and Hakim negotiate for the release of the Da'Wa Kuwaiti terrorists but Reagan actually approved the plan...
...Mitchell: "Do you think Colonel North spent from 11:00 in the evening until 4:15 the next morning destroying irrelevant documents...
...That gave leverage to North's attorneys, who threatened to drag out hearings if they didn't get what they wanted...
...In fact, the committee's composition was a liability...
...boxes...
...Mitchell proposed rejecting the demands, but Rudman and Inouye (with the crucial support of Liman) kept the motion from a vote to avoid a partisan split...
...Reagan did not buckle to the forceful wishes of advisers and see the plan gradually "evolve" into an arms-for-hostages deal...
...The diversion diversion When the committee hastily voted to give North and Poindexter limited-use immunity, it made an important decision...
...Gentlemen, please...
...McFarlane's red-faced, "it-is-more-than-passingstrange" speech on America's inability to combat terrorism succeeded, for example, in "muting" several lines of inquiry, they say...
...And in opposition...
...Had they preinterviewed North they might have been better prepared for his sometimes unorthodox lines of defense...
...Interestingly, Mitchell and Cohen say North's attorney, Brendan Sullivan, requested that the committee start off by questioning his client about the security gate...
...Sam Irvin showed during Watergate that committee chairmen can control witnesses without seeming unfair, but it's easier to cut off an H.R...
...Without questioning North on what memo he might be referring to, William Bradford Reynolds responded that no, they hadn't found such a memo...
...his suicide attempt was an effort to "accelerate his mortality...
...And all America liked 011ie, or so it seemed...
...Mitchell took offense at North's implication that contra opponents are unpatriotic...
...Their brutally honest selfcriticism somehow makes them look better...
...William S. Cohen, George J. Mitchell, Viking, $19.95...
...The Republicans appointed four pro-contra senators and one waffler, Cohen himself...
...True, Mitchell aimed low, but 011iemania fan clubs were already setting up P.O...
...It would focus instead on arms for hostages, cover-ups, illegal wars, and the rule of law...
...To get Oliver North to testify, we had let him set the time and terms of his testimony...
...In reality, Rudman acted as de facto cochairman...
...The executive branch skirts congressional rules all the time, after all, and Congress really is so fickle about these things...
...IP- Was that security fence really going to thwart Abu Nidal...
...Careers hung in the balance...
...Among North's other ideas were kidnapping the Iranian ambassador and having the contras capture territory on die Atlantic coast of Nicaragua so Americans would rally to an Alamo-like stand...
...Nields, on the other hand, will be remembered for clumsily asking North about what happened at "two thousand" hours-North corrected the Yale graduate: "Twenty hundred . . . military time ?'—and offering the question that prompted the lieutenant colonel's Abu-Nidalwantsto-murder-my-little-girl defense for illegally accepting gifts and falsifying records...
...The decision to form a joint House-Senate committee came after the leadership had appointed the separate committees...
...Sullivan himself would certify compliance with the subpoena...
...In fact, partisanship is considered a bit of a swear word with Cohen and Mitchell...
...And the key point was that he gave a speech—and speeches are what made North so successful...
...They cite the abundance of anti-semitic mail as evidence that he wasn't telegenic...
...Meese: "I think he probably did ." Another incredible exchange occurred when Meese informed North they had found the diversion memo...
...Creating a small joint committee would have meant rescinding invitations...
...Most disturbing, the authors (without naming names) paint a picture of a rather cowardly group...
...He and North simply denied the NSC was involved with the contras...
...Reagan's knowledge of the diversion was clearly an important question...
...They note that Hall "filled the nation's capital with helium," leading serious-minded men to experience "moments of adolescent giddiness...
...This was the single most important decision made by the committee!' Nields (occasionally) and Liman (invariably) were brilliant in eliciting information from the witnesses...
...In fact, when asked who made the best argument for going ahead with the sale, Weinberger said, "Perhaps the president...
...The problem was not that the administration was populated by too many "men of zeal" but that the committee was stocked with too few...
...Having 26 participants made it unwieldy...
...Apolitical lawyers would lead, and partisanship would be sublimated...
...The politicians proved more capable of putting North's actions in context...
...The lapses covered major events such as whether he ever saw five memos on the arms sales and diversions, what transpired during his conversation with North about the president's knowledge of the diversion, and what happened at his lunch with Casey on November 22...
...The committee had caved in," Cohen and Mitchell write...
...Perhaps their biggest strategic mistake was setting a deadline for the report's completion...
...The Iran-contra scandal has been reduced to just another item in the debit column of Reagan's ledger—a stain to be sure, but not much worse than Ed Meese's stock holdings, Noriega's drug running, and Reagan's opposition to plant-closing legislation...
...Their admission that members of the committee did, in fact, joke about asking Fawn Hall for her phone number is one of an occasional gossipy nugget that qualifies Men of Zeal as a "candid inside story...
...Sometimes his speeches were in response to a question, sometimes not...
...Yes, of course I am, you old buffoon...
...Haldeman than an Oliver North...
...The problem, though, was not that Liman looked too Jewish or that John Nields, the long-haired House counsel, looked too much like a draft dodger, but that, as the committee tried to champion the "rule of law," it consented to a rule of lawyers...
...110- McFarlane, North, and Weinberger all testified that Reagan's main interest in the arms deal was concern for the hostages...
...But nowhere would writer's block have been more welcome than in their chapter on Fawn Hall...
...The politicians at the hearings emphasized not just the officials' disrespect for "the law" but their contempt for democracy, common sense, honesty, and accountability...
...off the hook...
...On the House side articulate partisan Republicans were "matched" by a balanced and uninspiring group of committee chairmen and senior statesmen...
...in his New York world the motivating force for wrongdoing is greed...
...Indeed, Cohen and Mitchell seem to use mail as a prime measure of public support or opposition, while it more accurately gauges the brain chemical balance of any district's least stable citizens...
...and North would not be questioned ahead of time, as all the other witnesses had been...
...North said "no...
...Excessive bipartisanship and overreliance on nonpolitical hired help injured the committee more—and allowed the administration to get off the hook...
...Am I a pathological liar...
...reasonableness...
...Mitchell writes: "Whenever North felt like it, he simply made a speech...
...Even John Kerry, who had led a subcommitee investigation on the illegal support of the contras, was excluded...
...The book shows committee members obsessed with how the hearings could propel their careers, "an opportunity to step from relative political anonymity, reinforce one's standing at home, and enhance one's future national prospects ?' One big fear of committee members: that Fawn Hall would cry while they were questioning her...
...They note that each interview by Meese (except one with Casey), up to and including the one with North, was "conducted in a precise, professional manner: at least one other person was present [a member of Meese's staff] and detailed, written notes were kept of what was said" But, after North, every interview was conducted without notes...
...They chose the political forum believing that getting the facts out quickly was of supreme importance...
...That way the investigation couldn't be tagged a partisan, anticontra witchhunt...
...Families and villages were destroyed because of Oliver North's can-do gusto...
...It wasn't until the fourth day of North's testimony that a legislator questioned him...
...On the previous day Poindexter had destroyed the finding identifying the transaction as a straight arms-for-hostages trade...
...Mitchell, a Democrat, and Cohen, a Republican, worship at the altar of bipartisanship and Steven Waldman, a contributing editor of The Washington Monthly, is a correspondent in the Washington bureau of Newsweek...
...And the committee's staff did a remarkable job stitching together the scandal's byzantine plot from thousands of documents and depositions...
...In their book*, Maine Senators George Mitchell and William Cohen, two of the most impressive members of the committee, argue that it did serve a useful purpose by disseminating information quickly, but they also try to explain some of the panelists' mistakes...
...The title of this book certainly doesn't refer to its authors...
...After all, one of its authors, Cohen, is not just a writer (The Double Man, with Senator Gary Hart) but a poet (A Baker's Nickel...
...Granting immunity gave Lawrence Walsh less time to prepare and dramatically complicated his task...
...Committee members began to worry about how many constituents would remember their feelings of antagonism toward their representatives on the next election day?' Mitchell and Cohen argue that the sheer mechanics of the committee compounded their problems...
...Indeed their summaries of the hearings also provide an implicit criticism of the press, which too often failed to convey some of the scandal's most appalling elements...
...The seating arrangement made them look like an imperial tribunal persecuting a martyr...
...Instead, Brendan Sullivan dictated his terms: North could not be recalled as a witness...
...A promotional insert for the book brags that it is "quintessentially nonpartisan .") But the quest for consensus ultimately undermined the committee's performance...
...10- Innumerable important questions remain unanswered because Poindexter said 184 times that he couldn't remember...
...In private session, Mitchell argued that the committee should stand firm because it was in North's own interest to testify...
...At least one major strategic mistake— allowing Sullivan to dictate the terms of North's testimony—was made because Inouye and the Republican vice-chairman, Warren Rudman, wanted to avoid a partisan split...
...Although legislators always insist they did, in this case the claim is entirely plausible...
...110- In addition to some of the well-known examples of Meese botching the investigation, the authors remind us of Mitchell's line of questioning about the shredding that took place after the diversion memo had been found...
...Meese: "Well, we don't know whether those were relevant documents, irrelevant documents, or what they were...
...Liman didn't seem to understand that ideology can fuel zealotry as much as money...
...Did Cohen and Mitchell really write the book...
...Unfortunately, they then threw away their political tools and pressed the case as if it were a trial...
...The committee's biggest problem, they say, was TV...
...Members acceded to Sullivan because they feared a lengthy court battle over the records...
...Someone really fighting for something he believes in is admirable even if he's running an illegal war...
...The authors point out, for example, that CIA Director William Casey was "dead and thus beyond the reach of any mortal subpeona" and that administration officials were "snookered" by "fast-fingered merchants schooled in steamy street bazaars" The tragic Bud McFarlane "yielded [the words] one by one, as if he were giving birth to each...
...The disappearing lunch In an odd way, Mitchell and Cohen succeed where the committee failed: showing clearly that the Irancontra affair truly was an ugly chapter of American history, not simply a series of "mistaken" policies...
...Senate Chief Counsel Arthur Liman's "dark penetrating eyes," double chin, and accent were gruesome on TV...
...They can dress it up in corny metaphors, say it with a country lilt, and march into it with a patriotic drumroll...
...His nonresponsive answers would not have been tolerated in court...
...Finally, Mitchell and Cohen make an interesting point supporting the theory that Meese's behavior was less incompetence than collusion...
...Meese's investigation was underway...
...All America was watching...
...The anti-semitism apparently was weighing on them fairly heavily...
...I recognized early in the week that if I wanted to get a point across I had to do it myself, in a speech of my own" In fact, Mitchell and Cohen argue persuasively that, Sullivan's protestations notwithstanding, the congressional hearing format gave North much more power than a courtroom setting...
...At one point, when Republican congressmen with visions of 011ie endorsements dancing in their heads began complaining that Liman was going too hard and too long, Cohen came to the chief counsel's rescue...
...Fundamentally, people value other qualities more than adherence to democratic principles...
...That should have been a clue that North was preparing something special...
...That Americans still admire these men of zeal in spite of the Iran-contra hearings shows that the committee's failure was monumental...
...It's true Secord and Hakim may have been so motivated—obviously a peril o1 privatizing foreign policy—but North and Poindexter were not...
...But the committee's most impressive moments were the eloquent speeches of Lee Hamilton, Mitchell, Inouye, and the administration defender, Henry Hyde...
...North was visibly surprised...
...But what the administration did was not the moral equivalent of HUD giving out an Urban Development Action Grant according to the wrong formula...
...It was an illegal war...
...Three pro-contra and three anti-contra Democrats...
...he would testify earlier rather than later...
...ID- McFarlane said the Boland amendment did apply to the National Security Council...
...But it's lives or lies...
...But the fixation on it ultimately steered attention away from equally serious issues—like what Reagan knew about the contra resupply effort and what the rest of the U.S...
...A turning point was Mitchell's speech at the beginning of North's second week...
...For his part, Nields focused excessively on questions of legality and the simplistic notion that secrecy per se is bad...
...In all, the count wis 15 to 8 in support of the contras, with three waverers...
...government was up to...
...He overrode the forceful objections of his two senior advisers...
...Cohen and Mitchell held the same view...
...Ideally, an immunity offer could have been a bargaining chip to get more favorable conditions for North's testimony...
...No one was selected for his ability to make the case against the contras or for his oratorical abilities generally...
...Ultimately, the most depressing thing about the Iran-contra affair was that it didn't seem to matter all that much...
...Ironically, the committee's leadership could have been quite different: Byrd was going to appoint Mitchell chairman but feared he would be seen as too partisan...
...But we all got it backwards...
...Men of Zeal...
...Mitchell and Cohen concede with great candor, for example, that a major "problem" was that the committee chose its attorneys on the basis of their brilliant legal minds instead of TV good looks—but add that, darn it, they'd do it again...
...Liman sent Cohen, who isn't Jewish, an appreciative note: "But why does your name have to be Cohen...
...But as committee spokesman, Rudman also helped keep the focus on what the president knew about the diversion...
...Fawn and Venus But first things first...
...The Iran-contra committee deserves much of the blame...
...You may remember McFarlane's cake or Robert Owen's travelers checks, but you may have forgotten, or never heard, some of the other outrageous examples Mitchell and Cohen recall: IN...
...Poindexter had caused Reagan to lie in public twice through misleading briefings...
...In some cases that was probably a plus: his questioning was often among the most piercing...
...On two different occasions Reagan listened politely and apparently with an open mind to Shultz's arguments against arms sales without mentioning that he had already signed the approvals for those sales...
...He was not capable of articulating major themes the way politicians are...
...Liman is a white-collar crime lawyer...
...It may have been an admirable goal to avoid discussing the merits of contra policy, but it was not one shared by Oliver North, Robert Owen, Robert McFarlane, Richard Secord, and the House Republicans...
...Unfortunately, Men of Zeal has a few too many "poetic" touches...
...Of course at the same time the committee was losing the political battle it was also endangering the independent counsel's criminal case...
...He asked if they had found a "cover memo...
...Cover-ups, lies, and obstruction of justice are okay as long as you later admit you lied and explain that it was for a good cause...
...When the committee appointments were announced, I thought it was brilliant for the congressional leadership to appoint mostly procontra, dull respectables to the panel...
...They know whereof they speak...
...Shultz seems to have been misled not just by North and Poindexter but repeatedly by President Reagan...
...His questioning of the first witnesses, which set the stage: for North, emphasized that these men strayed because of money...
...The point of such arguments would be not to turn people against the contras but to show why the "rule of law" is not trivial...
...Mitchell and Cohen can't bring themselves to ad.• mit that among committee members the respected...
...Po- Ronald Reagan still has not criticized Poindexter or North...
...Liman and Nields approached the Washington scandal with private practice sensibilities...
...Three of the four men indicted in the scandal— including the president's national security adviser— probably won't come to trial on the main conspiracy charges...
...And it kept the committee from exploring important subjects, most notably the "off the books" covert capability...
...But Poindexter said he couldn't recall anything about his two-hour lunch with Casey...
...Hall, they wrote, has "golden hair cascading about a fine-boned face," projecting "a casual stylishness, reminiscent of actress Farrah Fawcett . . . . Fawn arrives at the witness table, Botticelli's Venus yielded from a foaming sea...
...The scandal could be judged in either a legal forum or a political forum...
...Occasionally, they sound like the job interviewee who responds to the "what-are-your-weaknesses" question by saying he works too darn hard...
...the cowards, it seemed, had to rely on hired guns to knock off a goldenhearted patriot...
...And Oliver North is considered a national treasure by too many people...
...If references to Sandinista atrocities had occasionally been countered with a stern reminder that Congress cut off contra aid in part because of contra atrocities, it would have given a human face to abstract legal questions...
...Meese then asked North if they should have found a memo...
...And when North began turning up the music, some congressmen went into full retreat: "The effect on the members of the committee was immediate and, in some cases, overwhelming...
...Say what you will about congressmen, the one thing they know better than lawyers is how to communicate a political idea...
...on-both-sides-of-the-aisle Democrats like Sam Nunn, Les Aspin, and David Boren performed poop...
...Why so many...
...The latter is perhaps most incredible: the arms sales had been disclosed publicly nearly three weeks earlier...
Vol. 20 • September 1988 • No. 8
