Senator Jello

...Kevin Warmath provided research for this article...

...Ihave four criteria for measuring how a member of Congress performed during the Iran-contra hearings...

...Liman's interest in congressional investigations from the time of his college thesis suggests that he was long preparing to lead a "new investigation" of his own...

...A few samples: Because of Independent Counsel Walsh's investigation, two target figures, Lt...

...He oozed insincerity...

...In short, he always took what seemed the politically safe course...

...Such a tax acts as a disincentive to exploring for and producing more oil in the U.S...

...It's time the tax were repealed...

...Before North testified, Cheney refused to be stampeded into making a negative judgment on him...

...the reporter yelled...

...Trible was undeterred when witnesses such as North couldn't answer his questions about details- of Secord's finances...

...We've always referred to this impost as the "so-called" windfall profit tax because it isn't a tax on profits at all, but an excise tax on production...

...During one of the brief homilies that Trible regularly delivered after questioning witnesses, a reporter caught the attention of Senator William Cohen, the Maine Republican, and gestured as if he were about to vomit at Trible's remarks...

...It was enacted in an emotional, anti-oil environment for unjustifiable political reasons...

...We need to be very, very cautious before we make statements that, in the opinion of this member, Mr...

...Trible joined critics of the Administration...

...Were these committees created to find facts or attack Republicans...

...To Secretary of State George Shultz, he offered sweet talk...

...He upbraided General Richard Secord, the first witness, for making money on the arms sale to Iran and in supplying weapons to the contras in Nicaragua...

...Inouye hastily backed down...

...Trible: We will get to that...

...handle the 18 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 1987 arms proceeds in a business-like fashion...

...becoming too dependent on imported oil and its effect on national security and the balance of payments, a special tax on domestically produced oil is the wrong way to go...

...Depending on the witness's popularity at the time, Trible was prosecutorial or sycophantic...

...This took courage...

...Trible specialized in asking about the profits—the "residuals"—made by Secord and his associates...

...He believed that by presenting their testimony in cumulative fashion, he could build a case against the Administration's faulty foreign policy "process" which would demonstrate that there was a conspiratorial "government within Reagan's government," ending in the exposure...

...How individuals who have been pilloried by congressional investigating committees can be guaranteed a fair trial before an unprejudiced jury is hard to see, unless the jury be illiterate...

...First, did the committee member put the Iran-contra affair in broad context or was he transfixed by minutiae...

...The North party moved toward the doorway, but at a snail's pace...

...Third, was the committee member predominantly seeking to help himself politically...

...The Iran committees' method of choice was to interrogate witnesses for long hours behind closed doors, dismiss those who did not help their case against Ronald Reagan, and use their own testimony in public against those who spoke for the Administration...

...Time passed...

...Cheney said the memo didn't say that...

...North and Admiral Poindexter, refused to testify to the select committees on self-incrimination grounds...

...Trible turned sharply against the Reagan Administration in the hearings...

...Poindexter was incensed at this tawdry ploy, knowing of course that the Annapolis honor code isn't applicable to carrying out American foreign policy and protecting the national security in a hostile world...

...Dennis Teti was a staff member of the select committees investigating the Iran-contra events...

...As Liman explained decades ago: [Congressional] investigation- has always been a tool of partisan politics, and has been used with equal avidity by all factions when the opportunity presented itself...

...IN THE SENATE OF THE 'UNITED STATES JANUARY 6, 198'7 Mr...

...Cheney stood by patiently...

...Politics, like life, isn't fair...

...Trible, 40, was the opposite...

...An essential part of Liman's plan for the hearings was to parade the witnesses before the television screens in very specific order...

...It will be the ambition of the Presidency alone that will protect the independence of his branch from unwarranted interference by the New Investigation...

...Trible was hitless: 0-for-4...

...Colonel Oliver North completed his testimony in the congressional Iran-contra hearings last July, members of the investigating committee had several options...

...Instead, he unobtrusively drifted toward the doorway of the hearing room and stood there, quietly and alone...

...Here's why: • If, indeed, the government is worried about the U.S...

...Cheney concentrated on exploring the circumstances that prompted the Reagan Administration to sell arms to Iran, establish a private aid pipeline to the contras, and decline to inform Congress about either...

...But when he got a chance to question North, Trible didn't ask about it...

...Even Cabinet meetings do not have the dramatic qualities of a well-planned congressional hearing [my emphasis...

...In 1954 Liman understood perfectly well how such public testimony might undermine the right to a fair trial: [T]he Kefauver Committee exposed individuals while they were undergoing investigation by a grand jury...

...North referred to a 1936 Supreme Court by Dennis Teti case, United States v. Curtiss-Wright Corp., in which the Court favorably cited George Washington's withholding of certain documents from Congress...

...He was treated as "a sort of Clark Kent without the horn rims," a guy unlikely to emerge as an Administration critic because that might jeopardize his re-election, but who emerged nonetheless...

...They could bolt for North to embrace him publicly, in full view of live television cameras, as he departed the hearing room...

...Well, it was a lot easier for those who weren't being hounded by the special prosecutor...

...Soon Trible was getting favorable press treatment for his performance in the hearings...

...Did Secord & Co...

...We've also wondered how a tax on oil not yet discovered can be a windfall...

...Cheney popped the committee's balloon of self-importance in his closing statement...

...I don't follow you at all...

...A whopping 59 percent gave him a favorable rating, 10 percent said he was fair, and only 5 percent rated him poor (26 percent were undecided...

...Fourth, did the member balk at the cheap tactics used by some committee members, or did he indulge in them himself...

...He's a man who lives in a world somewhere between reality and fantasy," Trible had told the Washington Post...

...WJLA News 7 in Washington and the Journal Newspapers did a poll on Trible at the end of the hearings...

...The bottom line is $6.2 million...

...As a senior at Harvard, Arthur Liman wrote a thesis supervised by Samuel P. Huntington (currently President of the American Political Science Association) on the threat to limited government from what he termed the "New Investigation...

...The preliminary closed hearing was used in - order to separate the good from the bad for public display...

...Again, substantial sums of dollars projected from these activities, is that correct...

...When the hearings began, it appeared the Administration would take a beating...

...Cheney and Trible, both conservatives, weren't the most visible Republicans on the committee...

...Contrast this with Cheney's questioning of—you could pick almost any witness—North...

...Just asking the question gets the answer," said Regan...

...Trible retreated in terror...

...They could rush to get interviewed by omnipresent TV and print reporters, a temptation many found irresistible...

...He insisted that Secord was a profiteer as well as a patriot, and he made it clear he was merely giving Secord the benefit of the doubt on the patriot Fred Barnes is a senior editor of the New Republic...

...Whether the New Investigation will jeopardize the independence of the executive, and destroy the separation of powers thus seems to depend on whether the Presidency will mobilize all the forces at its disposal to resist it...

...He wasn't an apologist for the White House, but he didn't abandon the Administration either...

...Inouye had stated that a White House memo showed President Reagan had been briefed-as to how profits from the Iranian arms sale might be used for projects other than the contras...

...Second, was the member evenhanded and fair or did he run hot and cold...

...He provided a perfect man-bites-dog story for liberals: Reaganaut pits himself boldly against the Reagan Administration...

...Witnesses are weeded out so that only those considered subservice [sic, i.e...

...But North's popularity was too much to buck...

...An understated gesture like Cheney's would never have occurred to Senator Paul Trible, a Republican from Virginia...

...Cheney, 44, never panicked or pandered and always kept his attention on larger issues...

...Naturally, this put a heavy burden on him...

...Cheney treated each witness the same...

...Representative Richard Cheney of Wyoming, the senior House Republican on the committee, did none of the above...

...President Washington set the precedent for such a refusal in 1796 by declining to lay before the House of Representatives papers relating to the negotiations for a treaty with England...

...BINGAmAN) introduced the following bill...

...In June of 1780, there was a total eclipse of the sun . . ." Tom Shales, the acerbic TV critic of the Washington Post, called this "a nadir of sorts" in the hearings...

...He denounced the "privatization" of foreign policy...

...But whether it raises money for the federal coffers or not, the windfall profit tax should be repealed...

...Are you going to be as tough on North as you were on Secord...

...of Oliver North, the undermining of the Reagan foreign agenda, and perhaps the destruction of Reagan's presidency...

...Naval Academy honor code about truth and honesty...

...Secord: That is what the notes say...

...Trible came off as "cool, calm, aggressive, informed" in the hearings, McDowell said...

...Liman saw clearly, in 1954, that the President is duty-bound to fight against investigations designed to destroy the executive: If the investigative power of Congress is unlimited, the separation of powers, and system of checks and balances must break down...

...This was appropriate for committee members, mostly Democrats, eager to put North's shaming of the committee and its tactics behind them...

...Chairman, aren't justified or supported by the evidence," Cheney said...

...When North's testimony put the Administration in a stronger position, Trible was suddenly less the critic...

...Or they could return sourly to their offices...

...My own personal view is that there has been far too much apocalyptic rhetoric about these events, most of it unjustified...

...Brendan Sullivan's refusal to have his client Oliver North undergo the private ordeal showed that he understood what Liman had learned from the anti-subversive hearings of the 1950s: In putting the spotlight on subversives in these areas, the New Investigation has made great use of the preliminary closed session...

...He had reacted with disgust (or mock disgust) to testimony that North got a free security system...

...In fact, he was so consumed about the trivialities of the money issue that he pursued a line of questioning that even Secord couldn't follow...

...All that changed when North, from the opening moments of his testimony, captivated the nation...

...But there's worse...

...Senator Warren Rudman of New Hampshire and Representative Henry Hyde of Illinois logged more TV time...

...His careful study of the behavior of the Nye, Kefauver, McCarthy, and other investigative committees shows that the Iran-contra hearings, conducted under Liman's direction, were not the first to utilize certain forensic techniques...

...Then it sets forth in the first phase the pricing of guns, selling price per unit, comes out to 7,200,000 cost per unit, 1 million, projectedSecord: What is the up of all this, senator...

...It talks about two phases of this project, 4,000 arms before the government deadline, phase two relocation of plant...

...He's already second in the line of succession to become House GOP leader, and his re-election every two years in Wyoming is a cinch...

...Midway in North's six days of testimony, a reporter spotted Trible preparing for a television interview...

...A test case here is the treatment of North...

...T he inescapable impression that Trible left was of a man bent on wallowing in the picayune, the irrelevant, and the peripheral, probably out of fear that toying with bigger things might bring political harm...

...subversive] by the committee will have to undergo public testimony...

...Mobil° 01987 Mobil Corporation THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 1987 19 sions of moral indignation and outrage, and even been treated to talk about 'a coup in the White House,' a junta run by a lieutenant colonel and an admiral," he said...

...He played it straight...

...A key point for me," Cheney told North, "is to try to place the events of the Iran arms transaction and the support network for the contras within a broader context so that we understand the way that some of these decisions were made and why the President and his key advisers made the decisions they made...

...In his opening statement in early May, Trible said the hearings "involve far more than people and arms and policy and law...

...Cohen rolled his eyes...

...He went with the political flow...

...N of surprisingly, Trible inflated the committee's mission and his ownrole...

...For your leadership, for your service, and for your wise counsel, every American should be grateful...

...And to the extent that corrective action was required, the President took it unilaterally before these committees had taken a single word of public testimony...

...ARTHUR LIMAN'S PAST 20 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 1987...

...And I'm not going to be apologetic about it...

...At the start of his questioning of North, Trible noted, "President Kennedy used to tell a story that I believe captures the spirit of these hearings...

...Before North's appearance, Trible had been highly critical of him...

...Your appearance before the committee is an eloquent refutation of a doctrine of political cynicism," Trible told Shultz...

...After hearing testimony in June that North had gotten an expensive security system installed at his home without paying for it, Trible had declared that North was suffering from "a confusion of the public interest and the private interest...

...With Donald Regan, the former White House chief of staff whom the committee treated indifferently, he dished up another Tribleism—a question that needed no answer...

...The committees first delayed action in order to give the Independent Counsel maximum time to gather evidence, then forced North and Poindexter to testify by giving them limited "use immunity...

...And so it went with Cheney...

...N ow, the sad footnote to all this...

...You wimp, you wimp," the reporter shouted back...

...The piece included kind words about Trible from Charles McDowell, the witty and respected columnist for the Richmond Times-Dispatch...

...Trible didn't...

...I think the actions that I took were in the long-term interests of the country and I'm not going to change my mind," he told Trible...

...Even worse, its very existence has a chilling effect on future investments in U.S...

...It is difficult to see how this new media [sic] can be utilized as effectively by the Presidency as it has been by the Congress...

...If oil prices continue to increase, we and other oil cornpanies may _eventually start paying such taxes on some of our oil...

...Cheney scored well on all four...

...Investigations have always been utilized to defame or to defend some person or some cause...

...Trible didn't mention that...

...Secord: This is not my handwriting, so I am not familiar with it right now...

...Where Cheney and Trible stood out was as examples—of how and how not to conduct yourself during an important congressional hearing...

...The Founding Fathers were much too fearful of legislative tyranny not to anticipate situations like this...

...part...

...Such refusals are in the shadowland of constitutional law because of the lack of delineation between the powers of Congress and the Presidency...

...The last week has not been an easy one for any of us," he said...

...The hearings, he said, "will have immense consequences for public opinion, for the proper role of Congress in overseeing the executive branch, for the conduct of foreign policy...

...Over thirty years ago Liman recognized the value of television as an ally of Congress in the struggle against the executive branch: Television has become a great asset of the congressional committee...

...He shook North's hand, thanked him, and left...

...It went like this: Trible: Turn, if you will, to the back where you see handwritten several pages that project operations and sales for American arms...

...Cheney waited...

...In fact, no revenues from this tax are in this or next year's federal budget...

...Trible didn't raise the honor code with North...

...A month into the hearings, the "CBS Evening News" did a puff piece on Trible...

...By the way, both Poindexter and North are Annapolis graduates...

...After going easy on North, Trible was tough on the next witness, Admiral John Poindexter, who was less telegenic than North and didn't have the public rooting for him...

...We've heard talk of a 'grave constitutional crisis,' listened to expres100TH CONGRESS 1ST SESSION To repeal the windfall profit tax on domestic crude oil...

...Senate Counsel Liman argued the same precedent for executive privilege in 1954: The other important way of checking aggrandizing congressional committees is for the President to refuse them access to information on the grounds that disclosure would be detrimental to public interest...

...He took the same oily approach with North...

...The bill shown above would do just that, and should be passed...

...Finally North reached the doorway, and Cheney stepped forward...

...Trible: Just listen, general...

...This is part of a document you are familiar with...

...All uncomfortable look crossed Trible's face...

...b) The repeal made by subsection (a) 6 shall 7 removed from the premises after the date of the 8 this Act._ S.255 apply to oil enactment of 0 Since early 1986, the so-called windfall profit tax has been largely academic since oil prices were so low the tax produced no revenue...

...Secord: I'm trying to listen...

...Cheney didn't have to concoct a personal strategy for the hearings...

...at the precise moment when we should be increasing our capacity as much as we can...

...North justified his actions, partaking of executive authority, on a broad reading of the President's constitutional power over foreign policy and the privilege of withholding information from Congress...

...They are not my notes...

...With Secord, he was hard-nosed...

...No way," said Trible...

...He asked about North's and the President's meetings with hostage families, about the fate of CIA agent William Buckley and the efforts to free him, about why the National Security Council had taken on added duties, about North's ties to Israeli officials, about whether North might have kept the contras alive only to have them abandoned in Washington once his efforts on their behalf were revealed...

...1 it enacted by the Senate and House of RepresentaBe 2 tines of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 3 That (a) chapter 45 of the Internal 'Revenue Code of le86 (relating to windfall profit tax on domestic crude oil) is 4 5 hereby repealed...

...And so it went with Trible...

...Senator James McClure, an Idaho Republican, was standing beside Trible...

...He laughed uproariously at Trible's embarrassment...

...wasn't...

...When he questioned Robert McFarlane, the former national security adviser, Trible said, "I know the last several days have been difficult for you, and I want you to know that these days are difficult for all of us...

...Rather, the committee's job was to restore "faith in our institutions...

...Trible: Let's you and I review it together...

...Faced with re-election in 1988, he played the hearings for political gain...

...If there ever was a crisis—which I doubt—it ended before these committees were ever established...

...oil exploration and production...

...Trible was stampeded...

...To be honest, this was an option only for Republicans...

...which was twice and referred to the Committee on Finance A BILL To repeal the windfall profit tax on domestic crude oil...

...It is, pure and simple, a punitive tax levied on a single industry...

...There were no histrionics...

...Cheney once stopped the committee from recessing for lunch so he could challenge a statement that Senator Daniel Inouye, the Hawaii Democrat and the committee co-chairman, made on "Face the Nation" the day before...

...He accused Poindexter of an "unapologetic embrace of untruth," and read a section of the U.S...

...BOREN (for read himself and MT...

...Trible focused obsessively on how much money Secord and his associates made, an issue of no public policy significance...

...CBS didn't get the political equation quite right, but never mind...

...North, meanwhile, was surrounded by a cluster of bodyguards, friends, lawyers, well-wishers, and family...

...The opinions expressed in this article are his own...