Presswatch/Getting It Straight
Ledeen, Michael
PRESSWATCH GETTING IT STRAIGHT A 11 media watchers are grateful for the Iranian/contra business, since it will give us years of raw data. And those who are concerned about the influence of media...
...W e have here a generation of younger journalists who have long felt cheated at being born too late to participate in the overthrow of the Nixon Regime, and now they have their chance...
...First the sin: last month, I wrongly identified the Wall Street Journal's excellent Mr...
...While I'm grateful for the corrections, these worthy publications would have saved themselves (and me, too...
...What did they hope to achieve...
...McFarlane the Reagan administration is the could have participated in the exercises, a lack of experience at the National was on the NSC staff under Kissinger, widespread insistence that we must all and the training of the Delta Force Security Council...
...Patricia Tummons who works out of the newspaper's St...
...In Ms...
...And today's front-page story is very likely to be wrong, because the leakers are very often those who were excluded from the policy, are angry at being "out of the loop," and are consequently trying to shoot down those who excluded them...
...The same goes for the Chicago Tribune, which bought the fable that I had been on Robert McFarlane's airplane to Tehran, and the St...
...to enable Iran to win the war with Iraq...
...This time, the crisis strikes directly at the foreign policy community...
...I'm sorry about that, especially because he was honest enough to correct a false statement about me that he had been fed by some liar in the government...
...to permit them to go ahead with their own arms sales to Khomeini...
...Howard Teicher, the N.S.C.'s senior director of political-military affairs...
...Shipler developed this into a broader theory according to which the arms-for-hostages scheme was initiated by the Israelis and then implemented in Washington through a network of friends: Israel's impact on White House thinking has been enhanced, according to some former officials, by several National Security Council aides who are strong Israel supporters and are attracted by Israeli intelligence abilities and political analysis...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR FEBRUARY 1987 31...
...And those who are concerned about the influence of media over policy now have additional reasons for anguish, for rarely have so many persons in Washington acted out roles defined for them by the media, and rarely has there been so much false information in the media, as in the first few weeks of the Iran/contra story...
...to strengthen one faction at the expense of another...
...to reach out for better relations at a time when Iran seemed likely to fall apart...
...The clearest case of this is the question, "Who started it all...
...the Israelis started it (to get the Americans to embrace the Israeli policy of working with Iran, no matter how hateful the regime...
...So, on to Irangate...
...Khashoggi himself started it (his own version, as presented to Barbara Walters...
...So we have yesterday's secret testimony in today's front-page story...
...So they are playing "Jr...
...The nastiest of these stories was written in the New York Times by David K. Shipler on November 27, and the key quotation—from a "former official in the National Security Council"--reads: "We got sucked into some Israeli scheme...
...Again, however, people make mistakes, especially in daily newspapers where deadlines are often very short...
...The only irritating aspect I suppose he wanted the preparation For Meg Greenfield at the Washington of the otherwise delightful collapse of done in Washington, so that Congress Post, it stemmed at least in part from Now what do you want...
...But such claims have to be checked...
...Louis headquarters, has trouble reading books...
...I then asked her what she thought my book was about, anyway...
...could have been filmed for the evening ber 8), the three key players (McFar- Senate Armed Services Committee, Even David Broder of the Post had news...
...That would have saved the paper the mental anguish of apologizing—as they did...
...some embarrassment by checking first...
...The Americans started it (for a strategic demarche to Iran...
...about the "meaning" of the episode...
...When I called her up to discuss the matter (after having received no cooperation from the Washington bureau, which simply passed the buck back to the home office), she stuck by her story in the best tradition of Ben Bradlee...
...The trouble, with this view—which is disturbingly reminiscent of some of the early twentieth-century theories of a vast international conspiracy headed by the Elders of Zion—is that it seems that at least some of the key conspirators (including McFarlane himself) recommended that the project be dropped late in 1985, and that it was then reportedly revived by persons such as Admiral Poindexter, Lt...
...ing matter...
...Khashoggi and Iranian arms dealer Ghorbanifar started it (to make money and have a good time...
...to facilitate better relations between the United States and Iran...
...or, finally, the Iranians started it (to trick the Americans into ending the arms embargo...
...A new order," said she, suggesting strongly that she hadn't read it very carefully (it's about American foreign policy, and the current superpower crisis...
...Among them have been Robert C. McFarlane . . . ; Dennis Ross, the current Middle East specialist in the National Security Council...
...Thus, if you go back and track the stories about McFarlane's trip to Tehran, you will find dozens of versions: What was it about...
...For in the original-cast version, the government was paralyzed over an investigation into the coverup of a burglary, but foreign policy retained at least some semblance of coherence, what with the extraordinary team of Kissinger, Haig, Sonnenfeldt, et al...
...What, if anything, did they achieve...
...an effort to save the life of CIA official William Buckley...
...a subtle attempt to make contact with "moderates...
...As the grounds: and then national security adviser to David Durenberger, chairman of the story emerges, I expect it will finally be the President...
...wrote, again in the Post, about the with the United States, but certainly all, they no doubt believed themselves to be The award for worst essay on the history of congressional oversight...
...Tummons's case, the quotation offered from my book did not support the claim she made...
...It should accordingly come as no surprise that the problems that gave rise to the crisis in the first place—the lack of discipline in the foreign policy bureaucracy (above all, leaks) and the lack of information about Iran—should continue to play a major role in the "scandal...
...And when you look at the different versions, you should realize that behind every version lies someone who wants American policy to move in a certain direction...
...he is actually John...
...Who was on the plane...
...What else was on the plane...
...The same holds true for most every element of fact, some of which are frightfully important...
...Michael Ledeen is senior fellow in international affairs at the Georgetown Center for Strategic and International Studies...
...still in place and only marginally damaged by the fallout from Watergate...
...policy started, what its aims were, and up to the task because of their back- deputy to Judge Clark at the NSC, Finally, a small medal to Senator who asked whom to do what...
...He did not initiate the whole thing (indeed, following, fulfilling policy...
...B efore trying to explain how Israel "sucked us in," it would have 30 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR FEBRUARY 1987 been better to try to figure out how the lane, North, Poindexter) weren't quite counselor at the State Department, to blast that one, and rightly so...
...Ledeen, who was reportedly instrumental in the Israeli-American approach to Iran, is a founder of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs in Washington, which supports a close alliance with Israel...
...to achieve an end to the Iran-Iraq war...
...an effort to get the hostages out...
...Of these, the one that has received the greatest, quantity of ink and airtime (at least according to my own unofficial survey—not the most reliable source, if you must know) is the "Israel started it" theory...
...In her view (Decem- a top aide to Senator Tower on the be poker-faced about it...
...As for the Post-Dispatch, they should be singled out for particular punishment, since the journalist in question, a Ms...
...Since there are three troupes of actors in this drama (Americans, Iranians, Israelis), we begin with three hypotheses...
...N sophomoric piece in the Post that ept and overly secret preparation for who is clearly the n most proficient of th It is also useful to review the theories three in these affairs, is a seasoned foreign- began: "The fall of Reagan is a laugh- the Iran rescue mission...
...policy hand...
...This was not a popular cause in pro-Israel circles in Washington, lest we forget...
...The Wall Street Journal has given a lot of space to this noby Michael Ledeen tion, suggesting that Israel was selling arms to Iran all along, and found a clever way to drag us along...
...Walcott as James...
...They should cer- subject goes by acclamation to Michael said that it stemmed from past ex- my own conviction is that the funds- taai nn cl ye have en e o been ef nthem, u under not even n McFarlane, st r ict e r g u - Kinsley of the New Republic for his ecutive branch abuses, such as "the in d - mental initiative came from Iranians...
...Louis Post-Dispatch, which incredibly accused me of advocating the disinforming of the American media, citing my book, Grave New World, as evidence...
...the late Donald R. Fortier, who was a Deputy Assistant to the President, and Michael Ledeen, who served as a consultant to the National Security Council...
...Finally, we can add some other possible explanations: the Saudis—through Adnan Khashoggi —started it (to take out insurance with the Iranians...
...Any good editor should have seen that, and asked her to go back and read the material again...
...Is that not enough Senate Intelligence Committee, who discovered that the Israelis cooperated Good, perhaps too good, military officers "seasoning...
...Before looking at the first few examples, let's take a moment off for a confession of personal sin, and the admiration of professionalism elsewhere...
...Watergate," with much higher stakes than the last time...
...North, and retired General Secord, all of whom were key figures in the fight to sell AWACS to Saudi Arabia...
Vol. 20 • February 1987 • No. 2
