Editorials/The Duke Did His Best/Pardon 011ie/Junk Danger
Tyrrell, R Emmett Jr.
EDITORIALS PARDON OLLIE 6 A ction this day" was a Churchillian invocation. Or as the American philosopher Satchel Paige would put it in more relaxed tones, "Don't ever look back. Something may...
...All knew what the elites on the street do not want to know—to wit: the takeover frenzy has reached the point of dangerous excess...
...Some corporations had found themselves abundant with cash...
...Their prosecution is growing increasingly preposterous as prosecutor Lawrence Walsh spews out his vaporous charges, but the damage being done to the doctrine of separation of powers is real, and the office that Ronald Reagan hands over to George Bush will be an impotent foreign policy instrument unless the President takes his stand now...
...Ghorbanifar took revenge, he is hardly the underprivileged victim whose human nature needs understanding...
...Growth cannot take place in a regulated, protectionist economy, and that is where the junk bond frenzy will take us...
...Ledeen certainly took revenge for being cut out by John M. Poindexter...
...Yet his most egregious breach of Justice Department policy is to charge defendants with criminality even while admitting that they may not have broken the law...
...Otis Bowen was the wrong choice for Secretary of Health and Human Services...
...Hashemi executed in September 1987, after a year of Iranian handball in Evin Prison...
...There's more to mathematics than theory," writes Swetz, "for theory by itself, without a mode of expression or articulation, remains impotent...
...Don Regan is to blame for that decision...
...Regardless of who was at fault, in the end the White House did seem reluctant to cross Bowen, was outmaneuvered by him, and was too eager to please the liberal Democrats on Capitol Hill...
...In the absence of laws proscribing North's activity, Walsh's pursuit of him is purely malicious and political...
...Something may be gaining on you...
...Then, to protect themselves from being put out of business by foreign producers, the call will go up for protectionism...
...He charges in The Iranian Triangle (The Free Press) that Mr...
...Not long ago one of the most successful corporate buyers in the country, Theodore J. Forstmann, wrote insightfully in the Wall Street Journal against the current frenzy of corporate takeovers, so many of which are financed by bonds of very dubious longrange quality...
...Segev reports that Mr...
...He has revived the economy and was well on his way to reviving the presidency until the Iran-contra hullabaloo...
...At the outset of the leveraged-buyout era, the development of the high-yield bond by the legendary Michael Milken was economically sound and socially beneficent...
...Meanwhile, the Bush Administration is expected to face an early harsh reaction to the surtaxes in the catastrophic bill, which go into effect in January...
...Ghorbanifar for two years preached that a ruined Iran would fall to the Soviets...
...Ledeen has also been steadfast in his defense of Mr...
...President: pardon 011ie, fire Walsh...
...The President should have done with this futile strife andpardon North...
...Rather than return it to shareholders, they created empires by gobbling up other companies, many of which they were incapable of managing soundly...
...The Ayatollah thereupon executed another thirty or so officers and pardoned Mr...
...Ghorbanifar without reservation while calling Col...
...By law he is required to follow Justice Department policy and he has blatantly breached that policy by insisting in his recent brief that Congress is in charge of foreign policy—tell that one to James Madison...
...If he exacted revenge by promoting Iran's destruction, the CIA was proved right...
...Ledeen, persona non grata to George Shultz, lucked out and was dropped from the project in November 1985...
...Ultimately, however, the finger of blame must also point at President Reagan, who was too cavalier in his delegation of responsibility to people like Don Regan, who were not particularly suited for the job...
...Don Regan's desperate attempt to find a free market alternative at the eleventh hour suggests he, too, knew the President expected to have this as an option...
...Walsh is a threatto the American sense of justice...
...The role of Al Kingon in the White House's blundering remains somewhat unclear...
...Was he under orders from his boss, Don Regan, not to interfere in Bowen's turf...
...Congress has created unnecessary agencies answerable to it rather than to the President...
...In a nationwide downturn affecting all industries, the resultant unemployment and bankruptcy will make that downturn deeper than need be...
...He can revitalize it by issuing pardons for 011ie North, Albert Hakim, John Poindexter, and Richard 10 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JANUARY 1989 Secord...
...The point is that though the scenery may look like it's standing still, nothing stands still unless it is dead, monotonous, and at room temperature...
...Ledeen told me he could not confirm that story...
...Ghorbanifar's revenge...
...They did the hard work and took the risks, while Mr...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JANUARY 1989 11 the Treviso Arithmetic into English, the late Professor Smith...
...Ghorbanifar might take revenge if he were cut out of the deals he initiated...
...There has been a perceptible breakdown in prudent market discipline, for the real money now is made in the chauffeuring of deals, not the management of assets...
...Ghorbanifar is all heart...
...In fact, no President in history has campaigned sc selflessly and vigorously...
...Burdened by excessive debt, American corporations will find themselves uncompetitive on the world market...
...Whoever was right, it bothers that Mr...
...The result was an avalanche of favorable reaction from colleagues and from others with no experience whatsoever on Wall Street...
...His letter suggests that he never felt he had the authority to temper Bowen's power grab...
...Did he have the authority to monitor Bowen but was simply outmaneuvered by him and liberal Democrats on Capitol Hill...
...The present era of growth will be finished...
...We really need to know whether it is true or not...
...Ghorbanifar in 1980 joined and then betrayed a plot against the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini organized around the royal family and ex-Prime Minister Shahpour Bakhtiar...
...This vocal segment of the elderly population has already begun a campaign to have the bill altered...
...Ghorbanifar was treacherous, and Mossad would not deal with him...
...It is all done, moreover, in workmanlike prose with none of the pedantry usually found when masters condescend to write for the masses...
...Shall we prosecute these Americans, too...
...There is evidence that the citizenry is growing apprehensive...
...Perhaps the average American recognizes that giant corporations are changing hands for no sound economic reason...
...Ghorbanifar his SAVAK past, Mr...
...He is also a threat to the authority of the President...
...So do millions of other Americans every time they act contrary to the prejudices of the Houses Democratic leadership...
...Kingon can rest assured that if the catastrophic health care issue comes back to haunt anyone, it will likely be Congress...
...Ghorbanifar, dropped from negotiations in favor of Oliver North's team in August 1986, wrote to the Ayatollah Ali Montazeri revealing the trip to Tehran by Robert C. McFarlane's group...
...The use of junk bonds of late has become excessive, and their value more dubious for the long run...
...When a business downturn comes for one of these corporations it will go under, leaving people unemployed and security holders devastated...
...That unexpected deviation and the natural wear and tear that his vigorous presidency has sustained have weakened the office...
...Later, when the high-yield bond (soon to be dubbed the junk bond) was used for acquisitions (leveraged buyouts), that too was a good thing, for it allowed the innovative entrepreneurs to take over bloated corporations, sell off their uneconomic assets, and produce more efficiently and economically...
...But Mr...
...Ike never turned out for Richard Nixon until late in the 1960 campaign and then all he did was brag about himself, discrediting in the process his struggling Vice President...
...Above all, Swetz reveals himself in Capitalism and Arithmetic to be one of those rare mathematical minds whose own expertise does not get in the way of passing down some of the excitement and beauty of the subject to the layman...
...Ledeen Watch Michael A. Ledeen, in his November "Presswatch" column, wrote of Manucher Ghorbanifar: "Anyone who thought about human nature should have realized that taking the one person in the Iranian initiative who knew everything . . . and throwing him to the wolves would cause Ghorbanifar to take his revenge...
...This is, in short, the voice of a teacher...
...Samuel Segev, a commentator for the Israeli daily Ma'ariv, explains Mr...
...What did it was another subject in the same column...
...Then too, the citizenry might recognize that many of these corporations are being burdened with intolerable levels of debt, which in time could flatten them...
...Ledeen's book, Perilous Statecraft (Scribner's), he vaguely suggests such a danger, but for the most part Mr...
...Majlis Speaker Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the target of the Montazeri forces, had Mr...
...A pardon for North will be equally salutary...
...Go ahead, Mr...
...While the above is a matter of interest, it was not enough to inspire this complaint...
...Then along came the Forstmanns, taking over these flabby giants and putting their underused assets to productive work...
...But now a division is developing within the supplyside ranks, as some warn against further indulgence in the junk bond orgies while others argue that junk assures growth...
...The matter was handled badly by the White House from Day One...
...Was his lack of influence over Bowen due to his own unwillingness to exert the power of the White House...
...He has cost the taxpayers nearly $11 million...
...During the recent campaign Ronald Reagan, the oldest American President by six years, demonstrated that he is very much alive by campaigning across the country for his successor, Vice President George Bush...
...He has changed the economy and the way Americans view government, convincing them that individual effort and not government creates wealth and that onerous taxation cripples growth...
...Ronald Reagan's presidency has been the most successful in the postwar period...
...McFarlane advised dropping Mr...
...Segev, who says he had access to Israeli classified reports, also writes that Mr...
...Ghorbanifar in the face of congressional inquisitors, and such personal loyalty is touching...
...His pocket veto of the Whistleblower Protection Act preserved the presidency from future congressional encroachments on presidential terrain...
...He has dampened the ardor of terrorists and of the Soviet Bloc for mischief...
...In Mr...
...The elderly have been increasingly hostile to the steep tax that more than 40 percent of them will pay...
...Ledeen after Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin objected to dealing through an occasional messenger...
...q EDITORIAL (continued from page 11) for himself about the economy, and I wonder if Mr...
...Even though meetings between Al Kingon, Don Regan, and the President are not part of the story, as I reported it, the essential point of the story is not compromised...
...Lawyers and investment bankers emboldened by high fees have created bonds and other debt instruments heaping vast debt on corporations and leaving them with no margin in the event of a temporary financial setback...
...That caused the hapless Mehdi Hashemi to blow the whole business...
...Now the independent counsel is waging a political campaign beyond the reach of the electorate...
...During the 1980s supply-side advocates have been right to argue that growth holds out the best promise of economic well-being...
...Ledeen proposes : "Send another medal to Max 48 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JANUARY 1989...
...It extended capital to young, growing companies that could not break into the privileged world of the investment-grade elite...
...Mr...
...Ghorbanifar's revenge without ambiguity...
...He was, the CIA said, trying to become the ultimate insider and make zillions by using the CIA...
...Better still, the President could give Walsh the old heave-ho...
...q CORRESPONDENCE (continued from page 9) never know, for sure, how the President felt...
...Walsh's claim is that though North might not have broken the law he acted in defiance of Congress's will...
...He has the authority to do so, and Walsh deserves it...
...Mr...
...And then there was Vince Lombardi's observation that a team never stands still...
...Consider the recent reports that pension funds are bailing out of the Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts version of the RJR Nabisco deal...
...CIA executives and agents, including John McMahon, Clair George, and George Cave (who polygraphed him), all thought that Mr...
...Consider Federated Department Stores' fall to Robert Campeau...
...Bush recognizes what the average American thinks about junk bonds...
...These advocates of junk are now endangering the real growth of the 1980s...
...That responsibility falls on Don Regan's shoulders...
...Ronald Reagan in one bold act ought to remove that threat so that George Bush will finally be free of Iran-contra harassment...
...House Speaker Jim Wright has conducted his own foreign policy in Central America and at his pleasure leaked classified information...
...In America a citizen is jailed for breaking laws, not for causing congressmen displeasure...
...After Bowen seized the initiative from the President on catastrophic health care, the White House showed itself virtually powerless to shape the final proposal...
...North a liar and scorning Richard Secord and Albert Hakim as profiteers...
...It's always getting better or worse...
...None of this is stopping liberal Democrats from gearing up to push through long-term health care, which will likely come from general revenues and wreak havoc on any effort to bring down the deficit...
...Now the President can make another bold stroke on behalf of his successor: pardon 011ie North and his fellow victims of masked politics...
...Ledeen, basking in the success of his book, hails and alibis Mr...
...The voters have just demonstrated that they do not share the Democrats' excitement about Iran-contra...
...I suspect, however, the President was not pleased...
...Ledeen now appears to adopt the warning of the CIA's Charles Allen, recalled in testimony to Congress, that Mr...
...The Democratic Congress has been waging a guerrilla war not just against this President but against the entire executive branch's ability to conduct foreign policy and control its budget...
...Segev claims...
...If Mr...
Vol. 22 • January 1989 • No. 1
