Washington Notebook

...An associate of his later told me that, following standard operating procedure for such a mission, he had probably concealed a poison capsule on his person...

...Two days later, on February 11, Ronald Reagan made a return appearance before the commission...

...As summarized by Craig Fuller, Bush's chief of staff, Nir presented the "problems and choices" this way: "Should we accept sequencing...

...Kissinger returned from a meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff raging at their "stupidity...

...Or so it seemed the Sunday night he reached for the Valium...

...Once Dr...

...It had come home again in the Oval Office that the world is not so simple, and a bold initiative not so easy to come by...

...1. The Administration was never reallyin touch with any Iranian faction, moderate or radical, but only with a charade of factional strife staged for its benefit...

...He told the commission in greater detail of the frantic efforts last November, in which he had participated at first, to construct a fictionalized chronology that elided the President's responsibility for initiating the arms deal...

...For it would involve not some futuristic laserray or particle-beam device, but a more conventional "kinetic kill vehicle"— essentially a bullet to shoot down an incoming bullet...

...Two front-page stories upset him, according to his lawyer, Leonard Garment...

...He said that, his memory refreshed by Donald Regan and contrary to his previous testimony, he had not given advance approval for the sale of arms to Iran— as maintained by McFarlane...

...H is perception...

...All this was to be "legitimized" by embracing a "broad" interpretation of the Antiballistic Missile Treaty...

...a buttoned-up fellow who seethes with envy at the respect given Dr...

...He became fascinated with the possibility of a breakthrough to Iran that would prepare the way for better relations with a post-Khomeini regime...

...Don't ask the Soviets—tell them...

...So has most of what has happened since then...

...The example is given of Kissinger's diplomacy with China, he said, but "to the extent that it causes other people to aspire to be Henry Kissingers, it tends to get you into trouble...

...said Reagan emphatically, according to a reliable account of the meeting...

...For soon there would be televised public hearings, where he would have to challenge the President...

...Whose "doubts and reservations" is unclear...

...McFarlane was asked before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on January 16 whether he had worried about being taken prisoner in Teheran last spring and tortured for secret information, he replied laconically that he had considered the risk...

...There was Arms Control Adviser Paul Nitze, suggesting that Secretary Weinberger was exaggerating the progress of SDI research...

...Doing a pretty good imitation of Kissinger's accent, he often told the following story...

...What he advocated was a commitment by the President to test within six months and deploy in the next six or seven years the first stage of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI...

...One was about Vice President George Bush having been told in Israel of dealings with "the most radical elements" in Iran, undermining the McFarlane thesis of pursuing an opening to "moderates...

...Resistance and doubt slowed the momentum for table-banging decision...

...At home, he was being reviled in the White House for contradicting the Commander-in-Chief on responsibility for the Iranian arms deal, and he was being humiliated as a bungler in the news media...

...They fear if they give all hostages, they won't get anything from us...

...Thereupon, McFarlane offered to meet with the commission in the hospital...

...Although Nir offered contact with "the most radical elements," he explained that the logistics were being coordinated through the office of Iran's Prime Minister...

...That hurt, too...

...On February 3 the President had told theNSC, "Whydon't wejustgoahead on the assumption that this is what we're doing and it's right...

...The "deal," intended to give the Khomeini regime an incentive to free hostages, had only given them an incentive to keep hostages...

...3. Most chilling of all in its implications was Nir's explanation of why McFarlane, expecting the release of all four American hostages during this visit to Teheran, had been offered only two— causing him to leave abruptly...

...Played the Fool...

...Sequencing" meant that the Iranians would always make sure there were hostages as their insurance that they could get more arms...

...Then he addressed his uniformed assistant, saying that of all the services, he liked the Marines "because the Marines have never made any pretense at intelligence...

...They broke the mold when they made him...

...What are alternatives to sequencing...

...McFarlane had been an assistant to him in the White House in the '70s...

...In the early inquest that ensued, one of the unkindest cuts McFarlane received was from his former friend and ally, Secretary of State George P. Shultz, who preceded him to the witness stand at the House Foreign Affairs Committee on December 8. Shultz attacked the National Security Council (NSC) for having assumed an operational role...

...A week later he decided instead to start the process of consultation with Congress and the Allies—which could take months and may well doom the chances for an SDI test during Reagan's term...

...There had also been a William Safire column in the New York Times mocking the former National Security Adviser as "an apparatchik with a geopolitical vocabulary...

...Kissinger...

...Furthermore, questions were being raised about whether even a "broad" interpretation of the treaty would permit the test Weinberger wanted...

...But Valium is not valor, and the anguish that led McFarlane to a drug overdose on February 8 was different from the danger he faced among the Iranian fanatics...

...And there was Senator Sam Nunn (D.-Ga...

...That stung...

...as much as anything, was responsible for generating the disastrous arms deal...

...Moreover, Nir told Bush, Israel had intercepted a message between Teheran and the kidnappers in Lebanon discussing exactly how and when Father Jenco would be moved...

...And that, more than his aching back, would hurt a lot...

...Still diagnosed as suffering from "clinical depression," McFarlane left the commission with little doubt that Regan was wrong, the President confused— and that he had told the truth...

...Then, however, the world's complexities pressed in once more on the Oval Office...

...Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, warning that without due consultation there could be a "constitutional confrontation...

...Lieutenant Colonel McFarlane worked very hard at being intelligent, even intellectual...

...It contains three points that underscore the naïveté and self-delusion of the White House...

...Indeed, McFarlane had wanted to be the Marine who made a historic geopolitical breakthrough, as Henry Kissinger had done in China...

...The memorandum records that Bush "thanked Nir for having pursued the effort despite doubts and reservations throughout the process...

...At one point,ina meeting of the National Security Council on February 3, the President seemed ready to sweep aside the objections and reservations of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Congress, NATO, and especially of the Soviets...

...Taken to Bethesda Naval Hospital the next morning, McFarlane missed an appointment with the Presidentially-appointed commission investigating the NSC...

...There was Secretary Shultz, reporting distress signals from the Allies and reminding the President of his personal pledge of consultation to Britain's Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher...

...Hostages had become an asset, not to be depleted...

...The Senate Intelligence Committee noted, for instance, that on important points, particularly his assertion that President Reagan had given advance approval for the arms deal, McFarlane's testimony was "inconsistent" with that of Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan and, by implication, with the recollection of the President...

...The other was a long analysis: "U.S...

...He learned the vocabulary of arms control, NATO strategy, Kremlinology, and the Middle East...

...The last newspaper he saw before taking the pills that Sunday was the WashingtonPost...

...McFarlane always capped the story: "Just to prove he was right, at that time I thought it was a compliment...

...On February 19, nearing the deadline for their report, Chairman John Tower, former National Security Assistant Brent Scowcroft and former Secretary of State Edmund Muskie trooped out to Bethesda...

...Neither welfare nor catastrophic health insurance proposals seemed likely to accomplish that, but Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger appeared to have just theticket...

...Reagans Retreat Having laid a series of eggs from his November press conference to his January State of the Union address, President Reagan has quite naturally been aching for a bold initiative that would squelch the rising crescendo of lameduck talk and set the Iran-contra controversy off stage center...

...Bushs Briefing Of all the documents to come tumbling out on the Iranian affair, one of the most dismaying has been the memorandum summarizing the briefing Vice President Bush received on July 29, 1986, during a visit to Jerusalem from then Prime Minister Shimon Peres' antiterrorism adviser, Amiram Nir...

...They had already reached tentativeconclusions from an examination of the NSC computer archives McFarlane had called to the attention of the Senate Intelligence Committee...

...When he advised Iran that the arms deal was canceled after McFarlane's abortive visit to Teheran, Nir said, Prime Minister Mir Hussein Mousavi called him to say steps were being taken to release two hostages—first Father Jenco, then David Jacobsen...

...Nitze reportedly told one outside group that it was difficult to calm down the President because Weinberger was "always lying to him...

...The three principal Moslem factions, while in competition, were all in on the deal...

...His record was blighted, his future bleak...

...The President might not mind this as a change from the Iran-contra affair, yet it would be accompanied by a cutoff of SDI funding that he would surely mind...

...I'll say I re-evaluated, I see the price tag and I'm willing to pay...

...2. Contradicting the Administration's belief that the Iranians were not invariably in a position to deliver hostages held in Lebanon, despite their best efforts, the memo made clear they actually could do whatever they wanted...