The Watchers (10 page)

Less than six weeks later, they'd both be out of the White House.

 

McFarlane's secret visit to Tehran had been no less comic, and no less complicated, than every other step in this once pure-intentioned adventure. It was May 1986, only five months after McFarlane had left the White House and its unremitting demands, and the arms-for-hostages swap was not paying off. The NSC staff had become bogged down with a shady Iranian arms merchant named Manucher Ghorbanifar, who passed himself off as a conduit to the men holding the Americans. Release was at hand, he promised. And if the administration just would send a high-level delegation to Tehran, all parties could iron out the wrinkles.

Poindexter tapped McFarlane for the job. This was his mess; he could fix it. McFarlane, accompanied by two CIA officers and an NSC staffer, touched down in Tehran bearing good tidings from the president of the United States. They waited for more than an hour for Ghorbanifar, and when he finally arrived, the U.S. delegation was whisked off to the top floor of a hotel, formerly the Tehran Hilton.

They cooled their heels for nearly four days, and in due course discovered that their Iranian contacts were utter charlatans. At most, the Iranians said, they now could promise to intervene on behalf of one American hostage. No more than two. But they hadn't made the proper arrangements. That would take time, contacts . . . more missiles.

The Americans packed for home. They turned back a plane full of spare missile parts en route to Tehran. No deal. McFarlane was defeated.

North sensed his old boss's desolation. They'd been in contact about the operation since McFarlane had resigned, exchanging messages over a secure communications channel the ex-security adviser kept at home. North could see now how humiliated McFarlane was.

Look on the bright side, North encouraged, as the group stood on a tarmac in Tel Aviv waiting to change planes. We've been funneling some of the profits to the Contras.

Oh shit
, McFarlane thought.

 

Eventually the Iranians obtained an official price list from the Defense Department for the missiles they'd bought. Wise to North's deceptions, they confronted officials at the CIA, who said they had no clue what he'd been up to.

North told Poindexter that the Americans had to keep up their end of the bargain, now more than ever. He drew up a detailed sequence of transactions—one hostage goes free, the United States would ship some weapons parts. Another hostage released, more missiles. A third hostage, and so on.

The dangerous saraband was to culminate in freedom for all the Americans. But before the transactions were complete, two more Americans were snatched in Lebanon. Accounting for the two who'd already been released, the NSC staff was right back where it had started.

Poindexter tried to seize control of the sinking ship. He ordered North to open up a new channel with a source who'd come onto the radar recently, the nephew of a senior Iranian parliamentarian. But by November, after the
Al Shiraa
article, their cover was blown. Reporters started grilling the president openly. How, they wanted to know, did this exchange not violate all his policies on terrorism, as well as the arms embargo and the rules on third-party weapons transfers? The reporters also said that the Iranians were offering to intercede for the hostages if Reagan would release more missiles. Did he plan to do that? they asked.

On November 10, Reagan gathered his national security principals for a meeting in the Situation Room. He was adamant that the United States had not cut a deal directly with terrorists; the White House was selling arms to Iranian moderates who would intercede on its behalf. A big difference.

George Shultz, the secretary of state, was apoplectic. He hadn't known until now that Reagan had signed a finding on the Iran initiative. He had warned Poindexter against the scheme. He knew that Congress hadn't been informed of the arms sales. But worse than all that, the president had debased a basic precept of his war against terrorism, which rested, in Shultz's estimation, as strongly upon a single commitment as it did upon the show of force: We don't deal.

Reagan insisted that he had not bargained away his principles. He told Shultz that the terrorists themselves had not profited from the arms sales, only the interlocutors. Shultz said he wasn't sure the public would recognize the difference. Nor did he.

Poindexter, who was ever mindful of the commander in chief's increasing fragility, cut into the debate. “How else would we get these hostages out?” he demanded. In the finding Poindexter had written that approaching the government of Iran “may well be our only way.” If Shultz had a better idea
,
Poindexter thought, he should have spoken up a long time ago. Instead, he had bowed out, telling Poindexter point-blank that he didn't want to be in the loop on this operation.

Shultz could see now that he'd closed himself off too soon. Poindexter, the rogue “honest broker,” had exposed Reagan to ruin. The president didn't even know it.

“We don't deal,” Shultz said, seething.

 

It was time to return to the script. The players had lost their place. “Line!” the president seemed to shout, the hot, bright lights of the stage shielding the upturned eyebrows and crooked mouths of a skeptical audience.

As Thanksgiving approached, Poindexter and Reagan's press secretary, Larry Speakes, prepped Reagan for a news conference in which he planned to field questions on the Iranian initiative. During the “murder board,” a kind of grueling dress rehearsal for the main performance, various staffers played the roles of bloodthirsty reporters doing their best to trip the president into an admission of guilt, to poke holes in the logic of his policy.

Poindexter coached Reagan on the talking points, pulled directly from the finding: We wanted to further a more moderate government in Iran, obtain vital intelligence, and secure the release of American hostages.

But as the mock journalists volleyed questions at the president, he forgot his lines.

The Israelis hadn't been involved, he responded to one question.

“No, that's not right, Mr. President,” Poindexter intoned from the audience.

The amount of weapons only amounted to what we could fit in a single plane.

“No, Mr. President, that's still not right.”

Reagan seemed to commit the mistakes to memory. He stumbled again and again. As the rehearsal drew on, Poindexter looked across the room at Speakes. They locked eyes and exchanged a knowing shake of the head. They were losing him.

 

Later, when Poindexter had a label to affix to Reagan's condition, he would console himself that he could do only so much to save his commander in chief. He would recognize the familiar fog of Alzheimer's disease when it claimed his mother less than a year after it did the former president. Though the public and Reagan himself liked to joke about his forgetfulness—some even thought it a ruse—Poindexter knew the truth. His boss was sick.

Maybe, in the back of his mind, that's why UNODIR always had been the safest option. Tell the president nothing. Had he known, he would have said yes. But still best not to ask.

On November 21, just eleven days after the tense meeting with the national security principals in the Situation Room, Ed Meese, Reagan's attorney general, told the president it was time to close the book. He had to figure out which way was up in this Iran mayhem. Reagan's staff weren't protecting him, Meese felt. Would the president let him interview all the players and gather the facts?

It was Friday. Reagan gave Meese the weekend and asked for his report on Monday.

The same day, Reagan's White House counsel discovered that one of the missile shipments was large enough that it must be reported to Congress or be declared a violation of the weapons shipment law. Neither had occurred. The White House was officially over the line. And it was only Friday.

Meese didn't have to look long for more incriminating evidence. On Saturday he spoke to Shultz, who blasted Poindexter and the NSC staff for selling the president a bill of goods. Meese said the president didn't remember the missile shipment that tripped the reporting requirement, but neither man thought it much mattered. The Democrats would zero in on the slightest infraction and bring down the White House. Something else bothered Shultz. He'd suspected that the Iran initiative might be connected somehow to funding the Contras. Meese should be on the lookout.

Meese took a break from poring over paperwork. He and two aides stole away for a quiet lunch at the Old Ebbit Grille, a local favorite not far from the White House. One of the aides said he'd been going over files from Oliver North's office, and he'd found a real whopper—the NSC staff was giving $12 million from the Iran missile sales to the Contras.

“Oh, shit,” Meese said.

 

 

 

Poindexter liked to arrive at the White House early, at least by 7:00. Though as deputy he had to drive himself to work, the post of national security adviser came with a chauffeur. Poindexter passed the half-hour commute working or thinking in the backseat of a town car, paying no mind to the rush-hour traffic that he abhorred. He took his breakfast in his office, where he reviewed overnight message traffic. He ate heartily—usually two poached eggs on an English muffin, a bowl of cereal with fruit, and bacon. He met with the NSC staff in the Situation Room at 7:30, attended a meeting of the White House staff, and at 9:30 delivered the president's daily security briefing. At times he let his mind wander, only for a moment, to soak up the rarified air of the Oval Office.

On Friday, November 21, Poindexter added an extraordinary task to his regular routine. Ed Meese had called to say he wanted all relevant NSC staff documents related to the Iran initiative. Poindexter hung up the phone, opened his safe, and pulled out the sole copy of the first finding that Reagan had signed, which described the Iran operation as just an arms-for-hostages deal. He tore the finding into pieces and deposited them in a burn bag, which was collected each day and tossed into an incinerator. Then he turned to his computer and called up more than five thousand messages he had exchanged with North and others about the staff's covert activities. With the click of a button, he deleted them.

On Monday, Meese made his report to Reagan. He told him that the NSC staff had diverted money from the missile sales to the Contras. Then Meese questioned Poindexter about it directly, and Poindexter did not lie.

Later that day the president sat down with the file of memos and news clippings that his national security adviser prepared for him every day. Tucked into the stack was an op-ed Poindexter had penned for the
Wall Street Journal
, defending the administration's Iran policy. It had run in that morning's paper.

Under the headline “The Prudent Option in Iran,” Poindexter defied the administration's detractors to come up with a preferable, more sophisticated policy. Some other way to fight terrorism, balance regional strategy, and get all the hostages back. “Those who question us now owe the country an explanation of how they would have acted differently given the stakes, the opportunities, and the dangers.”
If you've got a better idea, let's hear it.

Reagan took his pen and across the top of the article scrawled a note of praise: “Great—RR”

 

The next morning Poindexter met with Reagan in the Oval Office and told him the whole story. He had instructed North to give the Iran profits to the Contras. It was his decision, and he'd never told the president.

“I'm prepared to resign,” he said. It always had been his plan if the operation became public.

Reagan took Poindexter up on his offer. He would return to another assignment in the Navy. North, however, was fired from the NSC staff. He retained his military commission.

Later that morning Meese laid out the entire affair to a meeting of the full cabinet and congressional officials. At noon he joined the president at a hastily arranged press conference and introduced Iran-Contra to the world. Reagan did no better explaining the latest twist in the debacle than he had a few days earlier, at another press conference just about the arms sales. In that performance the president forgot most of the lines Poindexter had taught him.

Now, Reagan said that he had no idea his staff had diverted money to Nicaragua, a “seriously flawed” move that was nevertheless part of a well-founded and important policy in Iran. He didn't even attempt to entertain questions. Amid howls from the press corps, Reagan turned the meeting over to Meese. They traded places at the podium like confused dance partners, not sure who was leading.

 

On April 7, 1990, Poindexter stood before a twelve-person jury culled from the citizenry of the District of Columbia. He'd been accused of five felony counts: one of conspiracy to obstruct official inquiries and proceedings, and two each of obstructing Congress and false statements to Congress. His earlier deference to McFarlane's false statements to the intelligence committee, as well as his destruction of e-mail messages, composed parts of the indictment. Poindexter considered the latter issue particularly preposterous. There were no rules on the retention of e-mail records. He should know, he said. He
brought
e-mail to the White House.

Poindexter fixed his eyes on the twenty-five-year-old jury foreman, a para-legal student at a local community college. To each of the five counts the judge read, the young man replied, “Guilty.”

Poindexter rocked gently, but his blank expression never changed. He gave nothing away. The judge ordered him to return in two months for sentencing, when he could receive a maximum of twenty-five years' imprisonment. Poindexter turned to his wife, Linda, and kissed her. They walked out of the courthouse into the spring air.