Reagan: The Life (84 page)

In early August, McFarlane met with Reagan at the White House. He told of his conversation with Kimche and of the suggestion of the missile transfer from Israel to Iran. As George Shultz, present at the meeting, recalled, McFarlane talked of a strategic opening to Iran but also spoke of the hostages. McFarlane said the Iranians with whom he had been in contact could secure the release of four of the Americans. Shultz argued against the proposal, saying that arms transfers to Iran would be a serious mistake. “
I thought that the president agreed, though reluctantly,” Shultz wrote.

But Reagan had not agreed, as a diary entry a short while later indicated. “
I received a ‘secret’ phone call from Bud McFarlane,” the president,
then vacationing at the ranch in California, wrote. “It seems a man high up in the Iranian government believes he can deliver all or part of the seven American kidnap victims in Lebanon sometime in early September. They will be delivered to a point on the beach north of Tripoli and we’ll take them off to our Sixth fleet. I had some decisions to make about a few points—but they were easy to make. Now we wait.”

Reagan’s decisions involved the transfer of TOW antitank missiles from Israel to Iran. McFarlane notified the Israelis, who during the first two weeks of September 1985
delivered some five hundred
TOW missiles to Iran. On September 15, one American hostage, the Reverend
Benjamin Weir, was released.

Reagan hoped the other hostages would follow. “
A call from Bud M. on the secure phone,” he wrote in his diary on Sunday, September 15. “Rev. Weir, the Presbyterian minister, has been delivered to our embassy in Beirut and is now aboard the U.S.S.
Nimitz
. We’re trying to hold it secret because of the other kidnap victims. An unverified source says they will be delivered in 48 hours. Everything is top secret but suddenly on the TV talk shows they quoted a Reuters story that an anonymous call had reported Weir’s rescue. But of course we are stonewalling.” Two days later Reagan recorded, “
Rev. Weir and his family are at a ‘safe house’ here in our country. His family was a little hard to handle. They insisted on going to a hotel but we managed to move them when he arrived. So far the secret is holding and they are all together. We’ve been told by the mystery man in Beirut the others (hostages) will follow.”

T
HE OTHER HOSTAGES
did not follow. They remained in captivity when a separate event distracted Reagan while confirming his resolve to bring the hostages home. On October 7 an Italian cruise ship, the
Achille Lauro
, was hijacked off the coast of Egypt by four men affiliated with the Palestine Liberation Front. The hijackers demanded the release of various Palestinians detained by the Israelis. Reagan’s diary reveals that he followed every detail of the hijacking with great care, all the more because the hostages included dozens of Americans. He directed the U.S. Navy to ready a rescue team.

The rescue proved unnecessary after the hijackers ordered the ship to
Port Said, where they surrendered themselves to Egyptian authorities in exchange for a pledge of safe conduct to a friendly country. Reagan
recounted the events in his diary: “
Word came that the Italian liner had returned to Port Said—the hijackers were taken by the Egyptians who turned them over to the P.L.O. who took them out of Egypt. They were only four in number but then we learned they had killed an American—a 69-year-old man in a wheel chair. So we never had a chance to launch our rescue attack. The hostages minus one are on their way home.”

The murder of the American,
Leon Klinghoffer, infuriated Reagan, and he refused to be bound by the Egyptian government’s safe-conduct pledge. He ordered the navy into action. “
The big news was that our Navy F-14s had intercepted the Egyptian plane carrying the hijackers and forced them down on Sicily—the NATO base in Sigonella,” he wrote on October 11. “Americans as well as friends abroad are standing six inches taller. We’re flooded with wires and calls.” Reagan worked the levers of diplomacy to try to get his hands on the hijackers. “There were other kinds of calls half the night, such as my call to Prime Minister Craxi of Italy asking that we be allowed to fly the four to the U.S. for prosecution here. He explained that he didn’t have the authority—Italian magistrates are independent of the government. Well, the upshot is, Italy will prosecute but we are putting in an extradition request just in case.”

Reagan was willing to endure criticism from the Arab world for his affront to international law in waylaying the Egyptian plane. “Mubarak is offended and called our act piracy,” he wrote. “I think he’s playing to his own audience. The Egyptian people are partial to the PLO.” If anything, Reagan relished the harsh words. “
I called Mrs. Klinghoffer,” he wrote two days later. “She and some other passengers had a stop in Rome to identify the hijackers. She told me I’m really hated by them, that every few minutes during the ordeal on ship they were sounding off about me.”

T
HE CONTINUED CAPTIVITY
of most of the hostages in Lebanon following the initial delivery of arms to Iran inspired McFarlane and his staff to try again. This time the Iranians wanted HAWK antiaircraft missiles, and McFarlane endorsed the request.
He judged that Reagan’s previous approval of the
TOW missiles would extend to the HAWKs, and he simply informed the president that a shipment from Israel was going forward, rather than asking for fresh authorization.

Reagan didn’t object. Following a November 22 meeting of the NSC, he wrote, “
Subject was our hostages in Beirut. We have an undercover
thing going by way of an Iranian which could get them sprung momentarily.” The next day he observed, “
We’re still sweating out our undercover effort to get hostages out of Beirut.”

The second arms delivery was even less successful than the first. This time no hostages came home. McFarlane grew discouraged and told Reagan he wanted to resign. Reagan didn’t try to dissuade him. McFarlane’s last NSC meeting was on December 5. “
Subject was our undercover effort to free our five hostages held by terrorists in Lebanon,” Reagan wrote. “It is a complex undertaking with only a few of us in on it. I won’t even write in the diary what we’re up to.”

What the administration was up to was more bartering of arms for hostages. By this time
Oliver North, the NSC staffer who was taking the lead on implementing the policy, had reduced the initiative to a formula:

The 707 and 747 were the transporting planes; the AMCITs were American citizens.

North, unlike McFarlane, refused to be discouraged by the meager results to date. The administration must press forward, he argued, lest the hostages be in greater danger. “
We are now so far down the road that stopping what has been started could have even more serious repercussions,” he wrote to
John Poindexter, currently McFarlane’s deputy. “If we do not make at least one more try at this point, we stand a good chance of condemning some or all to death.”

Reagan responded to this argument much as he had to previous arguments for sending weapons to Iran. “
The president was profoundly concerned for the hostages,” McFarlane recalled of a White House meeting at which the new danger to the hostages formed a central part of the discussion. John Poindexter remembered the president weighing the hazards of going ahead but concluding, “
I don’t think I could forgive myself if we didn’t try.” Reagan added, “If it becomes public, I think I can defend it, but it will be like answering the question of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.”

The initiative went forward. In January 1986, Reagan described the
program in greater detail than he had previously confided to his diary. “
This was a day spent on two issues,” he wrote on January 7. “One was Qaddafi (Libya), and the other our five hostages in
Lebanon.” Reagan vented against Qaddafi before continuing: “The other issue is a highly secret convoluted process that sees Israel freeing some 20
Hezbollahs who aren’t really guilty of any blood letting. At the same time they sell Iran some ‘Tow’ anti-tank weapons. We in turn sell Israel replacements and the Hezbollah free our five hostages. Iran also pledges there will be no more kidnappings. We sit quietly by and never reveal how we got them back.”

The process turned out to be too convoluted for the Israelis, who recommended streamlining. Prime Minister
Shimon Peres feared that Iran was losing its war with Iraq, and he urged the Americans to sell weapons directly to Iran. This appealed to
John Poindexter, who had succeeded McFarlane as national security adviser. On January 17, 1986, Poindexter sent Reagan a memo outlining the Israeli plan, along with a draft presidential finding authorizing the direct sales. “
Some time ago Attorney General
William French Smith determined that under an appropriate finding you could authorize the CIA to sell arms to countries outside the provisions of the laws and reporting requirements for foreign military sales,” Poindexter wrote in his memo. “The objectives of the Israeli plan could be met if the CIA, using an authorized agent as necessary, purchased arms from the Defense Department under the Economy Act and then transferred them to Iran directly after receiving appropriate payment from Iran. The
Covert Action Finding attached at Tab A provides the latitude for the transactions indicated above to proceed.” The finding itself declared, “
The USG”—United States government—“will act to facilitate efforts by third parties and third countries to establish contact with moderate elements within and outside the Government of Iran by providing these elements with arms, equipment and related materiel.” A previous finding had authorized aid to third countries; this version added the “third parties,” understood to be private intermediaries.

Poindexter’s memo and the presidential finding nodded to the idea of a strategic opening to Iran, but Reagan read them in terms of the hostages and what it would take to release them. He wrote in his diary that night, “
Only thing waiting was NSC wanting decisions on our effort to get our five hostages out of Lebanon. Involves selling TOW anti-tank missiles to Iran. I gave a go ahead.”

One thousand
TOW missiles were delivered to Iran in February
under the terms of the new finding. But no hostages were released. The Iranians instead kept the Americans dangling. “
This morning more word about the possibility of getting our hostages out of Lebanon,” Reagan wrote in his diary on February 28, a Friday. “This has been a long tragic time for the families. We are supposed to know by next Thursday.”

Thursday came and went. March came and went, and April and most of May. “
We still don’t know whether our hostages will be freed,” Reagan wrote on May 27. Robert McFarlane, though no longer national security adviser, continued to pursue the Iran initiative for the president. He had traveled to Tehran in an effort to untangle things and was now reporting in. “Bud’s call revealed that two of the Iranians who had involved us were on the phony side,” Reagan wrote. “However through them Bud was put in touch with a rep. from the P.M.’s office. Outrageous demands were made by the Hezbollahs such as Israel must leave the
Golan Heights and South Lebanon.
Kuwait must free the convicted murderers they’ve tried and imprisoned etc. Bud said no dice so they got back to the original price—sale of some weaponry. Now we’ll know possibly in the next 48 hours.”

Later that day, Reagan added to his diary entry. “Another call from Bud in Iran,” he wrote. “Again they tried to exact some outrageous terms—delivery of the weapons and spare parts before release of the hostages. Bud told them deal was off. They backed down and said we had a deal, but they’d have to get through to the Hezbollah in Beirut. Bud thinks Iran, conscious of the Soviet forces on their border and their own lack of competence, want a long term relationship with us and this could be what’s behind their negotiations. Now we wait some more.” McFarlane was still thinking strategically, but Reagan remained focused on the hostages and the price of their release. “The deal is the plane carrying the material takes off from Tel Aviv. If at the end of three hours we have not received the hostages, we signal the plane to turn back.”

“
And that’s just what we did,” Reagan wrote the next day. “Signal the plane to turn back after over one-half hour. It seems the rug merchants said the Hezbollah would only agree to two hostages. Bud told them to shove it, went to the airport and left for Tel Aviv. This was a heartbreaking disappointment for all of us.”

But neither McFarlane nor Reagan could walk away from the bargaining table. The Iranians, perhaps sensing the president’s desperation, lowered their offer. In exchange for spare parts for HAWK missiles and additional TOWs, they would arrange the release of one hostage. McFar
lane accepted the deal. Reagan was relieved and encouraged. “
Saturday good word: one of our hostages—Father Jenco—was released in Lebanon and turned over to the Syrians,” he wrote in his diary for July 26. “The release of Jenco is a delayed step in a plan we’ve been working on for months. It gives us hope the rest of the plan will take place. We’d about given up on this.”

Reagan’s relief turned to pleasure when he met Jenco and his family. “
The high spot of the day: the arrival of Father
Martin Jenco, just released by the Hezbollahs in Beirut after being a hostage 19 months,” the president wrote on August 1. “His family were all with him and it was an emotional experience.”

D
URING THE SAME
months when he was wrestling with Iran over the hostages, Reagan was battling Congress over the
contras. The discovery of the CIA’s mining of Nicaraguan harbors had produced another Boland amendment, the most restrictive yet. “
No funds available to the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense, or any other agency or entity of the United States involved in intelligence activities may be obligated or expended for the purpose or which would have the effect of supporting, directly or indirectly, military or paramilitary operations in Nicaragua by any nation, group, organization, movement, or individual,” the amendment declared, seemingly categorically.