Iran Contra

Title: "Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters"Authors: Lawrence E. Walsh and staffPublisher: Government Printing Office, WashingtonLength, price: 2,503 pages, $60Seven years in the making, the final accounting for the legal wrongs -- real or perceived -- that were done during the Iran-contra scandal provides far more detail than the American public has yet been offered on the affair that nearly wrecked Ronald Reagan's presidency....

Titillation over David Petraeus and political posturing over Susan Rice aside, here is the most important unasked question: Why did we foster regime change in Libya and Egypt that gave the Muslim Brotherhood control in the latter and produced a gaggle of Islamic militias in the former? Earlier, we forced elections in Lebanon and Palestine that gave Hezbollah control in Lebanon and Hamas the Gaza Strip. Again, why? Replacing the Mubarak government has left the border between Gaza and Egypt more open for weapons deliveries to Hamas, which produced the latest conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

WASHINGTON -- Former Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush deceived the public about their knowledge of the Iran-contra arms-for-hostages deal, according to memoirs being published tomorrow by one of the central figures in the event, former national security adviser Robert C. McFarlane.Mr. McFarlane says he briefed President Reagan and then-Vice President Bush from the start of the deal in 1985, 17 months earlier than Mr. Bush admits he knew about it.The comments are noteworthy because the question of Mr. Bush's knowledge has focused for years on whether he was present during two White House meetings in late 1985 and early 1986 at which the Iran-contra deal was discussed.

In the matter of the allegedly vote-suppressing robocall that went out on Election Day, the defeated Maryland gubernatorial candidate Bob Ehrlich has plausible deniability, or PD. His campaign might have hired political consultant Julius Henson, but Mr. Ehrlich can deny — if he ever speaks publicly of this matter — any knowledge of Mr. Henson's allegedly illegal effort to keep black citizens from voting for Democrat Martin O'Malley....

A federal jury in Baltimore has convicted Iran-contra figure Thomas G. Clines of four felony tax charges tied to his acquisition of guns for the Nicaraguan rebels in an operation masterminded by former White House aides John Poindexter and Oliver North.The jury returned the verdict yesterday after 3 1/2 hours of deliberations that capped a 10-day trial in U.S. District Court.Judge Norman P. Ramsey set sentencing for Oct. 31. Clines, who is free on personal recognizance, could face 16 years in prison and $1 million in fines.

WASHINGTON -- Then-Vice President George Bush fretted after the Iran-contra scandal erupted in 1986 that the affair might cost him the presidency in 1988 even though he was "not in the decision-making loop," according to excerpts from a personal diary released by the White House yesterday.The White House also disclosed yesterday that it had found Mr. Bush's diaries in a safe last fall, more than a month before Election Day, but waited until Dec. 11 to disclose their existence to Iran-contra investigators who had been seeking them since 1987.

Thomas G. Clines, the former CIA agent who located arms supplies during the Iran-contra scheme, was sentenced yesterday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore to 16 months in prison and ordered to pay a $40,000 fine and the cost of his prosecution.Only Oliver L. North, sentenced to three years on a conviction that has since been overturned, received a stiffer penalty in connection with the arms-for-hostages scheme. But unlike Mr. North, Clines, 62, was convicted of tax charges. In September, a federal jury convicted him of underreporting his earnings in 1985 and 1986 and falsely stating on his tax forms for those years that he had no foreign financial accounts.

Retired CIA agent Thomas C. Clines has been sentenced to 16 months in federal prison and fined $40,000 for hiding part of his Iran-contra income from the IRS.The sentence was levied by Judge Norman P. Ramsey late yesterday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore. The prison term is the harshest imposed on any of the eight convicted Iran-contra participants.Clines' term is nearly three times that of the six-month term given John Poindexter, the former White House aide who was convicted of conspiracy, obstruction of Congress and related charges last April.

WASHINGTON -- The confirmation hearing for Robert M. Gates, President Bush's nominee to head the CIA, was postponed indefinitely yesterday to give the Senate intelligence committee time to dig deeper into whether Mr. Gates was involved in the Iran-contra scandal.For Mr. Gates, the delay is an ominous replay of 1987, when he eventually withdrew his name from consideration for the same post because of unanswered concerns about the then-fresh Iran-contra investigation.But the chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, David L. Boren, D-Okla.

WASHINGTON -- President Bush hired former Attorney General Griffin B. Bell yesterday to handle any dealings he may have with the continuing criminal investigation into the Iran-contra scandal.Mr. Bell, a former federal judge, is an Atlanta lawyer known for his skill at negotiating in difficult situations.The disclosure came after the president defended his decision to pardon former Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger and five other Iran-contra figures. He called the pardons a "very difficult call," but one he clearly had the power to make.

WASHINGTON -- The Reagans, the controversial made-for-TV movie, finally made its way into American homes this week -- but not nearly as many homes as originally planned after CBS moved it to its smaller, premium cable channel Showtime. I watched the entire three-hour melodrama in order to participate in a special Showtime panel discussion, aired after the movie, along with five other people who were invited to comment. The other guests included Reagan biographer and former Washington Post reporter Lou Cannon; veteran newsman Marvin Kalb; longtime Reagan adviser Martin Anderson, who is also the editor of three published collections of Ronald Reagan's letters, speeches and radio commentaries; and two Reagan critics, AIDS activist Hilary Rosen and the film's co-producer, Carl Anthony.

WASHINGTON - Donald T. Regan, who rose from an Irish working class background to serve as a groundbreaking chairman and chief executive officer of Merrill Lynch and later as Treasury secretary and disputed chief of staff for President Ronald Reagan, died yesterday. He was 84. Mr. Regan, who had been battling cancer, died at a hospital in Williamsburg, Va. He was admitted to the hospital Sunday. The target of first lady Nancy Reagan's ire, he was a tenacious White House chief of staff, who demanded loyalty, controlled the flow of information and likened his role to that of a prime minister.

WASHINGTON -- It's said that the acorn doesn't fall far from the tree, which is something the second President Bush should bear in mind as his occupancy of the White House begins to resemble in some important aspects the first and only term of his father. While the current furor over corporate corruption and greed is not an exact parallel to the senior Mr. Bush's woes of an economy in recession, today's public nervousness about the economic and business health of the country bears with it a similar political peril.

WASHINGTON - His name conjures up vague images of the 1980s, a time of hostages and Central American "freedom fighters," the ayatollah and Oliver L. North. Elliott Abrams, a key figure in the Iran-contra scandal, which tarnished the Reagan administration, is again working for a Republican president, a move that is delighting conservatives and troubling liberals. The former assistant secretary of state, who pleaded guilty to two counts of misleading Congress and was pardoned by President George Bush, began his duties this week as senior director of the office of democracy, human rights and international operations on the National Security Council staff at the White House.

Complaining about William Webster's appointment and tenure as director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency late in the Reagan years, Duane R. Clarridge makes the essence of his own career as a top CIA agent and executive startlingly unequivocal:"All of [Webster's] training as a lawyer and as a judge was that you didn't do illegal things. He never could accept that this is exactly what the CIA does when it operates abroad. We break the laws of other countries. It's how we collect information.

In August 1993, independent counsel Lawrence Walsh issued his final report on the Iran-contra scandal. His ultimate findings made the front page of many newspapers, but by no means all, for journalists and citizens alike were weary of the story after seven years of partisan finger-pointing, fragmentary reporting, internecine recrimination and never-ending attempts at spin control. The Walsh report, in theory, should have put Iran-contra to rest, allowing the participants in the scandal and the public to get on with their lives.

WASHINGTON -- After assessing the effect of Presiden Bush's Christmas Eve pardons with his staff, special Iran-contra prosecutor Lawrence Walsh concluded that he could go no further with his investigations or prosecutions, according to a source close to Mr. Walsh.Nevertheless, Mr. Bush has hired Griffin Bell, President Carter's attorney general, to represent him in matters arising from the Iran-contra inquiry, the White House announced yesterday.Mr. Bell, a former federal judge who is now an Atlanta lawyer, is to deal first with Mr. Walsh's continuing pressure for access to Mr. Bush's 1986 notes about high-level White House meetings ** during the unfolding scandal.

WASHINGTON -- The Reagans, the controversial made-for-TV movie, finally made its way into American homes this week -- but not nearly as many homes as originally planned after CBS moved it to its smaller, premium cable channel Showtime. I watched the entire three-hour melodrama in order to participate in a special Showtime panel discussion, aired after the movie, along with five other people who were invited to comment. The other guests included Reagan biographer and former Washington Post reporter Lou Cannon; veteran newsman Marvin Kalb; longtime Reagan adviser Martin Anderson, who is also the editor of three published collections of Ronald Reagan's letters, speeches and radio commentaries; and two Reagan critics, AIDS activist Hilary Rosen and the film's co-producer, Carl Anthony.

WASHINGTON -- Former Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush deceived the public about their knowledge of the Iran-contra arms-for-hostages deal, according to memoirs being published tomorrow by one of the central figures in the event, former national security adviser Robert C. McFarlane.Mr. McFarlane says he briefed President Reagan and then-Vice President Bush from the start of the deal in 1985, 17 months earlier than Mr. Bush admits he knew about it.The comments are noteworthy because the question of Mr. Bush's knowledge has focused for years on whether he was present during two White House meetings in late 1985 and early 1986 at which the Iran-contra deal was discussed.