|
|
|
| Current Issue |
|
|
| Resources |
|
|
|
The Price of Character
| Article
# : |
20170 |
|
|
Section : |
BOOK WORLD
|
| Issue
Date : |
1 / 1992 |
4,370 Words |
| Author
: |
Dennis Teti
Dennis Teti is adjunct professor of political science at
Hillsdale College in Michigan and research director of the
Tricentennial Foundation for America. |
UNDER FIRE
An American Story
Oliver L. North, with William Novak
New York: HarperCollins/Zondervan, 1991
445 pp., $25.00
Three days before the congressional committee investigating the Iran Contra affair opened its televised hearings, committee lawyers in a deep secret session questioned Oliver North's superior at the National Security Council (NSC), Vice Admiral John Poindexter, under oath. Committee members had agreed to a clause they concealed from the media according to which Poindexter would be asked if he had ever informed, or knew of anyone who had informed, President Reagan about the "diversion" of profits from the Iranian arms sales to the Nicaraguan Contras. The covert clause provided that Poindexter's answers would remain under lock and key unless he suggested that President Reagan had committed an impeachable offense, that is, had known and approved of the diversion. In that case the committee cochairmen, Sen. Daniel Inouye and Rep. Lee Hamilton, would be advised immediately.
On course as the entire committee realized by the time the hearings opened, the cochairmen had heard nothing. Therefore every member already knew that Poindexter, who spoke with the president on a daily basis, had sworn that no one he knew of had told the president. Oliver north testified at a similarly concealed session six days before he also appeared as a public witness on television. Yet the committee, knowing the truth, proceeded to waste months of television and legislative time pretending to search for an answer to the most important question: Did the president know and when did he learn it? The committee's televised hearings were in essence a four-month publicity stunt.
Moreover, the congressional committee had little interest in independent counsel Lawrence Walsh's obvious difficulty in prosecuting North and/or Poindexter. For if the committee had simply accepted the two principals' answers in the closed sessions without also questioning them on television, Walsh's criminal prosecution might not have foundered on the issue of their immunized public testimony.
Let me be absolutely clear that I don't mean these remarks to apply to every member of the committee. The investigation itself had two overriding goals: First, to find any evidence to suggest that President Reagan had broken the law in supporting the Contras when the congressional
...
Read Full Article
Look for this article in Ask.com
|
|
