HOW THE IRAN-CONTRA STORY LEAKED

• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Collection: Declassified Articles from Studies in Intelligence: The IC’s Journal for the Intelligence Professional
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 0000621341
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Release Date: July 30, 2014
• Case Number: F-2013-02322
• Publication Date: June 1, 1989

TITLE:AUTHOR:VOLUME:Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000621341How the Iran-Contra Story Leaked(b)(3)(c)33 ISSUE: Summer YEAR: 1989Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000621341pproved for Release: 2014/07/29 000621341STUDIES IINTELLIGENCEA collection of articles on the historical, operational, doctrinal, and theoretical aspects of intelligence.All statements of fact, opinion or analysis expressed in Studies in Intelligence are those ofthe authors. They do not necessarily reflect official positions or views of the CentralIntelligence Agency or any other US Government entity, past or present. Nothing in thecontents should be construed as asserting or implying US Government endorsement of anarticle's factual statements and interpretations.Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000621341Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000621341A Syrian success storyHOW THE IRAN-CONTRA STORY LEAKED(b)(3)(c)With all the publicity surrounding the Iran-Contra affair, there was little focus on wholeaked the initial story to the Lebanese newspaper Al-Shiraa on 1-2 November 1986, or why.It was not until June 1987 that reporting was received on the origin of the mysterious pressiece. According toDamascus leaked the US-Iranian arms-for-hostages deal for its own purposes,t us setting in motion events that would temporarily undermine US prestige in the Middle East,expose the diversion of funds to the Nicaraguan Contras, and create a major controversy in USpolitics.( b)( 1 )(b)(3)(n)(b)(1)(b)(3)(n)the Syrian Government first learned of the arms-for-hostages deal from its charg?n Tehran,Iyad Mahmud, who probably got the information through his contacts in the IranianGovernment. For Mahmud, who was in fact a Syrian military intelligence officer, thisknowledge quickly became a dangerous thing.In early October 1986, a group of Iranian officials kidnaped Mahmud and beat him badlybefore letting him go. Iranian press reports at the time claimed that Mahmud had been arrestedby the Iranian antivice squad for drunkenness in the company of women and then released 24hours later. This story covered up the real reason for the arrest?to intimidate Mahmud frompasssing on his knowledge of the deal.Immediately after Mahmud's release, Damascus withdrew him, and he apparently then (b)(1)told his colleagues what he knew. claims that Syria, now angry at both the US (b)(3)(n)and Iran, chose the Syrian-financed Al-Shiraa to print the story. Although Syrian intelligenceofficials tried to take credit for disrupting US relations throughout the region, they evidentlynever anticipated how far-reaching the political reaction would be in the US.Why Syria Did ItSyria was the only Arab state to consistently back Iran in the Persian Gulf War from 1980to 1988, and, in return, Iran provided Syria with low-priced oil. In this context, Damascus hadno reason to stop the US sale of weapons to Tehran. While Damascus may have feared furtherUS-Iranian cooperation on the Lebanese civil war and other issues, such cooperation is difficul( b)( 1)to imagine. Yet :Aaims that Syria exposed the deal out of its anger at botl(b)(3)(n)the US and Iran. One possible explanation is that Mahmud found out about the role Israelplayed in facilitating the deal and that Damascus feared Israeli-Iranian ties would return to therelationship of the 1970s, when Israel provide a steady flow of weapons to the Shah of Iran. ButSyrian knowledge of the Israeli angle was unlikely, considering that the Al-Shiraa piece madeno mention of it. A less unlikely explanation is that Syria had the story printed to punish Iranfor its treatment of Mahmud.( b)( 1 )however, may have been misled by his Syrian sources on Syrian (b)(3)(n)motivations for releasing the story. He did not account for the four-week lapse between early11pproved for Release: 2014/07/29 000621341Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000621341,sEensrOctober, when Syria apparently learned of the story, and 1-2 november, when the storyappeared in the press. This lapse suggests that Syrian leaders had more in mind then retaliationagainst Iran.The Terrorist TrialsThe fall of 1986 was a troubled time for the Syrian Government. On 24 October, eightdays before the publication of the Al-Shiraa story, a jury in London convicted Nizar Hindawi,a Palestinian terrorist who, under orders from high-level Syrian intelligence officials, had triedto blow up an El Al airliner in April 1986 by using his unwitting pregnant Irish girlfriend tosmuggle a bomb on board. Hindawi was sentenced to 45 years in prison, the longest sentencein modern British history. What followed that afternoon caught the Syrians, and most of theinternational community, completely by surprise. Within three hours of the court decision,British Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe appeared as expected before the House ofCommons to denounce the -monstrous and inhumane- terrorist operation. He then did theunexpected by announcing that the UK had decided to break diplomatic relations with Syria.That same afternoon, both the US and Canada announced that they too were withdrawing theirambassadors from DamascusTo make matters worst for the Syrians, a second terrorist trial, this one in West Berlin, wasabout to begin. It was clear that Syrian intelligence would be implicated in the March 1986bombing of a German-Arab cultural center. Syrian President Assad probably worried that theeconomic sanctions imposed by the UK and the US following the Hindawi trail would be takenup by the rest of Europe, following the West Berlin trial. This would put an added strain onthe shaky Syrian economy.Assad also was concerned from a public-relations standpoint. Unlike Iran and Libya, theother large-scale sponsors of terrorism, Syria has sought to protect its international image,particularly in the West. Syrian intelligence officials carefully hid their involvement interrorism, often by using surrogate groups. Circumstantial evidence linked Damascus to dozensof attacks, including the bombing of the US Embassy in Beirut in April 1983 and the Rome andVienna airport attacks on 27 December 1985, but none produced the -smoking gun.- The trialsin London and West Berlin were changing all this. For the first time, the West had clear-cutevidence of Syrian involvement in terrorism, and Assad was embarrassed by the highlypublicized trials.Exploiting a MouthpieceIt was at this moment that Syria, hoping to deflect Western attention, decided to leak thearms-for-hostages story to Al-Shiraa. For years, the Syrian Ministry of Information hadmaintained close ties to the publishers of the weekly tabloid newspaper, providing them witha steady flow of stories, some true and some false, that served Syrian interests. In return,Al-Shiraa became increasingly pro-Syrian, reaching the point where it frequently ran editorialssupporting the presence of Syrian occupation troops in Lebanon and predicting that only Syriacould end the fighting. As a result, the magazine had become known as a one-sided, unreliablesource of news.The Al-Shiraa arms-for-hostages article on the weekend of 1-2 November claimed that theUS secretly had sent Iran spare parts and ammunition for American-built fighter planes andtanks that the latter had purchased from the US before the Shah's fall in 1979. Furthermore,it described a secret trip made by former US National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane toTehran in early September 1986. On 4 November, The New York Times picked up theApproved for Release: 2014/07/29 000621341Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000621341Al-Shiraa story and put it on the front page. That same day, Iranian Speaker of the ParliamentRafsanjani, in a speech marking the seventh anniversary of US Embassy takeover in Tehran,described in some detail a secret mission made by McFarlane and four other US officials toTehran. Rafsanjani boasted that Iran had held them hostage for five days, before expellingthem.The fact that Rafsanjani immediately confirmed at least part of the Al-Shiraa story ratherthan ignoring it or even denying it suggests that Iran may have been ready to end thearms-for-hostages arrangement. If so, the situation in Tehran had changed since the kidnapingand beating of Mahmud. By November 1986, Rafsanjani and other more pragmatic Iranianleaders probably were under a lot of pressure from radicals in the regime to terminate contactswith US officials. When the story broke in Lebanon, Rafsanjani moved quickly to make itappear as though Iran had duped -the Great Satan.-A Rich HarvestFor Syria, the Al-Shiraa story was a sizable success. By the time the West Berlin terroristtrial ended in mid-November with another guilty verdict and more economic sanctions againstSyria, the arms-for-hostages controversy was dominating the headlines, and the issue ofSyrian-supported terrorism had moved to the back pages. Syrian leaders almost certainlywatched with amazement as the controversy unfolded, revealing the diversion of funds to theContras and creating a major political scandal in the US. By damaging the credibility of the UScounterterrorist effort, Damascus made it unlikely that Western diplomatic and economicsanctions against Syria would last for long. Within a year, the US Ambassador was back inDamascus and the European economic sanctions were nearly rescinded. Only Britain haddecided not to resume normal relations with Syria.Other ResultsThe impact of the Al-Shiraa story also was felt in Iran. On 28 September 1987, Tehranannounced the execution of extremist leader Mehdi Hashemi after his conviction on severalcharges, including murder, kidnaping, and attemping to overthrow the Iranian Government.Hashemi had been identified as one of the more radical Iranian leaders, and there is speculationthat he helped leak the secret US-Iranian arrangement to discredit the more moderateRafsanjani. If so, Hashemi or one of his associates probably was responsible for giving theinformation to the Syrian diplomat in Tehran. The fact that the arrest of Hashemi, along with60 of his comrades, took place in November 1986 is hardly a coincidence.For Al-Shiraa, the story caused a tremendous boost in the newspaper's popularity inLebanon and throughout the Middle East. It also earned Al-Shiraa some credibility for itsrevelation of the dealings between the US and Iran.This article is classifiedApproved for Release: 2014/07/29 00062134113