THE TOWER OF BABEL

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000201650028-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 15, 2010
• Sequence Number: 28
• Publication Date: December 1, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/15 :CIA-RDP90-005528000201650028-9
The Tower of Babel
From the Iran arms deals: much talk bent little coherence
he President's image had barely
faded from the TV screens when
he admitted that he had been
wrong on one important point.
Three times during his Wednesday-night
news conference Ronald Reagan had de-
nied approving arms shipments by any
other country to Iran, even after reporters
reminded him that his staff had revealed
that the U.S. had condoned at least one
Yet almost as soon as the Presi-
dent was off-camera. aides told
him he had erred. Within l5
minutes the White House press
l office rushed out a statement in
Reagan's name contending
lamely. "There may be some mis-
understanding of one of my an-
~ savers tonight. There was a third
~ country im~olved in our secret
project with Iran."
j The snafu was symbolic as
! welt as substantive: it showed an
Administration floundering and
failing in its attempts to restore its
credibility. Tn their efforts to ex-
plain and justify [he secret U.S.
sales of weapons and spare parts
to Iran-which shattered the en-
tire foundation of the Adminis-
tration's fervent public efforts to
take a strong stand against terror-
ism-Reagan and his aides last
week seemed only to be erecting a
Tower of Babel abuzz with con-
. flicting and contradictory voices.
I Presidential confidants past and
squelch one of Reagan's last chances to
salvage something from the wreckage of
his secret initiative to Tehran. Though
Reagan announced at his news conference
that there would be no more arms deliver-
ies, he expressed a rather wan hope that
the U.S. could stay in sympathetic touch
with so-called moderates in Khomeini's
government. That, the 86-year-old Aya-
tollah quickly made clear, would happen
only over his dead body. Speaking with his
the White House to hear from National
Security Adviser John Poindexter. After-
ward the Texas Democrat told reporters
that Iran had purchased 2.008 Tow anti-
tank missiles and 235 "battery assem-
blies" for Hawk antiaircraft missiles from
the U.S.: he later put the price at ~ 12 mil-
lion. The number of Tows would be dou-
ble the figure cited by a reporter at Rea-
gan's news conference and not corrected
by the President. The disclosure also on-
o dercut Reagan's contention that
Reagan surveys skeptical reporters at his news conference
"Tl:e responsibility is mine and mine alone. "
present got into a public squabble: former
National Security Adviser Robert McFar-
lane. one of the architects of the Presi-
dent's Iranian policy. called the arms
transfers a "mistake," and was promptly
accused by Chief of Staff Donald Regan of
giving "lousy advice." The President and
his Secretary of State, George Shultz. ap-
parently unwilling to settle anything face
to face, took to exchanging messages by
way of television. And by the end of the
week an .a BC News poll showed not on
that 59~~ of the public disbelieved Re~
gan's answers but that his overall approv
months. to 57