MIKE LEDEEN TELLS HIS ARMS STORY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000403730023-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 8, 2012
• Sequence Number: 23
• Publication Date: September 1, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Ledeen was the only American to have contact with
the Iranians from the start of the initiative all
the way through to the end in November of 1985.
He was scheduled to appear before the Committees
but was cancelled despite his objections and those
of the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Times
Mike Ledeen Tells
His Iran Arms Story
M IKE LEDEEN'S background
would seem at first blush to
make him an unlikely can-
didate for controversy: teacher of Amer-
ican history, lecturer, journalist, his-
torian, author of nine books on various
historical and international questions
ranging from the fall of the Shah of
Iran to an analysis of Italian politics.
But Ledeen is also an acknowledged
international expert on counterter-
rorism and sometime U.S. Govern-
ment consultant. In this latter capac-
ity, he was drawn into "the Iranian
matter," as he puts it.
Mike was to testify before the
House and Senate Select Committees
on the Iran/Contra affair the Friday
before Colonel Oliver North testified.
Ledeen's appearance was canceled -
over his own vociferous protests and
those of his lawyer James Woolsey.
As we go to press, Mike Ledeen is
still hoping he'll be rescheduled -
for two reasons, he told me. First,
since statements were made about him
by witnesses and Committee mem-
bers, he wants an opportunity, in the
interests of fairness, to respond in the
same forum. Second, in keeping with
the Committees' mandate to investi-
gate all aspects of the Iranian matter
- and since he was the only Ameri-
can to have contact with the Iranians
from the start of the initiative all the
way through to November of 1985
- he feels strongly that his story
should be heard by the American
people.
Q. Mike Ledeen, how and when did
you become a key player in the
Iranian initiative?
A. It started in May 1985 when Robert
McFarlane, the national security
advisor, approached me about what
amounted to a research project on Iran.
McFarlane and people who worked
for him recognized that Iran is a coun-
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I CONSERVATIVE DIGEST
try of great geopolitical importance
to the Western world and yet the U.S.
Government's current knowledge of
Iran was shamefully inadequate.
Q. Why was Iran so important?
A. Two reasons. Its size - sixty mil-
lion people - with, after Israel, prob-
ably the strongest army in the region.
Secondly, it is the buffer between the
Soviet Union and the Persian Gulf.
Remember Kissinger's and Nixon's
two-pillar Middle Eastern policy fol-
lowing the withdrawal of the British
from East of Suez? The idea was to
stop Soviet expansion into that part
of the world with Saudi Arabian money
and Iranian military power. That's why
we had such a close relationship with
the Shah of Iran.
Q. Why did McFarlane call on you?
A. He was counsellor to the State
Department when I was there and
knew about the contacts I'd made -
I was on good terms with the new
Prime Minister of Israel. I was also
familiar with Iranian problems, hav-
ing recently written a book about Iran,
and I was knowledgeable about the
general subject of terrorism. So it was
logical for McFarlane to ask me to
approach Prime Minister Shimon Peres
to see if Israel and the United States
might share information and increase
our understanding of Iran.
Q. And Peres's response was ... ?
A. To create a group in Israel who'd
pull together their information on Iran
- and not just from normal intelli-
gence sources. For example, they con-
tacted people in the recent wave of
Jewish immigration from Iran. For
my part, I was to put together what
42
Washington knew so we could com-
pare notes and get a reasonably good
picture. It was good timing.
Q. Good timing? Why?
A. A man considered one of the most
down-to-earth, reliable people in the
intelligence field had told me he'd
recently traveled through Iran and
found the situation much more fluid
than he'd previously believed. He said,
"This is the time when you people
ought to get involved in Iran again."
Q. And you were soon "involved"
with an Iranian in Western Europe
named Manucher Ghorbanifar.
Who set that up?
A. The Israelis. They'd just met this
well-connected Iranian who was bet-
ter informed about Iran than anyone
they'd encountered. Starting in July I
participated, with the Israelis, in dis-
cussions with Ghorbanifar which con-
tinued until my role ended in late,I
November of 1985. Ghorbanifaq
presented us with a basic proposition:
that it was possible for the United
States to achieve a better relationship
with Iran because there were power-
ful people - some in high govern-
ment positions, others in influential
Iranian institutions - who believed
they could achieve a change in the
policies of Iran. To that end, they
would undertake to have the govern-
ment make a series of gestures: state-
ments from government officials that
a change was in the offing; an end to
terrorist attacks against American tar-
gets by Iranian-sponsored groups; an
attempt to influence the people who
held American hostages to release
them.
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M INTERYIEw: MIKE LEDEEN
Q. Did you negotiate on this deal?
A. I did not. I discussed possibilities
and reported back to McFarlane.
Q. On arms for hostages?
A. As a package deal? No, not then.
But both subjects - arms and the
hostages - came up. Look, a lot of
people, while not necessarily against
dealing with Iran, object to sending
arms and liberating hostages, and in
large part I agree with that. But, in
any sincere effort to improve rela-
tions between the two countries, you
have to deal with both issues as a
necessary part of the process. On the
one hand, the United States can't pos-
sibly achieve a fundamental improve-
ment in the relationship so long as
there are American hostages in Leba-
non whose fate Iran has a great deal
to say about. On the other hand, Iran
can't improve relations so long as the
United States is the prime country in
he world - because of the American
arms embargo - preventing them
from getting the weapons they need
to defend themselves in the war against
Iraq. So it's foolish to think we could
have finessed these questions or failed
to address them.
Q. You mention such Iranian "ges-
tures" as suspension of terrorist at-
tacks against Americans and at-
tempts to get our hostages released.
Was this in fact done?
A. There were no more terrorist acts
right up until the discussions blew up
in the Fall of '86. And one hostage,
the Reverend Benjamin Weir, was
released in September of '85, but not
before the United States had made a
reciprocal gesture. The U.S. had to
sent mba.- 1Qa7
make at least one - that's the tradi-
tional approach in that region - and
the most meaningful gesture was to
allow Iran access to some of the weap-
ons blocked by the embargo. So the
Israelis, with the explicit approval of
the President, shipped missiles.
Q. And you maintain this wasn't
an arms-for-hostages linkage?
A. In my view, it was not. The mis-
siles were shipped in the context of
this series of reciprocal gestures. But
that brutal linkage did become ex-
plicit in October of 1985. It came up
during the most interesting discussion
I had with Ghorbanifar.
It was a day-long meeting in
Washington not long after Weir was
released and, as usual, Ghorbanifar
arrived with two sets of messages.
The one from private Iranians was
that it was possible to change the na-
ture of the regime and influence its
policies. They were eager to meet fur-
ther with us. (I had already met face-
to-face with some of these Iranians
who, seemingly at great potential risk,
were eager to cooperate with us in
order to seek fundamental change in
Iranian policies.) The second message
- from government people - was
that if the U.S. would give them so
many more weapons, they'd under-
take to get so many more hostages
released. That's when I realized it
was a mistake to barter with the regime
over hostages and that we should
pursue only the political relationship
between our two countries.
Q. Why?
A. It still wasn't clear in my mind
who Ghorbanifar was and what he
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i iura*enrRFIVE DIGEST
really represented - what if it was a
deception to enable the Iranians to lay
their hands on weapons? We had to
ascertain if a change in the regime
were really possible, and the hostages
were, at best, a secondary matter. I
believed then, and still do, that we
had to stop making it possible for the
Iranians to get weapons or we would
never be able to gauge the real inten-
tions of the people Ghorbanifar
claimed to represent - that was the
strategic question. We had to make it
clear to the Iranians that any change
in the weapons situation would only
be as a result of a fundamental change
in the relationship, a change in their
behavior. But how could we judge
intentions with any accuracy while
arms were being traded for hostages?
Since the Iranians desperately needed
weapons, wouldn't they resort to all
manner of deceit and illusion just to
keep those weapons coming?
Ghorbanifar's response sums up the
whole fiasco. He said if we continued
with the arms-for-hostages business
we would all become hostages to the
hostages.
Q. So you told McFarlane?
A. Yes, but a part-time consultant is
not a policy maker. I said we should
get out of the hostage business and
start expanding our contacts beyond
the handful opened up by Ghorbanifar.
To evaluate the real possibilities, we
were now in a position to get in touch
with a much wider range of Iranians
and seek some answers. Were they
serious'? If so, did they have the capac-
ity to do what they said? Did they
really represent a large segment of
44
Iranian society? But McFarlane was
inclined to shut down the whole thing
- drop the hostages business and the
idea of new political contacts.
Q. Why would he throw out the
baby with the bath water?
A. Several reasons. He was undergo-
ing an intense personal crisis in the
Fall of '85 and was preparing to resign.
My guess is he figured this whole
business was too delicate to leave to
a successor. He also had the C.I.A.
to contend with and the C.I.A. hated
Ghorbanifar (the hatred was mutual)
and anything he was associated with.
As for dropping the hostage issue while
expanding political contacts, I don't
doubt for a minute that the President
was passionate about the hostages,
that he was saying: Get my people
out! While this was, in my view, the
basic mistake of the whole project, I
disagree with the Tower Commission's
explanation for it - that this was th
fault of a detached management style.
Were other democratic leaders - specif-
ically the Israelis and the French -
also detached when they made the
same mistake? When Begin traded
1,500 terrorists in Israeli jails for four
officers in Lebanon? When Chirac and
Mitterrand did the same thing with
Iran for French hostages? It's a mis-
take not unique to Ronald Reagan:
being moved in human terms, being
too close to hostage families, trying
to save lives.
Q. Did you quit with McFarlane?
A. Hell, no. I spent the next year,
even after Poindexter asked me to
discontinue my work on Iran, but-
tonholing as many Cabinet members
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in ^ cnv,cw; mIKE LEDEEN
and their friends and deputies as I
could reach, trying to convince them
that our arms-for-hostages policy was
backwards. If the hostages were our
main priority, we could never evalu-
ate our true relationship with Iran.
But if we pursued that relationship
and made real progress, the hostage
problem would resolve itself - that's
in the logic of improved relations!
Q. To whom did you speak?
A. I spoke to [C.I.A. Director] Casey
three or four times. My analysis was
correct, he said, but in Washington
one had to get rid of the hostage ques-
tion before pursuing the political con-
tacts. I discussed it with Ollie North,
who has stated that his first priority,
when he began dealing with the
Iranians in January of '86, was to get
the hostages out. Ollie agreed with
me that pursuing a better relationship
with Iran should be primary, but added:
"Go tell the old man. He really wants
the hostages." I spoke to Secretary
Weinberger, who was very sympa-
thetic - and flabbergasted that he'd
never heard about the Iranian contacts
I had made. He suggested I brief Shultz
but, twice, the message came down:
"The Secretary is not interested."
Q. Mike, let's clear up some sticky
questions. You've been accused of
profiting from the arms sale.
A. That's electronic gossip. The only
money I received from my Iranian
activities was the customary hourly
or daily government stipend, paid by
the N.S.C., along with remittances
for most out-of-pocket expenses.
Q. What is "electronic gossip"?
A. It was in the form of messages
September, 1987
from Ollie North to Poindexter to
McFarlane, reporting that Amiram Nir
(the Israeli advisor to Peres on terror-
ism, who started working with North
in January '86) had implied I was in
cahoots with other Israelis to make a
commission off the sale of weapons
to Iran. It's nonsense. I provided the
Select Committees with every single
bit of financial documentation con-
cerning me, my wife, my kids ....
Q. Your dog ... ?
A. Yeah - for the period of '85-'86
- and was told I had the most boring
financial status of anyone the inde-
pendent counsel ever investigated. I
said, "Don't tell me, tell the Washing-
ton Post." There wasn't a shred of
evidence because it never happened.
Q. Why would Nir say this?
A. Nir was in the process of trying
to get rid of the Israelis I'd worked
with on the Iran initiative, and one
easy way to get people out is to spread
rumors. I was part of the package.
Q. Did Ollie North believe Nir?
A. No. He's testified that he believed
me. But what I do resent is the fact
that neither Ollie nor Poindexter nor
McFarlane did what should have been
done: investigate the rumor. It might
have been a serious security breach,
since I've been cleared to read all
kinds of intelligence, and if I had
taken money I could have been black-
mailed. If someone had reported such
a rumor to me about North, I'd have
apologized, assured him I didn't
believe it, but called in the F.B.I. to
clear it up one way or the other. But
they didn't do this with me, and after
all the espionage scandals of this Admin-
45
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CONSERVATIVE DIGEST
istration, you'd think they would have.
Then the Tower Commission - with
no evidence - repeated the rumor.
Why, I don't know.
Q. What about the rumor that
you're an Israeli agent?
A. Ah yes, the Washington Post and
the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The Post-
Dispatch had the usual anonymous
source "from a senior staff member
of the House Intelligence Commit-
tee" to the effect that the only reason
Ledeen isn't being investigated is that
one Pollard case at a time is enough.
Q. What do you say to that?
A. What Zola said of the Dreyfus
affair: It's just an infamous lie.
Q. With anti-Semitic roots?
A. Pure anti-Semitism. It's the kind
of lie that could only be made against
someone who's Jewish. I don't know
who's spreading it. Whoever is on the
House Committee probably heard it
from some government official who
dislikes me. Generally these things
are planted by people in government
who don't want to say it themselves,
so they find some innocent tool.
Q. Ghorbanifar - another sticky
question. Some Congressmen ridi-
cule taking him seriously.
A. A complicated character, Ghorban-
ifar, and with a tough job to pull off.
He had to maintain simultaneously
the confidence of three governments.
At some point I'm sure Israel, the
United States, and Iran all suspected
he was no good, a liar, a cheat. All I
can tell you is he was a fantastic source
of information and we believed he
was a legitimate channel. The issue
was not: Who is this guy and what are
his personal ethics? No, the issue for
us was: Is this man useful to our gov-
ernment in advancing our interests?
And within that narrow context - the
only proper context - the answer in
my view is clearly "yes."
Q. Last question. Ollie North con-
firmed in his testimony that the Unit-
ed States saw the hostages as an
obstacle to get over before we could
even get to the question of improv-
ing relations with Iran - and that
drove you crazy. Precisely why,
Mike?
A. Because it was precisely backwards
- the tail wagging the dog. It's crim-
inal to conduct foreign policy that way.
The point is, you couldn't have had
genuinely improved relations so long
as there were hostages - everybody
knows that - so in the end, the hos-
tages would have come out. But the
hostage issue, a kind of sidelight, came
to overwhelm all the rest. It was a
fundamental mistake. It's an unbe-
lievable story, a fascinating story.
dwom
Go=
Retroactive Enlightenment
NINETEENTH CENTURY French humorist Alphonse Allais was proud of a
volume of Voltaire which was in his personal library. You see, the book was
inscribed this way: "To Alphonse Allais, with regrets for not having known him.
[signed] Voltaire."
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