A BUNGLED MISSION TO IRAN AND A MIDDLEMAN WHO LIED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000100240016-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 24, 2011
• Sequence Number: 16
• Publication Date: March 1, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/24: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100240016-0
ON CAGE NEW YORK TIMES
1 March 1987
A Bungled Mission to Iran
AndaMiddleman WhoLied
By STUART DIAMOND
Special to The New York Time.
WASHINGTON, Feb 28 --- The
Tower Commission report says an
American delegation, on a secret mis-
sion to Teheran last year, had not prop-
erly prepared for the trip and trusted
the promises of a middleman, who lied.
Then, the report said, the Americans
refused an offer even bettei than offi-
cials in Washington had expected from
the Iranians, because the delegation
leader, Robert C. McFarlane, may not
have been properly informed.
That trip is among dozens of snafus
in 18 months of secret hostage negoti-
gations by a White House team and its
associates, according to the Tower
Commission report, which was made
public Thursday, and interviews Fri-
day with members of the commission.
Last May 28, the report said, an
American delegation on a secret mis-
An Iranian vainly
pleaded with
McFarlane to stay.
sion in Teheran refused to accept an
Iranian offer to free two American hos-
tages and went home.
Iranian Pleads With McFarlane
Mr. McFarlane, the chief American
official, was angered that all four hos-
tages were not turned over, as a mid-
dleman had promised, and by changes
in the Iranian negotiating position.
As a top Iranian Government adviser
pleaded with him to stay and continue
talking, Mr. McFarlane said, "It is too
late." He then flew off.
Edmund S. Muskie, a commission
member and a former Secretary of
State said that "we were concerned
about the lack of preparation" for the
sensitive task.
Such episodes led the commission to
call the Americans' conduct "very un-
professional."
A close reading of the 300-page re-
port discloses many new intelligence
tidbits, leads for investigators and ex-
traordinary glimpses about the way in
which United States emissaries tried to
secure the release of Americans held
by Iranian-influenced terrorist groups
in Lebanon.
The report portrays missed oppor-
tunities, confusion and professional
failures. It shows the Iranians' inter-
ests were much broader than just dis-
cussing the hostages. They included re-
quests for American help on raising oil
prices, countering threats from the
Soviet Union, aiding the homeless in
Iran and supporting rebels in Afghani-
stan.
Iranians Wanted Tension Eased
The Iranians wanted to use those
issues to ease tensions between Wash-
ington and Teheran, the report said,
but the Americans refused to discuss
these broader issues in detail without
the return of hostages.
These were among other revelations
in the report:
The Iranians said they had obtained
a 400-page statement in the interroga-
tion of William Buckley, a senior Amer-
ican intelligence official who had been
kidnapped and was later killed.
Both Senator Edward M. Kennedy,,
Democrat of Massachusetts, and for-mer Secretary of State Alexander M.
Haig Jr. had begun their own secret ef-
forts to free the hostages.
qManucher Ghorbanifar, an Iranian
arms dealer and key American con-
tact, had been arrested but not charged
in a New York sting operation with 1S
defendants, and was also involved in a
possible illegal arms deal in Houston.
9In the middle of negotiations, Amer-
ican officials found out that their mid-
dlemen were involved in a separate
private arrangement with a British
businessman, Tiny Rowlands, to ship
the same kinds of arms to Iran.
(IMany odd side issues occupied
American discussions, including the
possible use of compromising pictures
of a high Iranian official with Western
women.
'Hand Unskillfully Played'
The report argues how unqualified
the Americans were to negotiate with
the Iranians. "The U.S. hand was re-
peatedly tipped and unskillfully,
played," the report said.
One American consultant said the
Americans were unprepared to deal
with the Iranians' "merchant mental-
ity." Frustrated, American officials
complained among themselves that a
'senior Iranian negotiator had "breath
that could curl rhino hide" and sug-
gested Iranian officials had the mental-
ity of bookies.
The elaborate secret operations were
carried out using code words in which
the same people or places had more
than one alias, and with detailed sched-
,ules that were repeatedly revised when
operatives did not get the required
;equipment or clearances.
A Central Intelligence Agency trans-
lator, George ve was called both
"O'Nei an am." Teheran was
both "Dubai" and 'Tango." Maj. Gen.
Richard V. Secord, retired from the Air
Force, was called both "Copp" and
"General Adams."
Al Schwimmer, a middleman andll
consultant for Israel's Prime Minister,'
Shimon Peres, fouled up one arms ship-
ment when on Nov. 22, 1985, he allowed
the lease to expire on three transport
planes in Tei Aviv. At the time, weap-
ons fur Iran were en route to Tel Aviv:
when they arrived, there were no
planes to take them to Iran.
As a result, the arms delivery to Iran
was days late, and no hostages were re-
leased. Mr. Schwimmer had been
trying to save what amounted to a
day's leasing cost.
"I have never seen anything so
screwed up in my life," General Secord
is reported to have said.
Repeatedly, the Americans said they,
would deliver no more arms unless
hostages were released but then de-
livered arms anyway. On Feb. 18 and?
Feb. 27, 1986, for example, 1,000 TOW'
antitank missiles were delivered to
Iran. When no hostages were released,
another shipment of arms was sent on
May 25.
A main culprit, the report said, was
Lieut. Col. Oliver L. North, the National
Security Council official who ran the
operation. There was "obvious inex-
perience" by the American negotia-
tors, the report said.
Mr. McFarlane castigated the Ira-
nians for "incompetence," and Colonel
North called them "primitive" and
"unsophisticated." But the report
clearly shows the Iranians were,
shrewd.
In March 1986, for example, after the
1,000 TOW missiles were delivered and
no hostages were released, Colonel
North recalled with frustration that the
Iranians "decided that they don't want
TOW's after all."
"So the TOW's don't count," he said.
"What we need now are Hawk spare
parts." So the Americans sent the
Hawk parts in May.
Finally, last June and July, the
American said there would be no more
shipments until a hostage was re-
leased. On July 26, the Rev. Lawrence
Martin Jenco was freed.
A significant American problem, the
report says, was a reliance on Mr.
Ghorbanifar as an intermediary with
the Iranians through most of the 18-
month process. The arms dealer had
repeatedly failed polygraph tests given
by the C.I.A. Iranians called him a
"crook," and American officials called
him "a congenital liar." the report
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a.
said. Mr. Cav the C.I.A. said, "It
was qut r that Ghorbanifar was
lying to up both big sides as h order to blow this
Repeatedly, because of misunder-
standings created through Mr. Ghor-
banifar, the Americans expected the
release of more hostages than the Ira-
nians had offered, and the Iranians ex-
pected more weapons than the Amer-
icans had offered, the report said. As a
translator at a Feb. 26,1986, meeting in
Frankfurt between Americans and Ira-
nians, the arms dealer "intentionally
distorted" so much of the conversation
that another interpreter had to be used,
according to a memo by Colonel North.
Creditors and Beneficiaries
The Americans, besides trying to fig-
ure out when Mr. Ghorbanifar was
lying, had to feed his "extraordinarily
strong ego" and deal with his com-
plaint that his girlfriend's house in
California had been broken into.
Colonel North wrote in July 1986 that
Mr. Ghorbanifar was so overextended
on loans to help finance the Iranian
arms deals, that if they fell through he
would "be killed by his creditors," who
were the beneficiaries of a $22 million
life insurance policy on him.
But at one point he apparently saved
the Americans from a major blunder.
For a meeting planned for February
1986 in West Germany, Colonel North
was going to bring Albert Hakim, who
is of Iranian extraction and a business
partner of General Secord. Are you
crazy?" Mr. Ghorbanifar was quoted
as saying, adding that "Albert Hakim
is known to all Iranian intelligence
agencies" as someone who had aided
opponents of the revolutionary regime.
The Americans finally turned away
from Mr. Ghorbanifar last summer,
when they found an Iranian who was a
relative of a senior Teheran official.
The use of people with a direct finan-
cial stake in the outcome of the arms
shipments, the report said, "invited
kickbacks and payoffs." One note by
Colonel North said that of the $13,200
price per missile, Mr. Ghorbanifar was
to get $260 and Michael Ledeen, a Na-
tional Security Council consultant, was
to get $50. Mr. Ledeen denied he got
any commission.
Among the other errors made by the
Americans, the report said, was charg-
ing prices for arms higher than their
market value, and charging greatly
different prices for the same arms in
different shipments. This made the Ira-
nians more mistrustful, the report said.
At one point the wrong weapons were
shipped, angering the Iranians further.
The report suggests that it was the
Iranians, not the Americans, who were
most interested in issues beyond an
arms-for-hostages exchange.
"We don't see the release of the hos-
tages as the key," a senior Iranian ad-
viser said at the meeting in Teheran in
May. Rather, he said, Iran was inter-
ested in "establishing a dialogue" with
the United States, as well as securing
American help in countering a Soviet
threat on its borders. Iran also wanted
technical advice on maintenance of its
military and commercial equipment
and wanted American help in freeing
prisoners in Kuwait.
Some parts of the report read almost
like comedy routines. On May 25, Mr.
McFarlane and his group brought a ko-
sher chocolate cake from Israel for the
Iranians in Teheran. In a report back
to the White House from Teheran, he
interrupted his narrative to describe a
watermelon break. At another point,
Mr. McFarlane said he distinctly
remembered telling President Reagan
in the hospital about the arms ship-
ments "because the President was
wearing pajamas."
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