NOT GIVEN IRAN DETAILS, BUSH SAYS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-01448R000401580087-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 25, 2012
• Sequence Number: 87
• Publication Date: January 8, 1988
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/25: CIA-RDP99-01448R000401580087-6
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Iran Details,
Bush Says
Not Given
GOP Foes, Gathered
For Debate in Iowa,
Seize on the Issue
By David Hoffman
wawa tbee sun Wriest
JOHNSTON, Iowa, Jan. 7-Vice
President Bush said today he did
not recall hearing objections by sen-
ior Cabinet members in 1986 to the
secret Iran arms sales, and said the
subject came up only briefly in his
daily morning national security
briefings with President Reagan.
The vice president's comments
here came in response to questions
about a report in The Washington
Post today that Bush watched the
arms sales unfold step-by-step and
that he was more informed of de-
tails than he has acknowledged.
The report received wide atten-
tion in Iowa today, site of the first
caucuses of the 1988 presidential
campaign next month. All of Bush's
competitors for the Republican
nomination were here or en route
for one of the major events of the
year, Friday's Des Moines Register
debate.
Most swiftly seized on the issue,
suggesting the vice president is not
being forthcoming. Senate Minority
Leader Robert J. Dole (Kan.) said
the debate would likely feature
questions on the issue and noted, "I
think it would be in his interest and
in the interest of all Republicans to
tell us precisely what he knows."
Rep. Jack Kemp (N.Y.) called on
Bush to "clear the air."
Bush appeared eager to tackle
the issue head-on by answering
questions at some length during his
first campaign stop this morning.
Standing in sub-freezing weather
outside a farm research lab here,
Bush asserted often that he was
unaware of critical details and im-
portant facts about the Iran arms
deals. Bush has previously said he
was "deliberately excluded" from
key meetings on the Iran initiative.
It waset planning and discussing
and going over all these details,"
Bush said of the morning sessions
with the president. The Poat report
had cited a participant in regular
meetings with the president who
described Bush as being present at
dozens of meetings where the Iran
deals were discussed and as know.
ing basically as much about it as the
president.
Asked today whether he knew as
much as Reagan, Bush replied, "[
knew a lot-close to it-but I don't
know whether I knew everything."
Bush also said he did not know at
the time that the United States was
trading arms for hostages and that
he did not recall any discussion of
the critical Jan. 17, 1986, presiden-
tial "finding" that Reagan signed
approving the deals.
Bush vowed once again not to
reveal the advice he gave Reagan
on the Iran arms deals, even if the
president released him from his
pledge of confidentiality in their
discussions. But Bush did say that
both he and Reagan were motivated
by their desire to free Americans
being held by extremist groups in
Lebanon, and Bush added, as he has
before, that he had "reservations"
about using a "third country" in the
operation. Bush did not mention
Israel today but has previously said
he worried that the United States
was relying too much on Israel in
the clandestine transactions.
Bush was asked today, for exam-
ple, about a Jan. 7, 1986, meeting
at which Secretary of State George
P. Shultz and then-Secretary of De-
fense Caspar W. Weinberger voiced
strong objections to the [ran arms
sales. According to the report of the
congressional Iran-contra commit-
tees, this was a "full" meeting of the
National Security Council, which
includes the president, vice pres.
dent and top Cabinet members.
"I don't recall that," Bush said
when asked if he had heard the
Shultz and Weinberger objections.
'Contrary to the congressional re-
port, Bush said there was "not a full
NSC meeting on that date.-
A former administration official
said tonight that Bush may have
missed the forceful objections by
Shultz and Weinberger because he
left the session before the secre-
taries spoke out that day. The of.
ficial said this is shown in previously
unpublished documents which he
said were discovered because of
questions over the vice president's
role.
In another case, Bush was ques.
tioned about the Jan. 17, 1986,
The Washington Times _
The Wall Street Journal _
The Christian Science Monitor
New York Daily News
USA Today
The Chicago Tribune
Date
meeting at which then-national se-
curity adviser John M. Poindexter
briefed Reagan with a revised "find-
ing" or authorization for the secret
arms sales, some of which had al-
ready taken place. The signed doc.
ument was dated Jan. 17.
Bush was at the meeting, accord.
ing to Poindexter's handwritten no-
tation on a briefing paper. Bush said
today, "I don't recall a finding being
signed and I think I'd remember
that. Now, the president may have
signed the finding, but there was no
discussion of a finding in front of me,
because that's one I would remem-
ber from in CIA des s.
o not reca any suggestion of
a finding that day-any," the vice
president said.
In a third instance, Bush was
asked about his July 29, 1986,
meeting with Amiram Nir, then a
counterterrorism adviser to former
Israeli prime minister Shimon
Peres. According to a memo writ-
ten after the meeting by Bush's
chief of staff, Craig Fuller, Nir dis-
cussed the timing of amts ship-
ments and the release of the hos-
tages.
Asked today if he had any sense
of the arms-for-hostages nature of
the transactions at that meeting,
Bush said, "No, I did not. I sensed
that we were sending arms. And I
sensed that we were trying to get
hostages out. But not arms for hos-
tages."
Bush said he only learned later,
after the arms deals were disclosed,
that they had been a swap of arms
for hostages. "It's only when it be-
came clear that it was arms for hog.
Page
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tages with the benefit of hindsight
that you say, yeah, that was
wrong," Bush said.
The vice president said he did not
get "full disclosure" about the Iran
deals until he was briefed in Decem-
ber 1986 by Sen. David F. Duren-
berger (R-Minn.), then chairman of
the Select Committee on Intelli-
gence.
The congressional report pointed
out, however, that there were many
documents and meetings during
1986 in which the arms-for-hos-
tages nature of the deals was made
explicit.
In another case, Bush was asked
about his reaction when Poindexter
and Lt. Col. Oliver L. North sug-
gested to Fuller in November 1986
that the vice president should make
a trip to the Middle East to explain
the Iran arms sales. "I don't recall
being asked to do that," Bush said.
Asked if he was aware of the query
to Fuller, the vice president said, "I
don't recall being asked to go to the
Middle East by Col. North or any-
one else in November 1986."
Bush was questioned if he "began
to smell a rat" during the Iran affair,
from its inception in 1985 through
its disclosure in November 1986.
"Not really, no," Bush said.
On the subject of his morning
meetings with the president, Bush
said they were not detailed discus-
sions of the Iran initiative.
"Let me tell you how it works,"
Bush said. "Somebody comes in
there like Don Regan, me, the pres-
ident. 'Did you hear anything new on
the hostages today? Got anything
new on that?' 'Has it moved forward
at all?' We'll ask Poindexter. Poin-
dexter would come into the room.
'No, we haven't had a report.' That's
the end of that meeting. Then you go
on and talk about the budget and talk
about something else."
The vice president put an added
emphasis today on concern that he
said he shared with Reagan for the
plight of hostages held in Lebanon.
"If we erred, the president and I,
and others who supported it erred,
it was on the side of human life,"
Bush said, recalling his concern
when the Central Intelligence
Agency's Beirut station chief, Wil-
iam Buckley, was brutally tortured
and murdered.
Bush also asserted he had done
nothing illegal and was not a target
of the investigation by Independent
Counsel Lawrence E. Walsh. The
vice president said he would coop-
erate with Walsh and has said he
expects to be interviewed by Walsh
next week.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/25: CIA-RDP99-01448R000401580087-6