Meanwhile, in the Middle East, Reagan’s policies were encountering more trouble. Reagan had deployed Marines as peacekeepers in Beirut, but he also authorized the USS New Jersey to shell Shiite Muslim villages.
On October 23, 1983, Islamic militants struck back, sending a suicide truck bomber through U.S. security positions and demolishing a high-rise Marine barracks. A total of 241 U.S. servicemen died.
“When the shells started falling on the Shiites, they assumed the American ‘referee’ had taken sides,” Powell wrote in his memoir.
After the bombing, U.S. Marines were withdrawn to the USS Guam off Lebanon’s coast. But Casey ordered secret counterterrorism operations against Islamic radicals.
As retaliation, the Shiites targeted more Americans. Another bomb destroyed the U.S. Embassy and killed most of the CIA station.
Casey dispatched veteran CIA officer William Buckley to fill the void. But on March 14, 1984, Buckley was spirited off the streets of Beirut to face torture and eventually death.
The grisly scenes – in the Middle East and in Central America – had set the stage for the Iran-Contra scandal.
Iran-Contra
In 1985, the White House maneuvered into dangerous geopolitical straits in its policy toward Iran. The Israelis were interested in trading U.S. weapons to Iran’s radical Islamic government to expand Israel’s influence in that important Middle Eastern country.
It was also believed that Iran might help free American hostages held by Islamic extremists in Lebanon.
Carrying the water for this strategy within the Reagan administration was National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane. He circulated a draft presidential order in June 1985, proposing an overture to supposed Iranian moderates.
The paper passed through Weinberger’s “filter,” Colin Powell. In his memoir, Powell called the proposal “a stunner” and a grab by McFarlane for “Kissingerian immortality.”
After reading the draft, Weinberger scribbled in the margins, “this is almost too absurd to comment on.”
On June 30, 1985, as the paper was circulating inside the administration, Reagan declared that the United States would give no quarter to terrorism.
“Let me further make it plain to the assassins in Beirut and their accomplices, wherever they may be, that America will never make concessions to terrorists,” the President said.
But in July 1985, Weinberger, Powell and McFarlane met to discuss details for doing just that. Iran wanted 100 anti-tank TOW missiles that would be delivered through Israel, according to Weinberger’s notes.
Reagan gave his approval, but the White House wanted to keep the operation a closely held secret. The shipments were to be handled with “maximum compartmentalization,” the notes said.
Legal Line
