Colin Powell Being Colin Powell

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Even without knowing that the missiles were going to Iran, Simpson expressed concern about whether the requirement to notify Congress had been met. He got advice from a Pentagon lawyer that the 1986 intelligence authorization act, which mandated a "timely" notice to Congress on foreign arms transfers, had an "impact on this particular mission."

Major Simpson asked Gen. Russo, who got another legal opinion from the Army general counsel who concurred that Congress must be notified. The issue was bumped up to Secretary of the Army John Marsh. Though still blind about the shipment's destination, the Army high command was inclined to stop the peculiar operation in its tracks.

At this key moment, Colin Powell intervened again. Simpson said, "General Powell was asking General Russo to reassure the secretary of the Army that notification was being handled, ... that it had been addressed and it was taken care of." Despite Powell's assurance, however, Congress had not been notified.

Army Secretary Marsh shared the skepticism about Powell's operation. On Feb. 25, 1986, Marsh called a meeting of senior Army officers and ordered Russo to "tell General Powell of my concern with regard to adequate notification being given to Congress," Russo later testified.

Army chief of staff Wickham went further. He demanded that a memo on congressional notification be sent to Powell. "The chief wanted it in writing," stated Army Lt. Gen. Arthur E. Brown, who delivered the memo to Powell on March 7, 1986.

'Handle It'

Five days later, Powell handed the memo to President Reagan's national security adviser John Poindexter with the advice: "Handle it ... however you plan to do it," Powell later testified.

Poindexter's plan for "timely notification" was to tell Congress on the last day of the Reagan presidency, Jan. 20, 1989. Poindexter stuck the Pentagon memo into a White House safe, along with the secret "finding" on the Iran missile shipments.

While debate over notification bubbled, others in the Pentagon fretted over the possibly illegal destination of the missiles. Col. John William McDonald, who oversaw covert supply, objected when he learned that key Army officials had no idea where the weapons were headed.

"One [concern] was inadvertent provision of supplies to the [Nicaraguan] contras in violation of the Boland Amendment," which prohibited military shipments to the contras, McDonald testified. "The second issue was inadvertent supply to countries that were on the terrorist list."

When McDonald was asked by congressional investigators how he would have reacted if told the weapons were going to Iran, he responded, "I would have told General Thurman ... that I would believe that the action was illegal and that Iran was clearly identified as one of the nations on the terrorist list for whom we could not transfer weapons."

But when McDonald joined other Pentagon officers in appealing to Powell about the missile shipment's destination, they again were told not to worry. Powell "reiterated [that it was] the responsibility of the recipient" agency, the CIA, to notify Congress, "and that the Army did not have the responsibility to do that."

HAWK Shipment

In March 1986, Powell conveyed a second order, this time for 284 HAWK antiaircraft missile parts and 500 HAWK missiles. This time, Powell's order set off alarms not only over legal questions, but whether the safety of U.S forces might be jeopardized.

The HAWK order would force a drawdown of U.S. supplies to a dangerous level. Henry Gaffney, a senior supply official, warned Powell that "you're going to have to start tearing it out of the Army's hide."

But the Pentagon again followed Powell's orders. It stripped its shelves of 15 spare parts for HAWK missiles that were protecting U.S. forces in Europe and elsewhere in the world.

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Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at more...)

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