The Mammoth Book of Cover-Ups

Although Count One was not tried, it was established as a matter of law that if North, Poindexter, and the others had done what they were charged with doing, they had committed criminal acts. In rejecting the challenges of the Department of Justice and North, Judge Gesell ruled that the count «allege[d] [a] well-established offens[e]» and that the activity set forth in the count was criminal. He stated: «The indictment clearly alleges a conspiracy which involved concealing the very existence of the profits of the enterprise from the start and hiding from Congress information relating to the conspirators’ assistance for the Contras.» In addition to holding that the indictment set forth a crime, Judge Gesell also found that his review of the evidence presented to the Grand Jury indicated there was probable cause that that crime had in fact been committed.

At the heart of the Iran/Contra affair, then, were criminal acts of Reagan Administration officials that the Reagan Administration, by withholding non-secret classified information, ensured would never be tried. Yet Judge Gesell’s decision marked an important, if incomplete, accomplishment of Independent Counsel. Judge Gesell’s decision unambiguously established that high national security officials who engage in a conspiracy to subvert the laws of this country have engaged in criminal acts, even when the laws themselves provide no criminal sanctions.

A successful prosecution would have allowed Independent Counsel to present comprehensively the results of his investigation into the operational conspiracy. Much of the evidence of the conspiracy was presented at the trials of the dismembered individual charges of obstruction and false statements but the questions of intent were different, the diversion of funds from Iran to the contras was peripheral rather than central, and the absence of the conspiracy charge deprived the North case of its cohesiveness and completeness.

The following discussion is an attempt to present in an abbreviated fashion what would have been Independent Counsel’s case at a conspiracy trial of North, Secord, Poindexter and Hakim, and an explanation of the criminal nature of their actions.

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First Object of the Conspiracy: The Secret War Activities

The crux of the first charged object of the conspiracy was an agreement to provide military assistance to the Nicaraguan Contras and to deceive Congress about the fact that support was being provided. Poindexter, North, and their co-conspirators carried out their «secret war» in a way calculated to defeat legal restrictions governing the conduct of military and covert operations and congressional control of appropriations, and they concealed their activities from legitimate congressional oversight.

Had the case been tried as indicted, the Government’s proof of US secret war activities would have fallen into three broad categories: (1) the organization and direction of a resupply operation to provide the Contras with logistical and other support; (2) funding of the resupply operation, including exploitation of the Iran initiative; and (3) attempts to conceal from Congress the conspirators’ involvement in these activities.

The Evidence

Organization and Direction of the Resupply Network

During the last half of 1984 and the first half of 1985, North had developed a loose structure for Contra support. Secord, responding to Contra requests through North, was selling arms. Thomas G. Clines, a Secord associate, arranged for their purchase; Hakim, assisted by Swiss money manager Willard I. Zucker, set up the structure to finance the activities with funds provided to the Contras through North and raised primarily by President Reagan and National Security Advisor Robert C. McFarlane.

The creation of the conspirators’ more tightly organized secret resupply network dated from a meeting in Miami, Florida on 28 June 1985. This meeting was attended by, among others, North, Adolfo Calero (political leader of one Contra faction known as the FDN), Enrique Bermudez (commander of the FDN’s military forces), Secord, Clines and Rafael Quintero, an associate of Secord. At the Miami meeting, North informed Calero and Bermudez that the Contras would no longer be left to decide what arms they would purchase or from whom they would buy them. In the future, North would provide the Contras with materiel, and Secord would deliver it to the Contras in the field. In addition, North directed that actions be taken to develop and resupply a «southern front» along the border of Costa Rica and Nicaragua.