On August 20, 1985, the Israelis delivered the first 96 missiles to Iran. It was a pivotal moment for the Reagan administration. With that missile shipment, the Reagan administration stepped over an important legal line.
The transfer violated laws requiring congressional notification for shipment of U.S. weapons and prohibiting arms to Iran or any other nation designated a terrorist state. Violation of either statute could be a felony.
The available evidence from that period suggested that Weinberger and Powell were very much in the loop, even though they may have opposed the arms-to-Iran policy.
On August 22, two days after the first delivery, Israel notified McFarlane of the completed shipment. From aboard Air Force One, McFarlane called Weinberger.
When Air Force One landed at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington, McFarlane rushed to the Pentagon to meet Weinberger and Powell. The 40-minute meeting started at 7:30 p.m.
That much is known from the Iran-Contra public record. But the substance of the conversation remains in dispute.
McFarlane said he discussed Reagan’s approval of the missile transfer with Weinberger and Powell, and the need to replenish Israeli stockpiles. That would have put Weinberger and Powell in the middle of a criminal conspiracy.
But Weinberger denied McFarlane’s account, and Powell insisted that he had only a fuzzy memory of the meeting without a clear recollection of any completed arms shipment.
“My recollection is that Mr. McFarlane described to the Secretary the so-called Iran Initiative and he gave to the Secretary a sort of a history of how we got where we were that particular day and some of the thinking that gave rise to the possibility of going forward ... and what the purposes of such an initiative would be,” Powell said in an Iran-Contra deposition two years later.
Congressional attorney Joseph Saba asked Powell if McFarlane had mentioned that Israel already had supplied weapons to Iran. “I don’t recall specifically,” Powell answered. “I just don’t recall.”
In a later interview with the FBI, Powell said he learned at that meeting with McFarlane that there “was to be a transfer of some limited amount of materiel” to Iran.
But he did not budge on his claim of ignorance about the crucial fact that the first shipment had already gone and that the Reagan administration had promised the Israelis replenishment for the shipped missiles.
Not Making Sense
This claim of only prospective knowledge of future arms shipments, not past knowledge of completed transfers, would be key to Powell’s Iran-Contra defense.
But it made little sense for McFarlane to learn of Israel’s August 1985 missile delivery to Iran and the need for replenishment of the Israeli stockpiles, then hurry to the Pentagon, only to debate a future policy that, in reality, was already being implemented.
The behavior of Powell and Weinberger in the following days also suggested that they knew an arms-for-hostage swap was under way.
According to Weinberger’s diary, he and Powell eagerly awaited a release of an American hostage in Lebanon, the payoff for the clandestine weapons shipment to Iran.
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