Lies, Cover Ups and Slanted Intelligence
Robert Gates and Iran/Contra
By LAWRENCE E. WALSH
(Lawrence E. Walsh was the independent counsel in the Iran/Contra investigation from 1986 to 1993)
<snip>
...Had Gates falsely denied knowledge of Oliver North's Contra-support activities? Had Gates falsely postdated his first knowledge of North's diversion of arms sale proceeds to the Contras?
We then described what our investigation had turned up about Gates. Alan Fiers had told us that he had kept Gates generally informed of his Contra-support activities, through written reports and regular face-to-face presentations, although his oral reports had been guarded because Gates had not always had a note-taker present. The CIA now claimed it could not find the notes of these meetings.
We said that Richard Kerr, the CIA's deputy director for intelligence, had informed Gates in August 1986 of Charles Allen's belief that North had diverted funds from the Iranian arms sales for the benefit of the Contras; Allen himself had told Gates the same thing in early October. Allen had told us that Gates, who had appeared irritated, had told Allen to write a memorandum for CIA director William Casey and had said that he did not want to hear about North. To us and to the congressional committees, Gates had denied having any recollection of either conversation. Whenever questioned, Gates had always claimed that he had first learned of Allen's concern about the diversion on the day after Eugene Hasenfus was shot down. Gates said that he and Allen had then reported this to Casey, who told them that he had just received much the same information from another source.
That day, according to North and Gates, Casey had invited North to lunch in his office, which was next to Gates's office. Gates had joined them, and according to North, had heard Casey tell North to clean up the Ilopango operation. North claimed that he had then begun to destroy records. Gates claimed not to remember the discussion of North's Nicaraguan activities. Although he had heard North mention Swiss accounts, Gates said, he had not understood the reference. He claimed to have been in and out of the room. All he remembered, he said, was that North had told him that the CIA was completely clean regarding the Contra-support operation.
We suggested to the senators that they specifically request the notes of Fiers's reports to Gates. We told them that we did not think we had enough corroborating information to indict Robert Gates, but that his answers to these questions had been unconvincing. We did not believe that he could have forgotten a warning of North's diversion of the arms sale proceeds to the Contras. The mingling of two covert activities that were of intense personal interest to the president was not something the second-highest officer in the CIA would forget. Moreover, Gates had received the same reliable contemporaneous intelligence reports about North's activities that Charles Allen had. The information suggesting that North had overcharged the Iranians would surely have caught the attention of anyone as astute as Gates.
<more>
http://www.counterpunch.org/walsh11082006.html
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