Jens Nauntofte

Reagan LAST TANGO

USA's Middle East POLICY IN CRITICAL LIGHTING

Lindhardt og Ringhof
 Reagan's last tango - US Middle East policy in critical lighting
Reagan's last tango - US Middle East policy in critical lighting

Copyright 1987, 2016 Jens Nauntofte and Lindhardt and Ringhof Publishing A / S

All rights reserved ISBN:

9788711477717

The first e-book edition, 2016

Format: EPUB 3.0

This book is protected by copyright law. Copying for other than personal use is only allowed with the agreement of Lindhardt and Ringhof

and author.

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Lindhardt and Ringhof Publishing A / S, a company in Egmont

 "It was like Graham Greene's" Style Ready America
"by the White House had been set to make the world
a better place for Coca-Cola and democracy, if
democracy proved fleeting, so at least for
Coca-Cola. "

Michael White, "The Guardian"

 Preface

The idea for this book arose during the reporting trips to the United States in spring and autumn 1984, when I while gathering material on

America's Middle East policy was aware of how central Iran and the Middle East would be placed in the Reagan era.

The book title "Reagan's last tango" suggests to me that the risk of the US being drawn into the Gulf War is the
crucial challenge for Ronald Reagan in the last year of his administration.
In 1985, I took leave from Danmarks Radio, since I was invited to a think tank at Georgetown University to increase into the study

of the colorful decision environment that characterizes Washington. 1985 was a year of dramatic events in the Middle East that put

medietrykkogeren started: American-inspired assassination attempt in Beirut, hijacking of the TWA plane and ship Achille Lauro,

bombing of the PLO headquarters in Tunisia, Abu Nidals massacre during Christmas etc.

The material for this book are collected in the period 1984-87. Since revelations of Iran Gate occurred in November 1986, I
was in Iraq. In the eleven months since I have been working hard to go back to my sources, develop new, collect material,
organize the continuous flow of information that daily put new rulers to Iran-contra affair.

Many of my sources, a total of 56, within and outside the Reagan administration has conditioned that if our
conversations to take place, so it had to be outside the quote without attribution. I understand if readers irritated by this
anonymity, but it is for the journalist in many cases for the sources talking to one, and that what they say at all interested.

In order to explain Reagan's Middle East policy, I felt that it was necessary to describe Reagan and his decision
environment, like Israel's unique role in American politics yelled at an analysis.
But I admit that the revelations of the Iran-Contra scandal and the formation of CIA director William Caseys secret foreign
policy organization is so surprising that it has changed the original structure of the book. The revelation of Iran Gate is a unique
opportunity in the Reagan period to look a president and his counselors in their secret maps. Normally, it takes years before the
archives otherwise become available.
 With this book, I point to Israel and Saudi Arabia's vital interest in the secret foreign policy. The two countries'
governments and agencies were promoters of Iran Gate. They had their qualifying justifications, and they are presented
in detail in this analysis. A network of secret communication wires went between Riyadh, Jerusalem, Tehran and
Washington.
Khashoggis secret memorandum to the Security Adviser Robert McFarlane, who I accidentally got access to early in
1987, put me on the trail of Saudi Arabia's large share in the secret arms trade.

The conventional wisdom is that it was Israel who selfishly dragged reluctantly US presidential advisors
into Iran deal for personal gain. It confirmed the Tower Commission report. But that's not the whole picture.
Saudi Arabia's King Fahd grip forming into this policy through its deputies.

It was a bold and decisive appeasementspolitik King Fahd attempted to chart against Iran. It collapsed, and the
US is now very directly drawn into the gulf war. It may Reagan's gravest crisis since taking office in 1981.

Many owe thanks for help with this book. First of all, my wife, Maria, who in 1985 broke up and traveled to the United States.
For later in the month just to watch my back at the workbench or on the way out the door to the airport. She has critically followed
the manuscript revision phase by phase, as more new details emerged and fell into place. She has cleaned the worst of my
journalistic phrases away. Without her protection of my work in peace had this script has not been finished now.

Four of my colleagues, Torben Krogh, Jan Stage, Poul Birch Eriksen and Steffen Gram has guided and pointed out how I myself not

so. Publisher Erik Vagn Jensen took my many delays with stoic calm. Danmarks Radio, Program Manager Lars Persson and my

colleagues in the outside-the editors have given me economics, business activity and have pushed back when I had to leave. Carlsberg

Foundation, SNU, Fullbright Commission, the Danish Statoil Foundation, Rockwool Foundation, Knud Hjgaards Foundation, Danish

Foreign Policy Society and Publicist club has the financial support carried me through my career breaks. Everyone should have my great

thanks. I hope that they will feel encouraged in the future to provide other journalists a similar push in the right direction.

Jens Nauntofte

Copenhagen, October 1987

 1. Meanwhile, in Marstal ...

"They are our brothers, these freedom fighters and we owe them help. They are the moral equivalent of America's Founding Fathers and

the French Resistance brave men and women. We can not turn our backs on them. For the battle is not between left and right, but

between right and wrong. "

Ronald Reagan, March 1, 1985, the Contras.

Oliver North's octopus arms stretched out in the mid 1980s strangely far around the world. Quite a small seafaring town in
southern Denmark.
When the ferry from Rudkbing enters Marstal harbor, giving away small clusters of timbered houses behind the pier not this
es special relationship with the planet's distant curves. Here no Rudyard Kipling poem about a sailor families' operation against
the blue-black sea.
But in the middle of the city has seamen survivors erected a stone on which they have caused to be written:

"Dream and deed was one name

on time was good or bad
Your everyday was home to benefit most
when it kosted Jert blood Hail the
bottomless sea in which sank in wild animal
requirements in our hearts jewelry each
grave "
"In memory of the lake's heroes from
World War 1939-1945".

For centuries, skippers and sailors from Marstal set sail on the oceans. Often they come home in coffins, often they
do not come home. At once provincial and cosmopolitan is marstal residents worldly-wise in their own way.

In the summer of 1987, switched on the TV sets in the little skipper, while the Congressional hearings in Washington on the
Iran-contra scandal was broadcast. John Poindexter and Oliver North had until
The moment was unknown quantities in this idyllic corner of Europe. But the modest sailor home was known as well some
of the people who were mentioned: eg. their townsman skipper Arne Herup, ex-CIA agent Tom Cline and the dealer Albert
Hakim.
During lawyer Arthur Limans cross-examination of America's two former mighty men, Poindexter and North, slipped out the

details about the private empire "Project Democrary Inc." as they built up during CIA chief William Caseys watchful eye. It included in

addition to secret bank accounts in Europe and the Caribbean, six aircraft and a 2 km long landing strip in Costa Rica, rented

houses, vehicles and warehouses in different countries, an extensive network of agents and code secure computers that they could

communicate with each other - and M / S "Erria" Marstal, re-registered to Panama for convenience.

In this secret network had skipper Arne Herup M / S "Erria" sailed weapons between Latin America, Western Europe, the
Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf. "Ollie's Ship" as "Erria" was called, had been in the eye of the storm during the foreign
policy drama that had been driven from some office space and computers in Washington's inner city center.

Arne Herups eyes have the same light blue color as the sky above Marstal bay as he stands in his backyard and lashes in clogs
and looking out over the steep places on Langeland. A swarm of white seagulls swoop in shrill squeal on some fish waste at the
harbor. The son of a fisherman, now 66 years old, this stocky, stout man throughout a long life seen anything from the Nigerian
coasts of Central America's palm-fringed beaches.

He gets up every morning and sail on the Sound to inspect its eel fykes. "When I'm not on long voyages, so fishing I
then of course," says Herup with a wry smile, "did you think we here in Marstal sit idly by?"

Oliver North's friend in Marstal

Herup put beer on the table, flip around in his scrapbook, where articles from Danish and American press highlights his
efforts in Reagan's secret foreign policy. "It was very strange," he said as the hearings were over, "I thought the time that I
sailed for the CIA. That should be considered legal. But now I understand that these people have gone without the Senate,
and it must of course not in a democracy. "Herup adds:" I have always tried to stick to the law. "

However, one should not mistake Arne Herup. He is not the type who repent, because as he says "we sail with guns or
donut is one fat, just cruising." But it was exciting to sail for Americans, he believes, and the payment was not anything
wrong with, for he got in wages per month, the equivalent of a Danish group executive salary. Today Herup actually a little
annoyed that it all was revealed: "We had it now as well, and that was when a good gig. Alright."

What Arne Herup today finds perfectly acceptable was that Oliver North bought his ship through the two envoys Albert Hakim

and Tom Cline, he sailed weapons to Central America and Iran that his ship should have been used to send desinformerende radio

signals over the Libya in rabble-rousing against Kaddafi, and that he was off the Lebanese coast was to gather the American

hostages up by Oliver North was hoping to free, either by force or arms sales to the ayatollah.
 Perhaps the wayward marstal should not quite felt at home in the agents' mutual jargon, and therefore mistook the deadly action

with an ordinary game "Trivial Pursuit"? For how could Herup know that Reagan in code language called "Josve" Weinberger called

"Samuel" North named "Paul", an Israeli middleman was "accountant", TOW missiles were referred to as "dogs", airports were referred

to as "swimming pools "Iran was" apple ", Israel was" banana ", the United States was" orange peel "and the hostages in Lebanon were

called" zebras ".

As one of the witnesses in congressional hearing remarked that he thought that the codes were a little too silly, there was a quick

reference lawyer interjected: "Will the other words that Paul never sent the bookkeeper to the pool in order to establish a price the orange

could send the dogs through the banana to apple to turn to get some zebras? "

M / S "Erria" flying weapons to the Contras

The contact between "Democracy Inc." and Arne Herup came into being in the spring of 1985. Through shipbroker Tom Parlow at SA

Chartering in Copenhagen was M / S "Erria" connected on a time charter contract. In April fetched Arne Herup weapons in Gdansk in

Poland and sailed them to Puerto Cortez in Honduras, after Portugal having completed the load with 14,714 boxes of ammunition.

Here then, in practice, one of Oliver North's many strokes of genius, of weapons, including AK-47 machine guns, had been

purchased through secret contacts in the Polish trade union movement "Solidarity" who wanted to make Washington a favor. When the

Sandinistas were equipped with weapons of Soviet make, believed North that it would be advantageous if the Contras had the same

types of weapons so they could enjoy ammunition and weapons that had to be conquered by the Sandinistas. The Polish weapons load

was therefore shipped to Honduras.

In these spring months in 1985, while "Erria" crosses the Atlantic, there is in parallel a number of interesting features.
Most of the participants in a cryptic international poker game going on the field stands out: Israel, Saudi Arabia, an Iranian
arms dealer, inside the group in Reagan's National Security Council, NSC - and not forgetting CIA chief William Casey and
his agents overseas.
Michael Ledeen, a consultant for NSC visiting Israel and asking Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres for help in securing
the release of the American hostages in Lebanon, particularly the CIA area chief William Buckley. Ledeen introduced two
arms dealers Al Schwimmer and Yaacov Nimrodi, the last was former Tehran agent for Mossad, Israel's intelligence service.
The switch extended to the State Department's director, former Mossad chief David Kimche, the Iranian arms dealer
Manucher Ghorbanifar, assumed to be secret Mossad agent, as well as the Saudi billionaire Adnan Khashoggi, who is good
friends with Saudi Arabia's King Fahd.

An eccentric assembly whose existence Arne Herup knew nothing. He had already difficult enough by saying Hakim's
name, so all these Semitic names would have provided a more detailed study of oriental languages. Herup therefore focused
on sailing weapons and cash wages while the above group of former and current spies and arms dealers took turns,
respectively, to cooperate and take each other by the nose. A behavior that within this environment is commonplace.
While waiting to Khomeini dies
In May 1985 meet Adnan Khashoggi and Manucher Ghorbanifar in Hamburg. According Khashoggi communicate Ghorbanifar
him that Iran is a group of moderates who are interested in taking over power when Khomeini dies. Khashoggi let the message go
on to the Saudi King Fahd and to Israel.
When Michael Ledeen return to Washington from his visit to Israel, he reports about the possibility of a strategic opening
to Iran if the US contacts the moderate group of Iranians who Ghorbanifar providing access to.

In the National Security Council chaired by the Head Robert McFarlane for a longer period with its employees discussed
the possibility of finding a political opening to Iran. NSC's Middle East Specialist Howard Teicher, in consultation with the CIA
prepared a memorandum with his superiors Donald Fortier. It is this analysis "Iran: The Post Khomeini Era", which is the
formal basis for the President's decision, a "directive", to seek an opening to Iran.

The draft Directive, which gets Secretary of State Shultz and Defense Secretary Weinberger to steep. Neither of the two
key cabinet members to approve an opening for a regime that is responsible for terrorism and attacks on US Marines in
Lebanon. The US has not only with its "Operation Staunch" program formally banned arms sales to Iran, it has also asked its
allies to refrain from it. So Reagan's two ministers responded unequivocally reject NSC's draft of a new Iran policy.
Weinberger calls the proposal "absurd", adding later that its implementation would amount to "invite Kadaffi over to lunch."

Libya's Colonel Moammar Kaddafi featured along with Nicaragua sandinistleder, Daniel Ortega, the top of the Reagan
administration's enemies list.
Without the two ministers' approval had the initiative either wither or carried out without their knowledge. Security
inner circle at the White House decided the last presidential commitments.

Here the Iran scandal began.

In fact, Israel since 1981 sold arms to Iran. It had happened with America's tacit commitments. When the US official was
unable to nurture relations with Ayatollah regime, there was at least consolation to be had in that ally Israel cultivated and
maintained its relations with Tehran. It could only be a matter of time before Iran and the US will again be able to communicate
openly suspected Mon.
As a carrier of this intricate network of secret and obvious connections fit skipper Arne Herup with its M / V "Erria" perfect.
He plowed his coaster through Sargossa Sea to the Caribbean and back. Arne Herup knew how to remain silent. There should
not talk too much. Whether it was contra movement or the local Central American governments that got the weapons from his
holds mixed him not i. Herup knew barely whom Contras really was: "We sailed weapons to Honduras and unloaded our cargo
there. They were happy to receive it and we were happy to get rid of it. We could well do again. It was as a delightful trip through
Sargossahavet, fine weather all the way, and later home via St. Thomas and Bermuda. "
 There is something almost touching in the simplicity with which Arne Herup describes how he and the crew fished for
supper in Sargossa-sea, while the sun baked down on the M / S "Erria" and its
14,714 boxes of ammunition and machine guns in the hold. On the way to "Ollie" North by "goods" for the fronts in Central America

and the Middle East, enjoyed the Danish sailors themselves out on the ocean road with their fishing rods.

Reagan activist loss

For advisers and experts on Reagan's NSC staff were two things vital because they were the president so strongly about. There was

contra movement, which had helped to victory against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, and then there was the American

hostages in Lebanon that would get out of captivity. The two key issues for the Reagan administration, along with some theoretical

ideas about a new Iran policy to the foundation of the Iran-contra scandal.

But more than these overarching goal was the mood of drama and uncertainty, which in summer and autumn 1985, NSC
nations to go their own way, no matter what defense and foreign minister meant.

Kidnapping are in Lebanon came close to each other. January 8 kidnapped Jenco. 16 March: Andersson.

March 22: two Frenchmen Fontaine and Carton. March 26: Briton Collett. May 22: French Kaufmann and Seurat. May 28:
Jacobsen. 10 June: Sutherland, etc. In the same period, says Israel Reagan's advisers that the way out of the problem is to go
behind the back of the kidnappers to Iran and thereby get the hostages freed. It is in Jerusalem as well as in Washington are
convinced that it is Tehran that draws in terrorist threads in Lebanon. In June hijacked TWA passenger plane No. 847 of the
pro-Iranian Shiites in Beirut and a 17 days long hostage drama played out for open TV screen. It was the cumulative effect of this
flagrant provocation against the US government that pushed Reagan and his advisers at the White House to act.

As a spring jumps, four years of pent-up activism unleashed. Communism, this work of the devil, whose followers would
drive the United States into the abyss and destroy its democracy, had to be destroyed. Reagan, North, McFarlane and
colleagues considered not only as a unique chance to impose on the world their social philosophy, but it was even a patriotic
duty.
The sails were furled and hatches lashed the ship of state. Those who had the inside circuit trust was tipped off. It was felt that
provocations against Reagan's America was so drastic that only a drastic response was possible if the Reagan period should not
end in his soft and yielding, as was the case with Jimmy Carter.

1 June 1985 slides Arne Herups M / S "Erria" in Puerto Cortez in Honduras. It lies at anchor on the nest for
four days before unloading can begin. Port authorities refuse later to disclose details of origin port for cargo, type
of goods, etc.
Rifles, machine guns, mortars and guns unloaded, reportedly enough for three months' supplies to the Contras. The estate is

placed in a warehouse belonging to the Honduran military. Some officers would be responsible for sales to the Contras.
 But the same day that the unloading of "Erria" takes place on June 5, it is reported in Washington that within the
Administration is an intense debate about whether Nicaragua should invaded militarily by the United States to overthrow the
Sandinista. Congress reacts nervously to the reports, of its intention not to be push to the side of the president, if there is to
be war. Man has made his experience in Lebanon and Grenada, Congress people do not want to wake up one summer
morning and hear the news that American leather necks are landed on Nicaragua's coasts.

Therefore, writing a conference report, published July 29, 1985, in which it maintained that the US military should
not be inserted in battle or because of Nicaragua.

Foreign Shultz sidetracked

There was in Washington a clear sense that the administration was prepared to take action. But the goal was not known for NSC
had prepared plans both against Nicaragua, Libya and Lebanon. First, the US hijackings of four pirates who hijacked the
passenger ship "Achille Lauro" in the Mediterranean in October 1985 triggered the pent-up tension.

In June discovered Secretary of State George Shultz that despite the fact that he had rejected the NSC's proposal to open
new connections to Iran, so the initiative was still in collusion between the NSC and Israel. The foreign minister later told the
Senate investigating committee that he Lisbon June 5, 1985 sent NSC chief McFarlane a message in which he complained
about his contacts with Israel, which went around the State Department and the US ambassador to Israel. Shultz did in the
message clear that Israel's former connection with Iran suggested that the US and Israel not necessarily in question had the
same interests. Shultz wrote: "I am mystified at the way this matter is dealt with, and I cares about the prospect that it
contains the seeds of future difficulties and serious errors, unless the case fixed quickly."

Robert McFarlane cabled back to Shultz: "I am turning it off enbart." The secret Iran initiative was canceled thought
Shultz.

Six charges arms to Iran

But the truth was the opposite. Israel delivered, in agreement with the NSC, the first 100 TOW missiles to Iran in August 1985 and a
further consignment months after. So took the Americans themselves the task. In November 1985 the CIA flew the first charge to
Tehran. In February, May and October 1986, followed three other consignments. In November cracked the secret diplomacy with a
bang as the Iranian President, Hashemi Rafsanjani, felt obliged to tear the veil of the silent weapons diplomacy. Rafsanjani's rivals
in Iran that would hurt his position, had some days earlier in Lebanon let the news leak, and Rafsanjani tried now in a tactical
quickstep to save face by being the person who spat "The Great Satan" in the middle of the face.

In April 1986, while Arne Herup temporary sailed home to Aero, he suddenly foreign visit in his house on
Gasvrksvej in Marstal. It is the dealer Albert Hakim and Thomas Clines,
former agent of the CIA, who comes traveler on the orders of Oliver North. NSC staff's secret activities still
taking new forms as the idea of creating a permanent foreign policy shock group mature.

The group needs to own ship. Will Arne Herup sell? When the skipper hear what Americans will pay, it will take
him long to say yes. 312500 $ was at the time of falling prices for older coasters, a fine payment.

Herup was quite familiar with Tom Cline: "Him we met the first time in Portugal when we sailed the first cargo from Poland.
When the ship reached Honduras stood Cline again on the quay. He was omnipresent. This time he came with Hakim to Marstal
and would buy the ship. We were told that "Erria" going out on more of the same kind of travel. "

A few days earlier the United States had bombed the Libyan cities of Tripoli and Benghazi in a surprise air attack. It succeeded

Colonel Kaddafi to escape with his life, while bombs fell close around his Bedouin tent erected in the barracks courtyard in Tripoli.

New tasks for the M / S "Erria"

Hakim and Cline told Herup that if he would continue as skipper, would both he and the crew get a fine hire. "Erria" going to the
Mediterranean, where the radio equipment on board should be sent misleading radio signals against Libya. The ship was also to
Israel and retrieve goods to Iran, and perhaps to Lebanon to pick up freed hostages.

Ex-General Richard Secord later told the Congress hearing that "Erria" mission could become "extremely dangerous" and that the
ship would be likely to perish. "I believe that the captain was a very brave man and was willing to take on a mission that resulted in
considerable danger," declared Secord. Even Herup says: "It was as pure play for us. Nothing to talk about. "

A few days after the sale contract had been signed in Denmark, departed "Erria" to the Mediterranean, while McFarlane, North
Others traveled on secret mission to Tehran in a CIA flight. It was not without risk to Americans. They ventured into the lion's den,
bringing the famous key-shaped cake and a Bible to Khomeini with inscription from Ronald Reagan. In his pocket had each
participant a poison capsule that they had to swallow if the Iranians imprisoned them and broke the promise of safe conduct.

Oliver North hoped that Tehran-journey would result in more hostages' release in Lebanon. But misunderstandings arose

during the negotiations, and the group returned home empty handed.

In October 1986, there are "Erria" off the Lebanese coast. "I was told to put me ten miles from land, off the Lebanese coast," says

Arne Herup. "It did not sound that difficult. We understood that the hostages when they were released, would be shipped out to us. And

the number we were then ready to make. It had become dangerous, we might just have taken contact with our good friends, the Israeli

coast guard, the Israelites. So could they look a little after us. They were the least as interested in the Americans came through. "

What the captain tells is that he had now been incorporated into the North's and Casey's secret foreign policy company.
North's intimate cooperation with Israeli intelligence meant that Israelis as a matter of course looked after M / S "Erria" and
would intervene if it were to be attacked by
anti-American forces in Lebanon. It did not happen. The hostages escaped nor out. Then summoned "Erria" against Iran with

machine guns from Israel.

Today, Arne Herup up every morning at dawn, taking his boat and sails to the eel-traps in Marstal Bay. The tension from
the days of Oliver North's service, he has not forgotten. He admits that he misses the fascinating calls with sudden
redirection of the ship to new addresses on the globe. "If they call me and say" now we sail again, "yes, I'm as ready."
 2. A cowboy coming to Washington

Manhattan in New York, December 1979. chill in the air, Christmas tree at Rockefeller Plaza, movie song "White Christmas" that

shimmers down 5th Avenue and get the frivolous to plunge into the "Sacks" and buy over prematurely.

At the Hilton Hotel's oil congress. American, Middle Eastern and European oil people compare curves and price tables.
Maybe not an exciting topic for Mr. & Mrs. Jones. Right up until they run their excessive limousine in front of a gas station
and discovers what a gallon of fuel costs.
$ 40 for a barrel of crude oil from the Persian Gulf now. $ 80 when we reach the 1990s, predicts an oil guru in the New York Times.

The world is out of joint. 1970 ebbs away with war and turbaned threat of a new world order where the "fundamental" to be
put in the center. A peanut farmer from Georgia's president. He is a liberal, moral and capable administrator, but awkwardly at
odds with both the spirit and the events around him. Many Americans are hoping for a guard replacement in the White House.

When I enter at the Hilton I go wrong without realizing it. Wrong floor, faulty door and quite misplaced speak: Ronald
Reagan. Ex-actor, ex-trade unionist, ex-informant for the FBI, exguvernr and now presidential hopeful candidate stands on
the podium. Unreal yes. But in December 1979, eighties still unreal distance. That alone having to experience year 1984 for
the generation that grew up in George Orwell's pre- and postwar a macabre vision. So why not also Ronald "Mickey Mouse"
Reagan, as the black rebel writer Eldridge Cleaver once called him in a moment of exuberance, as president?

Four weeks earlier, the US embassy in Tehran was stormed. The diplomats were taken hostage by the Revolutionary
excited young Iranians who call Ayatollah Khomeini for "Imam". The young people called "student" explains the occupation of
the embassy with that it is a punishment to the exiled shah of Iran have been admitted to the United States.

President Jimmy Carter has for months rejected Shah's request for entry, because he and his advisers fear the
consequences it could get in Tehran. But Shah has cancer and will die.
 Two of America's political mandarins, Henry Kissinger and Chase Manhattan executive David Rockefeller, both old friends of the

Shah, has started a shameless campaign against the president with accusations of immoral behavior towards a trusted friend of the

United States.

Carter gives in to pressure but triggers thus forces that limit his ability to be president for a new four-year period.
In Tehran unfolds a 444-day unbearably drama of America's 53 diplomats. The White House sees red.

This December evening I let oil congress be oil congress for a while - and instead attend Ronald Reagans attempts to charm
New Yorkers. Only weeks after the hostage crisis in Tehran has begun throwing Reagan engaged in a litany of America's
dwindling prestige. Small undeveloped countries of the Third World enters America honor underfoot ... namby-pamby unit must
stop ... the American flag should not be defiled ... etc

TV cameras running, the audience applause, some delegates clatters with cake plates. Then take the Ronald Reagan a

gentleman turns out the American dream, the values his father has taught him, the generation that kept America's honor clean and

Stars and Stripes high.

"Thank you for helping me to make America proud again" sounds Reagan End Word, while the applause seems to grow to
unreal heights and echo between the walls of the corridor to the elevator.
When I come out on the street is cold really set in and snow started to fall. At Times Square stands a frigid woman
who will sell me buttons. I buy two. On the one saying "Fuck Iran" and the other "I love Mickey Mouse."

Moral buildup in the White House

Ronald Reagan moved into the White House in January 1981 with a program to halt the decline in global influence that
critics claimed Carter had applied to the US.
America should resume its rightful place as the world's leading nation by rolling back communism behind the Iron Curtain. Seen
from the Reagan White House, the situation was this: South Vietnam and Cambodia had fallen, Somoza's Nicaragua had fallen, the
Shah of Iran fell and about 100,000 Soviet soldiers kept occupied Afghanistan, while terrorism from the Middle East radical states
threatened to spread turbulence in Western societies.

Ronald Reagan lacked neither objective nor the incentive to pursue an active global policy. He had joined the US
conservative forces behind him in a strong anti-Soviet objective. Also in domestic politics was the program unique: down with
taxes and public spending time in the buildup and industry, pruning of Washington's interference in local politics, repeal of
abortion and the introduction of compulsory morning prayer.

With Reagan pulled the US foreign policies taken out in clear black and white colors. There were villains and heroes, and
Reagan and his group of advisers made no secret of who was who.
Carter's concern for human rights was not shared by the new administration. Not because Reaganfolkene felt that especially the
Soviet Union and its satellites should have the item stuck in the nose as often as possible, but mostly because it is in Carter's
version had served to focus on assistance to third world
countries. The third world existed in Reagan's philosophy primarily as an extension of the great powers' policy, not
independently.
Hostility towards the Soviet Union was pronounced. Silence of the kingdom, the evil empire, and communism was hated. Reagan

believed that the problems that the United States globally met were created by Moscow. Why should the Kremlin leaders thwarted, if

necessary brutally. America had genoprustes.

When Reagan 8 March 1983 spoke to a group of evangelical Christians in Florida, no punches are pulled. Together,
President and assembly for the part of humanity that had the misfortune to have to live under the Soviet yoke:

"Let us pray that those who live in the totalitarian darkness can be saved, pray for them to discover the joy of knowing God.
But until then, let us make ourselves clear that while they preach State supremacy, touting it to be the subject over mighty and
predict its eventual domination of all peoples of the earth, so are the core of evil in the modern world. "

cowboy culture
There was talk at Reagan's election victory in 1980 "Reagan country," the US west of the Mississippi River, where the American is

more cowboy than Yankee where the old conservative ideas thrive and Reagan since John Waynes death in 1979 took over the role of

a cult figure and patriotic symbol.

The showdown in style and political position between the western and northeastern United States dating back to last century. In

the east had been the European-like establishment, with New England manners and Boston and New York accent.

In the west it was frontier country where the disaffected emigrants wanted to, partly to get as far as possible away from the
European-like east coast, partly to find happiness in California, the sunshine state.
Reagan's incredibly simple ideology is similar in some way western philosophy of good and evil. His indisputable great
popularity beyond Washington's Potomac River lies entirely in line with what one through the ages have been able to hear
from a George Wallace or John Wayne.
The difference between the Yankees and Cowboys are real enough, and it can be read in the striking difference between a John F.

Kennedy, from the Irish-American aristocracy in New England, and Ronald Reagan, also of Irish descent but born in modest

circumstances in midwest and with a self-made career in California.

Cowboy culture covers more than just hesteranchene in Texas, but it is difficult to identify because myths, clichs and
Dallas-mud threatens to stifle it.
When John Ford and the film industry so much has been successful on the western genre is because the cowboy culture is the

original American. Life beyond the Mississippi River, on the great plains where cowboys swirled up the dust, while the drive

kvghjordene of place or hunted Indians, was associated with the pioneers' freedom dream.

Therefore Strolling Ronald Reagan very conscious role in the US stkystliv as the representative of the western United
States, where beyond the Mississippi today live more people than in eastern America.
 Reagan consciously seeks to symbolize a different outlook, which he refers to freedom and empowerment, as the clock-American
virtues with him as the country's first man to be revalued. Reagan has not been in Congress as Richard Nixon. He has never lived on
the East Coast, and it is characteristic that after he moved into the White House, so he makes sure as often as possible to travel a
few days home to the ranch in California where he ostentatiously dressed in cowboy, chop wood and rides his horse. IN

1987, when Reagan had been president for six years, he had spent a total of 374 days in California.

The message was not to be mistaken. Here was a man who represented the Old West, while he spoke of the
new right, which had brought him to the White House.
The evening before the voters in November 1980 to go to the polls, praised Reagan in his final national TV campaign
speech "my good friend" John Wayne, whom he called genuine American man in film after film had fought evil and had taken
destiny into its own hand.
Television viewers rode along with 240 million other Americans into the light of "the shining city on the hiil" and went out of
the beach road into the setting sun - into Reaganland.

Simple templates to complex problems

It would be wrong to claim that Ronald Reagan failed to deal seriously with the problems he faced in foreign policy.
By contrast there is enough to question his understanding of the issues. The month after he moved into the White
House, he gave an example of his simple templates. About Lebanese, he said: "I can not understand why they are
fighting each other. They are then, when all, Lebanese all together. "

Here shared Reagan, however, the fate of contemporaries and former US politicians, for whom words and phrases are living their
own lives, quite regardless of the fact, to be described. Such as. in Lebanon or the Persian Gulf:

When Israel invaded Lebanon in the summer of 1982, the US was drawn into the Lebanese quagmire as protecting
power, with an entry of marines in Beirut. Soon the American soldiers, however, directly involved in the ongoing fighting
between the Lebanese factions and the Syrian army. In October 1983, 241 US soldiers were killed by a Shiite suicide
driver drove a truck with explosives into the US military headquarters.

Reagan defended first the US presence in the civil war-ridden country to "the area is key to the economic and
political life in the West," and further that "if this key should fall into the hands of one or more powers with hostile
intentions towards the free world so it becomes a direct threat to America and its allies ". On October 27, 1983,
Reagan noted that the US peace mission had been attacked precisely because it "fulfilled its mission".

Two months later, in December 1983, told Reagan Congress that US Marines had to stay in Lebanon because
"the credibility of the US and its allies" were at stake.
Two months ahead, February 7, 1984, announced Reagan suddenly that now, most of the Marines will be
moved to ships off the Lebanese coast.
 A week later, the president said that this move had been planned "for some time", that while the government had argued
that it was vital that the United States remained on Lebanese soil. He said that the soldiers were likely to remain off the coast of
eighteen months. For shortly completely being pulled away.

No one before or since hinted that Lebanon had to be "vital" for Western security. The truth about Lebanon Unfortunately, the
oppressive bloody civil war that has been going on since 1975, probably interested very few in the outside world, apart from its
neighbors. At the same time it is also the outside world successfully, it would be disastrous if the hard-hit communities really should be
"vital" for Western security.

From the Gulf of Tonkin to the Persian Gulf

However, it would be unfair to suggest that this lack of argument to the logic was a hallmark of Reagan's
administration. What did not Harry S. Truman on Korea, shortly after doing the opposite? Or Lyndon B. Johnson on
Vietnam?
In 1964, Johnson argued with genuine conviction: "We are not going to send American boys
10,000 mil from home to do what Asian boys themselves should be the first to accomplish. "When Johnson then again
sent the" boys "they argued suddenly, that it was better to fight in Vietnam than in Honolulu - as if the last automatic
followed of the first.
It was no coincidence that American commentators in the summer of 1987, recalled how the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in
1964 was fatal for American involvement in the Vietnam War. It was feared that Reagan put his head in a similar hornet's nest
in the Persian Gulf.
As Johnson had taken the defense of Vietnam vital to America's interests and Reagan had found Lebanon's rescue vital
to the West's security, such claimed Washington suddenly in the summer
1987 that Kuwait olieudskibninger was "vital" for America and Europe, despite the fact that there was plenty of oil on the
world market, and despite the fact that part of the Kuwaiti oil had been pumped up to raise money for Iraq dwindle Treasury .
Why was Iraq's finance its efforts in the Gulf War suddenly become a vital issue for the West?

The fact was that the United States suddenly - perhaps because of a bad conscience about Iran scandal - had broken with
his own alleged neutrality in the Gulf War and teetered on the brink of a daunting war with Iran because of a poorly thought-out
policy.

Gang of Four
Nicaragua and a handful of countries in the Middle East has been particularly marked Reagan's foreign policy. From the first meetings,

Ronald Reagan held in the White House, dominated Daniel Ortegas Nicaragua and Col. Moammar Kaddafis Libya agenda.

In the weeks leading up to the US presidential change had guerillas in El Salvador attempted an onslaught against the

Salvadoran government in the hope of presenting the Reagan administration a fait

fact. The fact was defeated - not victory - for guerillas and the Reagan people were quite convinced that
sandiniststyret in Nicaragua had assisted the guerrillas, although it was difficult credible evidence.

It had a major psychological impact. A number of ministers and advisors in the new administration was convinced that the Soviet

Union and the United States stood face to face in their global showdown

- just in Nicaragua.
In the Middle East there were two countries of fundamental strategic importance to US foreign policy, Israel and Iran.

Both Israel and Iran are states with a broad experience in duplicity and both countries seem to enjoy the game.
Tehran-Jerusalem axis had collapsed with the fall of the Shah, but it was activated in secret. It caused problems in November 1986,
when double-entry bookkeeping was suddenly revealed to the outside world. Double Play can be hiding in the cynical, political
systems, where the Head of State or the Foreign Policy Committee can avoid disclosure of "state secrets", while the urge to expose
the state's most intimate affairs seem limitless in American democracy.

For the Reagan administration, Israel and Iran powerful partners and opponents in America's Middle East policy. For these

two fixed points came further Hafez al-Assad's Syria. It gave four opponents, Nicaragua, Libya, Iran and Syria, and one of his

team mates, namely Israel.

Let's look at the last first.

Israel has in the Reagan period achieved a remarkable preferential status, as hardly any other country enjoys. Israel has been
done to America's trusted ally, a team-mate in the strategic game facing the Soviet Union and the dam and the fight against
terrorism. Never before has Israel been so intimate a relationship with an American government, and never before has the state of
Israel received such extensive financial and military support, now even as a gift and not loans.

Iran, Libya, Syria and Nicaragua in the Reagan period given rise to a kind of obsession for the president and
his staff. They were considered directly responsible for the bulk of international terrorism.

It is these four countries has given rise to some of the most spectacular foreign policy initiatives since the Reagan
administration was formed. "Dictators" in these countries would be undermined and replaced by pro-American politicians.

A central figure in the administration's fixation on these regimes was Reagan's longtime friend, William J.
Casey, as he in 1981 did the head of the CIA, Central Intelligence.
William Casey was an American agent chief in Europe during the second world war, and he brought to the group about
Reagan conspiratorial views on foreign policy. He regarded the Soviet Union as the root of all evil in the global game of power,
a view he could not disagree with Reagan, Secretary of State Alexander Haig, Security Adviser Richard Allen and Defense
Secretary Caspar Weinberger on.

Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas were seen as puppets, and it was the Kremlin and Fidel Castro, who was
puppeteers.
 Syria's Hafez al-Assad and Libya's Moammar Kaddafi was not Soviet puppets, then at least voluntarily allied with
the Soviet Union.
Ayatollah regime in Iran, it was difficult to greje, it could of national and ideological reasons not be prosovjetisk. But
Moscow was poised to fill the void that the US had left by the revolution. In Washington, it was learned with irritation in
the reports of Casey's secret agents in Tehran, the mullahs cooperated with the Tudeh, the Iranian Communist Party.

William Casey had his four gang, which he strongly fought. Here was power politics and terrorism fighting hand in hand.
Casey was in fact of the view that if only the United States could win one nation under threat from the Soviet Union, it would
put a shift in time, and the Soviet Union's foreign policy would collapse. It was actually a kind of domino theory, with the sign
reversed. Lyndon
B. Johnson had feared that if South Vietnam "fell", then all other non-communist states in Southeast Asia topple like
dominoes in front of the pro-Soviet advancing forces. Now Casey turned this domino theory against the Kremlin.

The moderates in Iran, the Libyan opposition in exile and the Nicaraguan contra-revolutionary opposition should be
helped. In itself this finding was the outline of the Iran-contra affair: to help the potentially pro-American forces in these
countries.
One could get the impression that the right ideologues considered the four countries as four drainage holes in the globe,

wherefrom there spyedes Soviet hate propaganda and anti-American terrorism.

It was therefore for the Reagan administration to have put a lid on the monstrous holes before the disease spread.

The legacy of Truman Doctrine

The ideologies that characterized the Reagan period, reaches back to the time after the second World War, when the

Truman Doctrine was formulated.

Harry S. Truman had stood at Winston Churchill's side the martsdag in 1946 when the British cold warrior had allowed
students at Westminster College in a small town of Fulton, Missouri, feel that the history of the world had come to the US
province: "An iron curtain has gone down across the continent "thundered Churchill, of course, had the European continent
in mind. Thus, he delivered the maxim which was to stand in the flame font of American governments and the Western Allies'
policy statements in the following years.

Ronald Reagan was in the film studios in Hollywood and fought in his own subtle way communism, as he passed on
"interesting" information about his colleagues in the industry to the FBI. McCarthyism was on the march.

President Truman's overall strategy to guard against the spread of communism has been called a doctrine.

Since then, almost all American presidents sought to create such an overall doctrine of their foreign policy. It is unspoken
in the air that a president without a doctrine is a state leader without vision, and a state leader without vision can not be
presumed to have the ability to create a strategic
concept for America's world role.

Truman Doctrine was prompted by the need to provide fast and comprehensive assistance to Greece and
Turkey to counter specifically for Greece a communist takeover. Truman Doctrine promised help governments
were threatened by communist revolution from within or Soviet pressure from the outside.

Iran was also a problem. During the second World War it was occupied by British and Soviet troops because the shah regime
harbored sympathy for the Axis powers. After the war it was important for Iran's shah of getting occupation troops out, and he
was willing to give favorable oil concessions to achieve it.

But the Russians had Shah problems. In August 1945, the Iranian communist Tudeh party power in the northern Iranian
province of Azerbaijan, and Soviet troops prevented the Iranian army to interfere. The province was declared as a
"autonomous republic", and only by patient diplomatic skill succeeded Iran to outmaneuver Stalin and bring the province back
under Tehran's authority.
Western powers' cooperation in the war against the Axis Powers was replaced now by a western front against Stalin's policy that

unambiguously perceived as expansive. There were global containment of the Soviet Union. This containment, containmentpolitikken,

was a main pillar of US Cold War policy and led to the creation of pacts NATO, SEATO and in 1955 Bagdadpagten. They were like an

iron ring enclosing the USSR.

Reagan doctrine
Reagan doctrine revives the harsh anti-communism that existed in the Truman doctrine from the 1947th

The difference is that while the Truman Doctrine was clearly formulated and led to immediate wide-ranging initiatives and pact
formation, the Reagan Doctrine never been clearly formulated, in addition to finding that communism is evil in its essence, and the
Soviet Union's foreign policy consequently are malevolent, conspiratorial and great harm to humanity.

Neither Ronald Reagan or some of his main advisers have ever tried concretely define what
Reagandoktrinen contains.
But one thing that clearly distinguishes it from Truman Doctrine is that it will not only contain the Soviet Union, but is offensive
in its scope. It will eliminate Soviet influence by rolling back communism behind the Soviet borders. This is done by helping
anti-communist movements, or by establishing them where they do not exist. Reagan got indirect means of this, since the oil crisis
of the late 1970s created the debacle in the financial plan controlled countries in the developing world so they more or less had to
abandon their socialist schemes.

In order to implement such action programs will prerequisite for success be that Congress agrees and
supports the president's initiatives.
If this willingness is not present, then the president either abandon such acts or conduct them in secret.
The last point we come to.
Reagan Doctrine proved in practice to be a secret doctrine, not only because it has never been
defined, but because in its essence is about secret programs, covert operations. These programs were not necessarily
illegal as such. transfers to the contras in Nicaragua in 1986 it was. But they were secret, because a great power foreign
policy in sensitive question is best served by being blurred in Discretion mantle.

Anti-terrorism as a plank
What "Jackal" Carlos had been the 1970s, Abu Nidal of the 1980s: the epitome of international terrorism at its most
cynical. In comparison with Abu Nidals group seemed Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization, PLO,
whole human kind. Not because Washington wanted to have any kind of communication with Arafat's PLO, for it
made it certainly does. But because Abu Nidal with its bloody terror was in sharp contrast to the PLO.

PLO is the Palestinians' main organization. It represents millions of patriotic resolve the Palestinians in the absence of a
war machine of Israel, consider themselves entitled to use the resources available as hand grenades, guerrilla attacks,
liquidations, etc. Often, the attacks directed against Israeli civilians in border towns, and it has been fiercely condemned by
Israel . It is remarkable that the criticisms quite silenced when Israel bombs Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, with
civilian casualties.

The entire Israeli propaganda machine is geared for the international community to place the PLO in the worst possible light, so

that neither the US government nor the EC countries are pushing too hard with demands for an Israeli-Palestinian peace dialogue.

Where PLO is a conventional political national organization, a kind of government in exile of the Palestinian people, the

Abu Nidal mysterious, irrational and unscrupulous.

Abu Nidals name lit up with exclamation from Interpol's list of most wanted terrorists. Also Reagan's anti-terror
specialists have an eye on him. Oliver North did at Congress hearing in the summer of 1987 a large number of precisely
like that would meet to duel with Abu Nidal, on equal terms and with the same weapon.

Washington's response to terrorism, the anti-terrorist retaliation, where activists of the CIA and the National Security Council was

given ample opportunity to use their imagination.

Terrorism and anti-terrorism were password in 1980s parlance. In Washington and Tel Aviv was the phenomenon
studied extensively.
From 1984 it began in parts of the US administration to look like an obsession. The Middle East political crises was
seen by Reagan's employees through a filter hvorhenover were painted with large red letters: terrorism.

This led to an ever closer US cooperation with Israel. This close identification with Israel's political and military struggle meant

that the United States abandoned the previously postulated neutrality and joined as a participant in Israel's struggle against their

Middle Eastern enemies. For Israel was nothing new to define the country's enemies as "terrorists".

But it was highly remarkable that some of Reagan's influential advisers increasingly
degree was willing to let the United States enter the Palestinian-Israeli national conflict on Israel's side. Therefore tried
more balanced officials in the US State Department and Defense Department persistent to distance to a close
brotherhood with Israel. The United States had, after all, essential interests to nurture in the Arab world.

Across Washington's desks fought pro-Israeli and pro-Arabs therefore their own little Middle East War. A war on
America's right policies in one of the twentieth century's most intractable conflicts.

The situation in Central America took up the Reagan people strong.

Nicaragua's Sandinista regime was hated. CIA chief William Casey stated straight out that if you did not fit in, then
scattered Sandinistas communism with neighboring states and would spread through Central America with a steppe brands
speed. Before you knew it, would communism slid over America's southern border. About Casey & Co. even thought it is
difficult to determine. But they claimed it.

Reagan was granted 19 million US dollars to the CIA operations would cripple the economy of the "new Cuba" that Nicaragua was

called. Reagan issued a presidential directive that gave the CIA permission to carry out "covert activities" in Nicaragua. But CIA Director

William Caseys presentation to congressional intelligence committees was the language used vague and suggested that it was the

Government of El Salvador to be protected against communist rebels.

Members of the overthrown president Somoza's notorious National Guard that had been washed up on the beach in Florida,
and willing exiled Nicaraguans in general, there was no shortage of. They sniffed now rightly morning air.

William Casey put his soul into the matter and drew some of the "Company's" heavyweights to Central America. Now the
formation of a credible body of Nicaraguan freedom fighters. The counter-revolutionary movement, contras, was kept christened.
 3. Three lobbies takes lineup

The elevator glided noiselessly up to the second floor with Senator Edward Zorinsky. The door opened and stood Ronald Reagan

prepared to take personally against and follow the senator into his private study. A moment later stood Zorinsky on the thick wine-red

carpet, where he had view of sydplnen at the White House.

Here was Richard Nixon eight years earlier sat and pondered how to delete his private collection of tape recordings
without the country's highest office into disrepute, and here was Jimmy Carter sat late into the night in the lamplight in a
vain attempt to read the thousands of memoranda and working papers of his administration daily produced. Both came to
short and had to leave the presidential residence before they had expected.

It was different with Ronald Reagan. He was nine months earlier moved into the White House, and he did not dream of
entangled in revealing tape recordings, let alone keep up with what his colleagues wrote in their interminable analyzes, as long
as he could do with staff manager's short minutes.
Edward Zorinsky was placed in a deep armchair. Reagan had requested this interview to try to persuade the
Jewish Senator from Nebraska to vote for the sale to Saudi Arabia of five electronic patrol aircraft AWACS
(Airborne Warning And Control Systems).
AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which is the organization of the pro-Israel lobby, specifically processes the

Congress was confident of victory. In the House of Representatives had already been voted on arms sales to Saudi Arabia, and the

house had rejected the deal with 301 votes against

111. Of the Senate a total of 100 votes had AIPAC director Tom Your secured a majority of 61 senators for rejecting the
arms trade. Ronald Reagan was on course for its first significant defeat in foreign policy, was felt in both Washington and
Jerusalem.
Edward Zorinsky was with his Jewish background one of AIPAC secure support in the Senate, and he felt personally strongly

committed to doing everything possible to avert a potential danger to the State of Israel. Begin government had clearly signaled that

the sale of AWACS to Saudi Arabia would be galmandsvrk. You could run the risk that the Saudi government in a crisis let the flying

radar stations working for Israel's Arab enemies. These precious and unparalleled varslingsfly Israel had not even afford to buy.
 Reagan told Zorinsky that Jordan's King Hussein would come to Washington a few days later and asked, "How
can I convince foreign leaders that it's me who has the command, if I am not able to sell five aircraft?"

Three minutes later left the senator the White House with a note to the president that now he would get alone and searching
the hearts and kidneys. At the end there was a reporter who wanted to hear the president was still just as convincing as when
Zorinsky had alleged that Reagan could sell ice to Eskimos. The reporter just got an enigmatic smile. On the way to Capitol Hill so
Zorinsky demonstrators who shouted: "Vote American. Vote for AWACS. " Scarcely had he got back to his office, before there was
a rabbi who called and wanted to know about his Jewish heart still pounded Israel.

There was a group of senators whose votes would be crucial. They were subjected to enormous pressure up to polling day
on October 28th 1981. When the day came, Edward Zorinsky yielded to Reagan persuasion art. The Eskimos got their ice.

In addition to the five varslingsfly there followed other military equipment in the arms package, which in total amounted to 8.5
billion dollars, the largest single arms USA had ever received. As chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. David C. Jones, dry noticed
when he gave his acceptance aircraft sales: an injection of Saudi petrodollars will lower costs for aircraft manufacturer on the
AWACS aircraft afterwards be produced for the US Air Force. A precocious argument that might make an impression on the
politicians.

When Ronald Reagan took over the presidency of Jimmy Carter in January 1981, he inherited the unresolved matter of
whether Saudi Arabia had to buy the planes. In 1978 succeeded President Carter to get a sale of 62 F-15 aircraft through
Congress, despite Israel lobby's embittered resistance. It was only managed by aircraft were not delivered with accessories
that enabled them to long-haul flight. The equipment was now part of the new arms package.

But in the intervening three years were also seen dramatic thing in the Middle East.

Kris The crescent from Ethiopia to Afghanistan

Between 1 and 11 February 1979, Iran experienced a chaotic culmination of a long fermenting discontent with the pro-US shah
regime. On 1 February Ayatollah Khomeini returned home from fourteen years in exile, and ten days later stretched generals in the
Imperial arms weapons and surrendered to the crowds. Shah had long since flown. It was ten days that shook the modern Persia.
"Dawn ten days" as they were baptized in the revolution new calendar.

Shah sought refuge first in Egypt and later Morocco, Bahamas and the United States. Tehran demanded his extradition. A bitter battle

for decades of American influence in Iran was underway. A showdown marked by hatred of the superpower that had protected the Shah and

held him on the throne. Hatred was the trigger when the 53 American diplomats in Tehran embassy were taken hostage in the fall of 1979

and held captive for 444 days, with Khomeini's blessing.

On December 27, 1979, Afghanistan was invaded by the Soviet Union. 80,000 winter-clad Soviet soldiers were sent over
the snowy Hindu Kush into the Central Asian country, strategically located
between the Soviet Union and the subcontinent.

The oil price on the international spot market passed in 1979, $ 40 per. barrel (159 liters) and US oil
experts conjectured for a price of twice around 1990.
While winter snow lay heavily over Washington DC, and the expensive heating oil was poured into oil furnaces are tried
Carter administration to analyze the Kremlin's long-term intentions with the surprising invasion of Afghanistan. Russians would
try to advance toward the gulf's warm waters?
On January 23, 1980 came Carter's response to the Kremlin as his annual message to Congress on the state of the nation.
He translated to legislators, meeting at the red carpet in Capitol Hill, what was to become known as the Carter Doctrine. He
noted that the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan "could pose the most serious threat to peace since the second world war", and
then issued the warning which is the core of the Carter Doctrine:

"Any attempt by outside forces to gain control of the region by the Persian Gulf will be considered an attack
against America's vital interests. And such attacks will be rejected with the necessary means, including military
force. "
In the fall of 1980, war broke out between Iraq and Iran, and no need to be in doubt that if Iran won, it could have
disastrous consequences for the Arab prince regimes in the Persian Gulf.
Ethiopia and Sydjemen marked as two clearly prosovjetiske client states by the Red Sea, prompting Carter's security
adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski to rule that there was a 'crisis crescent "from Afghanistan to Ethiopia and the Soviet Union's
ulterior motive might be to try to wrest the US control in the area of the Persian Gulf.

Added to this, just weeks before Senator Zorinskys private conversation with the president was Egyptian President Anwar Sadat
was assassinated by fundamentalist Egyptian soldiers during a large military parade in Cairo. One could not exclude that the Islamic
"green wave" could spread from Tehran to the banks of the Nile, and thus would two of the most important partners in the Middle
East, besides Israel, be lost to Washington. Should we in this situation pushing Saudi Arabia from themselves? Reagan and his
advisers agreed that the answer might be no.

Reagan or Begin?
In the fall of 1981 tightened Reagan's staff during the run up to the dramatic AWACS decision screw an extra tooth by
spreading the slogan: "Is Reagan or Begin you support?"
With this slogan was opened for debate about whether American Jews are bound by a dual loyalty. The question
"Reagan or Begin?" Suggested precisely that if it went against AWACSsalget so betrayed to his presidency in favor of
Israeli interests? That words were an inferior patriot than other citizens?

This loyalty debate is always lurking just below the surface. Every time the US and Israeli interests are in confrontation
coming American Jews trapped because it more or less openly hinted that they betray US interests when they support the
Israeli point of view. This suspicion of dual loyalty triggers as safe every time Jewish recriminations about anti-Semitism,
which sometimes
really justified, other times just a convenient excuse, which will serve to hide that fact, Israel's best interests dearer
than America's objective interests.
Real Politically, the United States need to follow a two track policy between Israelis and Arabs and will per. definition never

be able to satisfy any of the parties in full.

In the Senate foreign committee rejected the Defense Caspar Weinberger on October 1 that AWACSflyene could mean
a threat to Israel's security, "I do not think that there is no basis for the opposition. Israel can shoot the plane down in less
than a half minutes. It (AWACS) is not an armed aircraft. "

The same day, said Ronald Reagan at a press conference to questions about aircraft sales: "American security interests
must be our own internal responsibility. It is not other nations to work out the American foreign policy. "Reagan came on the
same occasion into trouble by saying that" we will not allow that Saudi Arabia will be a new Iran ".

The intention was obviously to reassure Saudi leaders that the United States in an emergency were ready for quick action.
But what Reagan actually said was that if the Saudi royal family would be in danger of being overthrown like the Shah of Iran,
then the US would not allow it. Indiscreet suggested the US president that there were dangerous revolutionary forces in the
Saudi society, who might try to take power.

An icy silence was the only response in the Saudi capital Riyadh.

The threat to Mecca

The Saudi royal family remembered only too well the heavy clouds of smoke that had risen above the Great Mosque in Mecca, when

250 religious fanatics in November 1979 occupied the shrine of 1400rsdagen for the birth of Islam. They would "liberate Mecca and

Medina" and they were sharp armed. It took the Saudi National Guard and summoned the French anti-terrorist specialists 14 days and

many killed before the revolt was quelled. The royal family was shaken. The risk of a fundamentalist rebellion had previously been

considered unlikely.

Seen from Washington, the rebellion trial in Mecca further dramatized by the fact that it coincided with the
Iranian students occupied the US embassy in Tehran and that the US embassy in Pakistan was burnt down
by angry mobs.
Ronald Reagans personal triumph when Ayatollah Khomeini left off the American Embassy hostages freed after 444 days in
captivity on the very day in January 1981 when he was sworn in as president, paled quickly. Basically, he was confronted with
the same problems as Carter Administration had been - perhaps even more serious. For there was no prospect of a new Camp
David peace in which Palestinians and Israelis could follow the Egyptian-Israeli success up.

Reagan was in the first nine months in the White House preoccupied with domestic problems, and in March 1981 he was

subjected to an assassination attempt that briefly forced him to bed. From his sickbed he asked on April 4 his Secretary of State,

Alexander Haig, who was traveling in the Middle East, to tell the Saudi leaders that they could count on getting their AWACS aircraft.

One at the time more than reckless

lift.
Ronald Reagan had no foreign policy experience. It did not help matters that he in Richard Allen had chosen himself a
mediocre and ineffective security adviser. The Foreign Minister, Alexander Haig, had quite extensive experience both as
general and former. commander of NATO Turks in Europe and as chief of staff to Richard Nixon in his last days in the White
House. In practice, Haig to be a rigid foreign minister who constantly felt the need to assert itself against Richard Allen, and
by his performance at the first cabinet meeting after the assassination of President Reagan ridiculed themselves by insisting
that it was him, who was "in charge" in the president's absence. The legal experts could tell that the duties were shared
between the defense minister and vice president. The Foreign Minister was certainly not.

The President and his administration should never have come into the situation that Reagan's prestige in foreign
policy so much was at stake with AWACS deal, just nine months after accession. A compromise with either Israel and
AIPAC or Congress could first have been secured. First, in September pushed the chief of staff James Baker impatiently
Richard Allen aside and let his strategy group begin a genuine lobbying among politicians on Capitol Hill.

75 senators special treatment during

Ronald Reagan, known for his great powers of persuasion - "the Great Persuador" - threw himself now with all his energy
into the case, and the White House let the hint in the city that the president personally would put his prestige to win this
showdown the Senate on Middle East policy. 75 senators came as Edward Zorinsky during President's direct treatment.
As Time magazine's Hugh Sidey afterwards remarked, as he did this with kid gloves. Reagan's style was quite different
example. Lyndon B. Johnson, for this had not Undset out in crucial situations to mention the unpleasant details from a
senator's last tax return or FBI reports about their possible. marital digress or gambling debts, so as to get his way.

The big breakthrough, described in Time magazine in November 1981, came when they managed to talk one of flysalgets fiercest

opponents of the president's side. It was Republican Roger Jepsen from the state of Iowa, known as both biblical and neo-conservative.

Roger Jepsen was among the Israel lobby's secure followers. That same spring, in May 1981, he had at AIPAC's annual conference in

Washington DC condemned AWACS sale and had been given a resounding applause when he categorically demanded that "this trade

must be stopped."

Reagan had to go hard to Senator Jepsen. He reminded him including about how he had personally helped him win
his Senate seat a few years earlier. Jepsen was eventually so pressured that James Baker a week before the vote gave
Reagan signs to put full-trump. Reagan led Jepsen into his private study to be interviewed in private. There confided to
him the president "top secret information" that miraculously removed senator turmoil for AWACS aircraft threat to Israel's
security.

The question that arose was: the secret assurances the President had given Senator Jepsen
concerning. the relationship between Saudi Arabia and Israel that could not be shared with Congress and the public?

Roger Jepsen showed up in the Senate and surprised everyone with his inexplicable about-face: "A vote for the sale is a vote
for my President and his lucky guiding the country's foreign policy," noted the conservative senator.

Then a hole appeared on the abscess, the other senator from the state of Iowa also went over to the president's side. The White
House then put the spotlight on Republican William Cohen of Maine, who had been co- sponsored the resolution that would reject
aircraft sales. In his second meeting with Reagan admitted the Jewish senator that he was afraid that Israel should be made the
scapegoat if the president suffered a foreign policy defeat. But on the other hand was his fear of the "holocaust" Israel could be
exposed to, as he put it, if Israel's enemies got the weapons they required.

Ronald Reagan subsequently assured William Cohen that Israel's military superiority over any combination of Arab enemies
would be guaranteed by the United States. Very reluctantly moved Cohen finally over to Reagan's team. In the Senate restaurant
he explained his gaping Senate colleagues that sales would be the lesser of two evils, and that he only tried to help Israel. His
statement was greeted with laughter and a colleague observed across across the tables: "That's enough, Bill. You could just say
that you capitulate. But keep up with the nonsense that you will save Israel. "

Saudi Arabia skepticism

Only twelve hours before the eagerly anticipated vote in the Senate took place, was in the Saudi capital Riyadh, a group of
American businessmen and editors of Time magazine audience with the Commander of the National Guard, Prince Abdullah
ibn Abdul Aziz. King Khaled was sick, and Crown Prince Fahd was abroad, so Saudi Arabia's no. 3 on the ladder accepted.

Crown Prince Fahd was the real decision maker because Khaled had long been weakened by disease and
shunned crucial decisions. Fahd was known as pro-American, while his brother Abdullah, head of the 30,000-strong
National Guard, for years had attracted attention with sharp criticisms of US Middle East policy. This occasion was no
exception, however absurd it was undeniable that while Reagan administration fought fiercely for Saudi Arabia's right
to have the most modern surveillance aircraft, in spite of Israel, had Abdullah only scorn for the problem.

Prince Abdullah said the AWACS vote:

"I personally hope that the Senate's decision today goes against the president. It will be able to get the American
people to open their eyes. That could make it clear to them that it is another government that determines American policy.
There is a government within the government in the United States. I regret to say it, but it's a common assumption that the
US policy is determined in Tel Aviv. I would like the Americans to understand who really controls their government. We
admire the American people as peace-loving, intelligent, diligent and able to force big results. But there are some of the
elected representatives who try to enforce a policy that is contrary to
American interests ... "
The American visitors would then have to know what the greatest threat to Saudi Arabia's security was seen from
Abdullah's position as internal security chief, which, given AWACSdebatten home in the United States was reasonable to
clarify. Abdullah's response was immediate: "The US aid to Israel."

Since the spring, Secretary of State Alexander Haig talked about his pet project: a new kind Bagdadpagt. During the term
"strategic consensus" he imagined that in the Middle East could create a pro-American front against the Soviet Union,
consisting of Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. No one in Washington, who was familiar with the region's problems, thought of
such a pro-American axis, unless the Palestinian problem was solved first. But Alexander Haig insisted that the impossible
was possible.

Whether such Israeli-Arab consensus said Prince Abdullah:

"We hear constantly that the Soviet Union and communism represents the greatest danger in the Middle East. But as a
friend, I can tell you that Americans pose the greatest danger. The reason is your infinite alliance with Israel. The Arab masses
feel abandoned by the United States and feel comfortable instead turning against the Soviet Union. US policy often makes it
difficult for your friends to maintain a friendship. It is approaching the point where we are helpless and can no longer defend the
friendship. If the US insists on continuing the pro-Israeli policy, then the Soviet Union to benefit from it, so I beg that you home
will open the Government's eyes to this policy ends up a disaster for American interests, for peace and for freedom world."

With these tirades ears traveled the US delegation home, knowing that Crown Prince Fahd and his nephew, Prince
Bandar, the gifted American-trained fighter pilot and future topdiplomat in Washington, had a differently nuanced view of
the American political process.

Prince Bandar, the royal family's envoy

Bandar bin Sultan, born 1950, is the son of the Saudi defense minister, Prince Sultan, who in 1981 was no. 4 man in the hierarchy.

Sultan is the brother of both the King Khaled, Crown Prince Fahd and Prince Abdullah. They belong to the large group of sons and

daughters that modern Saudi Arabia's founder, King Abdul Aziz ibn Saud was with his wives.

Prince Bandar is a man with powerful uncles, especially when his wife Haifa is the daughter of the late King Faisal, also
a son of Abdul Aziz. It is in a Saudi context, the optimum marriage diplomacy, since it combines the two main branches of
the royal family tree, namely the influential Sudeiri branch after Abdul Aziz's favorite wife, and Faisalgrenen.

Bandar is schooled in the British Royal Air Force College, US Air Force Academy in addition to that he has a master's degree
in international affairs from John Hopkins University in Washington DC He was promoted to lieutenant colonel in the Saudi air
force, but always with the clear feeling that with the almost total dependence on Saudi Arabia is in the US, so would his success
depend on that he was Americans' right man in their own ballgame. Bandar would have political influence, and with over
thousand competing princes in the Saudi dynasty, it was a matter of time to get the right training and the right connections. Both
things are managed Bandar.
In 1978 he got his first diplomatic mission. From his fashionable house in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington
DC he conducted a successful lobbying in favor of the Carter administration sold Saudi Arabia 62 F-15 fighters. It was Prince
Bandars first confrontation with the Israel lobby. The increased course his reputation considerably, he took part in this first
victory over the powerful Jewish lobby, quite regardless of the victory was more the president's personal profit than the Arab
slyly.

In 1981, Bandar again the Saudi lead actor in "Battle of AWACS planes," as it was called. Prince operated
among Congress people on Capitol Hill, side by side with AIPAC lobbyists.
Bandar has the best American lobbying and public relations firms in the back in such a situation and it says
Washington is not so little. Saudi Arabia has simply the most expensive and smartest advisers money can buy in the
US capital. But no matter how convincing a case you pose, then people representing a foreign government rarely
able to catch up with an American interest group, as such. the American-Jewish lobby.

One of the arguments that the Reagan people met at the pro-Israeli senators, was that the Shah also originally had approved
the purchase of AWACS, and US could maybe not today Praise themselves happy that they had not had time to deliver the planes
within revolution? The conclusion might be, said AIPAC director Tom Your to Reagan's legal adviser, Edward Meese, that it was
not worth the US risking the large investment in a regime like the Saudi, if you also assumed that it could be overthrown by
revolutionary strength.

Oil companies in action

Howard Baker, group leader of the Republican majority in the Senate, was one of Reagan's most active operators in the
difficult mission it was to wrest the safe majority of the Israel lobby.
The Saudi Prince Bandar went from office to office and talked with senators. Charming, confident and as spokesman
for the Arab world's most pro-American state, he was difficult to refuse. In a single situation asked Howard Baker even
one of its committee rooms available for the Saudi prince, that he might deliver a speech to a selected group of senators
and their staff people.

But the pro-American lobbying did not stop there. Democratic Senator Howell Heflin of Alabama, which certainly did
not intend to vote for aircraft sales, got a day visit to Washington by a delegation of 26 business men from his home
state, had in common that they acted with Saudi Arabia. They told him how many jobs in his state would be at stake if
the relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia went awry and they failed not to imply that his possible re-election
could also be difficult.

Democrat from Arkansas, David Pryor, received a telephone call from the director of the oil company Mobil Oil that
would make him aware that it was a good idea to vote for aircraft sales.
 Mobil Oil also made an amazing ad campaign started, which was spent over half a million dollars on advertising for
Saudi Arabia. Full-page ads were published in over a dozen newspapers and magazines, but there was no word of them
AWACS sale. By contrast, they acted on that 42 US states had trade agreements with Saudi Arabia and hundreds of
thousands of jobs had been created through Saudi contracts. The ads estimated that friendship with Saudi Arabia were 35
billion $ worth of US trade. Which senator dared sit it ignored? In September, there had been 65 (out of 100) senators
against aircraft sales, and only 13 for. Now that Tom Your modlobbyerne roll and it was a sight that worried him.

Boeing, based AWACS aircraft, put pressure on Senator Gorton from Washington State and recalled that the factory
had billions of dollars at stake in this case. United Technologies was another company that took the opportunity to draw
attention to himself. As is so often the case with advertising in special cases, as is the case in this case usually only
afskydningsrampe for promotions, the company still had intended to make.

As Senator Durenberger of Minnesota, who certainly could not be the lure of even the Reagan campaign's most insinuating
tones, noted angrily about the mood: "This is not Reagan versus Begin, it is oil versus the Jews."

The journalist Steven Emerson has described Saudi Arabia's campaign in detail in his book "The American House of
Saud: The Secret Petro Dollar Connection", but as he focuses so exclusively on the Saudi lobby effort he includes not in
its conclusion that it was not Prince Bandar or the Saudi lobby or oil lobby who won AWACS battle but the president.
Prince Bandar and his business friends had not only been able to catch up with AIPAC staggering odds, demonstrated
in the ratio 65 to 13, two months before the vote.

The decision on AWACS aircraft

At last came the polling day, 28 October 1981 AWACS battle was decided. As several senators declined to tell whether they had
changed their mind, there was uncertainty about the outcome until the last minute.

Ed Tivnan says in his book "The Lobby: Jewish Political Power and American Foreign Policy" how AIPAC head Tom
Your stood with a group outside the Senate floor when Sen. John Warner of Virginia, one of Reagan's support in this matter
was way into the hall. Your asked him: "John, there's nothing I can do to get you to change your perception?", And Warner
said, "Tom, you've done a brilliant effort. You have given us the best possible arguments. But here you can not win. "

The Senate approved a few minutes later AWACS sales by 52 votes to 48. A wild atmosphere spread
immediately in Reagan's office when his staff came rushing in with the vote, as they had been able to follow in a
direct line. "Thank God," exclaimed the president, who until a moment earlier had received his foreign policy
prestige at stake for the sale of five aircraft to one of America's allies.
 "Can I get a big smile, Mr. President?" Asked a photographer who would capture the moment. "I try," said Reagan,
"but I do not want to look too joyfully out."
 4. Communication is the message

No one was ever to know what the secret was Ronald Reagan had entrusted the ultraconservative Senator Roger
Jepsen and which surprisingly had applied to the pro-Israel lobby defeat.

But that began to spread rumors in Washington that the Saudi Crown Prince Fahd had struck a deal with the
president, who thanks to Saudi Arabia got AWACS aircraft.
Reagan era had begun. Nancy and Ronald Reagan sent their most convincing smile out of America. The good times
were rolling.
Not only the president, but also the spirit and style of the White House was new. Reagan gave his employees the freedom and

flexibility to decide their guidelines themselves. It was called "cabinet style policy". Ministers and counselors were handed more

responsibility than it had been the custom during Jimmy Carter, and they contributed largely to create the administration's policy. The

entire spirit that oozed out of the White House, was confrontational, aggressive and violent anti-communist.

In his campaign four years earlier had Ronald Reagan in an election brochure written: "Today it is difficult to find managers
who are independent of the forces that have brought us to our problems: the Congress, the bureaucracy, the lobbyists, big
business and unions. If America is to survive, then this must be changed. And it will only be changed when the American people
vote for a leader who is not part of the entrenched Washington establishment, managers will not be bound by old promises and
friendships ... "

Reagan and his advisers brought from California spoke in all seriousness about the "Reagan revolution". Precisely
because Reagan had been a member of Congress he had not been part of the hundreds of haggling annually made on
Capitol Hill to find a common denominator for the different interests of the elected representative. Now it should be the end of
this sammenspisthed and falseness.

It sounded like George Wallace of Alabama, twelve years earlier as an independent presidential candidate had led a powerful

populist campaign against what he called "the insufferably smug folder men" in
the federal capital, all of which "ought to be thrown into the Potomac River."

There are in the Midwest, the South and out in California a significant reluctance, often contempt against Washington. The smart

lawyers, industrial aristocracy, the gilt-edged universities, publishers and media empires appear in the federal capital to live in a very

own world. The congress people who simply states send to Washington is confused unfortunately often into corruptive affairs or, worse,

become intellectual and change style. Therefore, always there for Congressional and presidential candidates been points scored by

criticizing Washington and the East Coast Establishment.

On Capitol Hill was powerful Republican senators in the first few years after Reagan's arrival shocked by such a poor
grip the president's staff had about the legislative work. This was especially the necessary tactical efforts it is necessary to
provide for the cases through. AWACS case was a good example of how close the administration had been on stepping
wrong. But apparently let Reagan did not challenge it.

Before the 1980 election had one of Reagan's election analysts, Richard Wirthlin warned: "We can assume that the
opponents will try to make Ronald Reagan as an uncomplicated, inexperienced begins (stupid); Moreover, as a man who
intentionally doing on the facts to speak well of his own achievements (deceptively) and as a man who, when he is elected
president, will be only too eager to get his country in a nuclear holocaust (dangerous). "

Except for the last point, so the analyst had actually hit the mark. Ronald Reagan was uncomplicated, was
inexperienced with such extensive policy issues, and he did too happy about on its own production of things, not to
be deceitful, but to get them to fit into his preconceived, particularly square worldview.

Past as union leader and FBI agent

In his crucial years after the war, when Reagan was president of the actors' union, the Screen Actors Guild, his
Americans and world view formed. It was McCarthyraen where actors and artists, like so many other citizens had to
answer intimate questions about their private view of politics and ideology to prove their patriotism. The strong emphasis
on Christian morals, respectively double standards, the strong emphasis on homeland love and the loss of job
opportunities if you might be suspected of flirting with communism are clear elements of the Reagan "revolution" in the
year 1981st

Anne Edwards says in his biography of the early Reagan, "Early Reagan" that in years as union leader of the Screen Actors
Guild was persuaded that the Communists were not only in the process of taking over his business from the inside, but either
the American society and that, therefore, he secretly gave information about his colleagues to the FBI.

If federal police and Ronald Reagan shared worldview together in FBI director John Edgar Hoovers day, so it
was certainly after Reagan took the White House intelligence service CIA in charge of his updating in world politics.

His campaign chief, William Casey, was appointed CIA director, arranged for the president with
twenty minutes daily films about the situation abroad was current on what he ought to know about the world situation and what
the CIA thought that could be done about it. So relax Reagan to read the in-depth analysis of international events in the
Washington Post and New York Times.
So presidential couple and their guests danced into the eighties. The mood on the buttocks in the White House was carefree and

casual dress code in the evening tuxedo. Here gathered Hollywood, industry princes, stock exchange sharks from Wall Street and the

snarling impatient terriers of young neo-conservative ideologues who wanted a career. Carter team's careless style of meeting in the

office at the White House in jeans were banned. Now the scent of Gatsby, in technicolor.

In the outer edge was seen Richard Perle, Kenneth Adelmann, David Stockman, Richard Burt, Patrick Buchanan and others who looked

askance at the cane conservative "kitchen cabinet" that had brought Reagan forward to the White House. But Reagan's old guard of

mentors and ideological whips were soon banished from the Reagan-couple "the cuisine of regions", after they had done good by helping to

identify the administration's top officials. Then they slipped back into the business environments in California and the Midwest, where they

belonged. With a determined effort, they had got their man placed in the White House. Now would the fledgling 70-year-old president even

have the reins.

Outside world picture of Reagan

Before long, the media started to write in detail about Ronald Reagans style. It was a topic that concerned many Americans.

In Europe, there was an almost unanimous view that Reagan was a failed B-movie actor who was without skills and historical
understanding of the complex problems the president of a superpower confronted. Americans found Reagan jovial and gracious
confirmed almost for Europeans where bad it was with the United States. From the European side of the Atlantic was Ronald
Reagan lazy, stills and a oprustningsgal cold warrior who with his irresponsibility made the world a more dangerous place to live.

Seen through American eyes looked really different picture. Jimmy Carter, who had promised the nation morally vindicated
after the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal, had disappointed. Carter had with his Baptist and conscientious style
worked his death on the task of managing the administration. He had projected the impression of "love" and "care" and had
underlined the humanitarian dimension in world politics. Carter was a "soft" president and for liberal Europeans - and
Americans - about the best one could wish for the United States and the world.

Ronald Reagan was spiritually let but carried himself elegantly and competently forward. He projected power and
determination, and he who in 1976 could not even qualify for the Republican party's nomination, had now evicted Carter from
his second term in the White House by emphasizing that Carter was soft on the Soviet Union and Iran, and neither had been
able to get the hostages home from Tehran or just manage to send one undstnings mission to Iran without the victim.
Reagan - the great communicator
Americans learned pretty quickly that the new resident of the house on Pennsylvania Avenue in 1600 was tremendously
interested in using his powers to read employees' working papers.
The highlight of which twenty years earlier had been John F. Kennedy - who had a formidable perception and claimed to be able to

skim working papers, reading speed of 1000 pages per hour, and understand premises and conclusions - so now the low point

reached. Reagan got his texts gennemtykket in short main clauses, and he should remember to negotiations or talks were recorded on

small index cards. It worked, but when the president did not always understand proceedings depth, they were convenient cue on his

mind maps almost meaningless in the same moment, the spotlights were turned off.

None, however, could deny that the president interacted extremely well with the public. He used teleprompter, that he had
his lyrics rolling on a tape just in front of the television camera so he could read them while viewers got the impression that he
spoke from the heart. Even the most gilt-edged tvstudievrter had to admit that Reagan from his years as speaker of the
commercials had learned his craft to perfection. His own stamp on the manuscripts was not to be mistaken. He cleaned them
unintelligible phrases and instead used its own. The media dubbed him "the Great Communicator".

Ronald Reagan was working in his office a maximum of three hours a day. The rest of the time was spent gatherings and
ceremonial obligations. The United States had a president who was 70 years old and insisted every day to sleep afternoon sleep
with Nancy. In the evening there were like friends to dinner. When they had laughed at it for a few months, it was accepted as a
peculiarity, but decisive was that the president had control of the situation, not that he sat up and read until three in the night as
Jimmy Carter, in the meeting red-eyed and tired the next morning. Reagan had introduced corporate management style. He was
chairman of the board, who said yes or no, the others had to make processed.

The mascot for the right wing

Right-wing ideologues as Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz or conservative columnists like George Will and Patrick Buchanan,
Reagan took to their hearts. The calm and confidence as Reagan radiated, and always with a quick, amusing reply was balm after
many years even troubling thing presidents with hunted looks from an unhappy Lyndon B. Johnson, one Richard M. Nixon who cried
when he had to leave the White House, one Gerald Ford who could not walk down a flight of stairs without falling and Jimmy Carter
tortured by Ayatollah evils.

Ronald Reagan had the indefinable function to be a kind of high priest of the nation, an almost religious dimension. When he
put his "reassuring hand" on the nation's forehead, then gave the people calm and confidence. Anyone could see that he was a
simple man. He spoke directly to the average American, he could express the nation's soul.

Being able to play to the gallery and not only for orchestra seats belonged to Reagan's California style. He had learned
it as a union leader and actor. As governor of California, America's largest and richest state, he honed his political program.
He was a man who would defend America
Freedom, which was prepared to send the Marines of place if the United States were gored, and a man extremely talented
propagated the impression that the world, especially the communist amounted to a plot directed against America.

The problem with Ronald Reagan was that he could not much else. People were enthusiastic about what they saw and
thought the content was consistent therewith. How fatal it could be shown scandals that crashed down on the President in his
second term. But the foundation was laid in the early 1980s.

There was talk of deja-vu. Where had you seen it before? Was the Hoover period before the crash, or was it the
brothers Dulles's icy regime in the fifties, wrapped in Eisenhower's paternal optimism?

The comparison was lame, at least with Eisenhowerperioden. For what difference from Dwight D. Eisenhower, John Foster
Dulles and Allen Dulles to Ronald Reagan, Alexander Haig and William J. Casey. Where the first had been competent and
knowledgeable, so lay irrationality in wait at Reagan's team.

Insight is power
The president's laissez-faire style, his unwillingness to enforce insight into its employees' activities, allowed the
formation of a junta in the inner circle of employees at the White House.
The captain had set the course: anti-communist, anti-terrorist, heavy armament, seeking reconquer the
US national halo. As long as the officers and helmsmen held up well on its present course, intended captain
not to interfere.
Therefore formed in the power shadow of a core of energetic men who were willing to take unconventional means of
power in use. They charted lines of an alternative foreign policy, which they hoped to achieve the results that they knew
the President wanted, but could not be reached through traditional channels.

This private foreign policy, guided by computers in an annexe to the White House, can be traced back to the AWACS deal in
the autumn of 1981. The group that led this policy has been called a junta because it ruled without supervision from the system's
control bodies in Congress. Some have even talked about that group took over power in a coup. It does not reasonably applicable.
The junta wanted the same thing as president. But to the President not later could be held responsible for the consequences of its
policy, it was necessary to pretend that he was not informed of its contents.

One might speak of an imperial presidential power unfolding? No, not the theory seems to cover the Reagan White
House. It was not actually the realization of historian Arthur M. Schlesingers vision of presidential power, on the way to
get lost.
America's recent history has been plagued by real and imagined conspiracies. Because a majority of American leaders have

pretended that they themselves and the nation was at liberty last redoubt, the environment been painted in black and white. The good

against evil. Christian against the Antichrist. This view of America's role has especially influenced the Reagan period.

Precisely for this reason it may appear to many observers of this period paradoxical that one
President, as Ronald Reagan was elected on an anti-communist program, just became the president for whom it for the first time
in history seemed likely to succeed in the fall of 1987 to conduct a nuclear weapons reductions with the Soviet Union. US policy is oft
paradoxical.
 5. The young cuckoo

"Are we a banana republic? Or, an American puppet state? Are we 14-year-old boys that you can give a slap on the wrist if they
do not behave properly? "
Menahem Begin was quivering to its visitors. The air in the room was literally charged the unresolved anger that
oozed out of the Prime Minister's small, dense form.
Samuel Lewis, the US ambassador to Israel, preserved composure while he was on his government took against Begin's ticking.

"I've seen better political theater before, but never to a smaller audience," he remarked sarcastically to one of his employees

afterwards.

Menahem Begin had called up the ambassador from Tel Aviv to his home in Jerusalem this December day in 1981 to
deliver a protest to the Reagan administration. It was not an ordinary protest. Not only was Begin who said furiously. The
situation for most amazingly enough, to the rhetorically gifted prime minister did not speak freely from the liver, but that he read
from a carefully prepared script. There were no misconception being that the Israeli government was more than deeply hurt by
President Reagan's treatment of a loyal and valuable ally.

"The United States has declared that it" punish "Israel," sneered Begin the ambassador, "what is this talk," punish "Israel for
what?"
"They have no right to lecture us about civilian casualties. We have read what happened (in the second world war), so we know

what happened to civilians when they conducted military operations against the enemy. We also read stories about the Vietnam War

and the the call "enumeration of corpses". They can not and must not frighten us with "punishments and threats". They preach on deaf

ears. "

The occasion for the Israeli Prime Minister's anger was that the US government had suspended the recently
concluded strategic cooperation between the two countries. It was December 1981. The reason for the US action was
that Begin's cabinet suddenly Sunday, December 14 decision to extend Israeli law to the occupied Syrian Golan area.

This meant in effect that Israel had annexed the Golan, and no matter how pro-Israeli Reaganadministrationen may
seem, it was more than willing to accept. The occupied territories were
given back to the Arabs at the negotiating table when there was peace settled. How had at least the US interpretation of UN
Security Council Resolution 242 sounded since the major Israeli land conquests of the Six Day War, 1967.

Given that there were two close allies, it was striking how different they looked at the case. Menahem Begin did not
dream one second to Israel as long as he had influence on it, to issue as much as an inch of Gaza, the West Bank or the
Golan. Egypt had been the Sinai back to the Camp David peace. Thus was closed to any further concession. The rest
belonged to Eretz Yisrael, the Jewish state reborn - and Begin refused the Reagan's attempts to interfere in Jehovah and
his private land adjustments.

"They (the US) are trying to make Israel a hostage to the strategic cooperation agreement, but there should not hang anything sword of

Damocles over our head," continued Begin with a fiery glance at the ambassador. "The people of Israel have lived for 3,700 years without a

strategic partnership with America, and we will continue to live without such for the next 3,700 years."

Ambassador Lewis, American jew and highly respected for his wise way to manage this Uriah the Hittite an embassy in
had ample reason to even be upset with the Israeli government's behavior. Not only did neither he nor Washington had
advance warning of the drastic decision to annex the Golan, it was even scheduled to happen while US Secretary of State
Alexander Haig was on visit to Israel. This would allow the outside world to give the impression that the United States was in
agreement with the Israeli move.

Fortunately Haig canceled the visit at the last minute because the Polish army the day before had imposed martial law
and arrested Solidarity leaders. Americans over suspects Beginning of annexing the Golan as a bolt from the sky, hoping
that the world would be more concerned with Poland.

"They have introduced economic sanctions against us," continued Begin undaunted, "and thus the President
broken his word. What are you trying to do? Hit us in the wallet? "
There had been many affairs in 1981 between Begin and US, and Israeli Prime Minister knew very well that his behavior
was intensely debated in the American Jewish community. In particular, the vast majority of liberal American Jews did not like
Begin's aggressive, radical right style. Also this had Begin a comment in the reprimand to Ambassador Lewis:

"It will not succeed to intimidate (American Jews) with anti-Semitic propaganda. They are on our side. This is their ancestral

land, and they have an obligation to support us. "

When Samuel Lewis left Begins home, he discovered to his surprise that simultaneously had been news conference at the State

Department, where Begin's statement, word for word, was handed over to the press people. It reaffirmed the US government's

impression that Menahem Begin was very preoccupied with his constituents reaction as by President Reagan.

Begins recipe for populism

From being counted as clear loser, had Beginning in the months leading up to the summer election in 1981 turned the mood
among Israeli voters as the election victory literally had been snatched out of the hand of social democracy
Shimon Peres.
Some hundred foreign journalists had come to Israel to report on the elections and on election night, we sat close to the
ranks of the Social Democratic election headquarters. The count seemed promising. Toward pm. 22:00 Peres got up on the
podium put a phone through from abroad. It was not Washington, who was impatient to hear the results. No, it was Prime
Minister Anker Jrgensen in Copenhagen that would hear about Peres did icing.

From my chair on the row below, I heard Peres declare to the Anker Jrgensen that the election victory was as good as in house,

which at the time could only be described as wishful thinking. But Peres waited only a few results of that victory could be celebrated.

There were partying that night, but it was a different place in Tel Aviv, namely Jabotinsky House, where the Likud people lived. Only half

an hour after Peres' election prognosis, the room in front of him blown to the international press, who had hurried to the victorious

counterpart: Menahem Begin.

How did this happen?

When the Social Democrats in the spring of 1981 had overturned Beginning with a motion of censure was Begin's
shares in low price. In his reign had been set a record in falling productivity and rising inflation, while Begin and Ariel Sharon
was spending large sums from the US help to build the controversial new settlements for Jewish tenants in the occupied
West Bank.
Begins medicine was bitter. But he was more popular than ever in Israel's growing Sephardic population. First he beat the
jester loose financially. A flood of imported consumer goods at favorable prices flooded the "hungry" consumers. With rapidly
rising inflation, there was good sense in buying white goods, electrical goods and cars, especially since the consumption tax
further lowered up to the election. It was something voters could understand, never had they had a better prime minister.

Then came Begins the second phase of the strategy. It fell on the foreign front. Palestinian camps and military positions in
Lebanon was bombed at frequent intervals, two Syrian helicopters were shot down over Lebanon. Everywhere in Lebanon, where
possible, the temperature was a few degrees in the air with military clashes between different factions. The peak was reached
when the Israeli Air Force bombed PLO offices in West Beirut.

"Operation Babylon"
During the "two minutes of Baghdad" shook Menahem Begin Middle East. American-built F-15 and F-16 fighters from the
Israeli Air Force was nicely without notice. They flew over Jordanian and Saudi territory in such low altitude that no radar
registered them. Then bent planes to the northeast and headed straight toward Baghdad after Israeli planes had loaded the
fighters in the air with fuel.
With exemplary precision emptied the Israeli pilots their bombs on the Iraqi reactor Osiris in a suburb of Baghdad. It was
Iraq's new pride, built by French engineers. Two minutes later there was only a smoking heap of ruins, while the Israeli fighters
flew home and reported "Operation Babylon" ended. As the Israeli Air Force had previously handed his long arm all the way to
Entebbe airport
Uganda, and later to bomb PLO headquarters in Tunis, so Israel had here in the summer of 1981 proved that no target in
the Middle East was so remote that it could count in security for Israel fist.
In the Iraqi staff headquarters were they so taken aback that at first believed that it was the Iranians who unexpectedly
had pooled their resources for an air strike.
"Operation Babylon" was carried out without the United States received advance notice and international criticism of Israel was
extensive and unequivocal. Menahem Begin responded by saying: "Israel will not tolerate any country - Arabic or Arabic - is
developing weapons of mass destruction. There will never be another Holocaust. "Begin claimed that the Iraqi nuclear reactor could
be made a-bombs, and that Israel had acted in self-defense.

Ronald Reagan, who in his own election campaign had expressed extremely pro-Israeli views, learned now that Israel
had used US-supplied F-16s to bomb raid against Iraq despite the sales contract clearly stipulated that the planes could
only be used for defensive purpose.
In addition to this, Israel had not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and consistently refused American
observers at the Dimona reactor near the Dead Sea. It was the general assumption that Israel is prepared here, or could
quickly assemble atomic bombs.
Iraq, by contrast, had signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the International Energy Agency, whose
inspectors had guaranteed that no military research took place in connection with the Osiris reactor.

Begins surprise tactics

The special partnership between the US and Israel was strong enough to withstand these discrepancies. Ronald Reagan
postponed the delivery of a new batch of F-16s to Israel. Begins surprises heard not give up, because he had won the election. In
December came the Golan annexation, Reagan answered with the temporary freezing of the strategic cooperation agreement,
which provoked Begin forth with his gardinprken to the ambassador and his boss in the White House.

Ronald Reagan had listened to Ambassador Lewis, repeatedly stressed that the more the Americans was lured into
discussion with Begin, the more would the feisty Minister utilize it to gather sympathy about his person in Israel. It was
especially the Sephardic (oriental) Jews originally immigrated from Arab countries whose favor Begin had so easily to
appeal to. Without this Sephardic majority of the population had the right coalition around Likud not been established in

1977. Proponents loved Begin, when he, in his ironic and merciless style took the Arab leaders and European politicians such as
Helmut Schmidt during treatment. It was national-chauvinism perhaps, but it gave votes to keep the Likud in power.

It takes two to tango, and Reagan would not be out on the dance floor with Begin. But the Americans could rightly ask
what it was for an ally who appeared such. Begin's foreign minister, Yitshak Shamir, answered the question in very clear
language on the day of the annexation:

"No matter how much we may wish to coordinate our activities with the United States, the
interests (in the two nations) are not identical. We must from time to time taking care of our own interests. "
Sat hard up, so it meant that in a year when the United States had been the most pro-Israel president since Harry S. Truman's day,

and the US and Israel took the first hesitant steps into a groundbreaking new collaboration, they found Israel Government is right to pull

the American president around the ring by the nose, by bombing Iraq's nuclear reactor, bomb PLO in Beirut, shoot Syrian helicopters

down and unprovoked annex Syrian territory in flagrant violation of UN security Council Resolution no. 242, as Israel itself was a signatory

to . And when the United States so at least tried to maintain a reasonably balanced relationship with its Arab friends to sell Saudi Arabia

AWACS planes, so that the country could defend itself in the event of an Iranian attack, as opposed Israel and Israel's friends in the

United States with beak and nail this arms deal.

As Brzezinski so Israel
In Washington went the division into the very core of the Reagan administration. Both Reagan and Alexander Haig was
clearly pro-Israeli. But it may irritate Israel as clearly tried to frustrate US attempts to maintain a two-pronged Middle East
policy.
It is interesting to compare respectively Ronald Reagans and Jimmy Carters way of dealing with Israel. During the election
campaign against Carter Reagan 15 August 1979 in the Washington Post wrote:
"Iran's decline has increased Israel's value as it might only remaining strategic asset in the region that the United States can rely
on ... Only by fully recognizing the critical role that the State of Israel plays in our strategic calculations, we can lay a foundation for
the destruction of Moscow attacks on territories and resources that are vital to our security and our national well-being. "

So an ideological and strategic assessment. Israel's role in the Reagan doctrine was fixed, and there came further to
Reagan on the emotional level had much left over for Israel while the Arab world for him was an unknown planet, except that
of course he had seen Rudolph Valentino in the role of " the sheik "once in his youth.

Zbigniew Brzezinski throws in his book "Power and Principle" about Carter-era, seen from the national security adviser position,
an interesting light upon the internal debate taking place between Carter, himself and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance on the art it is,
addressing Israel right. That is without even being touted by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee as anti-Semitic or
Israel-hostile.
With Prime Minister Yitshak Rabin it was impossible for Carter to get any kind of meaningful dialogue. Rabin
did not like Carter, was suspicious of his desire for peace and would inception discourage Carter before this
began promoting the Palestinian issue.

Brzezinski did not think a little disagreement did something, for it was inevitable if there were to be moved so much on the

entrenched positions that could gather a peace conference with the participation of the PLO.

But at the same spring 1977 decided Carter, that Israel had to get the so-called "cluster" explosives because Israel had
used them against civilians in Lebanon. It was a cruel effective anti-personnel
bomb with its thousands of thoroughfares was deadly.
Then decided the Carter administration that Israel had to export its Kfir bomb fighter for Latin American countries
because it could stimulate a rearmament spiral in the world. US could prevent it, because in the Kfir aircraft was an
American engine.
Thirdly debated one intense among Carter's advisors if there should be a cap on exports of conventional
weapons. Also this took Jerusalem negative because it could mean a slowdown in the US military supplies to
Israel.

Carter promised the Palestinians a homeland

With these actions had the Carter Administration stamped himself as unfriendly to Israel. Minister Rabin acknowledged
to demonstrate a deep reluctance Carter's proposal for a peace conference. It was perhaps not surprising, given that
Carter himself in May 1977 at a press conference said:

"I do not think that there can be no reasonable hope of a peace settlement in the Middle East question, which has now existed for over 29

years without a homeland for the Palestinians."

Sophistic heads could of course interpret this statement in ten different ways, and Brzezinski did indeed his best to
reassure the Israelis, but in Jerusalem was not a second of doubt that when Carter thought of a Palestinian homeland as it
was not in Jordan it should be - but in Israel, or rather in the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza.

As Brzezinski and Vance came to realize that the effect of the American desire to break the frozen battle fronts that Israel
went to the counter-offensive. As Brzezinski writes: Israel "sought to undermine the peace mission and actually reshaping the
US to a satellite of their (Israeli) policy rather than being an independent force that could work for a peace settlement."

The description fits quite well the relationship between the US and Israel in Reagan's first two years. Menahem Begin had
its own directory for which Israel internally and externally should be directed to, and if it was not consistent with the US
government's intentions, it was the US that had to adapt to Israel, and not vice versa. That explains why Menahem Begin was
so excited when Reagan not only took the Israeli acts of note, and why he argued that the United States treated Israel like a
banana republic or a naughty schoolboy who needed a slap on the wrist.

Israel has, with few exceptions had strong prime ministers since its creation in 1948. But the country has also become
increasingly dependent on US financial and political support, and it has never been more pronounced than in the 1980s. If
you had faith that it would cause Israel came slightly more humbly and took into account also to US interests in the area, so
they had to think about. Why would the dog wag its tail when the tail is strong enough to wag the dog?

Sharon Doctrine
Clashes between the US and Israel in the summer and autumn of 1981 turned out to be only the overture to
an Israeli war against the PLO in Lebanon in the summer of 1982.

After Likud election victory was former. General Ariel Sharon was appointed Defense Minister. He was popular among Likud voters,

called "King Arik" among sympathizers inside and outside the army.

Conversely, Sharon hated by the Social Democrats and the left who knew that Sharon was deadly for Israel's future,
both because of his ultra-nationalist ideas, his undoubted ambition of one day becoming prime minister - and especially
because he did not own Begins experience and deep respect for parliamentary rules.

Sharon's way to the defense minister post was plagued with scandals and controversies. His bulldozeragtige manners had been
a former colleague and Defense Minister Ezer Weizman, to say whether Sharon: "He is like a barrel with sulfuric acid. No matter
where you deposit it, then eats the acid is first through the barrel and then through everything else. "

The famous day when the Israeli government annexed the Golan, December 14, 1981, had Ariel Sharon a speech at the
Institute for Strategic Studies in Tel Aviv, where he was to speak on strategic issues in the 1980s. The speech was not held,
but Sharon let the press in the newspaper Ma'ariv a few days later. The article was seen as a draft program or manifesto, and
was baptized Sharon Doctrine. Yet a doctrine. Was a creature from another planet landed in Tel Aviv and had this program
stuck in his hand, had he had to believe that this was a major power in the Middle East with grandiose visions. But such as
Sharon apparently Israel as long as it mind you, the US had in tow. It was said in particular .:

"Israel's security interests can be affected by developments and events far outside the area of direct confrontation, which still
have Israel's attention ... In other words, outside of the Middle East Arab countries and along the Mediterranean and Red Sea
coasts, we must in the 80s expand our strategic security interests so that countries such as Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and the Persian
Gulf and Africa, here especially north- central Africa are involved. "

As editor of the leftist magazine "Al Hamishmar" dry commented: "Ariel Sharon established the Israeli empire whose
borders in east China, in northern Soviet Union, in the west Algeria and Morocco and the south apparently Kenya and South
Africa."
Here, half a year after Israel had bombed the Osiris reactor at Baghdad beats Sharon stated that it is Israel's intention to prevent

confrontation or potential confrontation countries from acquiring nuclear weapons. If this happens, then the threat "nipped in the

bud".

American reservations about Sharon

It would be natural to assume that Sharon during the preparation of this bold plan for Israel's dominance in West Asia and North
Africa, must have had the strategic cooperation agreement with the US in mind, as he had recently been in Washington to sign
along with Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger . The agreement was far from promising Sharon could have wished for. This
was because Weinberger was deeply skeptical of Sharon, and at the time one had completely missed to conclude an agreement
with Israel.
 Caspar Weinberger had his eyes fixed on the gulf and Saudi Arabia's security, and he and his colleagues were highly
annoyed that Israel opposed the US supply of AWACS radar aircraft to the Saudis. Sharon insisted however that a
preliminary agreement was operational, and it is worth recalling that within the administration and among US officials was an
extensive sympathy for the closest possible cooperation with Israel, even with Ariel Sharon as defense minister.

One can only speculate as to why Sharon gave up his promising speech on December 14 in Tel Aviv, but it is hardly wrong to assume

that it was America's immediate suspension of the strategic cooperation agreement the same day, in response to the Golan annexation

that was the reason. But it was not therefore a major disappointment for the ambitious strategist, than that he let the press in one of

Israel's largest daily newspapers a few days later.

Haig wants "strategic censensus"

The perception of Israel's role in the Reagan administration was not unique. The President, Secretary of State Haig and other
close advisers saw Israel as a crucial strategic asset, indispensable in the political offensive, which was launched against the
Soviet Union and its Middle East satellites. Haig believed that the best the US could do was to create "consensus of our
strategic problems for Jews and Arabs ...".

But this effect was Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger other thoughts. He believed that the unresolved Palestinian problem

standing in the way of such a "strategic consensus". Instead, he wanted to create a pure Arab consensus, as he found that Israel

hereby would indirectly benefit from the Soviet Union broke down.

Weinberger joined the administration in 1981, also George Shultz in 1983, from the large construction company
Bechtel, which had major contracts in Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries. In October, Anwar Sadat was
assassinated in Cairo by fundamentalist army officers. The entire Middle East fermented by fundamentalist influence
exerted by the revolutionary Shiite Iran. In the situation that really forced US policymakers to formulate a new strategy
for the Gulf, Israel was slightly a hindrance if it absolutely had to be pressed into a US strategy for the Arab world.

Of course it was precisely for this reason that the dynamic trio Menahem Begin, Foreign Minister Yitshak Shamir and Defense
Minister Ariel Sharon with dramatic provocations wrung a central place in America's Middle East policy. israel would maintaining its
first place in the America's attention, and unlike the Arab countries that Israel had clean trumps when it came to influence the
administration domestic policy in the United States. The pro-Israel lobby led by Tom Dines super active AIPAC was in the starting
blocks, ready to ensure Israel a forward location as never before in the two countries with common history.
 6. Israel in Washington

"It's the biggest misconception that produce me as a warrior, a krigsophidser who love to shoot. I hate war. "

Ariel Sharon. August 1982.

Oliver North sat down with Ariel Sharon. They should have a talk, man to man, as they were eating. The subject gave himself.
The day before, June 6, 1982, Israel had invaded Lebanon in what Menahem Begin and his defense minister had dubbed
"Operation Peace for Galilee", ie peace in Galilee, but bombs in Lebanon.

North had arrived along with Philip Habib, Reagan's special envoy to the Middle East, to explore the possibility of halting
the ongoing violence. Habib was to dine with Begin, so it took the North with Sharon home to his melon farm in the northern
Negev. Oliver North was a member of Reagan's Security Council, Ariel Sharon was Lebanon Field train main architect.

Not only were they both soldiers by profession, they also shared a reckless action-attitude to the military profession, so it
was inevitable that the Israeli war in Lebanon was the evening's topic.
Sharon folded general staff map out the North and showed him how four Israeli tank divisions were moving into the Bekaa
Valley, where Sharon expected that the Syrians would blow retreat rather than take the big confrontation with the Israelis.
Sharon's cunning plan was to send a fifth tank division through the Chouf mountains, so that the Syrian forces along the
Beirut-Damascus road was confined between the two advancing Israeli forces.

If this happened, imagined Sharon that the United States should intervene to save Syria from a military defeat, just as Henry
Kissinger during the October War in 1973 through early intervention prevented the Egyptian Third Army Corps from being wiped
out in the Sinai desert. What Sharon hoped was that President Assad of Syria would ultimately see its advantage in switching
from the pro-Soviet to the pro-American camp. It would be a strategic coup for the US and Israel believed the Israeli defense
minister.
 Sharon's plan seemed North to be brilliant. It would have been tempting to tell Habib, what he had heard. But instead
advised the North's chief security adviser William Clark who found themselves with Reagan summit in Paris. It came,
however, nothing out and also got Sharon's campaign not quite the scenario he had imagined.

Lebanon War
Israel's invasion of Lebanon in June 1982, Sharon was intended as a quick, accurate surgery failed. Instead of getting
chased the PLO out of Beirut a few days, entrenched Palestinians behind their sandbags in the Lebanese capital.

West Beirut was surrounded by Israeli forces in the summer months bombed loose on the town, to smoke Arafat and his people out

of the cave. Inside the city were among others the American press itself and in a constant media flow of words and television images

reported on the horrors that had befallen Vestbeiruts civilians.

Some days there were hundreds of deaths. There were no shelters in the city, at best, basements, and Sharon closed during
periods of total supplies to the district. The population suffered and bled to death.
Canada Lebanon's ambassador reported home after a stroll in the streets of West that the devastation "is
Berlin in 1944 look like a tea party."
Foreign Minister Alexander Haig had an undeniable responsibility for the misery of not doing it 100% clear to Ariel Sharon,
during his visit to Washington earlier this year that the United States would not accept an Israeli invasion, whatever the pretext
Begin and Sharon came up.
Alexander Haig had a weakness, not only for Israel in general, but also for Sharon's notion that if the PLO had first chased
out of Lebanon, so would the problem of the Palestinians in the territories occupied by Israel could be resolved once and for all.

Alexander Haig tried, however, before the outbreak of war in a letter to Menahem Begin to warn against the consequences of
a war. But Begin's response did not let Haig doubts. He describes in his memoirs, "Caveat" that when he read Begins answer, he
realized that the war was inevitable. Begin wrote: "Mr. Foreign Minister, my dear friend, the man is not yet born, that from me will
get permission to let the Jews kill a bloodthirsty enemy and allow those responsible for the bloodshed that enjoy protection. "

George Shultz becomes foreign minister

Sharon and Begin had miscalculated. Lebanon Campaign got stuck and gave Israel the worst publicity the Jewish state in
its 34-year history had experienced. In the last week of June 1982, Alexander Haig forced to resign from his position of
Reagan and his advisers. It was not directly the Middle Eastern events, but indirectly contributed Israel issue here. Haig
had also had problems getting along with the rest of Reagan's cabinet members, as George Shultz was appointed US
Secretary of State.
 In the State Department had to been angry at Oliver North because he was having Habib's mission had communicated through the

chain of command, ie through its ambassador in Tel Aviv. When George Shultz shortly after his appointment attended its first meeting of

the National Security Council, he went to Oliver North, took him by the arm and said brusquely: "Son, you dare to stick your fingers in

diplomatic affairs of another time."

Since spoke Shultz and North largely with each other. George Shultz went after his appointment in June 1982 started to
chalk up the field. What had happened to Alexander Haig, and before him for so many other foreign ministers were not to recur.
Foreign policy should be the foreign minister, not the president's advisers at the National Security Council.

Shultz was as foreign minister a permanent member of the National Security Council. At the meetings could be
foreign minister put forward many views he liked. But it was in sikkerhedsrdsstabens daily work, where it serves as
the President's small private State Department that the NSC has its main feature in the White House.

The Security Officer has a staff of a few tens of political and military experts under him, and they work directly for the
president and adviser, without having to answer for Foreign Affairs, CIA or Congress. North's triumph was that the
Security staff subsequently completely outmaneuvered the State Department and conducted a number of initiatives,
either in spite of Shultz 'recommendation, or without even informing the Foreign Minister, as was the case with arms
sales to Iran.

Reagan Plan
Instead of having had a humiliated Palestinian population in the occupied territories who were willing to put up with an Israeli
diktat, stood Beginning September 1, 1982 with a message in his hands from Ronald Reagan that hit him like a bolt from a
clear sky. Only two days before the PLO chief Arafat and his troops finally evacuated from Beirut. It was a kind of victory for
the Begin government.
But it was reflected not in Reagan's peace plan drawn up in secret by George Shultz, and since called Reaganplanen. If Begin
had not known it before, so he knew it now. US and Israel, the two soul mates among allies, was on a collision course. USA
suggested for a Palestinian self-government implemented in West Bank and Gaza in federation with the Kingdom of Jordan. Begin
was not just disappointed. He was furious with Reagan, throughout the summer had given a negative and critical of all Israel between
stages in the Lebanon War.

In fact, the US attitude incomprehensible to Menahem Begin and his associates. In Jerusalem had been expected that
the Reagan administration could see the obvious benefits that came with the dismemberment of the PLO in Lebanon and
Arafat's banishment to a distant Arab diaspora. Was it perhaps not what the Reagan administration sought to achieve in
Nicaragua? Was it not a matter of getting chased Moscow's puppets away from the US mainland?

It would not be correct to accuse the PLO to be a Communist front group, but Moscow backed at least PLO
politically and economically. What Begin and Sharon had done in
Lebanon was to transplant the Reagan Doctrine to the Middle East terrain, it was believed in Jerusalem.

Haigs yes-and-no was Begin's government has been seen as a "green light" for Lebanon action that would break the backs
of the PLO and create a new Lebanon in Christian leadership, allied with Israel. Was not that basically what Israel had
achieved? Why then this exquisite insult with a peace plan that flouted the Begin government's clear refusal to cede the
occupied territories. Not only that, but according to the Reagan plan should the Palestinians administer themselves jointly with
the Jordanian monarchy. A sure recipe for future disasters. Begin saw the plan as a US stab in the back on Israel, and he
rejected immediately and categorically Reagan plan that simply died on the spot without ever getting life.

Soviet Union reaps Sharon's sperm

In Washington, the picture is different. If Reagan Doctrine should be no scale, so was Sharon's attack on the
Syrian forces in Lebanon mistake of format.
First revealed it acids, and thus the USSR, the new high-tech weapons and computer systems Israel had
acquired. This meant that in the coming years may be developed or purchased new generations of varslingsog
attack systems, a huge strain on Israel's weakening economy.

Secondly, and it was worse, so did the Syrian rocket positions and the Syrian air force destroyed by the superior
Israeli technology, with the result that the Soviet Union urgently had to deliver his Syrian allies the latest, as Soviet
high technology could deliver. Syria acquired hence the latest generation of Moscow's best aircraft and missile types,
and to operate them safely, followed around 7000 Soviet advisers in the bargain.

In other words, instead of taking Syria over to the American side, so Sharon had now with his failed policies
forced Syria if possible, even deeper into the Soviet embrace.
In Washington perceived to Ariel Sharon as a bull that had gone berserk in a china shop. At first, to lead both Prime
Minister Begin and the other cabinet deceived regarding the true intentions of the Lebanon operation, as did Sharon and
hence Israel now sinned against one of Reagan's fundamental principles in the Middle East, said the Russians were to be
excluded from area.
If one is equipped with a konspirativt mind, one might conclude that it was precisely what Sharon wanted, for now
the United States even more dependent on Israel to curb Soviet influence in that part of the world.

Tom Dines concern over Israel

Menahem Begin represented to American Jews a difficult problem, not to talk about what they thought of Ariel
Sharon. Politically, the American Jews traditionally liberal and although Begin touched their emotions with its
appeals to unite the Jewish homeland, as was his extremist views difficult to digest.
 Characteristically, accepted a number of the pro-Israel lobby leading spokesmen, including AIPAC director Tom Dine,

immediately Reagan Plan. As Your told the New York Times, there was peace proposal of great value, especially because it

supposedly could bring Jordan's King Hussein to the negotiating table. Alone in this finding was the difference between AIPAC and

Begin made clear to Begin rejected any future agreement that meant the surrender of territory against a peace agreement.

To further rub salt in the wound, so granted Beginning in the same breath almost 20 million. $ Three new Jewish
settlements in the occupied territories, while it was approved to build seven more of these colonies on the Arab West Bank.

There were not just problems in the official relationship between the US and Begin, but at least in equally between American Jews and

the Likud government in Jerusalem. The bombs of Beirut, the massacres in Sabra and Shatila in September 1982 and the cumulative

effects of more than a year blatant Israeli provocations were many of the Jewish leaders in the United States for the first time really to

criticize the Israeli government. Some of them suggested Beginning to sack Sharon soon as possible because his actions provoked the

United States to open criticism of Israel.

Rabbi Alexander Schindler, former President of The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations,
was so openly disagreed with Begin's government that his critics in Israel called him a traitor. When Schindler returned home
from a visit to Israel, he told the magazine "New York" that Israel misused American Jews sacrifice: "We have been used as
cattle. We were milked, both financial and moral support, and the impact that we could put to use in Washington, and when we
were exhausted, we were put out to pasture again. It is true to say that we have been treated with contempt ... but we have
crossed a river, and our open criticism will continue and increase. "

It was definitely new tones, but for the vast majority of American Jews, there was disagreement with Israel's leaders a
matter treated within the four walls. Furthermore, the sight of Israel in crisis always call-to-action, and you can not do
something practical, so you can at least provide financial support.

When Menahem Begin during the Lebanon war in 1982 paid a US state visit, he found time to attend a lunch at the Waldorf
Astoria in New York, organized by the local Jewish committees. One can safely say that Begin touched both their hearts as their
wallets deep. For a while was disagreement shot aside.
Usually, American politicians collect up to 2000 dollars. envelope at a collection dinner. In Menahem Begin's case, the
envelope price 100,000 US dollars, and there was even just time for a lunch. Afterwards it turned out to Begin in two hours had
collected 27 million US dollars to Israel.

Israel's importance for US

The leading Jewish lobbying organization in the US when applying to influence Congress, The American Israel Public Affairs
Committee, AIPAC shortened. Tom Dine, who in 1980 took over the leadership of the committee, was in a dilemma as to Begin
government. On the one hand, it is not customary that AIPAC took party in internal Israeli debate. By contrast, support to the then
incumbent government. On
the other feared both Dine and many other Jews that Israel should be target board for American criticism that South Africa
was.
Therefore had to AIPAC rather than weaken Israel with criticism find arguments that would support Israel's case both in
Congress and in public opinion. The case has since been AIPAC banner brand and lobby abundantly clear has established is that
Israel is a strategic asset for the United States. In short, AIPAC's claim that without Israel the United States would be extremely weak
in the Middle East. When there is crisis, then sticks the Arab friends tails between their legs and refuses to identify with America.
Therefore, Israel is America's only safe asset.

Thomas A. Your had previously worked in the foreign service and been an advisor on legislation of a number of
important senators Edward Kennedy, Edmund Muskie and Frank Church.

Your had big plans with AIPAC. The organization should be extended so that it at least had a staff of 80 to 100
employees, like the most important of Senate members. For constantly to keep a close eye on all decisions it was important
to have a higher degree of specialization than was normal for lobbying organizations in Washington.

When AIPAC was founded in the 1950s, the founder, IL Kenen, been alone on the job. Now got Tom Your six men
registered as lobbyists in Congress, with Douglas Bloomfield as cheftaktiker.
There should be kept Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals and the Senate as well as the House of

Representatives. No trade-off had to be concluded in a corner of the Senate or in a committee room without AIPAC learned about it and

could try to influence the decision. With the billions of dollars that Congress annually appropriated Israel, could some minutes inattention in

a subcommittee treatment mean that additional amounts were either completely demolished or subjected to a subsequent fiscal year.

AIPAC expands
In addition to an incessant observation and processing of lawmakers on Capitol Hill, putting Your emphasis on expanding the network of

American Jewish activities around the country. The idea was that only when a congressman in his home state became aware of how

much help he received from the Jewish community, he affected to be a good man for the cause of Israel in Washington.

The defeat in 1981 in the case concerning the sale of AWACS planes to Saudi Arabia was a strong spur to renewed effort Israel
Lobby's expansion. The membership rose to 50,000, while AIPAC office in Washington purchased at a computer installations in
record time to produce letters and envelopes to all member Karen. In a few days could Tom Dine and his people mobilize a
considerable army of foot soldiers around the US, Jewish activists at the local level could make contact with politicians or influence
them with a letter storm.

As Tom Your told a meeting of members in 1982: "We, you and I must all put our political activities in the weather. It is
possible that the others have money, but we have people ... it's Americans who do not have Saudi princes to speak for
themselves about how to make petrodollars profits. "
 The message was that if you wanted to influence a Senator or Representative in special cases, we must first help the
person to be elected, so he never forgets who his real friends are.
In order to lead an election campaign must have money. It is the alpha and omega of any American election
campaign, whether you stand for election in the home state or nationwide. There are strong limits on how much an
individual can give to a candidate. But also it is a solution.

Therefore, in the 1980s created thousands of "Political Action Committees" (known as PACs). They should not be confused
with AIPAC, meaning the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The first is an election fund, the last a lobby organization, and
the two things have nothing directly to do with each. One can have different motives to create a PAC. But for American Jews is
the purpose of the Jewish PACs to gather their input on the candidates where they get the most pro-Israeli "bang for their buck."

This gave Israel lobby a new and extremely powerful weapon when it came to picking and choosing between the candidates for a

congressional seat in the home state or in the federal Congress in Washington.

Out in the individual states and in Washington put AIPAC names of the politicians who served the Israeli case. Members of the

Foreign Affairs Committees of the Senate and House of Representatives was even written, and even more members of the committee

that considered the question of fixing the annual foreign aid.

Lobby Strategy
In AIPAC headquarters on North Capitol Street in Washington was the style now restructured. The past methods beat no
longer. Without grassroots in every one of America's 50 states was by Tom Dines meaning no effective lobby. And outside
the lobby's safe grip on every senator and representative would be no responsiveness be the crucial polls. Tom Your really
learned his lesson with AWACS case.

Now was closely monitored every single politician. In a few seconds could any congressman called up on
the computer screen with a complete overview of how he or she had voted in every poll that had AIPAC
interest.
Just the slightest deviation from a strong support to Israel invoked a concentrated processing of the congressman,
partly from Tom Dine and his staff, who sought him out, partly in the form of thousands of inquiries from voters in their
state who wanted an explanation of their kongresreprsentants voting.

At AIPAC's annual congress in 1984 victory euphoria Tom Dines voice only too clearly evident when he declared: "We are a
movement - a political factor ... We are top of an iceberg of America's pro-Israel supporters. We intend now to extend aid to Israel
through the rest of this century. "
Soon moved AIPAC to elegant office suites on North Capitol Street, alongside the restaurant "La Colline" where lobbyists
and congressmen sat close at the tables every day at frokostid. When the little sprightly Doug Bloomfield, head of Tom Dines
uropatrulje "on the hill" turned into the
entrance, one could see the waiters' eyes that it was not a man who have to wait many seconds to get his table directed. As the New

York Times had written about the American Israel Public Affairs Committee: "It is the most powerful, well-organized and effective

foreign policy interest group in Washington."

It could not be seen at Bloomfield. But it could be discerned.

$ 1,500 for each Israeli annually

In the first fifteen years after the creation of Israel in 1948 was the financial support from the United States limited. With the October War in

1973, there was almost a revolution in the American willingness to provide support Israel.

It was in that year that the first oil crisis occurred and crude oil prices rose sharply. First quadrupled the price
between 1973 and 74, then regulated it up in subsequent years, as a barrel of crude oil in 1973 had cost less than $ 3
in 1979 at the marginal spot market paid with $ 40. Petro billions literally floated into the Arab oil countries' treasuries.
The same states were big buyers of modern military equipment.

To the United States could ensure Israel's military edge, which both Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter and Reagan were
willing, so had the assistance be dramatically increased.
Between 1948 and 1984 gave American governments a total of $ 28 billion to Israel. In came American Jews private
contributions, and if the two amounts was put together, it was just over 43 billion, in 1983 dollars, equivalent to 65 billion
dollars. Alone for the year 1985, total remittances from the US to Israel for 5.1 billion US dollars, according to Bank of Israel
Annual Report. In recent years, support has taken the form of gift, since it would be impossible for Israel to manage to
repay a large debt.

The US has therefore made sure that Israel kept pace with the Arab oil countries buildup - and then some. Since the
Camp David peace in 1979, Egypt joined in the Favorites' club, though not quite as large subsidies as Israel. Together
receiver Israel and Egypt over 40% of total US foreign aid. It says something about how much the United States in the last
decade has upgraded the Middle East and the US influence in the area compared to the rest of the world.

But Israel is also a country with economic problems, despite the extensive US help. In 1985, the total external of
about 24 billion dollars, and calculated per capita places it Israel among the most indebted countries in the world.

Former US Assistant Secretary of State and UN Ambassador George Ball, in its criticism of the great help to Israel
argued that it amounts to giving every Jewish Israeli is $ 1,500 annually. As George Ball says, "It happens while Reagan
cut back on our budget on subsidies for food, lunch to American schoolchildren and help for the poor. Aid to Israel is
excessive, particularly as long as it is not coupled with Israeli concessions to make peace with the Palestinians is possible.
"

The active minority

Out of America's more than 230 million Americans are only 6.6 million Jews, ie just under 3%. therefore asks
many also how it can go to a modest population has gained so much influence on political decisions and the media in
the United States.
In addition, there are at least three nearby reasons:

First, the Jews politically active, like the social is a very vibrant community group. Their turnout in elections is
around 90%, while normal for the general population is just over 50%. This means that the Jewish vote
represents about 6% of the total vote, and in special cases, the Jews therefore vote will be decisive. Often wins a
candidate with very small margins than its competitors and by a focused effort can Israel lobby just at the margin
achieve remarkable results for their preferred candidate.

Secondly living Jews in the populous states are entitled to many choices men. This applies to states like California, New York,
Illinois and Texas, are therefore crucial in the presidential elections.
Thirdly, the Jews do not reluctant to use their fortunes. They make great contributions to politicians 'campaign if they think
about the candidates' programs, or if they believe that they can bind a candidate to support Jewish causes. Through the
above PACs ensured that the distribution of contributions to the Israel lobby's opinions are not forgotten.

As editor Robert Scheer of the Los Angeles Times says: "It has not yet hurt any politician to support Israel, while the
opposite in the highest degree the case. Israel lobby is the strongest in Washington, and it can make your life damned
unpleasant if you get it from you. "

A lobbyist Douglas Bloomfield

Staying in Doug Bloom Fields office almost feels like standing in the revolving door of Washington's main post
office around rush hour. Will you long enough, do you eventually most employees at AIPAC headquarters, and it
says a lot.
Bloomfield is one of the lobby's leading figures, respected in equal measure by senators and representatives in Congress as of
competing lobbyists in Washington.
He knows congressional machinery that it was his own trouser pocket, and he mastered all the little tricks. Otherwise he was
not Tom Dines right hand on AIPAC's main work: the Senate and House of Representatives.

"We are a clearing house for information," he says, and fixes me through his glasses while he lets his hand running
through his brown hair. Just as uncommunicative as Bloomfield's the first time you meet him, just as jovial and candid he is
when acquaintance first is better secured. Lobbyists at AIPAC exchange loath many words with people they do not know.

Washington is a tough job. When it comes to the Middle East, the front between pro-Israelis and "Arabists" crisp and sharp
tone. The disagreement is not a question of academic views but deadly earnest. Talking about the equivalent of the Allenby
Bridge over the earth River as the narrow passage between the two camps in Washington is not far off.

"Is it true," I ask Doug Bloomfield, "that AIPAC is the most powerful foreign policy lobby?" "We are strong, but only in the
Middle East. Not in other areas of the world. Do not forget that there are
many lobbies, serving a significantly larger interest group than the pro-Israel activists in the United States. But also we are a good service

agency. We are a good source of what is really going on up there "on the mound." We talk to more people than members of Congress do,

we know more than they. So we always have something to barter with. That's what I mean by that we are a clearing house. Two weeks

ago, a deputy foreign minister to us for advice in a difficult case. Even Arab ambassadors talking with us, and industrialists, politicians.

Our strength is that our sources are the best, and that we know more than most. "

New election funding change US policy

Doug Bloomfield is reluctant to dwell on the power of AIPAC has to get politicians to vote for Israel's benefit. As might
be expected, he passes it off with a smile and a remark that one can not strong-arm the senators. "But there was a
senator," adds he, "which last year said in jest, of course:" I can not be bought, but I can be rented, "I can not be
bought, but maybe rented.
A little reluctantly must Bloomfield admit that the new PAC funds has revolutionized campaign financing. He says of the

Jewish PACs that have given people the feeling that they actually have an impact. Campaign contributions are visible, while the

small individual contributions before seemed to disappear into the blue.

The remarkable thing is that Jews in one part of the country now through PACs supporting pro-Israel candidates at the opposite

end, the existence of which they have not known. An overall master plan shows how campaign money can make the best use and

where they give a result that can be felt in Congress.

If 70 Jewish PACs across the United States all provide support for example. a special candidate in the state of Illinois, it gives him

unexpected abundant campaign money to campaign with.

An important element of Tom Dines nye strategy is that it's Congress elections, not the choice of president is decisive.

The Dines believes that American Jews can never get any decisive influence on the president is chosen. However, they can
very much influence the senators and representatives sent to Washington, provided that the apparatus out in individual states is
geared to an active selection and then concrete support for the candidates. Dines believes that the Congress for his case is more
important than the president because it is the Congress that annual aid to Israel should be granted. A president can do whatever
he wants, be capricious and change your mind. But does a senator the same, then comes the day of reckoning in the next
election.

In addition to the cause of Israel is extremely popular in America. A politician that oppose Israel, can easily suspected to
be "soft" when it comes to international terrorism, communism, Colonel Kaddafi in Libya and Ayatollah Khomeini. And who
wants the stamp at an election campaign? If you do not have to give support to one of America's closest allies, who must then
provide support? is the question that is easy to ask, but is politically dangerous to answer.

The Arab response to AIPAC

You could also let the boss "on the other side of the street" answer the question of AIPAC's strength. David Sadd is
chairman of the NAAA, The National Association of Arab Americans, an American Arab lobby group when AIPAC to the
ankles, but have momentum and are learning the ropes.
David Sadd counter his arguments on his fingers as he speaks, and it is quite clear to the listener that his lobby group have
come Sisyphean task. As Sadd says:
"Jews constitutes about 3% of the US population, but in Congress are represented by 6%. If you look at the Foreign
Committee in the House of Representatives, one discovers that the Jewish representation is 25%. Looking at how the
Sub-Committee on the Middle East is 30% Jewish members. So you could say that the Israel lobby has done is to assume a
dominant role where decisions on the Middle East adopted. We Arab Americans hope that in time we can match the Jewish
tactic ... We are learning the tricks. "

David Sadds problem is prohibitively large. It is not enough to learn some tricks, as he suggests. Sadd family comes from
Lebanon. Many of the Arab families who have emigrated to the United States is Lebanese. If David Sadd one day managed to
produce a NAAA, which was just as powerful as AIPAC, which country is it, he imagines that the US should ally itself with, rather
than Israel. Is it Lebanon? Or Saudi Arabia?

If the United States finally have to make a choice in the Middle East, is there no alternative to Israel? asked the Reagan administration in

1982 when Begin and Sharon's Lebanon war had made life difficult between the two governments.

Afterbirth from Lebanon

Lebanon was a cemetery: the Israelis, the Americans, the Palestinians - but most of all for the Lebanese themselves.

Reagan administration experience in Lebanon gave a bitter aftertaste. Secretary of State George Shultz tried in
1983 to bring a limited Lebanese peace agreement with Syria and Israel as signatories. Israel thought it was fine.

Saudi Arabia had promised Washington to try to persuade Assad to a peace settlement. But President Assad did not
want to play in this Saudi-American game and putting the ball dead. This led to widespread disappointment in Washington
over both Saudi Arabia and Lebanon. Because while the Shiite terror began against the US embassy and military camp, it
was decided finally to withdraw US Marines, "fredsvogterne" all the way home.

In Washington tipped the mood now to Israel's advantage. The Saudi Arabia that would buy weapons in the United States, had obviously

not something active to give in exchange. Princely family in Riyadh should not have anything to appear in public and be seen as pro-American.

It pained course, King Fahd that Israel now pulled the tricks of Saudi Arabia expense. The more important it
was for the Saudi king to assist Reagan with the anti-Communist movements by UNITA in Angola and the
Contras in Nicaragua.
But could build a broad anti-Soviet strategy at it? was heard in Washington. the answer was
If not, the United States needed allies, it could count on, and who was willing to stand shoulder to shoulder when difficulties
occurred. And this was Israel not only willing, but also shoulder wide.
From the autumn of 1983 was the stage in Washington to full commitment to Israel. The Jewish state had emerged during the

dilemma in Lebanon as the only relatively stable part of a Middle East chaos. It ignored the fact that Israel had not done so less chaos

with its war against the PLO. The strategic cooperation agreement, which had been suspended in 1981, should now be realized.

One of the architects of the agreement were Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, who in a speech June 12,
1983 said that Israel's "military power perceived by the Russians as an obstacle to their expansionist ambitions in the Middle
East. Israel's security is vital to US interests, and we will not sit idly by if the Soviet Union threatens the security. "

Neither Eagleburger, his boss George Shultz or Robert McFarlane, Reagan's national security adviser, harbored Alexander
Haigs illusions about an Israeli-Arab consensus, just as they believed the pro-Israel lobby more adventurous ideas about an
Israel that could act as gendarme in the Arab world. Their opinion was quite simple to Israel's future in the Middle East in the
next ten years were very promising, and, moreover, would Israel as a nuclear power be secured into the 21st century.

Groundbreaking agreement with Israel

With Decision Directive no. 111 in the National Security Council was October 29, 1983 established a formal basis for the strategic
cooperation between Israel and the United States. It happened in the framework of a joint political military group (JPMG).

The results of this collaboration is worth noting, for it is a coordination of far-reaching extent. The details have
tried to keep out of the public's attention to it towards the Arab world should work before provocative. Here they have
been pieced together by study of AIPAC's writings, government memoranda and leaks in Israel.

The cooperation includes .:

Israeli ports of Haifa and Ashdod used by the US 6th fleet as a guest harbor where retrieved supplies, the
crew can recuperate and shipyard in Haifa carry out repairs. Israeli hospitals of the highest quality available
to US military personnel in wartime as well as peacetime.

Israeli air bases used by the US Air Force and has been held repeated maneuvers between Israel
and US air and naval forces.
It is also possible impoundment of American military equipment in Israel, called Prepositioning so it can be
quickly transported to a war zone. A comprehensive coordination of intelligence data.

An upcoming gigantic Voice of America radio station in Israel's Negev desert, which can reach far into the Soviet Union.
 Billion Support for the construction of the Israeli Lavi fighter, which the Israeli government in August 1984 admittedly decided by

one vote majority to give up because the US would not pay the bill and Israel could not themselves.

Israeli rental of Kfir aircraft for the US Navy.

American purchases of military equipment in Israel, for example. unmanned spy plane. Negotiations on

the construction of US submarines in the Israeli shipyard. Israeli participation in the SDI program,

known as the Star Wars program.

The conclusion of a free trade agreement, which is the first United States has signed with any country, giving Israel considerable advantages.

In addition, of course, America's economic aid, $ 3 billion in 1986 as a gift, in addition to private contributions.

Disputes between pro-Israelis and "Arabists"

When considering the far-reaching political coordination as 1983 taking place between Israel and the United States, it is necessary

to distinguish between the two camps in the state administration.

In the pro-Israel camp will find the foreign minister and presidential security adviser with a number of employees. In the
opposite camp will be Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and virtually his entire ministry, which also sees the benefits of a
long-term, close strategic cooperation with Israel. But only so far that it does not burden the US coordination with the Arab key
states like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan. Traditionally in the foreign service many diplomats specializing in the Middle East
and has made services. They are referred like as "the arabists" Arabists.

Today it must be noted that the cooperation agreement marked the beginning of a kind of "natoisering" of Israel. Just over three years

later, in February 1987, could the Reagan administration in connection with the Prime Minister Yitshak Shamir's visit to Washington stating

that Israel was now an ally with the same guarantees as NATO partners.

From the outside it seemed as if the defense agreement with Israel to replace the vital relationship the US had with the
Shah of Iran.
Seen from the inside bet Reagan administration still on to find the key with which the door of Iran could be reopened. Israel
could perhaps help?
 7. peacocks

"There he was, the great charmer, the actor with the butter soft rhetoric, the theatrical performances and the emotional appeal - all

patients was about to die laughing. They could not understand him? Or they might only too well understand him? "

Dr. Oliver Sacks.

The scene, as seen from the wings:

A press conference with Ronald Reagan begins in a moment. Advisers and chief of staff have gone through all the details.

Absolutely nothing is random. Reagan get going, salute, a little tense because he must now enter the wolves. An assistant goes to him

with a piece of paper. Reagan stops a few seconds and reads, sticking the paper in your pocket and go in front of the press corps and

the TV cameras. The smile is screwed on, blinking of the eye sits where it should, clapperboard "so we roll": "Good morning, ladies and

gentlemen!"

Then take Reagan immediately lead and a quick-witted remark of which brings out smiles down on the rows. One day it sounds: "The

answer to the first question is" No answer ". The answer to question no. 2 is "No answer" and the answer to the third question is "No answer".

Other questions?"

That the joke was on the piece of paper he got stuck by hand only he and adviser, Michael
K. Deaver. But it is technology, media technique. And it gives almost every time ready scoring, so that both the president and his

critical audience of journalists are a little more relaxed. More than any previous presidential understand Ronald Reagan to utilize

the media to his advantage. No subsequent president will ignore the legacy of Reagan, what technique and style is concerned.

Master choreographer behind Reagan in his first four years was Michael K. Deaver, who along with Edwin Meese and William P. Clark

belonged to the small clique from California, who for twenty years had followed Reagan as friends and advisors.

Reagan and Deaver know one thing about public relations, which may explain why they managed to tailor the
President's "public image" without the press and critics tore it to pieces and
pieces.
They knew that television, and not the press, was the place where the president in a television age communicate with people.
Everything was laid to correct what people thought that thing was, not for what it actually was. It is also often the difference
between just television and so critical, in-depth written column. But Americans generally do not read Charles Krauthammer,
Morton Kondracke or William Safire. They see the evening news on television at 19:00 with Dan Rather (CBS), Tom Brokaw
(NBC) or Peter Jennings (ABC), men who get a few million dollars a year to be presenters, and thus is not only better paid than
the US president but also popular owning as he.

The President's use of TV

What Deaver could do for Reagan was to ensure that if construction took an upswing, as announced Reagan the front tvkameraerne out

on a construction site, surrounded by carpenters and masons, and just not from his office in the White House. It hits the spot in the

nation's craftsmen who sits with his wife and evening coffee in front of the screen.

Just as with the Vietnamese girl who was West Point cadet and Reagan took with him up to Capitol Hill and presented to
the nation in connection with the annual message of the nation state. She represented the refugee par excellence, which is
the foundation of the American nation. Here was this boat refu- gee in brand-uniform, just left the nation's most prestigious
military academy.
Or the woman who Reagan invitees to Normandy on the 40th anniversary of victory in World War 2. She symbolized the
generation of Americans whose fathers and uncles had fallen in the war. Reagan thought that she was going with him to Europe to
see his father's grave. A "human story" in a typical Deaver level.

Michael Deaver has admitted openly that there is a deliberate technique in this organization. You work with the
president's image as a film director or advertising man would do in a choice spot, just Reagan to work 365 days a year.
The point is that there is a human angle on any news that can get the president and the news to coalesce into a larger
whole, if done correctly. The symbolism serves. People need heroes and heroic deeds served, and they have to have
guys that can put public hatred. A Kaddafi. A Ortega. A Khomeini ...

When the United States conducted a fly-strikes against Libya's Colonel Kaddafi in Tripoli in April 1986 it was so calculated that

Ronald Reagan because of the time difference immediately in tonight's best TV airtime announce that for 55 minutes since "we"

bombed ... it was at that moment still unclear whether Moammar Kaddafi had been killed at the barracks during the attack. But viewers

barely got enough chance to be outraged by the terrorist attack against the terrorist, he was for a long time been vilified as the villain,

who was responsible for hijackings, terrorism and Middle Eastern death and destruction. Kaddafi was the villain, and Reagan was the

hero. Job done.

Since Reagan's Teflon image crackled

Ronald Reagan has more than previous presidents have been able to control the media "access" to him. He has held
fewer press conferences than that before him was true, and he has with his disarming manner been able to evade
the uncomfortable questions without seeming strange.

This particular advertising slippery Teflon surface crumbled before the eyes of the American nation since Reagan in November

1986 suddenly had to explain the secret arms sales to Iran, and after 25 November should also explain away that - without his

knowledge - was the profits from these Iran Sales were led on to the contra forces in Nicaragua.

When crackled picture. The invulnerable had been vulnerable. The president was confused,
incoherent, forgetful and - most strange of all - he was nervous.
Interestingly, it was therefore to observe his press conference March 19, 1987, where he for the first time in four months stepped

forward and answered questions about the Iran-contra scandal.

Here then there is a checked president who as a trained actor, he is after all, had been subjected to the employees'
cross-examination so intense that no journalist could ask him questions he did not know the answer to. It was only roughly.
First he had to understand that North and Poindexter, his two employees had led a secret policy that they had deliberately
failed to inform him. "Did the two that they carried out your orders?" Was a central question to which Reagan grabbed out of
thin air for an answer: "I do not know. But what I have known is what I have told you. "

Fortunately knew the media more than what the president had told them. Otherwise it would have looked bleak. Reagan's

response was black speech. "But there were times when one in the national interest had to misinform the people?" Reagan: "No, I

mean that there are times when one can answer (honestly), despite the fact that the nation or human safety is at stake. No, I will

not say deception of the American people. It seems I have others. "

With an enigmatic remark that "imitation is the most honest form of flattery" disappeared president into his castle again to
applause and TV commentators' comments that it was the most important news conference of his presidency, and the nation's first
husband had gotten themselves even in gear again.

Perhaps. Or perhaps not.

Connections and power

While it succeeded Ronald Reagan to restrict access to both himself and his innermost thoughts, so did the political accounts,
GB Trudeau, in his comic strip Doonesbury some stripes, showing a reporter on the way into the president's brain, which is a
maze of mysterious caves with a secret treasure. The treasure is found deep within to pass in some baseball quotes that are
inscribed in the tax chamber walls. Later Trudeau inspired by an actual television series and creates the figure Ron Headrest, a
parody of the president, who as a computer is programmed to act and speak. But who controls mon Ron?

Trudeau satire is not only entertaining but often accurate in the sense that he uncovers
rampant fashion concepts like "access", ie to have access, and "clout" to have weight or influence. Washington is in its inhabitants own

imagination America Power Town. Man pulls indulgently on the shoulder of people from New York, Crazy Town. No, it is Washington that

America's and the world's future is determined. To be the decision maker in this decision metropolis in the world's strongest superpower

is the embodiment of power, access and clout. Everything in Washington is measured in these terms. You have to have connections, and

it should preferably be seen that you have it, what is power worth if it can not be detected.

Ronald Reagans weakness and the weakness in the whole of this camouflage philosophy of having the right connections
and exert influence is that the illusions are allowed to thrive on the real expense. The outer, pfuglepragten, radiance of the
Sun King in the White House glare, while the real decisions are made quickly, efficiently and cynical of the real
decision-makers, the president's advisers who shun any publicity. How many Americans could, in October 1986, the month
before Iranskandalens detection, have the answer to whom John Poindexter, Oliver North and Robert McFarlane is? Maybe
not a count.

Life in Power Town

"Peacockia" states a frequently occurring disease in Washington. It is known by incurable need to strutte with
peacock wings and let plumage admire.
It is a play, often unintentionally amusing to see how politicians, lawyers, lobbyists, journalists and administrators
dance around each other in a given set of rituals. This Washington Syndrome is that participants are constantly busy
creating their power base, form alliances and gain influence. It's like an obsession, claiming local psychiatrists or
addiction that gets marriages and normal life to collapse.

It was not peculiar to Oliver North that he was working 16-18 hours a day, restlessly and relentlessly, sometimes so
late at night that he just threw himself on the couch in his office, instead of taking the long drive home to Great Falls. Long
hours occurs in all ministries, not to mention the private sector. There are "workaholics" and there are "powerholics" and
often comes out at one and the same.

You get up at 4:30 o'clock in the morning, jogging o'clock 5. Skimmer Washington Post over morning coffee and drive home
5.45. Is the office in the Pentagon or the State Department 06/15, read telegrams from embassies and other informants in the
example. Middle East prepares news summary and goes to the first boss meeting at 7:00. Klodens events recorded, prioritized and
discussed. This is a great power to have an opinion about everything. Area Specialist prepares an analysis that must be clear to the
minister and his deputy ministers at. 8:00 so they can be informed as and when they need to meet with the president, the cabinet or
the Security 8.30. Then run the day with meetings and work one hour lunch, again meetings, cocktails at. 18:00 where you get a
couple of sandwiches, hear new and goes back to the office, where for the first time during the day is quiet to order something, write
reports or memos. Home pm. 22 to 23.00. Up again at 4:30 pm ...
 Wife and children are one with the weekends where you go to church, doing barbecue, read Sunday newspapers and eating

brunch with friends and discuss the power of the game's intricate corridors.

Breakfast, lunch and cocktails

Then there are clubs and restaurants, there is a story in itself. Membership of the Cosmos Club and Metropolitan Club is
indispensable. The men clubs where eating lunch and kept discreet meetings. This is where the really influential that already
have power and money, and to some extent has become wolves gaze quits.

But in the restaurants unfolding political zoo itself. Suits for $ 800 is a matter of course, reserved tables a
necessity, and a two-martini or three-martini-lunch occurs, but not as frequently as rumor. You also have to catch
up with the toughest after lunch, and more than one subject is deadly. For it is performance, performance of work
that counts.
"Power lunching" is a term syndrome people even laugh at their more casual moments. When you go to the restaurant "The
Maison Blanche", course near the White House, it is not nearly as important what goes into the mouth that what comes out of it,
even though the prices on the menu is well-behaved. You have to see and be seen, you have to hear and be heard, you have
news to share of yourself to learn something, it's actually a trade. As in all decision-making centers is insight equals power.

The newcomer or uninitiated journalist who sits between the breadcrumbs and ask the oracle that he has invited to
lunch, "how do you spell Poindexter?" Or "why would Reagan do not meet with Yasser Arafat?" Is hopelessly behind the
dance.
The real insiders also believe that they can figure out who has leaked secrets to whom, depending on who's been
seen eating lunch with whom. In Washington runs the logs end information circuits around the clock, year round, while
the saw blades elbows singing and psychiatrist bills grow.

But this illusion paradise is of course also those who use their lunch break to jog along the Potomac River
and is home to dinner at 18.00. But they belong rarely rulers circle.

What is lobbying?
In Europe, lobbying is slowly becoming a recognized impact form of politicians. But basically it is a company
that is as old as mankind, namely to seek princely power, the feudal lord or the church on the privileges and
special status.
It's a little trite to note that lobbying in the United States is "as American as applepie" but it is actually the case. For it is a
tradition that goes back to before the American independence. The colonists were unhappy that they were not consulted by the
Crown and the authorities in London and that their petitions were not seriously considered.
 War of Independence came, and so did the independence too. As early as the first supplementary provisions to the
US Constitution should be developed in 1791, it was written in this "First Amendment" Congress may not pass laws that
violate the right to freedom of speech, press freedom and the people's right to "peaceful assembly to petition to the
government to mobilize the treatment of grievances. " Lobbying is an offshoot of this constitutional right to have an
opportunity to present its views to the authorities.

There is nothing sinister in practicing lobbying in the United States. It is a right and a practice of ancient traditions. In
schools terpes it into the rising generations that it always is their right to turn to your senator or representative with
complaints or requests. It may sound like a reckless gamble when you know how difficult a senator may be getting in
speech. But the politician has learned the same litany of democracy true basis, so often does he or she up when a
deputation from the home state reporting to the office on Capitol Hill.

In this century it has led to the formation of a wealth of lobby organizations which mainly operate in Washington
DC in order to influence legislation in Congress.
The word lobby literally means vestibule or corridor, and in the Congress, it is precisely in the corridors and committee rooms to
the lobbyist has its daily work, in constant dialogue with politicians and their staffs of assistants and lawyers. The stronger the lobby,
the more influence the politician believes that the lobby has his support base, the greater the access, "access", the lobbyist to him.
Lobbyist can offer the politician popularity and votes.

It is not appropriate to focus on to achieve the same effect by the parties. In addition, the two major parties both too
big and too loose in their structure. The lobby is a direct path. The rates targeted at influencing the president, the 100
senators and 435 representatives.
Today there are upwards of 5,000 organizations representing everything from consumer groups, women's groups,
ethnic American groups, environmental groups for agricultural organizations. If they work in Congress must be registered
on Capitol Hill stating which representatives delegated to it.

Tom Dines genius as Israel-lobby strategist is that he clearly than any predecessor have realized that the best brake
pad in an uncontrollable president is a controllable Congress. It will in his case say a pro-Israeli Congress. He has built an
organizational powerful tool Out in the individual states and on Capitol Hill. Therefore, Israel today enjoy the fruits of a
strong and effective lobby policy. In most cases will Tom Your first have 75% of the Senators' votes in his hand.

AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, has become so strong, so that its own members are beginning
to fear a sudden change. Imagine if legislators heavy dependence on lobby suddenly turned to anger over being
controlled so robustly to Israel's advantage?

Israel lobby as seen from ground level

In 1982 managed the Israel lobby to get rid of two of its worst opponents in the House of Representatives. It was Paul Findley of
Illinois and Paul McCloskey of California, two politicians who certainly do not
could be called pro-Israeli. In 1984 came the turn of Charles Percy, a senator from Illinois, and chairman of the important foreign affairs committee.

AIPAC Tom Your have on the Israel lobby's behalf taken credit for Findley was not re-elected. He has called him a
self-appointed advocate for the PLO in Congress - and it is not meant as a compliment.
After twenty years in Congress was Findley suddenly out of circulation, but he in turn used the time in his political biography
"They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions confronts Israel's Lobby" to talk about politics and lobbying, seen from behind
the scenes. It became a bestseller. Especially many Jews bought it for yourself to see how bad it really stood for. Or as an AIPAC
member says: "The Jewish lobby is the sexy thing in town," - and it is a compliment.

Paul Findley says: "I've been accused of being pro-PLO, pro-Arafat pro-Arab, pro-Saudi. I would say that there
have been times when I have urged our government to communicate with those governments and individuals to take
direct negotiations with them, or to agree to their desire to buy weapons in the United States. But I have always
considered each case separately, and solely on what would be best for my country. Not pro-PLO, pro-Arab or
pronoget anywhere except right pro-US. "

Paul McCloskey sat for 15 years in the House of Representatives for a district in California. Both he and Paul Findley in other

words thoroughbred professional politicians. Their words had weight.

Especially Paul McCloskey was within the Republican Party considered having to go far. He had the right kennedyske
appearance and was known as a skilled tactician, experienced both in domestic and foreign policy. But he was obviously not as
tactical cunning, he failed to come into conflict with the Israel lobby. It is otherwise a sure recipe for quick getting out of the jobs
market and look for new employment.

Paul McCloskey tried in 1982 to be elected to the Senate - but lost by a narrow margin. The pro-Israel lobby relied
heavily on his opponent in California. Later on, McCloskey why an energetic lobby group can win such a strong
influence:
"There may be only 2% of American citizens to support The National Rifle Association, or 3% behind the
anti-abortion lobby, or 2% behind AIPAC. But 2% of the American people who believe so strongly in their cause
that they will work against a Congress candidate for that reason alone, have significantly more power than the
60% or 70%, which may represent the majority in a given issue. Why? This is because most of us, if we choose,
win elections with 51% against 49% of votes. Therefore, if you bring in contrast to rifle lobby, anti-abortion lobby
or the Jewish community and its Israeli supporters, so turns the image and you lose 49% to 51%. Only 50% of
American voters who register, not to talk about casting their votes. 2% is therefore actually to 4%. It is the reason
that in a system like ours,

Paul McCloskey is now a partner in a large law firm in Palo Alto, south of San Francisco. He is considered a good lawyer,
and his political connections to the Republican Party brings lots of employment for the company. Kennedy The look does not
hurt either.
Campus War
Paul McCloskey teaches international politics at a university in San Francisco. Not because he has time left over from the
legal profession, but for recreation and challenge. Israel lobby's long arm rows still out after him. Jewish students have
complained about his teaching, and it has been suggested that he expressed anti-Semitic opinions.

Campus-war phenomenon is called popular. AIPAC has for a department that specifically monitors the training of
future generations. Jewish students can attend courses and learn methods and techniques in how to win influence in
student work and is editor of the school newspaper. One can receive propaganda material, including a book with
biographies of all-profile pro-Arab speakers and the critical issues it will be appropriate to ask him or her if you can
not force the university management to cancel his lectures.

The American-Arab organizations have taken up the gauntlet and copied AIPAC methods. Therefore, at some university
experience extremely vital and hard pumped discussions where the Middle Eastern arguments flies past the ears of the
participants. It is a campus-war. Just to make it back to the Vietnam War days to find something similar.

Anti-Semitism?
I asked Paul McCloskey whether he is aware that he is considered to have anti-Semitic opinions.
"I think," he replied, "that many Jews here consider me to be anti-Semitic because they hear me say critical things about
Israel. Eg. there was an interesting quote that I had said that if the Arabs would have more influence in America, so should
more Americans of Arab descent go into television, radio and press, like the Jews did. It was a jew who heard the speech,
turned upside down, "McCloskey says that Jewish parents send their children to the media." And it was felt to be aggressive. "

"40% or more of our lawyers are Jews," continues McCloskey, "but if someone says publicly that over 40% of our
lawyers are Jewish, so they might accused of being anti-Semitic. Many Jews who hears someone who is critical of
Israel or talk about Jews or Jewish actions, consider the case of being anti-Semitic. So great is their fear. "

How did Paul McCloskeys compared to AIPAC was while he was in Congress? I asked him.

"AIPAC is the most powerful lobby in the US," said McCloskey and grip out on the shelf behind his desk for a folder with articles from

American newspapers that criticized his anti-Israeli attitudes. "It is so effective because it can invite people from all over the country. Every

year came two people from AIPAC, who lived in my district. In June 1982, they were not happy about the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. I asked

what AIPAC so wanted this year, and remember that 434 other Congress representatives also visited by every two AIPAC people. AIPAC's

two wishes were 1) to cancel Israel's debt to the United States, approximately $ 8 billion, and 2) to halt American arms sales to Jordan,

because they could be used against Israel for defensive purposes, for example. anti-aircraft missiles. "

"I knew that the two represented perhaps 5,000 Jewish voters in my district out of a
select population of half a million, which I represented. I also knew that the 5000 might provide 1,000 US dollars crunch
and it could give my opponent a half million dollars if they thought he could win over me. "

Was it true that it was AIPAC that prevented that he was elected to the Senate? "I was probably ahead of my time," replies Paul

McCloskey, "to advance the critical arguments against Israel and in favor of a Palestinian state. But all the blame should not be thrown

on Israel. This was also that I am liberal, and that I was doing against the other party in Southern California. The Jewish lobby has

been successful in trap Paul Findley. But there are also today several Jewish leaders, who are prepared to speak out against Israel

lobby, "says McCloskey.

Percy syndrome
In 1984 bonded Israel lobby especially glance at the Republican Senator Charles Percy from Illinois, who you would like removed from the

post of chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. His opponent was the Jewish democrat Paul Simon, the Israel lobby's

husband. A local committees named "Illinois Committee for Paul Simons choice" was created. Committee's chairman, William Levine, sat

down and wrote this to the voters in Illinois:

"Dear friend! This is not a Grimm's fairy tale. It is a grim reality. And why am I writing to you for your support in the crucial
Senate election. In response to Senator Charles Percy put Paul Simon up to the Senate and Simon is a brilliant legislator and
proven to be a good friend of Israel. "
"Let me tell you a bit about Charles Percy. Of all the senators running for re-election this year, so is Charles Percy one of those
who have harmed the US-Israeli relationship most. And remember that Charles Percy is not an ordinary senator. He is chairman of
the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee and strong when it comes to shaping our foreign policy. "

"What really worries me about Charles Percy is the fact that this man thinks he knows everything better than others. Better than
you, better than me, so he knows even better than the government of Israel, what is good for the Jewish state. Do you believe it? So
ask Charles Percy! In 1978, after he gave a casting vote in the Foreign Affairs Committee in favor of the sale of F-15 fighter to the
bitter anti-Israel government in Saudi Arabia, said Percy to his constituents: I believe that such arms sales is in Israel's best interest. "

"I do not know how you feel, but I am offended Percy's patronizing manner. He tells American Jews that now they
will not tilt too much with the boat. It is totally unacceptable, unacceptable to Israel and against America's true interests.
And if I can do something for it, with your help, so will Charles Percy be the big loser in the elections of 1984 ... Your
help at $ 100, $ 50 or $ 30, whatever you can spare will help Paul Simon to win the election. Your gift today will be one
of the best investments you can make in a strong US-Israel relationship. Sincerely, William Levine. "

Israel lobby won, and Charles Percy, one of the well-known national figures in American politics through a few decades, a man

with considerable influence in the Senate, disappeared into the political darkness. AIPAC had ruled an example as a warning to

other Israel-critical temperaments.

 It has since spoken of "Percy syndrome" because his defeat obviously was interpreted as AIPAC's punishment for Percy in
1981 to be made it across by having voted for the AWACS planes to Saudi Arabia.
 8. The small drummer

"Now we see the brightly clad court Jews do the same tragic mistakes that our German brothers made just before the Holocaust because

they mistook material wealth, superficial cultural assimilation and society apparently acceptance of genuine security."

Jonathan Pollard, in prison, May, 1987.

It was Monday night, 18 November 1985. Anne Henderson Pollard was in Pollard couple's apartment near Dupont Circle
in Washington DC She was a little uneasy about her husband still had not come, for they were invited out to dinner that
evening of the Israeli flying hero, Colonel AVIEM "Avi" Sella that her husband had a secret cooperation with.

The phone rang. It was Jonathan Jay Pollard. His voice sounded oddly tense, she recalled afterwards, when he briefly
explained that the importance of his work prevented that he could observe dinner Agreement. Then came the words that
would make Anne Pollards world irreversibly collapse. She had commanded her husband, remove their "cactus" from the
apartment along with their "wedding album" and give it to the "friends" that they should eat dinner that evening.

From this hour rolled investigating the case against spy couple Pollard and was in subsequent years the direct behest of problems

both officially between the authorities of Israel and the US and between the US Jewish community and large parts of the Israeli

population. Pollard affair affected the lifeblood of the intimate relationship between Jews in Israel and Jews in the United States.

Since Jonathan Pollard shortly after called again, with representatives of federal police standing at his elbow, and repeated the

message about "cactus" and "wedding album", it was clear to Anne Pollard that her husband's espionage activities for Israel was

about to be revealed, and that all traces of the home should immediately blurred.

operation Cactus
Cactus is the name of a French missile that Iran was interested in acquiring the war on Iraq. IN
Jonathan Pollards case, the FBI had just seized was a letter written by Pollard to his Israeli contact man, Joseph "Yossi" Yagur in
which he described the possibilities of the international arms market to obtain both this and other missile types to Iran. Israel was in
1985 for the longest deeply involved in arms sales to Khomeini's Iran, and quite independently of Jonathan Pollard was President
Reagan's National Security Council also.

But the word "cactus" was a code word that Pollard had agreed with his wife. It referred to a case in which he hid restricted
documents, which he without permission was removed from the naval intelligence center, where he was employed. Also in the
"wedding album" found that the documents.
Fast overall Anne Pollard the specified things, but she was so startled that she hastily oversaw other stolen documents
in his wardrobe. What she found, she gathered in a suitcase, but because she was afraid even to carry it out of the property,
she called on of the opposite in the entryway and begged her to carry it over to the nearby "Four Seasons Hotel". There
would Anne Pollard wait to receive the suitcase, but inexplicably she added flustered that the contents were top secret
documents, which she would later destroy, because her husband had got into difficulties.

Anne Pollard went off to the hotel, while her neighbor who had gotten cold feet, chose the only safe, namely to
store your bags and give it to the FBI the next morning.
From the hotel phoned Anne Pollard to the Israeli Colonel Avi Sella, requesting an immediate meeting. They
met at a restaurant where Anne told the Israeli that her husband's secret services of Israel was about to be
revealed and that she needed Sellas help to save him from the country. Avi Sella, in Israel belonged topeliten of
the Air Force, was visibly angry. He immediately phoned "Yossi" Yagur, who was in town, came back and gave
Anne a phone number at which her husband as soon as possible from a secure phone to contact Yagur. Then
strokes Sella out of the restaurant with the message to Anne Pollard that they had never met each other, and that
she should forget about his person. A message that the 26-year-old Anne Henderson Pollard was difficult to
comply with,

fast evakulering
On Monday night in Washington broke a 18-month-old and carefully constructed network together for spy boss Rafael
"Rafi" Eitan. His "little drummer", Jonathan Jay Pollard, 32 years old, had been caught red-handed with bag full of stolen
documents. After quick consultation between Washington and Tel Aviv in coded conversations called Eitan immediate rest
of the small group home to Israel: Col. Avi Sella, Secretary Irit Erb and diplomats Joseph "Yossi" Yagur and Ilan Ravid.
Everyone left in secret US within the next day.

Eighteen months later, Jonathan Pollard a prison sentence for life, his wife got five years in prison, Colonel Sella who
had been appointed to be the head of the Israeli Air Force, was cut from a brilliant career. For "the old man", Rafi Eitan,
the injury to overlook. He was after 35 years in Israeli intelligence service near retirement age, and enjoyed also benefit
from being a member of the
elite group of "old boys" who sat in influential positions. Eitans close friend and employee spent years Ariel Sharon, former.
Defense Minister and now Industry, rewarded him with the chairmanship of Israel's largest state-owned enterprise, Israel
Chemicals Co.
In Israel claimed the government that Eitans venture with Pollard was a "rogue operation", comparing with a stray bull elephant,

one ronkedor who have freed themselves from the pack and goes its own way. In Washington doubted you on that Eitans organization

Lekem could act independently of Defense. Especially rose Reagan administration's skepticism as Colonel Avi Sella in 1987, a few

days before Pollard's judgment, was made commander of one of Israel's biggest air bases. The traffickers were rewarded with top

positions, while Pollard rot in his prison cell in the United States that he was a leper, the Israeli government did not dare touch.

Pollard affair fell like a heavy stone in the water will be in November 1985 in Washington. But the rings continued to
spread in the coming years. That two allies like the United States and Israel may need to spy on each other belong to the
real daily lives. Embassies telephone and telexlinjer listened routinely. If the US ambassador in Tel Aviv speak with its
president in Washington, so he takes in advance for granted that the Israelis are listening. Does he have secrets, they are
sent by courier.

Espionage unwritten rules

There is an unwritten norm for how far intelligence agencies of friendly countries spy on each other. This
standard prohibits paying a member of the Allied country's intelligence service for stealing Confidential
stamped secrets. "We expect the kind of Bulgarians or Russians, but not from our friends," remarked a senior
US official bitter.

Jonathan Pollard was what one agent in the language calls a "walk in", ie a person who voluntarily "walking in off the
street" and offers his service, in this case to Israel. It is a temptation that only the brightest intelligence chiefs abilities to
resist.
What complicated the case Pollard was that he was an American jew. By Rafi Eitan hired him, helped Pollard to raise
doubts about whether American Jews in influential government positions can be a security risk. Could they conceivably close a
dual loyalty to the United States as well as to Israel?
Anyhow hired spy chief Rafi Eitan the American Jewish intelligence analyst and paid him generously for delivering
volumes of documents and confidentiality stamped data on. the Arab world, Southwest Asia, Soviet arms supplies to
these areas and probably also data on. South Africa. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger assessed affair as
one of the most serious of its kind in US history, and the restructuring of the US intelligence activity in the region
would, claimed Weinberger, cost billions of dollars.

Pollard's escape attempt

From the moment the US federal police arrested Jonathan Pollard on the way out of fleet intelligence center with a bag full
of top secret documents and he was arrested went there three days. Pollard knew that after cactussignalet was delivered
should Eitan as promised now be about to "contain" the injury and get Pollard handed over to Israel without conviction. In
the summer of 1985, Pollard pair visited Israel as Rafi Eitans guests, and here he had to Eitan pointed out the danger he
ran by stealing so voluminous documents and files kept by spy chief pushed to get.

Therefore admitted Pollard did not initially to the FBI that he had handed the documents to a foreign nation. He
claimed that the secret material had only been left to an American friend who had links to the Afghan mujahedin
movement. Therefore, he managed to remain at large for almost 72 hours. He slept at home, and in the daytime
He was subjected to a thorough interrogation.

Pollard put the plan together with his wife that they had to seek asylum in the Israeli Embassy. He expected that the
Israeli government then acted as a celestial deus ex machina that would reward them for their remarkable efforts of the
Jewish state by downloading them home in national home.

Thursday morning, 21 November, under the pretext of having to follow his wife to a study in the hospital, drove
Pollard overshadowed by an FBI car embassy in Washington's northwest district. When he reached no. 3500
International Drive laid Pollard himself behind an Israeli car going into the embassy and before FBI people could prevent
it, slipped Pollard's car through the gate to the Israeli embassy area.

Jonathan Pollard was of the opinion that as a jew, according to the Israeli law of any immigrant Jew automatic right to
immediate citizenship in Israel could achieve this same right when he entered the embassy grounds. In twenty minutes
negotiated Pollard'rne with embassy staff, while the FBI people stood in the street and followed the event. Israel The answer
was a categorical no to asylum. An unnoticed escape, as Sella, Yagur and Erb had implemented was one thing, but giving a
US citizen asylum, while the FBI was behind the gate and so on, was quite a different matter. Pollard pair had broken ladder
into their Mustang again, and when the gates were beaten up, they drove straight to a firm's arrest.

As a downed pilot
The race was run. Operation "Cactus" was unsuccessful. What they did not know was that Rafi Eitan itself was a complete man,
and no chances had to fulfill his promise rescue. Set with Israeli statsrsons eyes were Eitans Pollard operation a gigantic
misunderstanding. In any case, the Israeli official statement since the scandal immediately got the headlines in the American
and Israeli press.
Much later Anne Pollard to great effect giving an interview to the CBS program "60 Minutes" in which she elaborate the horrific
minutes while she and her husband pleaded with the Israeli embassy staff for mercy, and the feeling of abandonment that had
gripped them both, when they were expelled from what they almost saw as the Garden of Eden to eternal damnation. When the
interview was shown
Israeli TV, triggered an extensive sympathy movement for Pollard pair. A popular protest movement against the Israeli
government's cynical behavior grew, and many thousands of dollars were collected at booths on street corners in
Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa to pay for Pollard'rnes legal costs.

The truth was that from the moment the FBI people turned to Jonathan Pollard, he was a dead man for Israel. Rafi Eitan
had with the startling intelligence triumphed over competitors in the Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency official. But the triumph
assumed that Pollard was not revealed. It was now clear that Eitan of the operation had gone well beyond its powers and that
the revelation thus threatening his political superiors, Defense Minister Yitshak Rabin and his cabinet colleagues. Had they
known message? And when they had forgotten what they knew?

Jonathan Pollard later noted in an interview from prison cell: "I feel that I am in the same situation as an Israeli pilot
who, after he is shot down over hostile territory discovers that there is someone who strives to help him back. Not only
promises they do not finger, but they travel even doubt the pilot's abilities and motives. "

Rafi, the Stinker

On a fourth floor of a building on the corner of streets Carl Bach and Hashmonaim in Tel Aviv had "Lekem" until November 1985 an

office. But since the Pollard affair was revealed, it was closed. Today, at the same time only an office that processes the technical data

of the Department of Energy and a door with a sign that reads: Ministry of Defense. A secretary in the intercom refuses to elaborate on

which department of the Ministry of Defense is concerned.

The five letters in Lekem stands in Hebrew for the office to collect scientific, technical data. It was created under the
Ministry of Defense in 1960 by Shimon Peres in order to collect technical data through open sources around the world.
Lekem was involved when there had to be sent Israeli attach specializing in technical data. Formally heard diplomats,
however, the State Department.

The first time Lekem's name shows up is when de Gaulle's France in 1967 imposing an arms embargo on Israel as punishment
for the Israeli wild transfer of Nasser's Egypt up to the Six Day War outbreak. Israel needed the French Mirage aircraft and succeeded
in 1968 Lekem in collaboration with Mossad to obtain drawings in Switzerland. For 86,000 pounds sterling bribed to Swiss engineer
Alfred Frauenknecht to transfer Israeli agents two tons of documents and drawings of the Mirage aircraft which he was responsible for
the destruction. Israel built with plans his own plane, and Frauenknecht got 4 1/2 years in prison in what the Swiss judge called "the
worst spionsag in Switzerland since the second world war".

The two Israeli diplomats Rafi Eitan immediately revoked by Jonathan Pollards detection, was appointed by Lekem. The
Israeli Washington ambassador, Meir Rosenne, was furious when he learned that they had left the United States without
informing him that they were involved in the Pollard case. Apparently Eitan through its two Lekem-democracy Pollard, without the
ambassador was put into the case. It was consul for science affairs at the Consulate General in New York, Yosef Yagur, and
scientific attache at Israel's Washington embassy, Ilan Ravid.
In order to understand how it happened that this office in the heart of Tel Aviv felt empowered to manage a secret
spy, Jonathan Pollard, the American secret service, it is necessary to look at Lekems most peculiar boss: Rafi Eitan .

Rafael Eitan was born November 23, 1926 in Kibbutz Ein Harod, which his parents had helped to found. In the 1940s
went Eitan into the Jewish underground Palmach, where he excelled in an operation in which the Jewish forces took over
the British radar post on Mt. Carmel. Rafi Eitan made already then beginning to his own legend. Except that he was
wounded twice during the War of Independence 1948-49, then report to tradition that since it was small with water at the
front took Eitan instead a few raw fish and salt, as he rubbed his body in the morning before he went to war. The result was
nicknamed "Rafi, the stinking".

Eichmann Group
Mossad chief in 1950, Isser Harel, went Eitan into his intelligence. The two were related, and Harel did Eitan to operational
expert in special tasks. Two other operational experts was Abraham Shalom, who later became head of the internal
intelligence service Shinbeth and Zvika Malkhin have ended as an artist and investor in New York.

It was this trio that Mossad chief Harel began in Buenos Aires in 1960 during the remarkable kidnapping of Nazi
criminal Adolf Eichmann. Israelis stunned him, smuggled him onto a plane to Tel Aviv, where, after a lengthy trial was
executed. Isser Harel describes in detail the operation in his book "The House on Garibaldi Street," but the agents he
assigns pseudonyms. It is assumed that Rafi Eitan is the person in the book bears the name Gabi, a member of "the Z
team" surname Zimmermann, as another group was called.

Rafi Eitan was an "expert in operational tasks" that Israel could make very good use of. He was appointed
Operations Manager in the Mossad, but the bulk of his work is of course not known to the public.

The missing uranium

The first time one has been able to track him in the field under his own name seems to be in September 1968, where he is a
member of an Israeli team of four people requesting to visit NUMEC plant in Apollo, Pennsylvania, processing uranium. The
newspaper Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act gained access to an FBI document that mentions one of the
four people in the Israeli group "Raphael Eitan, chemist, Ministry of Defense, Israel, born November 23, 1926" . The Washington
Post has Israel been found that the Eitan, who ran Pollard, have the same birth date, see. Washington item 5. June 1986 onwards.

The reason why the US federal police have drawn up a statement of the case is that it was set to investigate a mysterious disappearance of

200 pounds of enriched uranium from NUMEC which the owner Zalman M. Shapiro
could not explain. There were suspicions that Shapiro illegally sold uranium to Israel. This quantity could be produced six
nuclear bombs. The case was never solved. Raphael Eitan had during the visit to NUMEC accompanied by scientific attache
at the Israeli embassy, Avraham Hermoni and two Israelis from the Israeli Ministry of science and development. As the
Washington Post contacted the ministry in 1986, they had nothing in the archives of the two names on the application to
NUMEC in 1968th

Rafi Eitan described as a anything but sympathetic human. He was a born intelligence agent and was brilliant in his work in
the Mossad and later Lekem, skarphjernet and cunning. But he was also a self-centered man who placed great emphasis on its
own jugement. When Eitan was passed over as CEO of the Mossad in favor of a supposedly more balanced colleague with larger
organizational skills, he left the service in 1972.

It has been claimed, but not quite convincing that Rafi Eitan led the agent group that in 1970 infiltrated West Beirut and include
killed three Fatah leaders, like his name popping up in connection with the Mossad vendetta against Black September group after
the assault and killing of Israeli athletes at the oplympiske Games in Munich in 1972. In that case, should Rafi Eitan be identical to
Mossad operations manager " Michael "in Lillehammer was responsible for the group mistakenly ombragte a Moroccan waiter in
the belief that he was a Black September leader Ali Hassan Salameh.

Alliance Eitan-Sharon
In some years malnourished Rafi Eitan at export business and by trading land in the occupied West Bank, which for many
speculators turned out to be a lucrative business. He worked with an acquaintance Schmuel Einav, who later was accused of
illegal land speculation. Some years later, Eitan back in Mossad, and in the mid-1970s he moved as secretary to his good
friend General Ariel Sharon with the Prime Minister's office, where Sharon was adviser in national security and terrorism.

When the right block Likud won the election in 1977, Sharon had a considerable share in it because he had worked hard in the
establishment of the new right-wing alliance. Rafi Eitan kept his wont, personal and political background. Shortly after the election
was Eitan advisor to Begin in terrorist matters. In this role, he traveled among others Washington as a specialist and lecturer.

In 1981, Ariel Sharon finally his dream fulfilled when Begin appointed him defense minister. One of Sharon's first
official acts was to give top post in Lekem to his old friend, "Rafi the Stinker".
With the appointment of Rafi Eitan to head for the small technical intelligence agency Lekem got office in Tel Aviv's city center one fully

trained and experienced intelligence officer as chief.

Eitan knew as well as anyone how important it is for Israel to develop a military high technology driven attacks apparatus that
not only can ensure the state's existence but also effectively gives Israel air sovereignty over its Arab neighbors.

Eitan was a member of a group of peers Israelis who had gone to the same schools, fought in the same wars and
often was the member of the Mapai party. Now they sat in top positions in politics, the armed forces and intelligence
services. It was looking types who knew each other well
and were accustomed to act independently without waiting for authorization. Especially with Menahem Begin as prime minister was
operational area free of Begin was in military and security issues known not to interfere in what he thought was the expert domain.

The problem with Rafi Eitan was that his courage to go unorthodox and dangerous roads to reach its objectives had not
been moderated with age. On the contrary, he had a grudge against Mossad leadership because he had been passed over
as service executives. He had a score to settle, and the best revenge would be to make Lekem a more active outreach
intelligence agency. Eitan knew he had "protektia" protection system. He was willing to take an even very high risk if there
was a view of a remarkable catch. His rivals seemed to have created a vacuum of power interior corridors and slipped
unnoticed into Eitan.

The mole recruited

Rafi Eitans chance came when the American-Jewish intelligence analyst, Jonathan Pollard, offered to provide America's
top secret information on military and political situation in the Arab world and Soviet arms supplies to this. Rafi Eitan took a
risk by Mossad, by all accounts would have said no, because the risk of detection was too obvious, and because the
Mossad had far too integrated cooperation with both the CIA and FBI to want to plant a spy in their midst.

Lekem had no major network of agents and relying mainly on the scientific attachs in embassies and consulates general. A
more unconventional connection included Lekem boss however with Colonel AVIEM "Avi" Sella in the Israeli Air Force. Sella
was famous for his leading role in "Operation Babylon" in which he in 1981 with his fighter group flew unseen from Israel to
Baghdad, where the Israeli Osiris nuclear reactor was destroyed by bombing. In 1982, during the air war with Syria in the
Lebanon war, the first day, did Sella again very positive impression with air bomb the Soviet surface-to-air missiles in Syria
without Israeli planes were lost.

In early 1984 found Avi Sella on sabbatical in the United States, where he taught courses at New York University. He was clearly

in the fast lane what career was concerned. Air Base Chief and air defense chief and the appointment of General was now within

reach. Did he do good, he would be promoted to chief of staff of Israel.

Sellas slayer was the 31-year US jew, Jonathan Jay Pollard, who in addition to a demanding job in the US Navy
intelligence lived a rich life in his own imagination, where he almost looked like the hero of a novel by Leon Uris. Pollard
was a Zionist to the fingertips. The only thing that had kept him from emigrating to Israel was that he would hardly be able
to be recruited to the security service, unless he first had qualified to do so in the United States. Therefore he wanted to
kill two birds with one stone: he would advance in US intelligence, while he made himself useful to the state of Israel. This
would be his happiness made when he finally made "Aliya", emigrated to Israel.
An offer that could not be rejected
In the spring of 1985 met Sella and Pollard at a gathering in Washington. Pollard went right for the throat. He explained
Sella, he had access to crucial restricted documents that could have fatal impact on Israel's security. He believed that the
US authorities completely unreasonably failed to let Israel discover such confidential information.

Colonel Sella let the message go on to Eitan of Tel Aviv, which suggested that gently felt Pollard on the teeth
and asked him to demonstrate what documents he could obtain. Pollard's first "delivery" was quite convincing. He
and Sella began a series of secret meetings, while two scientific attach Ravid and Yagur coupled in. Today, we
know not how far Eitan tried doing as security agent must, to check Pollard's background and trustworthiness.

Pollard was dealing in Naval Intelligence with terrorism issues. Already at the first meetings did Avi Sella clear that
Israel did not need information about terrorism. In the area you were covered, he understand. By contrast, he specifically
traced Pollard effort to obtain information on specific weapons systems that Arab countries could have obtained include
from the Soviet Union.
Jonathan and Anne Pollard was the same summer invited to Paris with the aim to make the boss, Rafi Eitan. After the talks let
Eitan Pollard understand that he was "one of us". Pollard would henceforth receive 1,500 US dollars monthly for his trouble, and he
was, besides an expensive ring as Avi Sella bought Anne Pollard, 10,000 US dollars to cover the couple's expenses.

Then took Pollard's espionage in earnest. Every other Friday handed him the stolen documents from Secretary Irit
Erb in a special apartment in Washington, where it was installed an advanced photocopier. On Sunday, he again
collected documents in order to bring them back to the intelligence center Monday morning.

Israel's eyes and ears

Pollard seemed to be the Israel ideal man for the job. Not only he had access to all the top secret documents and data on the US
advanced technical collection systems, he could also through his computer draw on databases and archives with the most
confidential material. In addition, he had a special alert card that gave him permission to pass through the center's exterior doors
without getting his bag investigated. Eitan and Sella had found what they thought was the perfect spy.

The sources of Pollard's own view of the espionage business is inherently get:

1. His defense at trial (US District Court for the District of Columbia, Criminal No. 86-
0207, filed 2 March 1987) which document the crucial points unfortunately gaps due to censorship for security
reasons.
2. Two interviews with journalist Wolf Blitzer from "Jerusalem Post".
3. Written submissions from Pollard after judgment trap ice.

Pollard says about his spying, "I was quite literally Israel's eyes and ears in a vast geographical area
stretching from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean."
This description will be fully confirmed when in the prosecutor's indictment reads:
 "Over the approximately 18 months where the accused sold US secrets to Israel, was more than a thousand
documents compromised. The majority were detailed analytical studies of technical calculations, graphs and satellite
photos. A considerable number of these documents were several hundred pages long. Over 800 of these documents
were classified "Top Secret", as an illegal publication of these documents content "is likely to do exceptionally serious
damage to national security". By asking these thousands of pages marked secret information to his Israeli
accomplices, the accused acted as a self-proclaimed combination of forsvarsog foreign minister since he took daily
decisions about whether disclosure of these details strangers US foreign and defense interests. To say that the
accused was ill-equipped to take these crucial decisions is a strong understatement. Furthermore, the accused's
perception of world events is not balanced, as he had strong sympathies for one country. "(US versus Pollard:
Government's Memorandum in Aid of Sentencing Introduction, Criminal No. 86-0207, pp. 46-47.)

Against says Pollard's own view:

"Israel is known to US allies. Maybe not in the same way as NATO countries - God preserved - for Israel is what I would
call a more responsible ally. It represents an advance bridgehead for American interests and power in the region;
significantly contribute to our own intelligence, our programs for weapons development and our strategic reach ... It is
possible that Israel has different interests from the United States, but the difference is a matter of a few degrees, not a
fundamental departure ... My frustration increased due to the facts that should have been given to Israel was not given ...
Vital information about Israel's security was detained by the United States. "

Pollard felt that the information he asked for Israel's disposal - for quite a network payment, admittedly - gave Israel "a
glimpse into the future." He formulated it as "the difference between a repeat of the October War in 1973, which was what I
regard as a technological Pearl Harbor for Israel and the Six Day War in 1967. There was a world of distance between them." I
said a little simpler, it would Pollard help Israel to win the next war against the Arabs just as convincing as the Six Day war in
1967th

Pollard noted in his defense that he sometimes went to his superiors on the blade with questions about why certain
documents were not made Israeli available, and he found that the answers he was often contained anti-Semitic overtones.
In a case in which he protested that information on the Soviet ability to conduct chemical warfare was not given to the
Israeli intelligence agency, was Pollard told that Jews were overly sensitive to gas because of their experience during WW2
.

Material enormity
What was it for information that the United States voluntarily gave Israel?

The total volume of documents was so extensive tens of thousands of pages of paper that they combined would fill a truck.
 The data revealed virtually the entire US intelligence network in the Middle East. This meant that the US had to replace a large

number of agents in the Arab world.

Pollard also reported: Iraq and Pakistan's nuclear capability; about Iraq and Syria's capacity in the production of chemical weapons with

satellite photos and maps that showed factories and location of the stocks; about Soviet weapon systems in Syria and other Arab countries

and the Soviet weapons that may in the future would be delivered to these countries. In come with the US experts' assessment of these

aircraft and rockets. Especially seemed Lekems office to be interested in getting their hands on a complete overview of what cooperation

the United States had with the Arab countries.

In Israel there were at Lekems initiative created a special working group by the military three services. The group
analyzed the stolen documents, and then steered these specialists Pollard on in the American archives with directives on
what he then had to provide. This group of highly specialized Israeli military analysts sourced, for example. a detailed set
of information on PLO headquarters in Tunisia and its raketbevbning as related to Israel 1 October 1985 to bomb PLO
Chairman Yasser Arafat's Palestinian central command without losing a single aircraft. Pollard's information "made our life
easier" in Tunis operation, as one Israeli official said afterward.

Against this background it is understandable that the public prosecutor's office in Washington and officials in the Pentagon and

the CIA found it hard to believe the Israeli government's explanation that Eitans Operation Pollard was one big misunderstanding

(the unauthorized ronkedor).

Israel's government denies Pollard

Israel responsible authorities, it will first and foremost the government, washed as Pontius Pilate hands and claimed that they had
no knowledge had to Lekems cooperation with Pollard. It sounded especially unconvincing, as Israeli officials outside the citation
spoke of Pollard as perhaps the most important spy in Israel's history. He had simply given Jerusalem a comprehensive insight
into Washington's intelligence on the Arab and Islamic world conventional and covert military and political activities.

An Israeli intelligence officer told the reporter Wolf Blitzer that part of information "took so much breath away"
that they justified the risk Israel run by having a spy in Washington.
Lekem peoples had played unscrupulously on Pollard's penchant for self-esteem by telling him that he was Israel's "one man

intelligence agency" in Washington.

Under Jonathan Pollards long apologia, just before his case was taken to appeal, he threw however, a very
interesting sidelight into the Rafi Eitans role in the affair. Pollard, who by this time knew that Eitan would not lift a finger
for him, said pointedly difference between Eitans "ugly" treatment of him as he spoke about Sella and Yagur as "moral"
and "responsible".
Jonathan Pollard: "I do not know if there is anyone in the Israeli leadership, who knew that Eitan unsuccessfully
tried to get me to provide material for political extortion by members of the cabinet. But assuming anyone knew it, so
it would have been an encouragement (Eitan) to publicly discredit both this person as well as me, before he had the
chance to leak the
sensational news. "

Eitan asked for incriminating evidence

Pollard said that he also rejected requests from Eitan to obtain information on the US government's
super-secret electronic intelligence gathering in Israel.
Pollard told further: "Rafi Eitan pressed me for information relating to the national security agency in Israel and the names
of all those Israelis who provided classified material to the United States. I handed never this kind of information and was later
told by my contact man, Yosef Yagur that the material Eitan wanted was totally outside of my job. If it was handed over, it
could lead to immediate interruption of our relationship. "

Pollard notes in this context that if he had delivered the desired data, then "it would take my loyalty to this country (USA)
in doubt". This peculiar opinion should be seen in light of the fact that Pollard did not think it was treasonable activities that
he to Israel handed US data on the Arab countries. Israel was an ally of the United States, and Pollard directed simple just
up on America's sins of omission to his friend Israel. By contrast, he regarded it as a crime to disclose information about the
names of US agents who worked in Israel.

In his bitterness at having been let down by the Israeli government declared Pollard during the interview with Wolf Blitzer in
prison cell, it was "devoid of reason" to believe that his task had not been authorized by the Israeli government.

"Furthermore," continues Pollard, "if you look at the quality and highly specialized expertise of the personnel involved in
this affair, so it seems unlikely that their cooperation could have been the result of a random selection: A famous ex- Mossad
operations manager who is special adviser to the Prime Minister; a highly decorated member of the Air Force; two science
attach, and a leading international brokering. They are united not out of thin air. "

About the competitive relationship between Rafi Eitan and Mossad says Pollard that Yagur "several times mentioned
that special documents had been used by Eitan to put Mossad chief in embarrassment at cabinet meetings and ... that the
material was so unique that anyone who was present at the carefully arranged confrontations would have realized the
existence of an agent who worked for US intelligence. "

Israeli order lists

What further corroborates Pollard in his conviction that at least Yitshak Defense Minister Rabin knew of his work is
the remarkable coordination between the Israeli Navy, Army and Air Force intelligence services.

At the end of each month "I was given an extremely detailed list of material that the different organizations
needed, as well as an explanation of why the material they received through official channels did not satisfy their
demands".
 The three Buckler order lists were provided with a list of priorities which apparently was approved by the respective Buckler
intelligence chiefs and provided with their seal. It's probably possible, adds Pollard that Mossad could stamping operation as
unauthorized because Mossad never had had access to it. But "the same can not be said of the General Staff, who was intimately
involved in identifying the scientific and technical data that I was going to provide."

The conclusion is that it is difficult to believe that the defense minister did not know the Pollard operation. When Rafi Eitan even on

individual cabinet meetings waved his favorite aversion, Mossad boss on the nose with material that any expert would know that the

United States did not voluntarily disclose even to Israel, stopped the accusing finger is not by Rafi Eitan, but pointed further to the

Cabinet.

Under the circumstances, it is surprising that Prime Minister Yitshak Shamir repelled, the scandal was handed
over for examination by an Israeli sranklager.
The explanation can only be that Israel at the time was led by a coalition government consisting of both the Labor Party and
Likud. The two former prime ministers, Yitshak Rabin and Shimon Peres, formed with Yitshak Shamir what is unofficially called "the
Prime Ministers' council" where all unpleasantness in the Community was digested and shoved under the carpet.

Commission reports
On May 26, 1987 gave birth both a Knesset commission headed by Abba Eban and partly by the government reduced
commission with their results. Two reports had not binding, but merely be taken note of.

In both reports, trying Commissioners a difficult balancing act. On the one hand lock it clear that the responsible
ministers knew about the Pollard affair before the unveiling. On the other hand finds Eban Commission, the Pollard
operation could not have taken place if Defense Minister Rabin and former. Defense Minister Moshe Arens had "exercised
their oversight duty, or just a little curiosity." The political report states that both Prime Minister Peres as the two
successive defense ministers responsible for Pollard, because they should have known of his existence.

Thus landed responsible for Israel's perhaps the greatest spy affair and the most serious spionsag in US intelligence history

diagonally underneath the Persian carpets in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

In Switzerland waited a bank account at Pollard where Rafi Eitan had promised a year to deploy 30,000 US dollars more than the ten years

Pollard was expected to operate.

In a drawer in the closed Lekem office was a passport and waited for Pollard with a new identity "Danny Cohen", an indirect
reference to the infamous Israeli spy in Damascus in 1950, Eli Cohen. Pollard would have received its new name when he
immigrated to Israel.
Spy Chief Rafi Eitan was sitting comfortably in the chair for Israeli Chemicals Co. It was reported on occasion that he did
Advisory field trips to Columbia in South America, where he gave the government good advice on anti-terror fight: old love
does not rust.
Flying-ace, Israel Red Baron, Avi Sella, had to watch directory for the golden chains he had hoped
to put around her neck.

In his American jail cell had Israeli master spy with a life time to read Kim Philby's memoirs, Carre's "The little
drummergirl" and maybe Graham Greene's "The human factor".

Not all spies end up in a Russian dacha, even in a two-room's apartment on Rehov Jabotinsky in Jerusalem with a new
life and a well-filled bank account. Because if you want to be "drummer" in the cold corridor between the real and the unreal,
we must be prepared to live his life lonely.

When Wolf Blitzer in the cell asked Pollard whether it had been worth the price, took this to Graham Greene Saigon
novel, "The quiet American" and said that it was his own book portrayed: "There is a person, a war reporter who
characterizes an acquaintance with the words "I have never met a man who had better motives for all the trouble he
created," and I have a feeling that it aptly describes both my motives and actions in this affair. "
 9. Israeli espionage in the United States

"The Israelis were worried ... and asked about Israeli soldiers would be killed in the effort to keep the Strait of Hormuz open to navigation or

to bolster the credibility of the United States of ... there was word of warning in Israel toward becoming America's Cuba in the Middle East."

Wolf Blitzer, Washington 1985.

It was early December in Washington. The cold had volunteered, and many kilos Sunday newspapers piled up in the
armchairs in the homes in the US "Power Town". There were lit in fireplaces, and while coffee machines brew and brunch
chatter went, was tuned to the popular political talk shows on TV: Meet the Press. Face the Nation and especially David
Brinkleys hitting team with Sam Donaldson and George Will.

Everyone in town was talking about it only three weeks old Pollard case, the seventh in a series of spy revelations in

1985. Yet it was with Pollard different. By Suzanne Fields wrote in the Moon-funded Washington Times:

"Why should the savvy Israelis, both in fact and in legend is credited with having one of the world's most
sophisticated intelligence services, however hire such a guy to spy for them against their best friend among nations?
One might think that if the Israelis felt the need to spy on a friend that they would be more careful in their choice. "

But now was the former CIA chief Richard Helms suddenly on one of television guest chairs and said: "Espionage has
always been illegal, since time immemorial. States do it. They try to avoid being caught in the act. If they get caught then it is
bad. But if they do not get caught, it's a fine thing, and the people that control the agents enjoy it. "

It was as if there was pricked a balloon on Sunday. A Machiavellian note from a former intelligence chief who was likely
to know what he was talking about, removed the top layer of the hysteria that had surrounded the Pollard affair.

That a Soviet spy is revealed in Washington is as ordinary as those taking place in Bonn, and the
nobody could get upset about. But an American jew who betrayed "the Star-Spangled Banner" to help Israel, which
already got 3 billion a year, the best weapons and loads of secret intelligence, went over the most sense. As Ronald
Reagan had spontaneously broken out when he got the news of Pollard's revelation: "But why do they do it?" And now
sat Richard Helms in the electronic square and said that it was as perfectly fine, as long as the Israelis were not taken in
the act, for which he suggested the Americans did most likely the same.

Richard Helms had in a sense right. Of course spying USA against Israel, and vice versa. One intercept each other's phones,
the reader usually each other's mail.
But Jonathan Pollards spying was of another world.
During the half year he handed over the 850,000 sheets unclassified paper for Israel, for a payment of 50,000 dollars plus 30

thousand US dollars in a bank account in Switzerland in his new name Danny Cohen. Spy Chief Rafi Eitan had promised him that in the

ten years he would work as a spy, he would in all serve

$ 500,000.

The damage he had caused, meant that the entire American spies and information networks in the Middle East had to be replaced.

Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger must have been so angry with the traitor Pollard that he was the Israeli ambassador said that

Pollard should have been sentenced to hang.

CIA had warned against Mossad

When Pollard got tongue on slid on the details, had the US federal police, of course, ask themselves whether there
were any other Israeli spies stored in the system. The issue arose when Pollard told how he had been introduced to
spy chief Eitans detailed requests for material from US archives.

Pollard had told the Israelis showed him copies of top-secret US intelligence documents they
wanted supplemented with even more secret and sensitive information.

Federal Police had to ask where the Israelis had these papers, unless they already had spies within the US
intelligence. It surveyed course in Israel but only got the standard response that Pollard was definitely an exception
and even not authorized by the government.
The prosecutor Joseph E. dike nova, told the Washington Post:
"What they showed him (Pollard) as they set him the task? The prosecutor wants to know if there are other
Pollarder that has permeated the US intelligence, and if not, who is it outside the official channels, which procures
this secret stamped material? "
Spy Master Rafi Eitan had with his mole in Washington caused that a Pandora's box of revelations about Israeli
spying in the United States was revealed.
At the same time sent Iran 11 volumes of US secret documents, which they had gotten hold of the occupation of
the US embassy in Tehran in 1979. It is true that the diplomats had time to shred most secret stamped papers, but
after the Iranian month-long painstaking puzzle of fragments showed that a joker forward: a CIA report from 1979, a
47-page report, which
US intelligence officials were warned against Israel's systematic attempt to recruit agents in friendly countries, including the
United States.
The strictly secret report was titled: "Israel: Foreign Intelligence and Security Service." The report revealed that within
the CIA was a profound criticism of Israel's intelligence agency because it believed it could commit any act without being
held accountable. You can report infer that circles in the Israeli intelligence community for a long time had regarded the
United States as an opponent that was sitting inside with important information and who commanded a technology that
Israel was denied access to.

Of the three main areas of interest of the Israeli security claimed CIA that two of them were to be found within the United
States, namely the collection of secret data that political or economic might relate to Israel and collection in the United States and
other developed countries of scientific data that could help raising Israel's technological and military level.

The national-selfish cynicism

Reagan's foreign policy specialists were not of the view that the administration's highly accommodating policy toward
Israel was to say that you saw had to be anti-Arab. On the contrary, they wanted to have the best possible
connections of friendly Arab countries like Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Restricted documents on what Americans
discussed with these Arab friends were not for the Israelis' eyes.

CIA report from 1979 stated that Israel, as a general guideline quite unscrupulously pursuing their own national interests.

All states pursue primarily own interests. This is especially a young state like Israel with politicians who were either born
in Europe wars or who have grown up during Israel's wars with the Arabs, and where a cynical pursuit of the national state
narrow interests was a prerequisite for survival. From Israel could expect actions that disregarding what more established
states considered to be good tone.

At least that's what Israel had shown the outside world from the beginning: an aggressive pursuit of national-selfish
interests without petty regard to whether it was legal.
Jonathan Pollard says he in his childhood and youth in the home state of Indiana repeatedly heard about American Jews
weapons smuggling from the US East Coast to Israel in the 1940s. David Ben-Gurion came to the US in 1945 and urgent appeal
for assistance. You would use the weapons for the independence struggle that was forthcoming.

Pollard considered the family members and other Jews who went into this underground work, as patriotic heroes of the
Jewish nation-state service. They had not only given Israel a hand. They had done their duty!

In the same way as Pollard allegedly on his own efforts. He had betrayed the United States according to their own
perception. He had given Israel crucial information vital to the state's very existence. He had as jew done his duty to the
Jewish state, and - he claimed - it may also be
good ultimately for America.
Maybe it was a convenient rationalization of his own, at a time when he had only the four prison walls to communicate
with. But in any case it was a mindset that found widespread sympathy in Israel, whereas it is more difficult to solder the
American Jewish feelings in such a sensitive issue. Apparently there was a widespread understanding of Pollard's
position, while the so-called American Jewish leaders had no doubt that his spying had compromised them as American
society group.

There went a straight line from arms smuggling in the 1940s the Mossad theft in 1968 of Mirage drawings in Switzerland (which led to

the building of the Israeli Kfir aircraft) over the abduction of gunboats from Cherbourg (since de Gaulle's France provided arms embargo

against Israel) and forward for Pollard's espionage in the 1980s.

After the Six Day War in 1967 turned Israelis look at America. Rafi Eitan had shown up at the treatment plant for uranium in
Pennsylvania, in the same period in which a quantity of uranium to produce six nuclear bombs disappeared without a trace from
the factory. It was hardly a coincidence that Israel soon after decided that the US Control Commission could no longer be allowed
to inspect the Israeli nuclear reactor at Dimona in the Negev. In perceptive circles believed that Israel at the time to build the
bomb, although perhaps not been finally assembled and ready for use.

It is from the late 1960s that Israeli eyes turned towards the United States, high tech Mecca. Increasingly,
it is the advanced high-tech weaponry that directs Mossad X-ray eyes beyond the American landscape.

Allenby Bridge in Washington

Now as previously operates Israel with two main groups: those Israel-friendly set, and they are critical. This distinction is
unavoidable for Israel makes strong use of both the friends who are able to give a helping hand within the conventional
framework, and those who are willing to do something "extra", but it shall have to get a pollardsk format.

Of course, the Israelis as everyone else to have that you love them, and especially the holding with
them! But it can not be otherwise, then pulled the dividing line razor sharp between friend and non-friend. It is this national-egoistic
effort, without which Israel would hardly have been created in 1948 and it is the one which since has made Israel the Middle East's
military superpower. It is possible that Israel's political / social basis can take the form of standing on feet of clay. But the military fist
and Israeli ruthless performance in the field, Israel's Arab neighbors learned to respect.

In an overwhelmingly pro-Israeli environment like the US, it means that Israel is very bargained. Especially Reagan years has
brought Israel to the forefront of most-privileged allies. Both Jewish and non-Jewish friends of Israel, politicians as well as officials,
have a thousand ways been able to give a little boost to Israel's advantage, either by letting information leak, or by ensuring that
Israeli interests are supported.

But in a city like Washington, containing all shades of political sophistication, it

inevitable that Israel is a political dilemma.
There's a sharp boundary between the pro-Israeli and Israel-critical camp - and the last is not necessarily pro-Arab - which
can act as a counterpart to the Allenby Bridge, which at the Jordan River separates the Kingdom of Jordan from the Israeli West
Bank. It is a dividing line that goes down through the middle of ministries, institutions and the Congress, and which is also
characteristic of the often violent sense bursts fired from pulpits and in discussion panels in Washington "think tanks". Because
of the participants' obvious skills in the disciplines of rhetoric and argument, debates often a high entertainment value.

It was also significant that since the Pollard affair was revealed, agencies shared into two camps. In one, they found the
president and the State Department, who did not want to Pollard affair would burden the Israeli-American relations.

Against this stood for Defense Weinberger, far from with a unanimous Pentagon behind him, the Justice Department, the FBI and the

prosecutor's office that everyone here found themselves confronted with a case of gross espionage - and in particular the last two

instances, there is no difference between friend Israel and the enemy the Soviet Union when it comes to state security. In this camp there

was a clear perception that it had finally taken the Israelis in the act, and to Israel this time not to be allowed to hug the outside of its

responsibility. Now it should declare an example.

Pollard affair did it for Israel most unpleasant effect that it opened a stream of critical writings about Israel more concealed ventures

in the United States. Larger series of articles were published in newspapers such as the Chicago Tribune and the Washington Post, to

then be followed up in the Los Angeles Times and the Boston Globe. CIA report from Tehran embassy was turned and twisted and out

of the journalists' month-long research grew a new dimension of Mossad work in the US.

Here in the belly of the whale worked Israeli intelligence apparently intensively with industrial espionage and the acquisition of

technological knowledge that Israel not through the normal channels of cooperation could access.

The battle for the gilded high technology

In the secret CIA report on Israel that were found in the Tehran embassy in 1979, states that the IDF "Procurement
Mission", purchasing office in New York is the center for Israel's intelligence gathering in the United States.

Just gathering information on US scientific breakthroughs to benefit Israel's technological and military development
was according to the same report, one of the three main points in the intelligence service Mossad spying. Posts in the
purchasing office in New York has been used by Mossad as a cover for its agents and afskudsrampe to create
commercial companies in the long term must work their way into the center of the US military technological research.

Some might argue that if Israel already through the US military aid annually can acquire up to 1.8 billion US
dollars weapons and technology, why this effort to penetrate into the actual production process?
 The explanation is that Israel's economy hinges on a prolific weapons manufacturing in the most modern high
technology.
As an example, tells the Chicago Tribune November 16, 1986 for an arms exhibition a few years ago in Washington,
where both Hughes Aircraft Co. and Israeli Israel Military Industries (IMI) demonstrated their latest products.

Hughes Aircraft showed particular their latest version of antikampvogns missile TOW. A hundred meters away, demonstrated
IMI his new an decathlon wagon missile MAPATS. Visitors looked at the two models and could no difference see. They were quite
similar, and a representative of Hughes expressed also surprise that IMI just struck Hughes' design, modified it slightly and then
shot it out on the market as an Israeli product.

At IMI denied representative Eitan Dromy pure assertion that Israelis should have stolen Tows design. He pointed out,
however, that MAPATS is "a new generation of missile" and that the Israeli version is laser-guided as opposed to TOW.
However MAPATS not so different that it can not be fired from a TOW-ramp. The case was the fact that IMI hoped to sell
its missile for the US Marine Corps as a more advanced product than the TOW, without the Americans have to discard the
old TOW-afskydningsramper.

IMI would also market their new missile in Latin America, which also irritated Hughes Aircraft, because US
arms industry that delivers market share to an Israeli firm.

US funding of rival Israel

If Israeli and American weapons technology really was developed independently, there would hardly be grounds for
objection.
But the matter is that Israeli technology stands on the shoulders of the Americans.

The Israelis are brilliant to take a product tillempe it to the Middle East struggle need and put it into production. This
saves dollars to arms imports, and it provides jobs in Israeli society.
First saw outside the US Israel $ 3 billion a year in aid, which for the past year he is pure gift. Of these, 1.8
billion for military aid. Is funding Israel both its own production to the Israeli defense and procures weapons
products from US manufacturers. The latter is often subject to so-called "offset" arrangements, ie that the US
factory will allow subcontracting produce from Israeli companies. Thus beats Israelis two birds in one stone: with US
money buys Israel American products that are partially manufactured in Israel.

What the Department of Commerce the other demand is that the US as a byproduct of its foreign aid to
keep American workers employed, not Israeli.
But Israel does not stop here. It also exports products. Often in fierce competition with US products. US
authorities are dissatisfied with the US losing control of its own advanced weapons technology when Israel suddenly
sold the same technology to markets in China, Latin America or Asia.

It is at this point that the American authorities and the Congress rang off
US arms manufacturers who are red in the crest of them to be worse, and not better off than Israeli arms
companies.

Israel arms industry growing rapidly

In 1974 it amounted Israeli arms exports, according to SIPRI Institute in Stockholm for about 50 million US dollars.
Eight years later it had grown to no less than 1.2 billion dollars. It is a remarkable achievement of the Israeli nation of
just over four million inhabitants.
What to noting is that since the Lebanon war in 1982, which was incredibly costly for Israel and broke an already
problem burdened economy, it has been necessary for the Israelis to cut their defense spending. In a country like Israel,
which constantly are at near war footing, the defense budget sacred. Yet there since 1982 been cut 25% in it.

A direct effect of a cut defense budget is that it becomes more expensive for the Israeli arms manufacturers to produce their
products because the Defense Department buys less in. The only way out, apart from increased US subsidies is to increase
exports in order to reduce the price per. unit of the manufactured Israeli product.

In 1986 alone represented arms sales a quarter of Israel's industrial exports, and the defense industry employed
one out of every five industrial workers. But it is also an impressive sales rank Israeli factories can produce: missiles,
tanks, jet fighters, missile torpedo boats, guns, small arms and modern electronic equipment of all kinds.

Its customers include both China and Taiwan, South Korea, South Africa, Chile and much of Central America.

One of the benefits of the Israeli weapons is that they have been tested in Israel's wars and subsequently adapted
the lessons learned. But Israel, with its limited financial resources are up against fierce competition from major powers
and Western European arms manufacturers. This is perhaps why the Mossad so stubbornly trying to get hold of the new
high-tech inventions in the US, although the US authorities do what they can to prevent it.

Israel's two hundred "purchasers"

For the Israeli defense called purchasing office in New York is accompanied by about 200 military and technical
experts who act as a liaison between Israeli and American weapons factories and military institutions. It is this loss
that the CIA report suspect that placed Mossadfolk, effectively spy on areas that are not available to Israel.

The more these years opened for political and economic ties between the US and Israel, the easier it is also for Israel
the legal means to gain insight and access to the production processes, which was originally closed.

The Israeli Defense procurement office in New York is supposed to largely work within the law in the
opsgningsarbejde which it undertakes in the US militrt-
industrial complex.
But the Chicago Tribune reported on Nov. 16, 1986 on a number of specific cases where US Customs or Defense
Department inspector has raised an accusing finger at Israel. Here it ranks just referring one of the cases. It's from
California, where it has managed Israelis to get their hands on so-called "krytroner" which is a trigger mechanism that
can be used to trigger the ignition of both nuclear bombs and conventional bombs.

In 1985, the manufacturer Richard K. Smyth accused of having illegally exported 810 krytroner to Israel between 1980
and 1982. As early as 1975, Smyth attempted to obtain his Israeli counterpart these devices, but the State Department
refused to provide export permit, because krytronerne was listed on lists of technology, which was subject to export
restrictions.
Since the devices in 1980 was exported, circumvented Smyth export ban by writing another product into the export papers, so
they were shipped without permission. When it was revealed, was reported in Israel that it was unaware that krytronerne was
exported illegally. 460 of the total of 810 units were returned. It declined in Israel that the remaining devices should be used for
nuclear bombs. They maintained that they had been used for research and development of conventional bombs.

There was in the file in the case against Richard K. Smyth hints that other things had been exported, and authorities
suspect Smyth for a prolonged period illegally performing other military technology, which was coated with restrictions.

When Smyth must appear in court in August 1985, he is nowhere to be found. Both he and his wife has mysteriously disappeared. His

mother- in-law is, however, some months later, an anonymous phone call to the couple is in a safe place. Intelligence Reports report that they

have been seen in at least three European countries.

Latest bulletin communicate glance Smyth and his wife live, live in Israel and are doing well.
 10. USA - Jewish Promised Land?

"What we need in Israel are Jews"

David Ben-Gurion, May 1948

The description in the Old Testament of the Jews' captivity in Babylon in 500 BC have historically had a strong power over
the Jewish mind. The account of the Babylonian captivity concern especially a people's collective depression in exile, far
from Jerusalem.
When the black slaves from Africa slaved on US cotton plantations in the South, they were force-fed with the
Christian religion and the reports of the Old Testament. In the Jews' sad fate in Babylon found the slaves a comforting
model that gave strength to endure bondage pain. Even if the redemption will only occur after they had died and that
the literal longing for Jerusalem for them became a symbol of longing for paradise.

Since Babylon image had a magical function of the black Americans self-knowledge. How the United States to the Europeans was
the epitome of freedom execution, it was the black slaves a captive, far removed from their own beaches.

"Bursting Babylon shackles" was the war-cry from Eldridge Cleaver and the Black Panthers in 1967, while troop ships filled with

20-year-old men departed for the jungle war in Vietnam. For a brief period it was actually possible Black Power activists to convince quite a

few black Americans to the United States was Babylon, and that they themselves were slaves of today.

The solution was not physically return to Africa where they had originally been picked up by slave hunters, but rather to
integrate themselves with the Babylonian population, the United States was probably a Babylon, but the cream of milk and
honey like the promised land of the Bible. The few who tried to return to Africa, soon realized that America had superior
material qualities.

A good Zionist move to Israel

Since Israel was established in 1948, not a few American Jews felt trapped in the same dilemma as
Jews in Babylon 2,500 years ago. Should the move "home" to the Jewish state, where Hebrew again had become everyday language, or

should they remain in modern Babylon?

A few months after David Ben-Gurion in May 1948 had proclaimed the state of Israel, he was asked by the American United
Jewish Appeal, Israel had most needed from the United States. "What we need are Jews," came Ben-Gurion's prompt reply.
Ben-Gurion had the very firm opinion that a good jew were Zionists, and that a good Zionists moved to Israel.

But from the first moment and the almost forty years until today has America's Jews at this point had to disappoint Israel, because there

was not many American Jews. Of the 35,000 Jews from North America who traveled to Israel in the state's first decade, it was only 5400 that

struck roots.

It was not only American Jews who came head-on with Ben-Gurion's uncompromising attitude. Also the Jewish
community in Western Europe were read and written on Israel's powerful prime minister. The Danish Rabbi Marcus
Melchior, however, was not inclined to be direct from Jerusalem. Melchior gave Ben-Gurion retort, clarifying that the Danish
Jewish community was Danish and wanted to remain Danish.

For the newborn Jewish state was America's Jews so far the most important group, both because of its size and wealth.
There were three things that Ben-Gurion wanted from the American Jews: their money, their political influence and their
presence in Israel. On the first two points were the American Jews just as generous as they were stingy on the third point. Even
Golda Meir, who grew up in Milwaukee, could not with its siren calls that "a true Jewish life" was only possible in Israel to
convince the modern Babylonian Jews.

The American Jewish community is the largest in the world and the richest. The vast majority of the Russian Jews, who in 1970 got

permission to leave, therefore took the ticket directly to the United States. Pioneer Society in Israel did not have the same appeal.

Times were tough in the Jewish state of war and economic crisis. By contrast appeared the United States as it always appealing

mirage. Israel was perhaps spiritually seen the promised land, but in material terms, it was America that flowed with milk and honey.

The new immigrants

Paradoxically, when emigration to the United States of young Israelis in the 1970s began to take off, it took a somewhat less power of

American Jews in the opposite direction.

Living in the day up to half a million Israelis in the United States. It is the Jews who have left Israel to make their fortune in
capitalism Mecca, where life is more carefree and work better paid. Conversely, it passed a small stream of religious American
Jews who sought to Zion to get away from the American materialism and try a pionerliv in close harmony with Jewish and biblical
tradition.
Rabbi Moshe Levinger from Brooklyn showed the way. He founded in the occupied West Bank, as he insisted on calling
the liberated Judea and Samaria, an idealistic settler movement "Gush Emunim" meaning faith Block. The idealism that had
motivated socialist Jews from Eastern Europe in the beginning of the century to create kibbutzim in Palestine, now had a
counterpart in the West Bank.
 Gush Eminim is a fundamentalist movement that is based on the Pentateuch and not on Lenin's collected works. Here they
found young religious, American Jews a point in life, far from Babylon fleshpots. That many of them were fanatical in their
rebellion against the secular Israeli state and in their mockery of the indigenous Palestinian population gave them only extra force.
The fjendtligere their surroundings were, the more correct had their own viewpoint be, they argued.

Awakening Jewish criticism of Israel

Israel's wars have been a powerful catalyst for the American Jewish interest in the new state on the Mediterranean.

Equally excited they were for the 1967 war, as part of them participated as reserve soldiers, or "war tourists", just as
disillusioning was Lebanon War in 1972. It was not only the striking difference between super hero Moshe Dayan and the
hapless hero Ariel Sharon. It arose just as much of the general misconception that the Six Day War was a defensive war in
which Israel's existence was at stake, while Lebanon war was an unnecessary and selvprovokeret war of aggression.

That it has succeeded Israel to convince a large part of Western opinion that the Six Day War was a true defensive war is just
as brilliant a farm on the public relations front, which the Israeli campaign was on the military front. It is true that Egypt's Gamal
Abdel Nasser opmarcherede his army in Sinai and closed the Straits of Tiran to Israel, but it is also true that Israel took advantage
of Nasser's tactical baring to strike a devastating blow against Egypt and the countries that actively stood behind Nasser, namely
Syria and Jordan.

Myths have their own tough life. They are difficult to eradicate. It suffices to note that while Moshe Dayans master plan in
1967 led to an occupation of lands in Syria, the West Bank, Gaza and Egyptian Sinai, there were three times greater than the
then Israel, then led Sharon's "master plan" in 1982 not other than chaos and economic disaster for both Lebanon as Israel. At
the American Jews began enthusiasm for Israel to be mixed with criticism.

It was new. The American Jewish skepticism replaced the previous bad conscience of the privileged and well-fed lives in
New York and Los Angeles, who stood in as stark contrast to the Israeli existence in pigtrdsomgrede border villages.

Existentially and psychologically Holocaust syndrome in Jewish history a dominant factor. The Nazi eradication of
Jews of Centralauropa has brought all living Jews a deep trauma. They carry the collectively with it, regardless of where
they live. Hence also the perception of Israel as a life insurance policy, a national home waiting with open arms if a new
wave of anti-Semitism were to sweep the Western societies.

To put it bluntly, one can say that some American Jews feel guilty because they declines to stay in Israel, and therefore in
different ways pay indulgences to the Jewish state. The same applies to a number of European Jews. Jewish organizations
like the United Jewish Appeal, the World Zionist Organization, Hadassah Others are masters at exploiting this sacrifice in their
appeals to Israel, as Israeli politicians, when they get their collections to the US. Assistance may be given either
by buying Israeli government bonds or by ensuring that the US government never diminishes - and preferably increase - the
economic and military aid to Israel.

The Israeli Tarzan myth

The Jewish state of Israel was experienced in the 1950s and 1960s by most Americans as the Jews righteous response to
Hitler's Holocaust and centuries of anti-Semitic oppression.
Leon Uris' novel "Exodus", which was published in 1958 and immediately became a bestseller fully confirmed the glorious
impressions of Israel. As the New York Times wrote that the book was "a passionate summary of inhumane treatment of the
Jewish people in Europe, the emigration to Palestine in the 19th and 20th centuries and the triumphant founding of the new
Israel." The novel has since been sold more than 20 million copies.

The book's strength lies undoubtedly in its unilateral stance in favor of the Jews. The Palestinian Arabs are the villains who fight
against what is somewhere in the book called "a race of Jewish Tarzaner" sabra'erne. Israel's reputation in the United States was
virtually identical to the book's message and Americans living today still with this rosy account of creation in mind.

Shortly after followed Otto Premingers film adaptation with Paul Newman in the lead role as Ari Ben Canaan. Also, the film was a

huge popular success. That was the message of the settlers who lived in the kibbutz and made the desert bloom, the real

nybyggerland with pioneer spirit in full bloom, as it was a counterpart to the former American pioneer society. Edward Tivnan writes

in his book "The Lobby" that in American cinema theaters danced audience spontaneously in the aisles, at that point in the movie

where the Jews prevailed and Israel's national anthem "Ha-Tikvah" was played.

"Exodus" was a coup for Israel. If it were up to the Israeli foreign and information service, so should the Americans be allowed
to keep this image of Israel. The more Americans mirrored in Israel as if it were an extension of American nybyggertraditioner, the
stronger popular support behind the Jewish state be in the United States.

1967 war with the military lynsejr over three neighboring Arab countries confirmed Exodusmyten in the United
States. What the US army was not even able to accomplish in Vietnam, it could be the IDF fix on only six days in the
Middle East. The Western press poured superlatives beyond the fearless and manly Israeli sabra-soldier, the reborn
jew, while in every way The enterprise and boastful Arab soldiers got the worst possible publicity.

Six Day War was the war that definitely separated good from evil, separated Israel from the Arabs. There could be no more
doubt that the law of the festering Arab-Israeli problem might be on Israel's side.
Moshe Dayan, with the flap to the eye, was just as popular in America as Dwight D. Eisenhower had been during WW2 and
General McArthur had been during the Korean War. A true hero of a noble nation - and Exodus film could again be sent out to the
cinema houses, where it took an unexpected new turn of canvases, with full houses.

For most American Jews gave the Six Day War a sense of catharsis. Here mixed "Exodus" with the John Wayne myth
from countless western movies. Young Jewish men in New York wing
Immediately Tel Aviv to make themselves available as reserve soldiers, fourteen days later to return to Flatbush with
more or less deserved laurels on his forehead.
As in western movie, where the roles are divided between the heroes with the white hats and the bad guys in the black hats, none in

the case of Israel be in doubt. Israelis wore the white hats! And Moshe Dayan became the new superhero by General Westmoreland in

Vietnam monsoon jungle fortunately never was.

Sabra'en versus New York Jew

As American Jews had their dreams had Israeli Jews theirs, and they were looking in different directions. The Eastern
European and Russian Jews who had immigrated from the old world, so their sons grow up with very different ideals than
those who had directed life in the ghetto culture. They were both proud and amazed to see their sons and daughters grow into
tough, hard-hitting soldiers in the War of Independence and subsequent wars defended and even expanded the scope of the
Jewish state.

Amnon Rubinstein, an Israeli historian and liberal politician, writes in his book "The Zionist Dream Revisited: From Herzl two
Gush Emunim and Back" on "Sabra myth". He believes that many young Israelis wanted in every way to distance themselves
from the former oppressed and timid life in the diaspora ghettos. They stressed that by calling himself SABRA which is cactus
fruit that is seen everywhere in the Palestinian-Israeli landscape, prickly and calloused outside but sweet and soft inside.
Rubinstein points out therefore that in the first decades of Israeli fiction will find the characteristic immigrant boy, a pale-looking
weakling, as in his dealings with sabra'erne gradually loses his infirmity and even get the male sabra-quality, which is the native
Israeli youth virtue.

Another manifestation of this Hebraic rebirth was Ben-Gurion's diktat that everyone should hebraisere their names. Even his
name was David Gruen, and it was David Ben-Gurion, the son of the lion. His protg, Shimon Persky, was Shimon Peres, and
later Prime Minister Golda Myerson was named Golda Meir.

In every way it was psychologising, refined New York jew or relatives in the sun-drenched, freewheeling Los
Angeles, different from the unpolished sabra in sandals and open standing shirt.

But Israel had an important role as spiritual hotbed and the support of the Jewish culture and history. The Jewish
identity as the American jew lacking in American society, existed in Israel. In the distance, and the occasional visit to
Israel, he or she is satisfied to note that the Jewish continuity was preserved. It satisfy their personal needs to have a
place where they could place their Jewish identity. But no one should try to prevent them even continue their life "by the
waters of Babylon."

Israel's apologists and anti-Semitism

Almost forty years after Israel's establishment came the occasional tensions between the US Jewish community
Israel forward. As mentioned did Menahem Begin's government life difficult for the liberal Jewish circles, especially since the
controversies linked to the Lebanon War came to the surface.
American Jews wanted least of all that was to become a scapegoat in the United States for Israel's foreign policy adventures, but

whether they liked it or not, they were sentenced to the role of Israel's apologists.

In parallel, there were discussions about how far non-Jews could go in their criticism of Israel, or of the
American Jews, without guilty of anti-Semitism. One of the eternal discussion topics.

The debate flared up in 1986 when the famed author Gore Vidal directed a harsh criticism against one of the right-wing gurus,

Norman Podhoretz. Vidal accused him and his like-minded friends to belong to a "fifth column" in the United States because their

loyalty to Israel was greater than their loyalty to the United States.

In America, the accusation of "double loyalty" a serious matter. Being American patriot is a virtue. Everything else is
treason.
In the 1950s, accused Senator Joe McCarthy liberal and leftist Americans for being a communist fifth column.
It sparked a heated discussion about what is the right patriotic sentiment.

In the 1960s, the anti-Vietnam War lobby that was suspected of being Communist collaborators. Not for nothing was
the actress Jane Fonda dubbed "Hanoi Jane" and hated when she wartime visited North Vietnam in an attempt to create a
peace initiative.
Gore Vidal, whose sublime but poisonous pen is feared by many, opened the ball in the left-liberal magazine "The
Nation", where he with obvious delight fell over Norman Podhoretz and his hustru Midge Decter. Podhoretz is with the rabid
Irving Kristol known to be the extreme right-wing pens drivers who never let a chance go by themselves to require the
Pentagon's budget increased - and support for Israel as well.

"The Commentary" and Norman Podhoretz

Podhoretz has a generation been editor of the journal "The Commentary" published by the American Jewish Committee. Despite a
run pakun 55,000 copies have Podhoretz helped make "The Commentary" to one of the American right wing's most powerful organs
of struggle. Its importance lies particularly in the combination of support for American buildup, tough front against the Soviet Union,
identification with the Eastern European dissidents, sanctions of Israeli refusal to negotiate with the PLO and a certain enthusiasm
for the moral majority, the nykristne revival movement in the United States.

It will be in these subjects find some of the most important of Reagan's crowning achievements, just as you will recognize the views from the

opinions of prominent right-ideologues in the Reagan period, for example. Deputy Secretary of Defense Richard Perle ( "prince of darkness"),

former Reagan. UN Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick or publicist George Will.

Gore Vidal irritation Podhoretz pair broke into flames after an exchange of views where
Podhoretz expressed his surprise at why Vidal was so preoccupied with the Civil War, about which he has written some
plays and not least an interesting biography of Abraham Lincoln. "For me," wrote Podhoretz, "the civil war as distant and
irrelevant as the Wars of the Roses" in England's Middle Ages.

It was on this note that Vidal wrote: "It was then that I became aware that he has no plans to become an assimilated
American, to use the old-fashioned language, but that his strongest loyalty will always be directed against Israel. Yet he
and Midge among us, in order to make propaganda and raise money for Israel, a land which they do not even seem to
be interested in living in. It's like the Jewish joke, anno 1900: a Zionist is one who want to ship others Jews to Palestine. "

When vitriolen evidently flowed so abundantly, added Vidal insult to injury with the following comments: "Since a spade should not

be called a spade here in the land of liberty, let me spell it with capital letters. To provide military and economic aid to Israel, a small

group of American Jews, who should know better, made common cause with every reactionary and anti-Semitic group in the United

States, the Pentagon corridors to the Evangelical newborn Christians television studios. To show that their heart sits at the right right

place, they call themselves neo-conservatives and attack people like Norman Mailer and me, all to support the people of Israel Ariel

Sharon, instead of supporting the Israelis from the "Peace Nubevgelsen "which they despise. Now that we are in time with each

other, then I must tell you that I do not like your country, which is Israel. "

One could say without saying that here had doomsday trumpets will sound. Indeed they did. The family Podhoretz
and their Jewish sympathizers were furious. They had been categorized as a Jewish fifth column that was willing to
ignore America's interests to help Israel. Podhoretz took the opportunity to argue that Vidal had accused all Jews of
America to be Israel's fifth column people.

Podhoretz corresponds Gore Vidal

Norman Podhoretz 'answers were published in the "Washington Post" under the heading: "Vidal's outpourings, a dangerous new step in

anti-Semitism". It was said in particular .:

"In Vidal's incredibly unwise speech he accused Jews born in the United States for only they can live at the mercy of others
and as guests and therefore did better in silence on the host country's policy. Every one of Vidal's words dripped in hatred of the
Jews, which he in anti-Semitism best traditions portrayed as omnipotent conspirators who manipulate "us" to serve their own
purposes. "
Then spread the debate rapidly widening circles. On one side were those who found Vidal anti-Semitic. On the other
hand, found those who flatly refused to criticism of American Jews should be seen as an expression of anti-Semitism. If we
had only superficially followed the article feud could easily have reached the opinion that Gore Vidal had accused all Jewish
Americans to be a traitor in the making.

Jerusalem Post wrote about Vidal's attack: "This man has a developed sense of what is
fashionably outrageous, and it can not be excluded that he feels that his opinions are no longer just being paranoid fantasies
of anti-Semitic, fascist groups such as the Aryan Brotherhood "
The Israeli newspaper considered that the controversial votes in Congress on arms sales to Saudi Arabia, the case against the

American-Jewish spy Jonathan Pollard, Vidal-Prohoretz discussion mm could indicate that the relationship between the US and Israel

was up to critical reappraisal. Precisely because Israel lobby in the US has been so strong, concluded the Israeli newspaper, and

because Israel economically and militarily is in both cake and eat it, it has provoked modblge not Israel sympathetic.

Jewish debate across the Atlantic

Since Jonathan Pollard received her judgment of life imprisonment in the spring of 1987 triggered a heated debate across the Atlantic

between US Jews and Israel. It suggested that the first was being made scapegoats in the showdown between the two state

governments.

Prominent leaders of the Jewish organizations in the United States were boarded over both espionage and the fact that the
Government of Israel not only failed to deplore the recruitment of Pollard but not punished the guilty Israelis.

There was an unprecedented outrage behind the accusations. Shlomo Avineri, professor of political science at Hebrew
University in Jerusalem put the sting of American Jewry when he in an open "letter to an American friend" accused them of
responding to Pollard in the same way as the French Jews of his time responding to Dreyfus affair, namely "falling over each
other." "Let me speak my mind plainly," continued Avineri, "some of the reactions that have come from American Jews after the
judgment in the Pollard affair reminds me of the way the Jewish leaders in Egypt under Nasser and in Iran under Khomeini run in
hiding, as members of their respective Jewish communities were taken for espionage on behalf of Israel. "

According to Shlomo Avineri the problem was that American Jews fear being seen as un-American, "You are afraid that the
Jews would not qualify for positions of responsibility in your bureaucracy ... that Jews will be denied access to positions of trust."
Avineris relentless conclusion was: "America is probably still not Your promised land."

What Shlomo Avineri meant was that even in the United States, Jews were able to feel really at home, and when they
were so busy denouncing Pollard's actions, so it was a knee-jerk, to protect them against charges of "dual loyalty" which at
worst could trigger anti-Semitic feelings. Therefore, they could just as well with the same emigrate to Israel, believed
Avineri.

Israeli solidarity with Pollard

The American Jewish leaders felt gravely insulted. They did not understand that the Israelis could possibly find to suspicion
on their affinity with the United States. Rabbi Balfour Brickner, who before had raised a critical voice against Israel
responded Avineri New York Times: "I'm not a kryptoisraeler living here in America with an exile mentality, only pending the
time when I have to pack
my suitcase and run away. "

Pollard spy scandal that had started as a dispute between the two governments, had now become a verbal war between Jews on either

side of the Atlantic.

Many Israelis expressed anger over the American Jews lack of solidarity with Pollard, who they believed
had only made her Jewish duty: to stand in Israel's favor.
A spontaneous popular movement in Israel arose. On the streets was set up booths to raise money for Pollard's trial.
One could encounter terms like that Pollard was a new David who had challenged the American Goliath for Israel's sake.
The Israeli newspaper "Yedioth Aharanoth" could in the March 1987 report that by its own small survey had found that 90%
of respondents believed that Israel should help Pollard and his wife.

While many Jewish leaders in the United States considered Pollard as a criminal, a spy who had been in Israel sold for $ 50,000

and therefore deserved a life sentence, collected Israelis tens of thousands of dollars to Pollard pair. "We must not let Pollard'erne in

the lurch," went in large indented ads in Israeli newspapers, "no matter who gave the orders, who knew who was silent, whether it was

wise or stupid ... then a messenger came and Pollard'erne responded wholeheartedly. "

Massive US protest
A massive delegation of about 60 Jewish leaders in the United States traveled in March 1987 to Jerusalem to protest directly to
the leaders of Israel. One of them, Burton Levinson, president of B'nai Brith's AntiDefamation League, was not satisfied with the
Israeli politicians' refusal and said after the meeting: "For years, I and my friends talked about the special relationship between
the US and Israel, and on Israel as a democracy we can trust. But spying is not against its allies, and I'm offended. So why can
not I come over here and tell you that I am insulted? "

It was around the same time that Israeli Prime Minister caused a stir by telling American Jews that they should oppose
to Jewish emigrants from the Soviet Union were granted refugee status in the United States, in order to force them to travel
to Israel. He was quoted in the New York Times that they "could rot" in Europe if they refused to use their visa to Israel. It
was a tone that shook the American Jews, who consider it a duty to help Soviet Jews as possible. Many American Jews
were even come from Eastern Europe and had no difficulty in being loyal American citizens, while the culturally and
emotionally identified with the Jewish state. They believed that the new group of Soviet Jews should have the same
chance.

When Israel's leaders have a different view of Soviet Jews it is because there is a great need for Jewish immigrants in Israel.
Especially the politicians from the Right, which requires a Greater Israel, including the occupied territories with a large Arab
population, sees the need for Israel to accept a million new Jewish immigrants from the Soviet Union. How should Israel could
otherwise maintain a Jewish majority population in the 21st century?

Want to dig deeper, so it falls many Israelis hard to accept that at all can be lived satisfactory Jewish life in
America, because by implication admits that the state of Israel
not necessary for the Jewish people's continued existence. In this very problem you meet the intense debate that
preceded the State of Israel between Zionists and non-Zionists on the need for a Jewish state in Palestine.

Today's debate between US and Israeli Jews, as it has been accentuated by the Pollard affair, is therefore also
about whether Israel is an instrument to serve the Jewish people or the Jewish people is an instrument to serve the
political state of Israel?
In the US ugepresse Israel has over the years been a gifted back style in the magazine "The Republic". It is published and
redigetes of American liberal Jews, and the blade is distinguished by sharp analyzes and well-written posts in the political debate. In
March 1987 appeared, however, with a surprising editorial, this outspoken conclusion:

"The United States is not only Israel's allies. America is Israel's protector, its patron, the power without which Israel neither
would have security or economy. It is understandable that the Israelis sometimes must hate this addiction. But the dependence
is a fact in their lives, in a sense, the most important fact. Israel's behavior towards the United States is morally unworthy and
politically stupid. Israel's foreign policy engenders resentment only American resentment. If these smart intrigue mongers
(smart-asses) in the corridors of power in Israel believe, as one commentator recently put it, that Israel is a "Teflon Nation", so
they're in for a shock. "

The gloves had been rolled by, in both camps, for the first time, the American Jewish leaders took courage to stand
up to Israel. Hyman Bookbinder of the American Jewish Committee says that when the large group of American leaders
gave their criticism air to the Israeli leaders on arrival in Tel Aviv, so it had an effect on them, as it was the moment when
cultural revolution hit Peking University. No more Israel could count on the US leaders will keep their critical feedback
and to be well-behaved, good exiled Jews.

The thriving Jewish culture in the United States

Behind all the transatlantic dispute between the two Jewish communities, hiding the real question: Is it Israel, or is it rather the
United States that is the Promised Land by the Jews since Moses have longed for?

When the cherry trees bloom in early spring 1987, sat Rabbi Jacob Neusner to his typewriter and wrote a remarkable
essay. Previously, he also written the book "Israel in America: A Too Comfortable Exile?". On 8 March 1987, his new
provocation printed in the Washington Post under the headline "Is America The Promised Land for Jews?". It's called:

"It is time to say that America is a better place to reside as jew than Jerusalem. If ever there was a promised land,
we live Jewish Americans in it. Here, the Jews set flower, not only in politics and economics, but in art, culture and the
learned sciences. Jews feel safe here in a way that can never be the case in the state of Israel. And they have found
an authentic Jewish voice, one's own voice, to express their visions ... America has proven to be our Promised Land. "
 If something is provocative for traditional Zionist thinking, it's just rabbi Neusners word that many American
Jews just think, but he expresses. One of Neusners points is that American Jews today have become Jewish
Americans, and that he and his ilk have not least guilty about to put it bluntly.

Theodor Herzl had no way of knowing it. Chaim Weizman and David Ben-Gurion would
not know. But while the state of Israel was held baptism, developed the United States after World War 2 to be
open, pluralistic societies with sufficient tolerance to it could be shared homeland of the many nationalities.

What Germany was not allowed to be for the Jews, think America to have given the Jews since 1945. The American
Jews see enough on Israel as the bearer of Jewish history, and therefore they travel like a pilgrimage there once a year to go
to museums , concerts and Yiddish restaurants, but it is "Babylon" to their materially comfortable everyday life unfolds.

As Jacob Neusner writes:

"Some Israelis telling American Jews to America, Egypt's fleshpots, nothing is a jew - because we all end up dying in the
gas chambers, while we sing Christmas carols. The message seems to be that we do not have the right to feel safe,
anti-Semitism will catch up with us, as it has always been the case for the Jews throughout history. Their version reads simply,
that we are all "assimilate" us. We have ceased to be Jewish. Nearly all six million Jews in the United States today, let us
understand marry Christians and jumps overboard from Judaism sinking ship. I, personally, have not yet felt the iceberg
beneath the hull, and I do not think I stand on the Titanic's deck and singing. I think that the Jews have built a Jewish life in
America that is sustainable, that gives us much evidence of stability

- and human worth. "

There is a huge captivating force in the image of the American Jewish community carefree dancing in Titanic salons on
the way in anti-Semitism and pogromens abyss. Jacob Neusner reject it as a perverse argument.

There are currently two major Jewish communities outside Israel, one of the Soviet Union, the other in the United States. Should
Israel be expanded in terms of population, should the Jewish immigrants come from the two places. But if it were up to Jacob
Neusner, then American Jews not to frighten or enticed to settle in Israel, for which he writes the American Jewish culture is the
Israeli far superior, and as rabbi in the Conservative wing of Judaism has he very little sympathy to spare for the Israeli Orthodox
fanaticism that completely dominates Israel's religious life today.
 11. Ayatollah and the little bastard

Remember that these Persians not only produced the Persian carpet, but also could lure people up on it in the belief that it could fly.

The date is July 18, 1981. The place is a military airport near Tel Aviv, where a propelturbinefly letter, swinging out over the
Mediterranean to head to the north. The Argentinian aircraft of the type CL-44 is loaded with the weapon parts that have been loaded
in Israel.
The pilot flying over Turkey set course east and would normally be the country a few hours later in Tehran. By unresolved
reasons stray pilot, however in over the Turkish-Soviet border, where he quickly being greeted by Soviet fighter aircraft. The
Soviet pilots have been sent into the air from a nearby airbase with an urgency that the Soviet air defense chief six years later
wish to Soviet pilots had acted as Mathias Rust flew his small propeller plane into the square in front of the Kremlin.

About weapons transport plane was shot down and the pilot made an error handling is not known, but the plane crashed into the ground

near the border.

That same month, Iranian President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr aside. He managed to get out of the country before his political enemies

struck claws into him, but since he has been generous with information about the background of the mysterious plane crash. He told in

August 1987 New York Times in exile in Paris that flylasten was the second or the third of its kind with Israel as the sender.

Over the New York Times' Flora Lewis confirmed the CIA's deputy director, Bobby R. Inman, already

1982 that US intelligence had been aware that these arms shipments took place. It was reportedly the third of
twelve flylaster because Israel had sold Iran 360 tons of spare parts for M-48 tanks and ammunition.

In September 1980, the war between Iran and Iraq broke out. Bani-Sadr told later from his exile in Paris that the situation was
so desperate that he immediately began secret negotiations with the Carter Administration, hoping to be able to buy military spare
parts at the US Embassy hostages were released. As Bani-Sadr said in 1987: "We only had supplies for between five and ten
days" and contacts with the Carter Administration promised well.
The October surprise
"But suddenly in October did it all to a halt," says Bani-Sadr in his revelations to the New York Times. "My assistants found out that it

was due to the group that was responsible for the hostages, Hashemi Rafsanjani, Mohammad Beheshti and Khomeini's son, did not

want to Carter to win the election. There was a meeting in Paris between Behestis representative and a representative of Reagan's

staff. "

Same in October, while the US election campaign entered the final phase, was held a secret meeting at the hotel L'Enfant
Plaza in Washington. Here they met the three Americans Richard V. Allen (Reagan's first National Security), Robert McFarlane
(Reagan's third security adviser) and Laurence Silberman (Allen's assistant) with a representative of Khomeini. They signed the
agreement, Iran would get more military equipment than President Carter offered, provided that the American hostages in Teheran
was only released after the elections, when Reagan won the presidency. Jimmy Carter had wrested this triumph.

Without exaggerating, one can safely conclude that this looked like a sensation in the making. The politicians in Washington,

especially Democrats, would turn the city upside down with excitement if it could be proved that Reagan cynical had delayed hostages

return home a few months for their own political gain. Already they had a clue that Reagan's staff had stolen into a copy of Carter's

briefing papers for the last televised debate before the elections in November 1979th

But the story of the secret agreement between Reagan's people and Tehran would not really get the body, although the Washington Post,

Miami Herald and The Nation magazine mentioned it several times in the summer

1987. In October 1987 summed up monthly publication "The Washington Report on the Middle East" this particular angle of
Reagan's relationship with Iran. It cites an article from "In These Times", which states: "If Reagan struck a lucky bargain with
Iran and won the presidency, then explains why he agreed to the bizarre alliance with Iran in 1985 and 1986, he had been
sufficient good from the past. "

A so-called "back channel" was also ahead of the presidential election in 1968 was created to South Vietnam by Richard Nixons

staff who had good contacts with people of Lyndon B. Johnson's government. The author Seymour Hersh has described in his book

"The Price of Power" to "Nixon knew that Johnson Administration was involved in a desperate attempt to put a kind of real peace

negotiations underway in Paris, in order to increase (Hubert) Humphrey's election chances. "

Nixon peoples made it clear to President Nguyen Van Thieu in Saigon that he would get a better deal with Nixon than with

Humphrey. Thieu destroyed then played for Humphrey by first letting the White House announcing that Thieu would attend the Paris

negotiations, while he himself three days before the election in November 1968 withdrew.

At least kept both the Americans and the Iranians their words. The hostages were first let out of Tehran in
January 1981, exactly 15 minutes after Ronald Reagan was sworn in as president. Soon the secret shipments of
military equipment to arrive to Iran via Israel.

Prosecutor Eren Tactics: Hashemi Rafsanjani

Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani, is better than Khomeini himself been Realm tactician who pulls the strings and
establishes Iran's policy towards the outside world. Insightful people in Tehran believe that it was Rafsanjani's hand
heralded behind the violent riots by Iranian pilgrims provoked under "hajj'en" to Mecca in the summer of 1987, when
hundreds were killed.
It happened while Hashemi Rafsanjani provoked a scandal in France by claiming that Prime Minister Jacques Chiraq entered
into an arms-against-hostages deal with him in 1986, ahead of the French election. Chiraq should have pledged to normalize
relations and to sell Iran weapons against the French hostages in Lebanon was not released until after the election. Chiraq won
four hostages were later released. But Chiraq denied in 1987 enraged Rafsanjani's assertion that there was collusion.

Both Carter- and the Reagan administration was in the years after the 1979 revolution advocates for selling Khomeinistyret arms so as

to prevent the Soviet Union became popular in Iran. But it was not a view that is met with sympathy in decision-making circles. There was

no common wavelength, as the United States and Iran could communicate. Formally, the United States and Israel enemies of the

revolution.

At first sight, it could therefore be cynical that Iran bought weapons in Israel. The Iranian mullahs had threatened that
after Iraq, they would Iranian soldiers continue to Jerusalem to be freed of the "little Satan" neglect. This hatred was
because the Iranians transferred their dislike of the shah to the two governments, which literally had helped the Shah to
remain in power, and whose security services had assisted the Shah's secret police, SAVAK.

To mullah regime's security forces advanced at least as much torture against its own citizens as SAVAK ever did,
spoke the new rulers in Tehran obviously not on.

Axis Tehran-Jerusalem-Washington
If you can imagine the Middle East bird's-eye view, it is obvious that Iran and Israel must have some common
interests.
Both countries have problems with their Arab neighbors. Both are border states in a more than 100 million large Arab world
where a century old hostility characterizes the relationship between Persians and Arabs. Jews problem with the Arabs, as we know
it today, goes only back to the State of Israel after the second world war.

If one could involve the US in this community of interest, then a united front against the Soviet Union the glue that binds
the triangle together. Iran, Israel and the US are interested to counter a Soviet advance in the area, blocking communism as
an idea and restrain Iraqi expansionism.

Still got these common interests are not allowed to dictate the revolutionary Iran policy. The Iranian clergy wanted the revolution
to make Islam's traditions and strong moral code to guide the new Iran. The corruption and materialism that had marked the last
years of the shah time was strongly condemned, and when the exiled shah sought shelter in the US, slipped the Shah and the
superpower America together in one enemy.

Hostage crisis with the US Embassy staff who were detained for 444 days in Tehran, was
presumably not pre thoroughly thought. But Ayatollah Khomeini used at least this interlude brilliantly. Although he has
dubbed the "second Iranian revolution." The first revolution was just nine months old when the US Embassy was occupied.
This in itself harmless little affair with some trapped diplomats were pumped up. In this crucial phase of the revolution was
the Iranians' focus put on the occupied embassy, which became a symbol of the beaten superpower that was checkmated
by the imam - and with the blessing of Allah.

It is difficult to determine what is religion and what is state reasoning in the Khomeini regime's grip on Iran. In the Shiite
thinking is the spiritual and secular two sides of the same coin. There are dark and light forces. The dark pointing toward hell. The
bright forces that support Khomeini recovery of the theocratic state praises while Iran's liberation by the imam's hand. Paradise is
open to the past.

The second Iranian revolution

Therefore took Khomeini natural enough "second Iranian revolution" to part with secular forces that would normalize Iran's
relations with the West. Foreign Ghotbzadeh was executed, President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr managed to flee the country,
others disappeared without leaving any message or address. It was people who wanted a secularization. But Khomeini's
ability to maintain its ultimate authority lay in his position as imam and the Messenger of Allah, and to maintain the religious
principles as a guide for state government.

With the fanatical Revolutionary Guard, the Pasdaran Corps, as the revolution spearhead, conducted Khomeini, a mass
mobilization. One by one, the political parties or movements crushed, regardless of their ownership of the revolution
implementation. Land reform began in the countryside, the army was reorganized and the social legislation reformed - all the
while the war with Iraq made it possible for Khomeini and his advisers to keep Iranian society in an iron grip.

If Iran were to have relations with Israel or the United States they had to be deep secret. For officially supported Tehran the

radical forces in the Arab world and gave a helping hand to the movements in Israel and the United States were considered

"terrorist". Incidentally, Iran's support for sandiniststyret in Nicaragua and Kaddafi regime in Libya a stumbling block to an

understanding between the US and Iran.

Israel's long-standing contacts with Iran

Iran is not a country to ignore. Alone its geographical location at the threshold between the Soviet Union and the
Middle East makes it a country whose favor other powers must woo.
Iran is a country with great resources, a population of just 40 million and large oil reserves. After the first oil crisis in 1973 was
Iran's oil revenues increased dramatically, and the profits were promptly by the Shah's government reacted in a rapid expansion of
infrastructure and military. Tehran was the largest customer for US arms exports.

In 1977, the amount the US arms exports totaled 11.4 billion US dollars, of which Iran alone
accounted for almost half of 5.5 billion dollars. Israel also had excellent contacts with Iran. Tehran and Jerusalem had both
need each other, and in the large expansive program for weapons purchases placed Iran orders in Israel.

The special conditions in the Shah's time occurred between Iran and Israel, rested on solid ground.
Together would curb the radical forces in the Arab world, be it nasserismen, baathismen or regional
communism.
In 1973 the amount of Israeli exports to Iran to only 33 million. $. Just four years later it had grown to 200 million. $. Iran
became an important export market for Israeli arms industry. The Israeli weapons factories were constantly looking for new
export opportunities, and to provide Israel currency, partly to create the widest possible manufacturing base to cover
development costs for self-developed Israeli weapon types.

Through Iran could Israel channeling assistance in to the Kurds in northern Iraq to pursue the path to weaken the central

government in Baghdad. It was a process that Israel also used in the support of the black secessionist movement Anya-Anya in

southern Sudan in order to weaken Khartoumstyret. Or support for the Maronite Christians in Lebanon that would weaken the PLO

and the Muslim majority in the country.

Until the Camp David peace between Israel and Egypt in 1979, Israel had been very isolated in the Middle East. In came
the majority of African states broke off diplomatic relations with the Jewish state in the wake of the Six Day War in 1967 in
return for recognizing the PLO.
Israel's main partner in Africa was and is South Africa. The two countries share nuclear technology, weapons and industrial products. That

both countries also are threatened by political isolation gives them a common destiny, as the liberal Jewish forces in Israel and the United States

are strongly critical of.

The hushed romance

Iran was therefore before the revolution of great practical and psychological importance for Israel, which fetched a considerable
share of its oil imports from Iran golf ports. The Iranian Jews arranged for a lively trade with Israel. There was direct flight
between Tehran and Tel Aviv, and Israeli prime ministers David Ben-Gurion and Menahem Begin visited both Tehran, albeit with
discretion, for talks with Iranian government representatives and the Shah himself.

As the Shah once said to the US Ambassador Richard Helms: "Neither Israel nor Iran wants to be alone,
surrounded as they are by a sea of Arabs."
The two countries had hated to Iraq in common, though for different reasons, and both were pro-American. In the interest of
the Arab countries wanted the Shah that the connection to Jerusalem was not discussed publicly. Therefore, Israel had not
normal embassy in Tehran, but only a diplomatic mission.

The Israelis felt that direct discrete connection to the Shah of Iran had a tinge of romance, as an
intelligence chief later put it. Israelis flattered him by calling him a modern Persian King Cyrus. A person also
for the Jews is a historical positive light because Cyrus according to tradition contributed to the Jews five
centuries before our era got out of it
Babylonian captivity.
The Zionist relations with Iran were linked before the state of Israel in 1948 was set up, and as soon as the Jewish state was a

reality followed the diplomatic recognition. Iran got from the first moment a high priority in Jerusalem.

Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, did Tehran to an important part of its network of agents. From here, the Iraqi Jews
helped out of Iraq and sent to Israel.
In the 1960s, the Iranian-born jew Yaakov Nimrodi a central figure in the Mossad's Tehran office. When he fled shortly before the 1979

revolution he had spent a total of 25 years in Iran and had been responsible for the internal structure of the network of agents Mossad had

established in the country. To Nimrodi and other agents for five years directed the Shah's secret police in security work has Yaakov

Nimrodi even since told in a television interview.

Nimrodi had the rank of military attach at the Israeli diplomatic mission, a convenient business card that intelligence officers
of all nationalities like to use. Moreover, he had the attache responsible for the excellent relations that had been created between
especially the Iranian air force and Israeli defense staff.

Nimrodi is with David Kimche two of the main Israeli figures in the controversial arms transfers in 1985. David
Kimche, a veteran intelligence officer, was the Mossad station chief in Tehran.

Mossad had in contrast to the CIA a realistic picture of the Iranian opposition force in the run up to the fall of the Shah.
Hence came the change of power nor as a big surprise. They had timely closed the embassy and withdrew its people home to
Israel, with the exception of the network of secret Mossad agents who went into "deep cover". David Kimche was director
general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry. An experienced man on a central post.

Instead came the PLO, Yasser Arafat, visiting the revolution clothed Tehran. He and Khomeini publicly the arm around
each other while the crowd cheered and Arafat shouted "Iran today, Palestine tomorrow".

Project Flower
The British "The Observer" revealed on Oct. 2, 1986, Israel and the Shah of Iran was close to ending a crucial
weapon against oil trade to 1 billion dollars.
This "Project Flower" Israel would receive Iranian oil against the Shah took delivery of Israeli missiles that operate a 750
tons of explosive core. It was common knowledge that Israel had, or soon could gather, a number of nuclear bombs. Israel's
standard response to this was that it would not be the first country in the Middle East to take nuclear weapons in use.
Nevertheless, Israel had obviously be eager to produce a missile able to carry nuclear warheads. Observers announcement
hinted that Israel already in 1978 had been so far that it could test the missile.

On 23 August 1987, "The Observer" announce that Israel May 16, 1987 had tested a new model of its feeding
missile "Jericho II" to have a range of at least 1,500 km, which
means that the Israeli nuclear warheads could threaten Arab capitals and Soviet naval bases as far away as the Black
Sea.
An advanced military cooperation between the Shah's Iran and Israel were nearby. Shah armament efforts were gigantic.
He could, at providing for Israel strategically important oil, access to Israeli technology. US refused in this area to help Iran. The
Shah wanted Iran to become a nuclear power. Just on the field, it was therefore a necessity that he collaborated with Israel and
South Africa, which drove their nuclear tests, independently of the United States.

With the fall of the Shah were ties between Iran and Israel brutally torn, and Ayatollah band buller flew on the ears of
Israelis.
The war with Iraq changed, however, from the autumn of 1980 the Iranian position. Despite Khomeinistyret preached an

aggressive ideology and would export its revolution, then forced the war the Iranian leadership to change course. Man needed

especially weapons and ammunition.

Guns and oil

Even months after the outbreak of war, in October 1980, there was signed an agreement with Begin government in Israel for the supply of

aircraft tires and spare parts for $ 500,000, and there were also reports on the sale of helicopter parts and missiles. (International Defense

Review, no 3, 1985).

Jimmy Carters security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, in his book "Power and Principles" that in the White House this
year "learned to our dismay that the Israelis had secretly supplied US spare parts for the Iranians." Minister Menahem
Begin was ordered that it immediately had to stop.

Brzezinski probably should have been more worried about what the pro-Israel AIPAC was doing behind his back
and Carter. In late 1980, Reagan's security adviser Richard V. Allen contacted by AIPAC director Morris J. Amitay,
who wanted to know how soon the incoming Reagan administration would relate to Israeli supplies to Iran of tires
and spare parts for F-4 fighter .

This means that AIPAC contact takes place shortly after Reagan's staff communicates with the Iranians on a
possible barter with embassy hostages on arms.
This thesis of conspiracy between the ayatollah and Reaganstaben against the background of that Reaganlejren actually was
nervous that its candidate could defeat President Carter. It was especially noted that Carter's team with an unexpected surprise in
October could turn sentiment away from Reagan. Hostage story had after all blown all reasonable dimensions in the media. If
Carter got a deal, and Tehran escaped hostages free, they would be received with honors at the White House and Congress and
will be run in the ticker tape parade through New York's streets decked out in flags. What it could mean for the election results
dared Republicans do not mind.

Reagan opinion specialist, Richard Whirthlin, predicted that it could move between 6% and 10% of the vote, and give Carter the

victory. Therefore, there was an almost paranoid fear in the Reagan camp for what they called "an October surprise". But calm

descended in the last week before election day. Reagan peoples

had a secret knowledge, which apparently made them confident that victory was theirs.

Reagan administration was formed and in 1981 gave the Secretary of State Alexander Haig permit for Israel's arms transfer to
Iran. Haig has since denied that he gave unequivocal commitment. Israel's Ariel Sharon insists, however, that he got the green light.
It was four years before arms sales in 1985-86, which led to Reagan's crisis and the so-called Iran Gate Scandal. For Israel arms
sales "business as usual" - silently and efficiently.

On Oct. 21, 1982 referenced "The Boston Globe" that the Israeli US ambassador Moshe Arens stated that all
Israeli vbenafskibninger to Iran had taken place with the approval of "almost the highest level" of the US
administration, and he later added that the purpose was to establish links with Iranian officers who one day might
take power.
In his book "Veil, The Secret Wars of the CIA 1981-87" citing Bob Woodward CIA Director William Casey for this
explanation: "The Israelis told us in 1981 that we should work with the Iranians with the aim of getting close contacts with the
military . It sounded believable to us, for the future, the era after Khomeini. "

Israeli arms dealers

For Israeli arms dealers were the good years.

Former Mossad agent Yaakov Nimrodi had since the flight from Tehran created private office in both
London and Tel Aviv. He had joined the exclusive club of ca. 1000 Israeli private arms dealers, for the most
part were former Israeli officers.
If anyone had the right connections in Iran and Europe, it was Nimrodi. In 1981, after the American hostages in Tehran had
returned home, entered Nimrodi a major arms deal, which included missiles, mortars, ammunition and other weapons to a value
of almost 140 million. $.
Hawk missiles were first shipped from Israel to Europe, and then in Antwerp and Rotterdam trans-shipped with new bills of lading to

the Iranian port as "metal products". Nimrodi coordinated the deal with another of Israeli arms trade heavyweights, Al Schwimmer.

These two men came four years later in the media limelight because "Iran Gate" was on everyone's lips, and their names and photos for

weeks was to find in the newspapers.

On February 15, 1982 defended Yaakov Nimrodi and Foreign Ministry Director David Kimche on a television program on the
BBC the Israeli arms sales to Israel as necessary to bolster Iran's army. Nimrodi also confirmed in December 1986 to the Danish
Broadcasting Middle East correspondent, Ole Sippel that he had sold arms to Iran, but he added, only when it was authorized by
the Israeli government.

One of the more exotic but not implausible, reports reports that Defense Minister Sharon made a deal with Rifat al-Assad,
brother of Syrian President and Iranian representatives to send weapons trucks to Tehran via Syrian and Turkish territory. One can
not completely rule out that this may have happened, Syria and Iran, has nurtured close relations, and Damascus has supported
Tehran in the showdown with Iraq is Syria's hereditary enemy. Well, actually, President Hafez al-Assad, the only Arab leader who
consistently support the Khomeini regime.

My enemy's enemy is my friend

In the years that followed, emerged periodically information about new and increasing Israeli arms shipments to
Iran. In some cases it happened via third country to Iran could mask that it used with the enemy Israel.

In other cases it came with, inter alia, Danish coasters, specifically in 1984-87 sailed part cargoes weapons and ammunition

from Eilat in southern Israel to the Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas.

The former so large Danish coaster fleet, today only around 400 ships, specializing in weapons transports. The Swedish
company, Scandinavian Commodity, owned by the dealer Karl-Erik Schmitz in Malmo, has been among the largest individual
intermediaries of arms and ammunition to Iran during the Gulf War. Not least, Schmitz sailed weapons for Bofors Nobelkrut in
Karlskoga, often with false end-user certificate to Yugoslavia or another third country. A traffic in Sweden will be legal action.

It has Israel not lacked on top officials and politicians who were willing to confirm that these arms sales to Iran in the years from
1980 onwards rather the norm than the exception. Characteristic of all the statements is that no matter what arguments they could
find to sell arms to the Khomeini regime, they had been used before Iran Gate The deals in 1985 begins to take shape. Even the idea
of swapping weapons against hostages were not new.

It, therefore, did the 1985-86 sales to a dramatic scandal was that a group of ex-CIA people under the control of the
adviser in NSC and Lt. Col. Oliver North had formed collusion with CIA chief William Casey. It sold the Iranians weapons
overpriced, and the profits would be used to finance various projects that the US government could not be officially put its
name to, among other things support for the Contras in Central America.

It was a secret American foreign policy, conducted together with Israel, but only known by the small group members.
 12. In Achille Lauros klstribe

"In every operation there is an above the line and a below the line. Above the line is what you do by the book. Below the line is how you

do the job. "

John le Carre in "A perfect Spy"

An early autumn morning in 1983 plowed the Italian cruise ship "Achille Lauro" through the eastern Mediterranean.

On 7 October at. 8:45 in the morning crashed four armed Palestinians with a startling suddenness into the dining salon
on the ship with loaded machine guns. A few minutes later the ship was in their control. Their claim was for the release of 50
Palestinians in Israeli prison. The ship was to dock at Ashdod port in Israel and was among the American guests some Jews
who looked forward to the special part of the journey.

Among the latter was Leon Klinghofer from New York, an elderly man in a wheelchair, which the pirates separated from the

others, shot and tossed overboard. There was not given any motive for this absurd action.

From the moment the message of the four pirates takeover of the "Achille Lauro" reached Washington, was in the White House

set up a crisis team led by Lt. Col. Oliver North from the NSC, the National Security Council. A crisis was triggered, which would put

deep marks in the United States, Italy and Egypt in the following weeks.

From the beginning you were in crisis group prepared to take action against the four terrorists. The first plan was to board
the ship with a command group of the Navy "seals", a specially trained frogman group. But it was abandoned due to time
constraints.

In the war against terrorism

In June, just a few months earlier, the Americans had been subjected to a 17-day hostage crisis when a US airliner, TWA 847
was hijacked between Athens and Rome. It flew around the Mediterranean Sea
and finally to land in Beirut. Here took over the Shiite group Hezbollah the 39 passengers and locked them up in an unknown location in

Beirut.

"The United States is at war" with terrorism, said the CIA chief William Casey a few days later in the Senate intelligence
committee - and he meant it. He added: "The hijacking of the TWA plane is just the beginning."

"We are working to spread God's message to the whole world," came the reply from one of Hezbollah ministers in Beirut. "We have no

quarrel with any particular people. But, well, we are making serious efforts to eliminate the world's major powers, whether it is America or

the Soviet Union. "

While American television people got interviews with hostages and hostage-takers in Beirut, sat Reaganadministrationen
helplessly and murmured in Washington. One day threatened the president with bonfires and fire. The next, he said: "If an
immediate response is to be effective, it must be conducted in a climate that gets everyone to understand it, and in such a way that
one can distinguish between impulsive violence and longer term, decisive action."

The hostages escaped to Syria and possibly Iran's help. But already three months later - and a week after Israel in a
dramatic attack on PLO headquarters in Tunis had killed 73 of Arafat's employees - were Americans again made
hostages in eternal Middle East drama. This time the "Achille Lauro".

You should now be traded. Washington would not stand for 180 more humiliation. In the somewhat desperate situation grabbed Oliver

North the phone and called the Military Attache, Major General Uri Simhoni, on the Israeli Embassy in Washington. They had become

good friends during the summer TWA drama.

North asked Simhoni find out if staff headquarters in Tel Aviv to determine "Achille Lauro's" precise position. Simhoni
called back shortly after. The Israelis had cruise ship under close observation because it was feared that terrorists might
sail to Ashdod and blow the ship up. (The Washingtonian, July 1987).

Simhoni could tell that the "Achille Lauro" was first rally against Syrian port, but had been rejected and then go to Port
Said in Egypt.
From Cairo announced telegram are that the Egyptians thousands had gathered on the quays to tiljuble the four Palestinians

because they had challenged Israel and the United States. A spontaneous, but reportedly reaction that revealed how difficult it was

for both Israel and the United States to have a reasonable relationship to President Mubarak's Egypt when the popular mood

blatantly went in the diametrically opposite direction.

Oliver North's crisis management

Mubarak's government assured Washington that the four terrorists had been immediately handed over to punishment by the PLO and

was on his way to Tunisia.

Uri Simhoni got back North in the phone: "Uri, where the four bandits?" Simhoni:
"Give me 30 minutes, I'll call you back."
Before there was gone half an hour, the Israeli left on the phone to the situation room in the White House:
"Ollie, the four are still in Egypt." "Are you absolutely sure?" Asked North skeptical. But the Israeli intelligence
informants in Egypt were not mistaken.
The entire American crisis unit was put into gear. Oliver North took over the top command of the situation room in the
White House. There was an open, secure phone line directly to Israel's military intelligence AMAN, in Tel Aviv. The Sixth
Fleet was in the eastern Mediterranean, south of Crete. On the aircraft carrier "Saratoga" did pilots their aircraft ready to go
live.
In Israel had intelligence and government in the party atmosphere.

The Israelis were not accustomed to that other nations let themselves get involved in the age-old Palestinian Israeli showdown. If
the United States in this case would take over the hunt for the four Palestinians so gladly. There had in fact been some ill-feeling in
Washington after Israel's punitive action against PLOhovedkontoret in Tunis, which by the way was Israel's response to Palestinian
"Power 17's" liquidation of three Israelis in Cyprus. Now then Prime Minister Shimon Peres a welcome opportunity for Americans
firsthand could make up their own experience with the PLO. It would get all critics of Israel's methods silenced. The answer to them
would be that the cause of Israel now was the US case.

In AIPAC headquarters in Washington cheered Mon. Yasser Arafat would not reject the PLO's responsibility for skibskapringen.

Arafat employee, Mohammed Abul Abbas, had from Egypt, where the four hijackers on board the ship directives in such a way that he

revealed that he was their boss. PLO had thus himself responsible for the United States was involved in Israel's terrorist / anti-terror war.

CIA unit in Cairo was not idle. It had a aflytningsaggregat located in President Mubarak's phone and
overheard how Egyptian President first tried to cheat the Americans, and then lied to them.

When Egyptair-plane took off, did Oliver North that barely a minute later, and the pilots of "Saratoga" was immediately announced.

Hawk the hawk

North and his Israeli counterpart ensured that if American pilots were not to the correct plane, between 67 other airliners in the
East-West air corridor over the southern Mediterranean, so would the Israeli Air Force off the ground and force the Egyptian
aircraft to Israel.
The Israeli intelligence was so precise that Uri Simhoni few minutes after the Egyptian aircraft departure announce
North, in addition to Egyptian armed commandos were Palestinian leader Mohammed Abul Abbas on board the aircraft,
the man who now clearly demonstrated the link between the PLO and the hijackers.

American-Israeli technology worked perfectly. An Israeli communications aircraft came Egyptairflyet and blocked the pilot's
ability to communicate with Egypt. When the pilot called the airport check in Tunis to request landing clearance, he received a
categorical refusal. What he could not know was that it was an Arabic-speaking Israelis in the Israeli radar and
kommunikationsfly high above him, he spoke with.

A moment later so Egyptair pilot his plane surrounded by American Tomcat fighters whose pilots
ordered him to follow them. Egyptian tried to call Cairo, but without result. He had to face the fact that he had been hijacked
and risked being shot down if he had not obeyed orders. No Egyptian pilot forgot what happened the Libyan airliner which
sandstorm strayed into the Israeli-occupied Sinai Peninsula in 1973 and was shot down by Israeli fighters because passenger
aircraft pilots thought they could escape.

Egyptair aircraft was forced down on the Italian Sigonellabase in Sicily. The Italian government insisted on taking over
the four pirates and Mohammed Abul Abbas, and the US had to give in to its NATO allies want. Abbas was, much to the
chagrin of the US government released immediately, but the four Palestinians were tried by an Italian court. The
passenger ship "Achille Lauro" was, after all Italian.

While Europeans with head shaking watched how Reagan stomped on both the Italian NATO partner and the benign
President Mubarak in Egypt, there was triumph in the air in the United States. An entire nation had sat riveted to the TV glow
more to follow how the pirate drama excited by.
America's essential buzzed with electronic satellite communicated reports from all the "global village". An
unbridled joy on the verge of hysteria, spread the message that the four skibskaprere had been flykapret of the
US Air Force and now sat locked up in Sicily.

Medietrykkogeren
The hijackers had even been hijacked. What divine vengeance. At the entrance to a subway station in Manhattan, New York City caught a

television crew "live" atmosphere among workers, canteen ladies and businessmen who red-eyed from last night's television kikkeri now

going to work. There were smiles from ear to ear, big words and praise for "Rambo-Reagan".

It was really the media circuit in the highest satellite technology gear that since the hostage war in 1979-81 in Tehran had been
part of the US crisis-TV coverage. The three main channels and Cable News Network competed razor sharp, each with their direct
progress reports by employees in such diverse places as Sicily, Cairo, Rome, PLO headquarters (the remains of) in Tunis, the Israeli
Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, and the well-known reporter faces contestants on the lawn in front of the white House, State
Department and Pentagon. When such a crisis occurs, then saves television executives not on their budget. All sails are set and it is
tremendous good television.

As late as the day before had a senator lifted his voice in the chorus of criticism from Congress: "We allocate hundreds of
billions to our military and then the four jacks in the eastern Mediterranean able to run the corner with us without our military can
do anything. Maybe we ironing any of the billions. "

The same senator's curling next day its widest tvsmil on. He evidently felt that he now had verve.

Oliver North was the hijacking of Egyptair aircraft known outside the narrow circle of employees of the NSC as an activist of
exceptional caliber and with the president's special attention.
The following month came his boss, Robert McFarlane back as Reagan's national security. John
Poindexter took over the NSC top post, and thus was North with over four years of the president's staff, one of the oldest in the

courtyards, giving him insight and increased status. It was the same autumn that arms sales to Iran - via Israel - began to take off.

"Achille Lauro" -affren meant two things. Partly confirmed the NSC staff that it was possible to combat the rampant
terrorism. Partly showed it to be profitable to cooperate with Israel.

Reagan cowboys
Israel, The way of doing things fascinating Oliver North and his colleagues. Here then NSC staff the practical benefits of the
strategic cooperation agreement with Israel, which were concluded in 1983. Israel and the US to exchange sensitive
information they carry out secret missions, so as to transfer arms to Iran and the Contras, create hit teams who could infiltrate
Beirut in search of the captured hostages or defuse dangerous terrorists as in the case "Achille Lauro".

A secret channel of communication between the US and Israel was established, and Oliver North was the man in the White
House who took the responsibility to keep the link intact. It was a direct contact, bypassing the Foreign Ministry.

The National Security Council was not only an advisory panel to the president. It was in Reaganrene become an
increasingly proactive and operational body for the president's policy. Especially the policy that it was not appropriate to
dedicate ministries and gossipy officials. McFarlane, Poindexter and North were the three anchor men on the president's secret
police, in close cooperation with CIA chief William Casey. It was they, and not the president who crafted the secret initiatives in
detail.
In office no. 392 on the third floor of the office building, OEB, located side by side with the White House, resided Oliver
North. In the offices on the same floor found North's colleagues, some forty in all, popularly called Reagan "cowboys". Most
of them, however, was neat desk strategists and looked unlike "Ollie" North anything but cowboys. With these nearly four
dozen specialists had Reagan made him his private Foreign Ministry, in some areas competed sharply with the colossus of
the Foreign Ministry, the State Department, well one kilometer further down toward the Potomac River, in Foggy Bottom.

Here on the third floor also had CIA chief William Casey an office which he used when he came in from CIA Headquarters
Langley in Virginia for meetings at the White House. Increasingly began North to go his fast little trip across about Casey's office
no. 345 to have a chat with the intelligence chief.
William Casey was the man in Reagan's inner circle, as apart from the adviser was closest to Reagan's ear.
North needed to hear intelligence boss' opinion about the projects he grappled with. In Casey had he not just a
confessor, but ambitious thinking strategist.
Casey wanted to pursue an active intelligence policy, but because of congressional demands for access to the CIA's activities planted

Casey instead its seeds by Oliver North. The two spoke the same language. In 1985, they had not only much to talk about. They were in the

process of opening an outlandish and secret chapter in American foreign policy.

Three things stood at the top of their list: providing Contras most support possible, to put a damper on the
international terrorism and to get the hostages in Lebanon free. In all three respects, Israel was an indispensable partner, but a new
secret player came in the summer of 1984 into the inner circle: Saudi Arabia. King Fahd had money, and it was a shortage of Casey
and NSC staff. They needed a secret bank account abroad, from where they could finance their "enterprise" and pay the people who
made them services.

Behind the desk in his office hung Oliver North in the autumn of 1985 a framed front page of the "New York Daily News" with
the triumphant headline "We Behind the Bums", we snatched the bandits. The walls were also covered with cards: Nicaragua, El
Salvador, Tehran, Beirut, the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon etc. all the places where the North had personally been involved in secret
missions, and where he could again need to know the exact local geography. Additionally, there was a couch, an armchair and the
windowsill was a Chinese fur hat with bright red star. And then there was the computers that put North in connection with his small
empire of secret contacts from Honduras to Tel Aviv.

Activism in the White House

It was Reagan's first security adviser, Richard V. Allen, who picked up North to the NSC in the autumn 1981st

Already after one year, the energetic Major made himself indispensable. North was an avid sailor and he was quick and
imaginative. More often than his colleagues knew it, he departed in the afternoon, flew to Central America, coordinated activities for
the Contras and led talks well into the night, the next morning to sit at seven o'clock at his desk in Washington again, hammering in
computers and tear in the phones. His need for sleep was minimal.

Crises and war dominated Oliver North's lives:

During the Falklands War in 1982, North coordinator on the exchange of intelligence with London. USA passed
confidential information gathered in Argentina to the British government and thus betrayed the Argentines.

He was followed by Secretary of State Alexander Haig on his mediation trip to Argentina. In 1982, when Lebanon War broke
out he followed Reagan's special envoy, Philip Habib, to Israel and Lebanon.

The practical difficulties of coordinating supplies to the Contras in Central America were handed North.

In 1983, North NSC's supervisors at the CIA mining harbors in Nicaragua. In October 1983, when the US invaded the island
of Grenada in the Caribbean for the overthrow of the Marxist kupregering Oliver North chief coordinator of the operation in the
White House. In 1984-86 he was intensely preoccupied with getting US hostages in Lebanon released. In this context, he got
the key role in the secret arms sales to Iran and later transfer of profits from the Contras.

In 1986 followed the North Robert McFarlane on his negotiating trip to Tehran. Casey recommended North to have poison pills on
for the event that the Iranians had laid a trap for them and would torture
 them to expose US foreign policy.

Oliver North felt great extent, that in his NSC role seriously had influence on Reagan's foreign policy. His primary job was
terror-fighting and support actions to contra the struggle in Nicaragua. After the victim Operation rneklo in the Iranian desert
in 1980, and after the military no special glorious role in Lebanon, increased his criticism of the US military: "The Army can not
shoot straight, the Air Force can not fly, and the Navy can ' t sail "was one of his standing terms.

On the other hand, if he could be allowed to take control, so would the United States with covert operations could achieve what

the large machinery could not deliver.

From 1983, Oliver North "special operator" in the White House. From having held a supporting role he moved now
farther towards the scene's center. As an employee of the adviser he was his no. 1 as crisis control and head of the secret
tasks.

Contras and "Project Democrary"

Constant was Oliver North on the go, with flights provided by the White House or CIA, leading conversations with political leaders in

Central America, Western Europe and the Middle East on the president and the NSC's behalf. During his five years in the Security

Council, he traveled under such different pseudonyms as Mr. West, Mr. Goode and Mr. James, often in disguise and wig, completely

absorbed in his dramatic doings, which he thought would serve the president's goal. There was rarely a day when North had telephone

connection with contra leaders. If they were not kept in hand constantly feared in the White House that the movement would

disintegrate.

As practically the whole Reagan administration had a soft spot for contra-movement, so it was also Oliver North's Darling. The
Americans knew very well that had it not been for them, so there would be no counter-movement have been. They hoped that they
could make it so efficient that the Sandinistas were chased out of Managua. North monitored conscientiously "Project Democrary"
which was the code name for the efforts to find money and weapons to the Contras in the periods when Congress banned public
support.

In 1983 and 1984 the North often traveling in Central America for the first hand to get an idea of the problems. On one occasion,
when he was over El Salvador in a small plane to observe the fighting between government forces and guerrillas, he heard the
plane's radio a government post after bright help because it was shot at without being able to locate the enemy. North found the
enemy position and directed government soldiers mortar to the location. Then the pilot landed the small plane on a runway in the
jungle, took the wounded government soldiers on board and flew them to a hospital.

North's macho style paid off. Soon the story could be heard everywhere in El Salvador and in contra-circles on the two gringos

who had risked their lives for two injured Salvadorans. It was a deficit targets, which opened many doors for Oliver North.

Until revelations in 1986 it was only a small inner circle of the administration who knew about Oliver North's real role. He
retained his modest office in the office building and was never installed, as
otherwise it was claimed in the basement of the White House. His visible privileges were few. Eg. he had vainly struggle to get
a parking space within the White House area. In return, he was leading operator in the crisis room at the White House in any
foreign policy crises, closely cooperating with the first Robert McFarlane and John Poindexter ago.

Oliver North was living with his wife and four children in a large and somewhat dilapidated house in the suburb of Great Falls.

They were both deeply religious Catholics and went to Mass every Sunday.

North did not wait to go to cocktail parties or otherwise to participate in Washington's hectic social life. He worked 14 to
18 hours a day, slept on his couch in the office when he was too tired to go home at night, and his deeply loyal secretary,
Fawn Hill had a capacity like a ten-armed octopus to perform Norths incessant stream of orders while she shielded him from
unnecessary visits and interviews. Because of this dogged field military style, always on the go, coordinating ten different
operations at the same time, North was an irreplaceable decision maker in NSC-top.

Officially, North deputy director for political-military affairs at the NSC, with special responsibility for terrorism problems,
hostage questions and coordination of all irregular military matters, such as support for the Contras and other anti-communist
movements. He was NSC's representative in the international Intergovernmental Committee to Combat Terrorism Ting.

1983 was the year when the Reagan administration was forced to consider the question of terrorism. First, the embassy
in Beirut was blown up by bomb Shiite men, then came the trip in October to the Marines headquarters in Beirut, where 241
were killed when a suicide driver drove his dynamite laden car into the building. Soon after, it was the Israeli military
headquarters in southern Lebanon devastated by a mysterious explosion with heavy losses.

Khomeini and Lebanon

Ayatollah Khomeini's long arm stretched deep into Lebanon. Ariel Sharon's Lebanon campaign in 1982 had closed the "evil spirit"
out of the bottle. Spirit was the Lebanese Shiites. Their traditional oppressed role in Lebanon, where they constituted a third of the
population was in a short time changed. A militarization began, aimed initially at Israel since against other militia groups in the
internal Lebanese showdown. Amal called the new Shia movement. Along with Iraq and Bahrain, Lebanon one of the three Arab
community with a large Shiite population.

On Beirut's city walls appeared everywhere posters of Khomeini's portrait up. Amal militia soon became one of the
dominant forces. But next to it shot less action forward as "Shiite Amal", "Islamic Jihad" and Hezbollah, which was activist
and used terror and hostage taking as a form of struggle.

Especially Hezbollah group had in Baalbek in the Bekaa Valley set up its Lebanese connection station to the regime in
Tehran. We had barely thousand Iranian Revolutionary Guards settled down, and Baalbek was the year a terrorist powerhouse.
As early as March 1983 we were three journalists who visited the town was stuffed with Khomeini propaganda, and reported on
the peculiar Iranian atmosphere that spread in Baalbek with large murals of enveloped mullahs who looked down through the
small
Lebanese city streets.

Shiites in Lebanon was their ndsbrdre in Iran determined to destroy US-Israeli interests. It brought them into line with the various

forces like Syria, the PLO and Libya. At the same time it brought even more so Israel and the US in the same boat. The strategic

cooperation agreement in 1983 created the framework, now was the content of the agreement.

As a former Marine Oliver North with its extreme patriotic disposition greatly upset by the terrorist attack on the
Marines headquarters in Beirut in October 1983 with the deaths. He swore to take revenge, and Israelis saw a
conspirator ally who was able to act decisively. North admired Israel for its ability to conduct rapid and unexpected
attack against the terrorists, and especially he recognized that their intelligence was far better than what the CIA could
deliver.

North - more Israeli than the Israelis

Conversely, one in both the political leadership in Israel and the Israeli intelligence knew early on North's
importance.
Later everyone could see that it was a mistake that allowed this ideological crusader of an officer Robert McFarlane also
promoted to lieutenant colonel, get as much operational authority. Oliver North total around him, William Casey's urging, a
group of former CIA agents and military personnel trained in secret warfare that Richard V. Secord, Albert Hakim, Tom Cline,
General Shakley Others They formed a small army, which operated on the North's orders, with McFarlane and Poindexters
agreement - and with CIA boss William Casey as the strategic and imaginative mind behind this secret Reagan politics.

None of Oliver North's superiors taught him that a superpower like the United States can not operate as the small besieged Israel, who

has surrounded himself with enemies and who for over 30 years has survived on a reckless activism.

As the Israeli military attach Uri Simhoni once told journalist David Halevy: "Do you know why we get along
so well with him (North)? It is because he is more Israeli than the Israelis. "Nortk cut always hot, the results were
crucial, every obstacle was brutally pushed aside, and when others asked" why "? North replied "why not?".

A senior State Department official said afterwards, when the disaster was a fact, David Halevy:

"No one lieutenant colonel has ever been entrusted with so much power to keep America's counter-terrorist
policy, and to exert as much influence on our foreign policy. It was a colossal mistake. "
 13 below the horizon

"Inter arma silent leges" The

war must be laws tie.

Cicero

To kidnap a CIA chief is that when killers break into the criminal investigation, or a prostitute go out to seduce a
man.
William Francis Buckley were both CIA chief in Beirut and a stag were his kidnappers not for a moment doubt the March
morning, where they struck.
In West Beirut icing around the lighthouse, Manara'en always been one of the city's most desirable residential areas. Old
spacious houses in Turkish style with cool tiled floors, and new apartment buildings with luxury apartments and a lift up to the
coveted penthouses on the top overlooking the Mediterranean. Civil war or not, it was about Manara'en you lived if you could
pay the pricey rent.

On the morning of March 16, 1984, took Buckley elevator down from his official residence on the 10th floor. CIA takes
good care of their field commanders. Beirut was easily one of the most vulnerable items that US intelligence had on the
program. A so-called hardship post.
William Buckley was among the CIA's best people, a professional spy who was responsible for managing the collection of
data for not only Lebanon but also in part, Syria, Iran, Libya and the PLO. Besides those covert operations in CIA auspices.

Buckley was a well-trimmed 57-year-old with a good-looking, gray temples and a deep bass. He had served
"Company" since 1950 in Korea, where he had lost two toes by frostbite. In the 1960s he had at an unfortunate
parachuting broken back, but he overcame the effects of fierce determination efforts. Now he landed in this limbo where
he risked breaking considerably more than the back and toes. In short, Buckley was not a "sissy", but one of Casey's
heavyweights, and for any kidnappers nothing less than a coup.

When Buckley drove his cream colored Honda from the parking lot of the impasse, drove a Renault
three men suddenly across the narrow alley in Buckleys direction. The CIA man noticed that another car
blocked the alley farther. Afterwards, one wonders why a spy chief live so inappropriate.

Before Buckley had the opportunity to jump into his house again, the three men in the Renault over him with drawn pistols. As a

disobedient puppy was Buckley grip on the hair from behind, his head busted down between his knees, trunk of the car opened and

then slammed shut again. It all had a maximum take a minute and CIA chief was now sammenvredet in the excessively narrow trunk

while the car speeded up and disappeared into the morning traffic. A woman perched on a balcony just managed to shout out in the

street "Come and see, they take Mr. Buckley! They take Mr. Buckley! "

But no one had time to see anything. And the CIA never saw his spy chief in Beirut. Buckley was a grim fate. His captors tortured him

mercilessly, forcing all he knew out of him, bit by bit, through months of relentlessly pressure. At one point he was reported to have been

brought in for questioning in Iran. Another American hostage saw him in the Bekaa Valley shortly before he died. When he was a

degraded and destroyed man who soon after died in great pain.

William Buckleys example

In the exotic mythology that grew up around people on Reagan's Security Council staff, it was said later that an important errand
for McFarlane group during the visit to Tehran in May 1986 to get their hands on the over 200-page report containing Buckleys
confessions. A spy had been tortured to death. But he snitched before.

In Langley, the CIA headquarters outside Washington, talked a lot about Buckley. Especially since terrorists summer sent
a videotape with footage of a tortured Buckley, who stammered "I feel good. Do something quickly to get us free. "To this le
Carre'ske spy world suddenly there was a message of how dangerous life can be out there on the front line, where Buckley
had served.

All William Buckleys friends in Langley, but most of them Bill Casey himself was deeply moved by her colleague's fate and their

own powerlessness. The three years vaunted anti-terrorism ideology was in the spring of 1984, one dressed in flesh and blood. It

sounds almost too banal. But Casey, the old spy chief from the second world war, set out to avenge Buckley.

Now they had smothered terrorism, no matter how unpleasant the funds may occur: Hezbollah, the PLO, Abu Nidal,
Moammar Kaddafi, Khomeini, Daniel Ortega ... the list of enemies could be shortened, as to give them disarmed.

But the list of Americans and Europeans who were taken hostage, like Buckley did not appear to be shorter. On the
contrary, it was in 1984 and 1985 longer. Reagan administration's opponents were small anarchist combat groups in Lebanon.
Only one thing would be effective, thought Casey, namely to turn back with the terrorists' own means: terror.

Since, however, the uninitiated could be confused with the phenomenon to be fought, it was called in Washington for
anti-terror, as if the latter were of a higher moral casting than the first.
Hezbollah
The Shia activism had been a strong dynamic force in Lebanon. In 1978, the Shiites spiritual leader, Imam Moussa Sadr,
disappeared without a trace after a visit to Kaddafi in Libya. The man who now gradually took over as spiritual spokesman
was pastor Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah. He also played a prominent role in Hezbollah, the Party of God. The group had
very close ties to Iran.

Sheik Fadlallah lived in West Beirut, surrounded on all sides by the poor Shi'ite refugees from southern Lebanon. Painted in red on

the walls was seen Hezbollah fighting character, a clenched fist held an AK-47 machine gun, and sayings like "The gun is the triumph"

and "The Islamic revolution in Lebanon." From here came out strong hadblger to America and Israel. It was here that desperate young

men and women volunteered for suicide missions as a truck attacks in April and October 1983 against US targets in the city.

On 20 September 1984 at. 11:45 drove a Dodge van with embassy plates slowly in front of the entrance to the US
embassy annex in Akwar, seven kilometers north of Beirut in the Christian area. Suddenly the driver speeded up and drove
with great speed through the barriers towards the embassy building. A guard shot the driver, but the cart rolled ownerless on
until it hit another car and turned into a pillar of fire by an explosion. Dynamite wrapped around propane and butangasflasker
triggered with a force equivalent to the explosion of 3,000 pounds of TNT. 24 were killed and 90 wounded.

America was like a Gulliver who was tortured by the Lilliputians.

Sheik Fadlallah - and "khomeinismen" in Lebanon

Sheik Fadlallah, a middle-aged calm and plump man, like himself anything but a mad terrorist. Taking a big picture of
Ruholla Khomeini, the Imam, he answered the US threats, "the West accuse me of violence. But in reality, I am a man
of dialogue. I have written books and teaches dialogue. I urge people to solve their problems through love and
understanding, not through the use of violence. "

These were wise words. But it was not exactly love that had characterized the treatment of William Buckley and the other
American hostages. And if you talk about dialogue, so would Fadlallah argued that the Shiite violence only answer to an
American longstanding oppression. About Americans said Fadlallah:

"They are so busy sports. Their interest is not really politics or what their government is doing. Maybe that's why the
Americans do not understand us. If they could understand our tragedy and their context, they would also understand our
martyrdom. Both Europeans and Americans have forgotten colonialism, what it means to live under colonialism. US exploits the
cycle of violence, and it was with American acceptance that Israel invaded Lebanon, the Beirut were destroyed and thousands of
people killed. "
 What the US and the cycle of violence was concerned, that was the circle closer to being closed than Fadlallah seemed to suspect.

On 8 March 1985, Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah at his daily route from the mosque to his house. As always, he was surrounded

by many bodyguards. Dozens of people came to him in the street to shake his hand or ask him for advice. A beautiful picture of God's

shepherd surrounded by his flock. For sheik Fadlallahs luck he stood for a few minutes and spoke with a resident of the street.

Therefore, he does not come to his house, when the powerful bomb was triggered there.

More than 80 were killed and 120 wounded, including many of the sheik's bodyguards. But with Fadlallah had Allah apparently other

plans.

The Sheikh went the next day with his priests in a demonstration from the bombed house into a mass grave a miss, where the bodies

from the terror bomb the day before was buried. Transparencies bar the words "Made in USA". Rumors in town would know that it was

Israel, not the United States who had placed the bomb. But it was just rumors.

Just over two months later, May 12, 1985, was published Washington Post with a sensational cover story. It was the CIA, the

American intelligence agency that was responsible for the terrorist attack against the sheik Fadlallahs house in Beirut. The article

was written by Bob Woodward.

Of course, denied the CIA allegation in the Washington Post. Whether it was true or not, could William Caseys answer
only be a no. The rules for CIA work that had been mapped out by congressional major housecleaning in the "Company" in the
1970s, prescribed in large letters that the CIA not to conduct assassinations. One view, as Ronald Reagan even had openly
made his own when he became president.

Saudi Arabia's endless helpfulness

For those who knew the mood of the Reagan administration's inner circle, it was tempting to assume that the CIA still
had had a hand in it. But how?
Ironically, it is probably William Casey, who is the main source of the solution. The anonymous part of the decision chain behind
the terrorist attack with Fadlallah was Saudi Arabia, says Bob Woodward in his book "Veil: The Secret War of the CIA 1981-1987",
published in October, 1987.
Button had Ronald Reagan won the presidential election in November 1984 for a new four-year term in the White House before

William Casey slammed down in Reagan's bed in the oval room and spread his ideas for the president. CIA were dragged around the

ring, persisted intelligence boss, of various small terrorist groups in the Middle East. Now had to be paid out an active policy that would

prevent the United States was forced further into the morass.

William Casey wanted to create small groups of no US agents in the Middle East who knew the terrain and could defuse
the Arab terrorists before they got to practice more harm to US interests and embrace new American hostages.

Casey got the green light and created Hogle groups of former Lebanese intelligence officials in Beirut. Quickly it turned out
that the CIA could not take responsibility for these people. Their actions were
brutal, and the CIA may ultimately be prepared to stand skoleret of the intelligence committees in Congress.

The helping hand came from Saudi Arabia. Ambassador Prince Bandar, the cigar-smoking, always vital energetic 35-year-old

minister went to Casey, and it ended up CIA boss and wife came for Sunday lunch with the family Bandar in their mansion on Chain

Bridge Road in the beautiful wooded area along the Potomac River.

At one point disappeared, the two men out in the garden, passed away between staudebedene and in the park's far corner was
the details agreed upon, then Casey gave the prince a bank account number in Geneva where the money for the operations were to
be inserted. No documents, no witnesses, no telltale lytteaggregater. Only the prince and spy chief together in this confidential
moment when Saudi Arabia's King Fahd gave Ronald Reagan further proof of his infinite helpfulness and willingness to face anarchy
erratic forces around the globe. Hezbollah and Sheikh Fadlallah fell under this category.

Bandar contributed three million on the bank account in Switzerland. If there was something he knew about, it was
to conduct the kind of operations, so there really is no trace was left. It was also the same method that he used to
transfer the large penalties for contra affair in Central America, which in 1984 was paid in monthly installments to a
Swiss bank account, then McFarlane and North made sure that the money was channeled to the contras .

Regarding Fadlallah action so assumed saudierne self-control. The Saudi intelligence put a British ex-agent on the
case. But Fadlallah he hit no. In contrast, lost four dozen of the sheik's followers life.

The Saudis did not give up so easily. They turned the issue and approached Fadlallah and asked if he would help those
with good payment, to provide advance information on future terrorist attacks against Saudi or American targets. Fadlallah
accepted the offer of 2 million. $, Which he insisted on getting paid in kind. The goods were delivered, and the well-meaning
priest then shared food and medicine out to its impoverished Shiite congregation in West Beirut.

There were no more attacks on Americans from Fadlallahs people. Bill Casey shook his uncomprehending head. So simple
it could all be done. It was obviously easier to bribe Fadlallah than to liquidate him.

Iran's need for weapons

Iran had not been forgotten in Washington. It should Iranians probably take care not to be.
Gulf War continued heavy loss of life and property. Iran needed almost any kind of military equipment. In the
summer of 1984 heard it from several sides that Iranian buyers looking to buy US missiles in the international market.

One of the CIA's chief Middle East People later told Tower Commission: "We'll probably between 30 and 40 requests a
year from the Iranians or Iranian exile people offering us imaginative details and very important analyzes of domestic
politics, if we in turn can arrange the sale to them of a
dozen Bell helicopters, 1,000 TOW missiles or other from the Prohibited List. "
But it indlod CIA is not on. US policy was clear. No trade with Iran. Operation "Staunch" was the program
that would cut off Iran from Western supplies. But "Staunch" was riddled like a sieve. All Western arms dealers
either sold or considered selling arms to Iran.

In the summer of 1984 began the Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi and his Iranian colleague Manucher Ghorbanifar to
ventilate the desire to find a shape in which the US could sell Iran some of the much needed weapons. Khashoggi had
meetings with various Arab politicians to find the key that could open the American door. One of the ideas that were ventilated
in 1984, was that Iran might be able to get the hostages in Lebanon free from the United States sold Iran arms.

The irrational hostage problem

Just hostage issue was the sore point. President Reagan asked daily if there was positive news about the detained
Americans in Lebanon.
Reagan asked Oliver North to do its utmost to secure the hostages' release. In fact, the North believes that journalists and
individuals who put themselves in a situation in Lebanon, where they could be kidnapped, was unreasonably careless. They
should not be allowed to reside in Lebanon.
Oliver North kept in touch with one of America's richest men, billionaire H. Ross Perot, who was known especially for the
resolute way in which he got some of his technicians from Iran when they were caught up in the revolution maelstrom. From
drug agents in Lebanon had North received a tip that
$ 200,000 would probably be able to open the door to the gunmen. Then ought to 1 million. $ Per. hostage could get them free. Ross Perot paid

gladly the $ 200,000 for a good cause. But from contacts in Lebanon was heard nothing.

But now the ice was broken in Reagan's Security Council, NSC, for the very idea of buying the American hostages free, whatever the

means of payment was.

It was ironic that a so-called terrorism expert who Oliver North could fall for the illusion that the hostage-takers who were
royally paid for their crimes, would be able to resist the temptation to repeat the crime.

Michael Ledeen - a friend of Israel

The taxi stopped in front of a large, older wooden villa in a suburb of Washington. Twice they had to call in before Michael Ledeen

closed up and asked me inside. On the phone he had made it clear that he would only speak off the record.

The former consultant in Reagan's National Security Council, and before that terrorism expert at the State Department under

Alexander Haig, was in several US newspapers have been produced as the tempter who lured the US into Iran Gate scandal.

The pro-Israeli Ledeen had been the link between the NSC and David Kimche in Israeli
Foreign Ministry on the issue of US arms sales to Iran. It had happened in May 1985. It was now March 1987. Ledeen was fired.
Like the North, Howard Teicher and others in the Security Council, he had been swept out following revelations in November
1986.
Ledeen and the media in Washington has since had a strained relationship. The newspapers have made him as a
mysterious gentleman with a penchant for cloak-and-blue glasses activities. That he also has had well pay for his deeds, the
press has not failed to draw attention.

The outline of a conspiracy

Even had Ledeen said: "I am the only person who can provide first-hand testimony of how the initiative (to
Iran) began."
So it was very natural to ask him just that when we had talked a little, and the ice was broken. As I took the tape recorder
back and put it in time, he gave an irritated jerk of his head but stopped me. The possibility that he clapped like an oyster
were present. But it turned out that he obviously wanted to talk about the strange section of American foreign policy, which
he had helped to bring the administration into perform.

"Was it your idea?" I asked.

"No, the idea grew out of a research project that McFarlane had put me in the process. I had to find out what the situation in
Iran was. I then asked for permission to travel to Israel and discuss the matter with Prime Minister Shimon Peres, whom I knew
well from earlier. But from that to say that some newspapers have done, that it was all my idea, there is a long way. "

Michael Ledeens Jewish family swarming around him. The woman serving coffee, the kids beg to be driven to different places,
the dog's annoying, while the phones and front door bell chime, Michael Ledeen is sitting unaffected in the armchair and explains
that the initiative was neither American or Israeli, but that it was Iran who even opened ballet in the spring of 1985.

"But who told McFarlane: Let's find an opening to Iran?"

"It was nobody who said," said Ledeen, "opening to Iran proved as Ghorbanifar came to us. How it started. It was
neither the Israelis nor the Americans who took the initiative, but Ghorbanifar. It was an Iranian demarche to the US
channeled through Israel. "
"But chose Iranians really deliberately Israel as a channel?"
"Yes, Ghorbanifar had for a long time tried in various ways to get in touch with us, but it was failed. Eventually he went to the
Khashoggi and asked, "Can you help me with a switch to the United States?" Khashoggi said, "Go to the Israelis." And then he
introduced himself Ghorbanifar to the Israelis. "

between men
These between men must have some explanatory words to you.
Manucher Ghorbanifar is Iranian. He is described generally positive by Michael Ledeen. Almost all others have only negative
things to say about him. He has repeatedly tried to make himself useful for
Americans but without success. In the early 1980s he passed on false information about Libya's Colonel Kaddafi. He claimed that the
Libyan leader had sent hit squads to the United States to assassinate Ronald Reagan. Twice CIA investigated Ghorbanifar with their
lie detector, and none of the time he dropped through the sample. CIA is convinced that he is an agent of the Israeli Mossad, but does
not rule out that he also has reasonably good connections in Tehran. By contrast, one of the CIA convinced that Ghorbanifar
continually overestimating themselves and always bragging about having better connections than he actually has. CIA reference
stipulated: "talented liar".

Adnan Khashoggi the Saudi billionaire who made his fortune on communicating Saudi Arabia's major arms purchases in the
United States after the first oil crisis. Khashoggi lives mostly in his opulent properties in Spain, France and New York. For a while
he wore the name "the world's richest man", but economic mismanagement has in recent years taken the top of the glans.
Beautiful women and jewels have always been an inseparable part of his playboy image. Both commercially and politically, he is
typical middleman. He is considered rightly one of the Saudi King Fahd's close friends. Often he performs delicate tasks for the
king, as this does not even want to endorse. King Fahd has great interest

in the US have the opportunity through secret diplomacy to influence the clerical regime in Iran. We should take for granted that
Khashoggi in Iran Gate affair broadly deputy of King Fahd himself.
David Kimche, former deputy head of Mossad, now Director General of the Israeli Foreign Ministry. Kimche known
relations between Iran and Israel better than anyone. Until the revolution, he had been Mossad station chief in
Tehran. Israel's concern about the US stance in the Gulf war rose understandable since Washington in 1984
re-established diplomatic relations with Iraq. Kimche and his government would like to see Israel's own pro-Iranian
policy also was US policy. Otherwise, the two allies suddenly find themselves in either camp in the Gulf War. Israel's
interest in using both Ledeen, Khashoggi and Ghorbanifar to pull the Reagan administration with into an active
pro-Iranian policy was obvious. If the American hostages in Lebanon was the argument could arouse Reagan's
interest for Iran deal, so like Israel.

Amiran Nir should not be forgotten. Nir was a counselor in terrorism issues for Prime Minister Shimon Peres. Especially in
1986, he was heavily involved in following up the last three of the six Iran Gate shipments. The last three were Americans
namely directly, and the need to push the back of the NSC peoples, because there was suspected in the small circle at the
White House that they were taken for a ride. Amiram Nir was on McFarlane group travel to Tehran on 28 May 1986. However,
since the Iranians under no circumstances would receive Israelis in Tehran, had Nir pretend to be American.

Fuller memorandum
When Michael Ledeen return home in May 1985 from his talks with Prime Minister Peres in Jerusalem he tells Security Adviser
McFarlane that the Iranians have asked Israel to sell them some arms, but that Peres wants a specific permission. McFarlane
replied: "Say to the Israelis that it is okay, but only this one shipment, and nothing else."
 In July 1985 becomes Ledeen asked to come back to Israel, where he meets Ghorbanifar. This offers a direct channel to Iran's

leaders and suggests that the United States sells Iran a cargo of weapons.

So this is what Ledeen calls Iran's demarche, a diplomatic request as if it was the Iranian government that
had sent Ghorbanifar to Israel to contact the Americans.
There can be little doubt that the Ledeen says this martsdag 1987 and later repeats in the closed
congressional hearing was a laundering Israel. He reduces Israelis helpful for men.

Why was such an important witness as Ledeen also not invited to the open congressional hearing? Would you knowingly in

Congress not hear about Israel and Saudi Arabia's central roles in Iran Gates genesis?

The main focus is the utterance of Amiram Nir, Shimon Peres' terrorism adviser, on 29 July 1986, for Vice President George
Bush at the King David hotel in Jerusalem exposing Israel's central role in the Iran deal. Amiram Nir said:

"We activated the opening (to Iran). We gave the operation a facade sourced its physical base, provided aircraft. "

Amiram NIRS revealing confession to Vice President Bush made in the presence of Bush's secretary Craig L. Fuller.
Fuller wrote a memorandum covering the content of the hour-long interview. This document could in full read in the
Washington Post on February 8, 1987. But before had the State Department asked the Senate Intelligence Committee to
exclude Fuller Understanding of the interim Senate report. The argument was that such vital affairs of state should not be
presented to the public.

But it did the Washington Post that is, in February 1987.

Tower Report
The same month appeared Tower Commission's report in which it was found that Israel and US interests had not been
parallel. It was said further:
"Israel had long-term interest in having a relationship with Iran and to promote its arms industry. Arms sales to Iran could serve
both purposes. It was also a way to strengthen Iran against Israel's old adversary, Iraq ... There were circles in Israel who undoubtedly
wanted the United States involved in order to create distance between the US and the Arab world and ultimately making Israel the
United States only real strategic partner in the region. "

Those were the words, said bluntly, in the of President Reagan reduced the Special Investigation Commission, in addition to
Senator John Tower included former. Secretary of State Edmund Muskie and former. Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, as well as
a large staff officials and lawyers. It was not a conclusion that the Government of Israel was thrilled to see in black and white from
Reagan's own inquiry.

But in August 1985 triggered so the first of the six controversial arms shipments, which later became known as "Iran
Gate". Israel supplied Iran 100 TOW anti-tank missile.
Transaction no. 2 took place months after and included 408 TOW missiles. The first two consignments
was carried out in Israeli auspices, the third batch came from Israel, but was transported on American aircraft. It was the clear understanding

that the United States would make sure that Israel's store was filled with new missiles.

The transactions 4-6 stood for Americans. It was the National Security Council, NSC, which had political and practical

responsibility. Everything was blurred in secrecy and took place in parallel with the NSC's actions against the Achille Lauro pirateme

against the Middle Eastern terrorists against Moammar Kaddafi in Libya and alongside the contra movement got money, training and

encouragement to overthrow the Sandinista government in Nicaragua .

Each time, the dealer was about to stall, as in December 1985, then grabbed Amiram Nir, Kimche and Ghorbanifar hold of the
Americans again. Crucial was also that Robert McFarlane in December 1985, resigned and was replaced as security adviser John
Poindexter. Poindexter set new transactions in progress, where McFarlane had stopped.

Israel was responsible?

But would Michael Ledeen not admit that Israel had apparently drawn a split Reaganadministration still further into the
Iranian adventure? "No," said Ledeen stubbornly, in his eyes, Israel had no fault. Only the US government had made
mistakes.
With the kind of friends in America, had Israel's embassy in Washington almost superfluous. But Ledeen added with a
little cynical smile:
"If you are lured to the roof and get a pair of wings on his back and someone suggests you that you should try to fly over to

Baltimore and you then crashes to the ground and break his back, will you take legal action against him who suggested you flight? It

was you that was stupid enough to jump off the roof. Then you must also bear the responsibility for your actions. "

But what about Saudi Arabia, I put in, "What was King Fahd's interest in cooperating on an arms transfer to Iran when one
took into account that Iran and Israel were not exactly friends?"
"The better the relationship between the US and Iran," said Ledeen with the same odd smile, "the better it is for Saudi
Arabia, because it will increase US influence on Iranians and thus our ability to moderate Iranians. It is the central point "(Min
underline).
Here disappeared Michael Ledeens smile on a pipe when he abruptly got up from the easy chair: "I must go now, unfortunately I have no

more time."

Only when I stood in the warm spring sunshine, waiting for the taxi, it struck me that if Iran and Israel were an odd couple, as
were Israel and Saudi Arabia, however, even more of a paradox, and yet they seemed to function seamlessly, when they beat
broke up and discreetly put it in a common oven. Had I been Michael Ledeen, I had also refused to say a syllable about the
matter.

Khashoggis testimony
Three weeks later came the Israeli scandal sheet "Haolam Hazeh", published by left politician Uri Avneri, with a large
pitched interview with Adnan Khashoggi.
 The magazine's female reporter Dafna Barak had Khashoggis usual tour. First in and admire billion honor luxurious
bedroom, then a lot of talk about Khashoggis oversized self-understanding. He sees himself as a Middle East peacemaker and
medarkitekt on Sadat's peace initiative that led to the Camp David peace. So did Miss. Barak told that it was the first time he
allowed himself interviewing for an Israeli magazine, and he asked if she was aware that it could cost him his life?

A little later boasted Khashoggi with its excellent relationship with a number of Israeli leaders, where he specifically highlighted

Shimon Peres and Ariel Sharon, and expressed himself in flowery terms about Israel as a nation.

Khashoggi recounted how he met David Kimche in Paris, then Kimche in the mid-1970s was one of
Mossad's top executives. Also he admired Khashoggi.
So was "namedroppingen" over and Adnan Khashoggi had established a portrait of himself as one of Israel's true
friends. Then came the billionaire and Miss. Barak finally to the point: Iran Gate.
"Haolam Hazeh" was released April 13, 1987 in Israel with a journalistic "scoop". An Israeli journalist added
drily, "At least it was a scoop for" Haolam Hazeh "."

Khashoggi bridge between US and Iran

Adnan Khashoggi says:
"I took the initiative to sell Iran weapons to influence the historical process. All I wanted was to create a contact between the
moderate Iranians and Americans via Israel. Why Israel? Because I was not sure whether the Americans would be able to
handle the Iranians. In Israel there are people who have extensive experience with the Iranians, for example. Yaakov Nimrodi. "

"This story," continues Khashoggi, "about the Iranian connection was intended to rescue hostages is nonsense.
The hostages came first in the final stages of the transaction. The Iranians, Americans and Israelis wanted to test
each other's skills. By the time they tried (Americans, ed.) To free William Buckley of the CIA. "

Khashoggi said he put 10 million US dollars of his own money into this bridge-building between the two camps.
Money that he in April 1987 had not been back, and he thought now was lost. Khashoggi complain that Al
Schwimmer, Nimrodi, Ghorbanifar disappeared from his life following revelations: "But I really love Nimrodi. Why did
these people up to meet me. What they were ashamed of? "

"It's like a love story," he adds, "when a married man is attracted to another woman. Already before going on
his wife, he is afraid to look her in the eyes of shame and guilt. "
Pathetic as it is his unfailing style, ending the Saudis failed with the words: "Maybe I risk that Sadat my life - and my
people will call me a" traitor ". But many of those who call me a traitor at the bottom of their heart, that I am right. "

Postscript: There were reports from one of Khashoggis acquaintances, businessman Sam Bamieh, in October

1987 that Khashoggi had finally gotten his receivables covered by King Fahd to nothing to announce this - and to keep
a low profile. The latter in particular will fall Adnan Khashoggi difficult.
Shultz and Weinberger - of turnouts
It's bold move against Iran was started: Weapons, money in secret bank accounts, ships with false cargo papers, policy meetings
in hotel rooms in London, Frankfurt and Tehran. North claimed that Ghorbanifar on a toilet in London suggested to him that he
could use the surplus on arms sales to support the Contras in Central America. From the other side, it was argued that Amiram
Nir gave the Americans the idea. Both things can be right.

But in America's defense and foreign ministries were not satisfied with the new activity in the White House.

On June 29, 1985 wrote Secretary Shultz in a letter to Robert McFarlane that there had sold arms to Iran, but only
launched a diplomatic opening to Tehran. Foreign Minister wrote that the idea of selling the Iranians weapons was
"perverse".
Eight days later, Reagan bile in his mouth when he talked about Iran to the American Bar Association. Iran was
part of "a confederation of terrorist states ... a new international version of Murder Incorporated".

On 16 July 1985 the Weinberger its categorical opposition to arms sales to Iran, an idea which he called "absurd".
Later he said that it would amount to "invite Kaddafi over to a nice lunch."

To imagine Weinberger and Colonel Kaddafi lunch together was in itself difficult, it would also be nice was,
well, absurd.
The truth was that Weinberger and Shultz knew more than enough about the arms sales to Iran to intervene radically in. They
did it because they felt the president in this case listened more to the William Casey and Robert McFarlane over to them. But none
of the two ministers left their position on preventing sales to Iran. They were silent and turned ostentatiously activities in the White
House back.
 14. Kaddafi on the grain

"If Abu Nidal's terrorist, so was George Washington that too."

Moammar Kaddafi. January 1986.

On July 22, 1985 terrorism blew hot breath right up to the distant Copenhagen. For the first time Scandinavia drawn directly into the
confrontation between the radical forces in the Middle East and the world.
Bomb men placed their packages, hidden in plastic bags exploded at both a US flykontor and the Jewish Synagogue.
Islamic Jihad in Beirut claimed responsibility. The intention was clearly to identify flykontoret and synagogue with the US
and Israel.
Only weeks earlier the US government had spent his entire attention focused on Beirut and the crisis surrounding the hijacked
TWA 847 aircraft and the many hostages had looked like the prelude to the 444 days long hostage drama in Tehran six years
earlier. In Beirut, it was done at 17 days, and you noted in Washington that both Syria and Iran had openly shown interest in
solving the crisis.
William Casey was prepared to turn sharply against those who gave sponsorship support to terrorists. Three countries in the Middle

East had his special interest: Iran, Syria and Libya. They did what, in Casey terminology called "state terrorism". But the problem was that at

least Iran and Syria were difficult goal for the United States to correct a punitive action against, and even was there from both countries

cautious signals of moderation.

At the CIA was therefore suggested Moammar Kaddafis Libya as a suitable target. It could hardly be called a novelty, since
Libya since Ronald Reagan was president had been in the CIA's binoculars.
There were no military pact between the Soviet Union and Libya, and apart from rhetorical support was highly doubtful
that any Arab country would come the isolated Kaddafistyre rescue. A punishing raid on Libya appeared to be applicable
risk-free for Washington.
Of the Reagan administration's two favorite aversions, Libya's Kaddafi and Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega, had Kaddafi actively
sought and obtained the predicate to be in the highest risk category. As early as 1982, the US Time Magazine wrote: "In many of
the CIA's offices hangs the picture of Kaddafi side
page with pictures of Soviet President Leonid Bresjnev and Fidel Castro in a kind of unholy trinity. A CIA
representative called recently Kaddafi "first among men, our international public enemy no. 1".

"The world's most dangerous man" was another of the imaginative names which Libya's head of state got stitched on it.

Ronkedoren
A punitive expedition against Moammar Kaddafi must not be confused with an attempt at assassination. The kind of
business was officially shut down since it was revealed that "the Company" had striven Cuba's Fidel Castro afterlife.

In 1976 there were in both congressional chambers created intelligence committee to monitor the CIA.

Senator Frank Church, who led the intelligence committee investigating around the CIA, had helped to make the concept of
"ronkedor" a rogue, an American daily life concept. CIA was such ronkedor, that an old bull elephant that goes for themselves and
find the things that elephants under normal circumstances should not think of.

Former CIA methods as coup against foreign government, assassin or psychotropic experiments with chemical
agents were-no. CIA should be living pure thought Church Committee.
But William J. Casey, who played the chief post in Langley in 1981, was of a different cast. As agent behind Nazi lines
during the second World War, he had early been a cynical view of intelligence. He thought often of operational lanes that
clearly fell outside what the curious Congress people had to know.

In September 1985, set up a small planning group in the NSC, with William Caseys active connivance and
complicity. At this point he was beginning to wake up to the NSC as an alternative channel negotiations that Congress
not to get wind of.
The Group included John Poindexter, Donald Fortier and Oliver North. It was to put a tactic for how an attack on
Libya was best carried out with maximum effect. The details thereof, dug Bob Woodward forward in sensational
articles in the Washington Post in April 1986.
The secret plan to overthrow Libya's Colonel Kaddafi considered the Washington Post as one of the Reagan
administration's best kept secrets. Until April 1986, that is. A few days before the US bombing of Libya, revealed
traces dogs on L Street in Washington on discrete group in the White House building.

American plan for the invasion of Libya

A member of the planning group who wanted to remain anonymous, explained afterwards that NSC was set to "embrace the
ayatollah and crush Kaddafi".
Woodward's source further explained that it "was not a particularly rational policy, but TWA 847
(Hijacking of a TWA flight in Beirut, ed.) Had demonstrated both the absence of a genuine anti-terrorist capacity and pontik
against states supporting terrorism. "
William Casey put his people in the process of preparing a detailed analysis of the military targets in Libya it would be
appropriate to destroy. In July 1985 presented the Head of Research, Robert M. Gates, his memorandum predicted that a
joint US-Egyptian attack on Libya would create the possibility of "re-division of the map of North Africa".

The US plan code-named "Rose" predicted that Egypt to invade Libya, occupying half the country, helped by US air
attacks against key Libyan military installations. Then it was hoped that Moammar Kaddafi would feel compelled to resign as
the country's leader. The end result would be that Libya could be brought back into the Western camp.

NSC's John Poindexter traveled in early September 1985 with Don Fortier to Cairo to discuss the plan with President
Hosni Mubarak, that is, about a month before Mubarak and Reaganadministrationen smoke out in public quarrel on the
four skibskaprere from the "Achille Lauro".
But Admiral Poindexter did not submit the whole plan of the Egyptian president, before Mubarak interrupted the
American saying: "Listen, Admiral, when we decide to attack Libya, then it becomes our decision, and it will be at a time
that suits us. "
George Shultz took the liberty to think that the invasion plan was "crazy" and succeeded also Mideast experts in the
State Department to file some of the worst corners of the NSC plan. The US Cairo Ambassador said Poindexter and
colleagues as "these madmen in the White House", which is especially comical in light of the fact that Reagan and his
people just half a year later, before the big air raids on Libya, called Kaddafi a 'pariah "and" morbidly self-absorbed person
who would start a third world war to get in the headlines. "

Operation "Rose" had an American-inspired precursor in 1983, when it was Egypt and Sudan, which together should
give Kaddafi a lesson. The American press scented out a plan, and it had to be abandoned.

Now two years later had the Chiefs after reviewing NSC operation "Rose" tell the White House that such an invasion
of Libya would require a US military strength of 90,000 troops. "Rose" had to be abandoned.

The air raid against Libya in April 1986

If the hijacking of Egyptair aircraft with the four Palestinian hijackers of the "Achille Lauro" in October 1985 was considered a
success for Oliver North, yet it was nothing compared to the rush of excitement that surrounded the administration's airstrikes
against the Libyan cities Tripoli and Benghazi on the night of 14 and 15 april 1986.

25 long-distance bomber F-111 flew from airbases in Britain, followed by refueling aircraft and radarfly to Libya. Here
bombed the two o'clock at night Libyan military installations in the two main towns of Benghazi and Tripoli. In the latter, the
barracks where Moammar Kaddafi and his family lived hard hit. One of the family Kaddafis adopted children were killed, the rest
of the family escaped
miraculous death.
Long-haul aircraft were supplemented by air forces from the 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean, which is also the month before had

bombarded Libyan installations. No one was in doubt that Reagan and his advisers had deliberately sought this confrontation. The result was

37 dead and nearly 100 wounded Libyans.

USA lost one aircraft was hit by Libyan anti-aircraft guns. Then wing aircraft fleet entire stretch back to the British bases. The
fact that the bomb raid came from NATO installations in the UK, attracted European criticism of the government Thatcher. But in
the US rose the British Prime Minister's popularity a few more degrees.

There was no doubt in Western intelligence agencies that Kaddafi had provided material and psychological support to various
Middle East terrorist groups, including the Abu Nidal group. But from there to make Kaddafi to the target board of a terrorist attack
was made well. Especially since in Western Europe, not wrongly, believed that both Syria and Iran far more than Kaddafis Libya
were countries that had actively been behind the terrorists.

Should Kaddafi liquidated?

On 22 February 1987 the New York Times Sunday magazine with a feature article by American journalist author Seymour
Hersh. It caused a stir. Hersh thought after interviewing 70 unnamed officials and military personnel in the Reagan
administration, he could conclude that the intent of the air strike against Libya was to liquidate Colonel Kaddafi.

Hersh referred specifically to one of NSC meetings where Reagan with Poindexter, North and chairman of the Joint Chiefs,
Admiral William Crowe, discussed the opportunity to put to death Kaddafi. North made sure that there is no written record existed of
the meeting.
The purpose of the air attack, it was said officially afterwards, was to destroy some of the plants from which the terrorists were supported.

The barracks, which Kaddafi lived was one of those goals. Not the Colonel personally.

Seymour Hersh also claims that in addition to the known number of aircraft followed nine bombers who had the special job to
bomb Kaddafis barracks. Since some of these aircraft were operational problems was attacked not so successful. But throughout
the operation was the Israeli intelligence agency closely linked in as supplier of the special information that Americans do not
even possessed.
About Seymour Hersh is right in saying that the destruction of Kaddafi was the main objective of the attack, must stand up. But with the

knowledge of the Reagan staff's views on Kaddafi, so his death would hardly have caused nothing but crocodile tears.

Abu Nidal Inc.

It was an illusion to believe that terrorists can be fought at international level with highly potent F-111 bombers. The
more Reagan tried, the more cheered Abu Nidal and his ilk, for US fighter pilots became even drawn into terrorist
activities.
Six months earlier had Abu Nidal in an interview with the West German "Der Spiegel" said about
Americans:
"I can assure you one thing: When we get the chance to add Americans just the slightest damage, so we will not hesitate to do
so. Between the Americans and us there is war to the death. In the next years the Americans will have the opportunity to think
about us ... They can choose to President whom they want: a ballerina, a cowboy, an actor. But when their planes dropping bombs
over our houses, so it is terrorism and crime, and with the same coin, they are paid back. "

This disillusioned nihilist could not hit with laser-guided bombers. So was the Israeli methods significantly more
efficient. One might ask why the Israelis did not sourced Abu Nidal of the road? One likely explanation is simply that
Abu Nidal makes the Arab cause more damage than he does Israel. Abu Nidal strive Arafat for life and trying to
undermine the PLO moderate wing with extremist actions. But it is a shade that few Western politicians perceive.

Therefore PLO usually held responsible for any terror carried out by Palestinians. Abu Nidal and the Israeli right
wing has a common interest. As neither of these two parties want a peaceful solution to the Palestinian-Israeli
problem if it involves a territorial compromise.
In both camps will "disturber" do what they can to sabotage the historic meeting, which one day will hopefully
materialize between Arafat and realists in Israel.
In autumn 1987 it was decided to close the PLO information office in Washington. It was a victory for the Israeli right - and
the Abu Nidal. The last thing he wants is to see Arafat be taken seriously by the US and Israel.

Abu Nidal want to challenge the United States so much that it is forced to turn sharply. This makes Americans so
thoroughly unpopular in the world that the great power slowly digs its own grave. The same tactics apply Abu Nidal to
Israel.

Terrorism purposes and paradox

If Abu Nidal may entice a frustrated the Reagan government to first attack Libya, and one day maybe also Iran and Syria, then it

will certainly spark a fierce debate across borders and political parties at home in the United States. It would weaken

Washington, and perhaps lead to American isolation.

Abu Nidals greatest wish is that he confrontation technique can weaken America's international position so much that
Americans retreat into their shell. Isolationism that idea is traditionally Americans near. This would allow the United States may
also isolate themselves from Israel, which is Abu Nidals endpoints. That it is an illusion, is another thing. In theory it is at least
an assumption that is worth noting.

People who have done some thinking about how terrorism will occur in the future, saying that it will never be eradicated. One of these

specialists is Brian Michael Jenkins of the Rand Corporation in the United States. He has determined that the rate of increase in terrorist

acts is between 12% and 15% per year.

It is particularly five countries affected by terrorism: the United States, France, Britain, Israel and Turkey. But Jenkins

adds that in 1984 there were no fewer than 60 countries that experienced terrorist acts.
Terrorism in the future
In its report "The international terrorism future course" states Jenkins, it's modern transportation like airplanes, which
makes terrorists mobile, while radio, television and communication satellites gives them immediate access to a world
audience. Weapons, ammunition and grenades, it is still easier to access, and the new computer technology, where
outsiders can "hack" into the sensitive information band opens up vast opportunities for scheming terrorist warfare
against industrial societies.

In September 1987 it was revealed that "hackers" in West Germany had broken through the most secret information on the
Western space cooperation and weapons systems. It is information that would be a bonanza worth for the Soviet Union. High
technology is both groundbreaking and uncontrollable.
Best of all, it might be if terrorists themselves executed each other. But so easily solved problems unlikely.

There is little consolation to be had in the hope that the terrorists we know, grow old and retire. In 2000, the Palestinians
underwater George Habash be 74 years old. Renate Curcio, who played a key role in the creation of the Red Brigades in Italy
will be 59 years and maybe still in prison. "Jackal", Carlos, will be 51 years old, if not it is true that Carlos has been executed in
Libya because he knew too much and Libyans feared that he would squeal.

Abu Nidal, whose real name is Palestinian Sabri Khalil el-Banna, will in 2000 be 63 years old. It is no
age for a man who will carry out the world revolution!
 15. Sam Bamieh - one Croesus with problems

"The reason why the Iranians were completely indifferent to how much they paid for the weapons, was that it was not their money. The money

was raised by Saudi Arabia, put into the "offshore" bank accounts, so Iranians could pay the Israelis, who then pay the United States. "

Sam Bamieh, April 1987

The taxi slid up in front of the Hotel Holiday Inn at Marble Arch.

A doorkeeper was on the spot and opened the taxi door. The vestibule was elegant, the interior new and porter exquisitely polite:

"No, there has not been a driver to ask for someone. Would you like to wait in the bar? "

The place could have been Cairo or Abu Dhabi, it buzzed with Arab voters through the hall. The open call boxes were all busy
and there was not speaking English. Some of the tables sat plump Arab women and drank Turkish coffee while their children were
milling around on the thick carpets. One could hardly believe that this was the center of London, but the hotel's Middle East clients
were not in doubt.

Twenty minutes later I was picked up, placed in a Mercedes 300, an affable Lebanese who drove a few minutes through the
sparsely trafficked streets. It was a Saturday afternoon, people were still in winter coat and wind bed. So we stayed in front of a
neutral side entrance to the high property complex where I was escorted into. The guards inside dialed Sam Bamieh and got the
green light. We drove up to the 17th floor.

Sulayman "Sam" Bamieh opened the door. He was wearing a silkeslbrok and smelled as if he had just stepped out of the
bath, what he actually was.
Libaneseren, who was both his guard and handyman, went to make coffee in the kitchen. Bamieh fetched a large stack of
papers and photocopies. The meeting with the Arab-American who had received no less than three death threats from Saudi
Arabia, could begin.
The reason Sam Bamiehs somewhat exaggerated safety rules with regard to my visit was that he
feared for his life, and with good reason.

The threats against Sam Bamieh

In the same day was Saudi Arabia's King Fahd with large following on a visit to the British capital. King had earlier been a
close associate of Bamieh, but it was over. It was from people around Fahd to death threats Bamieh had come. The last
time he had visited Saudi Arabia, he had been held under house arrest for over four months. Bamieh knew too much that
Fahd would not have out. But at the same time Bamieh been violated so emphatically toes that he would take revenge.
Therefore he had come to London while the Saudi delegation to feed the British press with information about how the
situation really looked behind Arabia's mysterious veil.

It is no exaggeration to state that Sam Bamieh lived dangerously. But it was not to label him when we sank into
the deep armchairs and were served Turkish coffee of libaneseren.
Bamieh bed tip of a fat Cuban cigar, lit it with gusto. This was obviously a man who loved the attention that
slowly was getting him to part because of his inside knowledge of Saudi Arabia.

On my notepad, I had the taxi scratched some questions down. At the bottom it said in parenthesis: Is Sam Bamieh in fact
Israeli agent?
Sam Bamieh had during the 70s and 80s established itself as an unusually successful American businessman in the
Middle East. He had arranged everything the US market can offer oil countries, of course, with huge profits for
themselves. A real fat cat, as they say in the jargon. His problem was that he had fallen out of favor at the Saudi court. It
was an extraordinary story, and he was ready to tell now.

I had learned about Bamiehs existence from some sensational articles in the Boston Globe and New York Times, where 3-4
journalists doggedly pursued the tracks as the Tower Commission had been unable to study in an effort to uncover the
Iran-contra scandal. We were in April, 1987.

Saudi Arabia and Iran Gate

The month before, I had been sitting on AIPAC's office on South Capitol Street in Washington and entertained me with press
secretary while I was waiting for a meeting with the Israel lobby's guru, Tom Dine. The woman across from me, that was not
only clever but also very helpful, as was the rest of Washington preoccupied with Iran-contra affair, the best political crime in
living memory. We talked about which of the Israeli journalists on the case currently had hold of the best angle of the scandal. I
told him that I AM had been with Fredrick G. Dutton, the leading Saudi lobbyist, and that I believed that with the revelations of
the great contribution that Saudi Arabia's King Fahd and Ambassador Bandar had given the Contras, was probably more in that
story. Dutton would try to get me a meeting with Prince Bandar.

Press Secretary pondered a bit and then said: "Yes, I heard the other day one of our people notice that it
was strange that there were more and more research into the relationship between AWACS sales in 1981 and the arms trade
with Iran. I do not know what you can get out of it, but I have some clips here that I can photocopy for you. They are all about
Saudi Arabia's share in the affair, but it is as if there really will go hole on the boil. "

When a press officer in a lobby institution gives a journalist a cutting material over a certain angle in an affair, one can
safely take for granted that he lobby will have nothing against a little further publicity on the case. What interest could AIPAC
garden that Saudi Arabia's role in the Iran-contra affair was pulled out? It was almost before Obviously, Israel would like Saudi
Arabia made the scapegoat, so congressional irritation at Israel's role as a coupler between Iran and the United States were
transferred to oil burner planets in Riyadh. Was it pro-Israel lobbyist scene really that simple?

I put her photocopies for me. Journalists who deals extensively with the Middle East, must come to terms with the simple fact
is that you learn only about 5% of what is really going on in the Byzantine maze as Middle Eastern politics is. Do you know more,
it's because you get involved with one of the many parties, and then you bought and you have trouble making independent
journalism.
A track is a track and the Saudi angle of Iran Gate was fascinating. But as one of the truly wise Middle East
specialists in the congressional research office said: "Of course, the Saudi Connection striking. But do not forget "qui
bono" who serve it that this angle be revealed? "
Israeli arms sales to Iran, US AWACS sale to Saudi Arabia, Saudi millions to the Contras and other
anti-communist movements. Was there a single thread, and if so how it began?

A British journalist in Abu Dhabi had some months earlier told me that it was common knowledge in the Gulf that both
Saudi Arabia and Iran regularly exported oil to South Africa.
What you did not know was whether it was Iran and Saudi Arabia, who himself broke the embargo, or whether it was the
international traders. He believed that like the two golf countries supported the anti-communist mujahedin movement in
Afghanistan, could it be that they also supported the anti-communist UNITA rebels in Angola, through South Africa. At least it was
a given that Saudi Arabia did.

The anti-communist heptagon

In April 1987 Sam Bamiehs apartment in London began to form a pattern, interesting heptagon: USA-Israel-Saudi
Arabia-Iran-Contras-South Africa-UNITA. It seems that these anti-Soviet states and movements had pulled in the
same direction. If that were true, who had such evidence?

Sam Bamieh could lift some of the veil to the conspiratorial network that William Casey, Robert McFarlane, Oliver
North and Richard Secord had spun. Clarification began to emerge.
One and a half months earlier telegram bureau Upis Washington office sent this announcement other than its
international network. Date: 21.02.1987. Headline: "The Saudis launched a secret American-Iranian connection".
 "Members of the Saudi royal family has, with the help of key lobbyists in Washington secretly arranged that
the White House wanted the contact with Iran that led to the US arms sales in 1985, told an American
businessman Saturday report from Senate intelligence committee, published January 29, 1987, estimated that
the Israelis were the first to recommend the US administration to sell arms to Iran. Israel, however, refused to
have played this role. If the claims of the American businessman is correct, then worked Saudis also to open up
US contact with Iran, perhaps even before the Israelis did it. "

The businessman in Upis report is obviously Sam Bamieh, as the subsequent June 15, 1987 testified before the Foreign Affairs

Committee Subcommittee on the Middle East in the House of Representatives, and on July 2 the Sub-Committee for Africa ibid.

From Palestine to California

As Sam Bamiels inside knowledge about the origins of the Iran-contra affair is fascinating is also his own life it.

Born in Palestine, went to school in Egypt and from seventeen years living in California, Bamieh a man with excellent
connections to the ruling circles in the Arab world. On the wall behind him at home in London, he had placed an enlarged photo of
the Reagan-pair and King Fahd, who was not to overlook. Nor that it was addressed by the President to Sam Bamieh with
Reagan's own handwriting.
Not only was Fahd for many years, both as crown prince and later as king, a good friend of Bamieh, as was King Hussein
of Jordan, with whom he had gone to school in Cairo, Egypt's late Anwar Sadat and Morocco's King Hassan.

Sam Bamiehs father had been a highly entrepreneurial Palestinian businessman who had acted throughout the Middle East.
When the British were preparing to relinquish control of British Mandate in 1948, and the Jewish-Arab war slowly began, it was ten
years old Sulayman sent to the prestigious Victoria College in Cairo. Here he shared existence with Crown Prince Hussein of
Jordan, Adnan Khashoggi from Saudi Arabia and Hassan Shaker, who was an adviser to both the Shah and the Saudi king.

This early chapter in his life was abruptly ended with the Egyptian revolution and Nasser's seizure of power in 1952. "We were
not allowed to take as much as a suitcase with us," noted Bamieh today.

When he was seventeen he enrolled at a university in California, like Adnan Khashoggi was it. After graduation
started Bamieh his own consulting firm, Industrial Development Group, advising in financial matters. Now he was an
American citizen, and one of his first clients was also Khashoggi.

When oliemiliarderne in the early 1970s created a boom in the Arab world, was Bamieh extremely wealthy through
cooperation with Mohammed Imran, who was linked to Prince Fahds hof. It gave large orders for everything from factories to
excavators. Business Agreements spread to Pakistan, Egypt and Morocco. Commissions did Bamieh very wealthy. "But my
wife and I agreed that
we would not touch anything that shoots, "says Bamieh today. Nothing could bring him afoul of the law.

Today live Bamieh family in San Mateo, California and has additional offices in Washington, apartments in London and Paris,
and the company's letterhead shows that there are also offices in Riyadh, Jeddah, Amman and Cairo.

Bamiehs siding
The past few years have, however, brought Bamieh into a siding that crucial has changed his life and now he hopes to
return to transform King Fahd's life to the unpleasant. A mouthful of Bamieh, you would think.

First, he through Saudi Arabia's powerful ambassador in Washington, Prince Bandar, has repeatedly been invited to
participate with the company in collaboration with Richard V. Secord and Albert Hakim, two of the central figures in the junta
CIA -Chef William Casey and Reagan team member Oliver North built in the mid 1980s. There was to be shipped oil to South
Africa, and arms to Iran and the Contras in Central America. Sam Bamieh refused to put his company provided. But he knew
then already too much that he should not have known, and therefore represented a risk to the Saudi king and his men.

Second messy Bamieh in 1985 Cloudy with his business partner in Saudi Arabia, Mohammed Imran, who he believed had
cheated him over a million dollars. When he brought an action against the partner who was Fahds privatsekretr for several
years, and at the same time was so careless to visit Saudi Arabia he was detained. Bamieh says:

"At that time I could not understand why the hell Saudis would detain me against my will, just because of a
commercial dispute, especially since I knew the king well. I assumed that if the king did not know that I was
detained in his palaces, he had no control over the situation. If he knew it, it was even more devastating for him
and Saudi Arabia. My family might have to start calling for me. "

"In 133 days, I was detained. Three times I was told that on Friday so you will be beheaded unless you go to confession and
admit that you are a spy for the United States and Israel. Eventually you start to really believe that they will do it. I could, with my
knowledge of Saudi Arabia, readily imagine that they would put me in handcuffs and leave me out in the desert, and then claim
that I had traveled out of the country. They showed me once a departure card with my name and the airport's stamp convinced
that I must have left the country. "

When he agreed to withdraw its legal action against the business partner back and never touching the case or mention his involuntary

stay in Saudi Arabia, he was allowed to travel. Since then he has strived to avenge themselves, and to some extent it seems to succeed

him. Whether he succeeds in his claim for compensation of 50 million. $ Remains to be seen.

Bamieh believe today that the decisive reason for him in 1986, was detained more than four months of the Saudi
authorities, in fact, was his refusal to abide by Ambassador Bandars
proposal for a secret economic cooperation. Prince Bandar categorically reject to have made some suggestions, saying that Bamieh
stayed free will in Saudi Arabia in the four months.
The political content was dynamite, because it appeared while the US Congress tried to unravel the
complicated Iran-Contra affair.
Therefore Bamieh a key witness in an attempt to uncover both a "Saudi Connection" to the arms trade with Iran
to the Contras, and to the Angolan rebel movement UNITA.

The Saudi footsteps

Sam Bamiehs version of events starting in November 1981, when he visited konprins Fahd at his home in Riyadh. During the
conversation told Fahd him he gave Ronald Reagan a binding promise that if the century arms sales, AWACS deal was in
order so would Fahd return of treasury or public funds supporting Reagan's policy towards the communist movements in
Asia, Africa and Latin America.

The offer was not as surprising as it might immediately may sound, because there was an already pretty close cooperation between

the US and Saudi Arabia to support the common brand cases where it might be opportune, such as in Zaire, Nordjemen, Somalia,

Sudan and Afghanistan.

The novelty of Fahd's offer was the specific pledge to provide financial support, quickly and in cash, to the anti-communist
movement, where the American political system may not allow the president himself to make an immediate effort.

Here presented in autumn 1981, just six months after Ronald Reagan has consumed the White House, the foundation stone
for a Saudi-American cooperation should reach far. A cooperation on certain sensitive areas such as Angola, Nicaragua and Iran
have had to take place secretly, and at other points could take place in full daylight.

As Henry Kissinger in the mid-1970s traveled on his strenuous shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East, he said several times:
"No matter where I am in the Middle East, so I find Saudi footprints in the sand." Kissinger used the Saudis as between men
to Syria and other Arab states. It is the role Saudi Arabia has played classic since King Feisal days and it is clearer than ever
the role of King Fahd in the 1980s wanted to see his country play.

A former American diplomat put to the New York Times that the Saudis "have been helpful in many
different countries. Every time we needed them to pay for something, we turned to the Saudis. We regarded
them as a fabulous cash cow. "
To this add the prestigious Middle East expert in the Carter administration, William B. Quandt: "It takes King Fahd
about ten seconds to sign a check while it takes Congress weeks debating the smallest detail. If you can get someone else
to pay the bill, it is better and more comfortable. "

A business empire built

Back to Sam Bamiehs report in London.
 In 1983 took over Prince Bandar formal post as Saudi ambassador to Washington. He drew Sam Bamiehs attention to
Richard Secord and Albert Hakim, as he believed that Bamieh could have commercial benefit from in the form of a joint
venture. Secord had been Assistant Deputy Minister of Defense, and Bandar had learned to know him during AWACS
debate in 1981.
"Bandar known of course for my close business cooperation with Saudi Arabia and knew I was on good terms with King
Fahd," said Bamieh. "He also knew that my company had a long history and was a solid US organization. It would not give the
impression of being something new that was pulled out of the drawer, but a company with substance. They wanted a legitimate
business facade. "
"Bandar talked about selling oil to South Africa and how much money can be earned in oil trade, and at the same time
would serve the King's interests. There were three areas in which cooperation should be directed to: shipments to Central
America - there was nothing mentioned at the time of the Contras - to Angolan rebels and oil sales to South Africa. Bandar
claimed that I could make millions and millions of dollars, and I can believe that. But then I would not be able to sit and talk
with you now, so I'd probably be on the run from the US courts or US Congress investigations. "

When asked why Sam Bamieh as experienced businessman shrank a comprehensive project that had both
the US and Saudi leadership indirect approval, he replied:

"The reason I held me back was that oil trade in South Africa was part of a larger agreement, which also had to be
transported weapons to Central America, to the rebels in Angola and other anti-communist movements. It meant that I would
be working for another government, which I was totally uninterested in. With regard to oil deal with South Africa as the
business world is already tough enough without also must violate his country's laws. I knew where controversial oil sales to
South Africa was, and I had no experience in oil trading. My business can withstand the light of day, I was at the time 46
years old, why should I complicate my life? Secret weapons shipments have often caused problems for those involved. "

"What would Secord and Hakim achieve by forming a number of companies?"

"First they wanted to create an offshore company, which was to form a joint venture with the company that I was meant to create
with Richard Secord and Albert Hakim. The economic movements would look like this: The money would come from the king's
private accounts, after being transferred from Saudi government accounts to the King's accounts in Saudi Arabia. From there they
would be transferred to private accounts in Switzerland. From Switzerland would be created a number of overseas companies.
These would channel money through people like Khashoggi or myself if I had gone into the system. "

"The whole purpose of setting up overseas accounts and companies in the way Bandar and Secord had in mind was to create
layer upon layer, so the trades were opaque."
"If you try to find out who owned what, you will find the name of a banker, a lawyer in Lichtenstein, a lawyer in
Panama, a Post Office box address, and if you ask the lawyer he will answer" I do not know. " That's what he's paid for,
and Annex declined. "
King Fahd's appeasement towards Iran
Sam Bamiehs key to understanding King Fahd's subjects are the king's fear that he must be removed from power, either by the
displacements that can spread in the area if Iran makes Iraq the end of the Gulf War, or by an internal power struggle in Saudi
Arabia.
Sam Bamieh is on safe ground when he says that King Fahd since the revolution in Iran in 1979 and the bloody uprising in the holy

city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia that year, has invested much effort to bridge between Saudi Arabia and Iran . The problem has been that

Iran's leaders also knew that Saudi Arabia provided a comprehensive economic assistance to Iran's enemy, Iraq. Therefore, Saudi

Arabia caught between Iraq and Iran, and the Saudis care traditionally not about being caught. Especially if they can pay their way out

of it.

It really controversial content in Sam Bamiehs production lies not in the Saudi or Iranian oil has been shipped to
South Africa, it has long been reflected in the international shipping lists. Nor is it remarkable that Saudi Arabia has
provided financial support to the Afghan, Angolan and Nicaraguan anti-communist movements.

The interesting moment is in Bamiehs claim that King Fahd was so eager to be the US government ease and so
eager to implement an appeasement towards Iran that he paid part of the weapons for Iran, which the United States sold
Ayatollah regime.
King Fahd had until several channels through which he indirectly communicated with the Iranian regime. The two most important

were Ali bin Mussallam and Adnan Khashoggi.

Secret contacts with Iran over Libya

Ali bin Mussallam is not as Khashoggi known to the world public. But among politically interested in the Middle East, he has
long been a known quantity. He is Shiite Saudis, which started in the Saudi intelligence service. He was active in the early
1960s to smuggle weapons into the royalists in Nordjemen who fought against Nasser's Egyptian invasion. An uncle of Fahd
became aware Mussallam, and he was attached to Fahd's staff when the latter was interior minister.

When Fahd is a highly enterprising businessman, he became aware of Mussallams sense of both the economy and the
silent diplomacy. Mussallam was launched as a businessman. A Khashoggi, but in miniature. Not so much money and luxury, a
more modest private plane and fewer bodyguards.
Ali bin Mussallam has since been an adviser to Fahd with special reference to North Africa. He has been King Fahd direct
contact with Libya's Moammar Kaddafi. Through Libya, who has been on good terms with Iran since the revolution, has
Mussallam had at least 5-6 meetings with high ranking representatives of the regime in Tehran. The contacts that have not
been reported in the Middle East or Western press significantly because it was crucial for Fahd to keep his contacts with Iran's
secret.

Ali bin Mussallam has been described by a Saudi opposition source as Saudi Arabia's response to Oliver North. As
President Reagan have needed one Oliver North, who outside the usual diplomatic channels to work in the hushed, such
was Mussallam King Fahd's confidential messenger.
 In October 1986, Saudi Arabia's oil minister Sheik Yamani laid off after 25 years as Saudi oil minister. It had two
explanations. 1) Yamani agreed with Crown Prince Abdullah in that Fahd's secret diplomacy through Israel to Iran was unwise.
2) Through Ali bin Mussallam let Tehran understand that Yamanis oil policy was an unacceptable provocation. Oil prices had
fallen a few months from just under $ 30 per. barrel to below $ 10. Iran needed the most revenue to the war chest. Yamanis
policy had to be changed. It saw Fahd to it was.

Especially Iranian capture of the Iraqi port city of Faw in February 1986 put the guy in Fahd's boilers. He feared that it was
the signal to the Iraqi front in Basra were being overrun. The consequence would be either that Iran gained control of southern
Iraq, and this created an interim Shiite breakaway republic, or the Saddam Hussein regime in Baghdad fell. In both cases it
would have disastrous consequences for the stability of the Arab Gulf, just that which had driven Fahd towards appeasement
with Iran.

Secret contact by Israel

Adnan Khashoggi was King Fahd other confidential envoy. He maintained contacts with all sides, especially Israel
and Egypt, besides he helped Fahd with his personal business events, like Ambassador Prince Bandar in
Washington did.
Menahem Begin's government went through a New York doctor in 1980 a cautious unofficial contact with King Fahd. In the spring of

1982 allegedly Adnan Khashoggi to be met in Kenya with Israel's Ariel Sharon and Sudanese President Numeiri. One of the topics that were

discussed, the PLO's role in Lebanon.

The sticking point that could convince Adnan Khashoggi in Iran Gate was Fahd's deputy, is remittances from the king to
Khashoggis bank accounts. It has been suggested that Khashoggi in June 1986 received a loan of 35 million. $ From the
Saudi National Commercial Bank. The crucial question is whether this money was used to finance arms dealers through
Ghorbanifar.
In that Sam Bamieh no doubt. He can not prove it concretely, but he says that he knows it from thorough knowledge of
Khashoggi and King Fahd.
Action pattern therefore looks like this, according to Sam Bamieh:

Saudi Arabia sold oil to South Africa. Profits from and above other sources was used through Khashoggi to pay Israel. The
payment was for the weapons that Iran was, whether these weapons were sold to Israel's own initiative or on America's behalf
during the period 1985-86.
"Sam Bamieh, do not you think yourself that it sounds a bit fanciful?"

"Not if I know of King Fahd. All his life he has been known to buy friendships and pay his enemies. He
wanted to buy goodwill with the Iranians, and it could be done by providing them what they needed most,
namely weapons. If Iran ran Iraq over the end, he had his own country goodwill in Tehran to draw on. "

"The idea came into being in January 1985," explains Bamieh, "because the Saudis sponsored a meeting in Paris
between the Saudi ambassador Jamil al-Hujilan and an Iranian envoy. Weeks later met Prince Bandar in Damascus with a
senior Iranian official. From January to May 1985 the
Saudis on a secret high-level meeting but the Iranians rejected it. They wanted the Saudis to come officially to Tehran so
that Iraq and the world could see that the Saudis were in Iran. "
"But it works well as pure dynamite mix Israelis into it?"
"The Saudis could not independently implement this project. They would not be able to convince Reagan's National Security
Council for the simple reason that they are not in the forum had sufficient credibility because of the Gulf War. I know that Fahd asked
Adnan Khashoggi to step in. Khashoggi would not of itself have jumped into the project and have put money up for grabs. Khashoggi
was asked to go to the Israelis, that they could convince the NSC to Ghorbanifar was the right channel to Iran. In NSC counter Israel
with more emphasis than the Saudis. "

"I'm not here," depositor Bamieh, "to defend Israel. I know that the Saudis say that I am part of an Israeli
disinformation campaign. But I'll bet that when the full truth emerges, it will prove that contacts went from Saudi
Arabia to Israel to Iran, and the United States was then engaged. "

Bamieh - an Israeli agent?

It is interesting that both Prince Bandar and his senior lobby specialist in Washington, Fredrick Dutton, denotes Bamiehs
allegations as an "Israeli disinformation campaign".
There is no doubt that it would suit Israel well if responsibility for weapons affair could be pushed on to Saudi Arabia.

In that case, should Sam Bamieh be paid by the Israelis to blacken the Saudi king to. It was what the Saudis hinted
during his detention in Saudi Arabia, but it is standardbeskyldningen that Saudis always directs towards people who are not
please them. To Bamiehs mother was of Jewish descent does not prove that Sam Bamieh is Israeli disinformant.

But he because of house arrest in Saudi Arabia has been a revenge motive is obvious. As he said during the interview in
London:
"I have offered to give testimony in Congress. I want the truth. My integrity was destroyed, like my company, it
was. I was threatened by the Saudis, and I want them to know, in particular, should King Fahd know that in a
democracy like our US, we can not allow a dictator or a capricious head of state prevents us from telling the truth - or
intimidate us with threats on his life. As soon as I was threatened, I went to the public. "

Khashoggis memorandum
Before it went so wrong for Sam Bamieh, there was a crucial meeting in Jeddah in May 1985 when Bamieh was with
King Fahd, when Prince Bandar arrived. Bamieh says that Bandar was trying to suggest to the king that he had to tell
unbecoming Bamiehs door. But Fahd lap objection aside. Bamieh belong to the "family" - even then.

On this occasion the Bandar draft a 49-page memorandum Adnan Khashoggi

had prepared. It outlined the background to the usefulness of the United States approximated Iran, which could be made by selling Iran

weapons. This would allow Washington might be able to exert a moderating influence on the regime in Tehran. The memorandum had to

be brought Reagan administration. It was addressed to Reagan's security adviser, Robert McFarlane.

"The king did not want to engage in arms trade," said Bamieh, "unless President Reagan had approved the principles in
the case. The purpose of the memorandum was to help McFarlane arguments that could justify to the president that the
initiative would be a political opening to Iran - and not a bargaining chip with the hostages. "

Sam Bamieh handed me a photocopy of Khashoggis memorandum to Robert McFarlane. It throws an interesting light to
the Saudis intricacies initiative. The document is dated 1 July 1985. In memo'ets third section refers Khashoggi a senior
anonymous Iranian official who presents a detailed analysis of the internal showdown in Iran, dated February 1985.

He states that there are three "lines": 1) The right wing, which has the support in parliament, civil administration and in the officer

corps. They want the compounds to the West re-established. 2) central forces, especially the strength of the legal instrument and control

various of the revolutionary institutions.

3) the liberal, strong in the government and supporters of a fanatical Islamic internal and external policies.

Khashoggis basis man suggests that the United States secretly make contact with the right wing in order to
eliminate the leftists and engulf central forces. Robert McFarlane profit talks that he not jumped to support such
a right-wing coup in Iran, as proposed by Khashoggis memorandum.

We are not told who Khashoggis Iranian source. We know that Khashoggi communicate much with Ghorbanifar. We also know that

Khashoggi meet Iran's purchasing manager in Western Europe, Dr. Shahabadi. Through the two have Khashoggi been meeting Iranian

envoys. It can not be denied, the Iranian source was merely double agent Ghorbanifar in rhetorical disguise. With people like

Khashoggi and Ghorbanifar should keep all options open.

Fahd's fear of another uprising in Mecca

In other words, in May 1985, before Robert McFarlane had been approached by Israel David Kimche proposed arms sales to
Iran, drafted Adnan Khashoggi with King Fahd's blessing a strategy paper that tried to convince Reagan administration on the
usefulness of an opening to Iran. On
Saudi initiative.
It was vital to King Fahd that Iran created unrest during the annual hajj to Mecca. There had in previous years been a
fuss with Iranian pilgrims who brought their Khomeinibilleder and martial shouts all the way to Islam's holiest venue.
Ghorbanifar suggested Khashoggi, that through his knowledge of the group leader of the Iranian pilgrims, Mehdi
Kharoubi, vice president of parliament and chairman of the Martyrs Organization, to sign a pre-agreement that the Iranian
delegation failed political or religious provocations in Mecca.
 The Israeli journalist Schmuel Segev says in his book "The Iranian Triangle" that Khashoggi took Ghorbanifar with in his
private jet to Riyadh and let him tell the same thing to King Fahd. The king promised generous payment if the serenity of Mecca
could be preserved. For Fahd was the possibility of unrest that could inspire a revolt in 1979, a nightmare. It would discredit the
Saud family's claim to be the guardian of Islam's holy places.

Ghorbanifar kept his promise. King paid. The idea of arms sales to Iran matured. Fahd would not be able to sell its US weapons to

Iran, but Israel could, suggested Khashoggi. The triangle was created. Now it was up to Khashoggi, Ghorbanifar and Kimche to make

sure that the triangle became a square. Not the circle, but the triangle quadrature.

What was new was that Americans all have to be involved so that they could mitigate the consequences of a possible Shiite

hegemony in the Gulf.

The world of yesterday stood for fall. Only time was not crossed by the calendar. At least not in King Fahds kalender.

Three Havana cigars and many cups of coffee later, we traveled us of the armchairs in Sam Bamiehs occasion. He was the
man who had taken upon himself to act as gravel to halt King Fahd machine. I looked in my block on the way down in the
elevator. It read: Is Sam Bamieh in fact an Israeli agent?

I was still answers guilty. However, an approximate answer is that probably both Khashoggi and Sam Bamieh attracted the
world where a certain double thinking comes naturally, and where in practice may carry two dissimilar shoes. So it is with the real
"carpet dealers", whether they are Arabs or Persians.
But with Sam Bamiehs investigation and Adnan Khashoggis memorandum to the White House, the connection between
Israel and Saudi Arabia exposed. And thus the layout to Iran Gate for the first time drawn up.

The became a quadrature.

 16. The World According to Oliver North

"I would be more than willing, and if there is someone over there who are listening, then listen, I will be happy to meet Abu Nidal equal

anywhere in the world. Okay? It is a challenge."

Oliver North during consultations Congress, 1987.

It was so quiet in the densely packed Caucus Room in the Russell Senate building, that would have been able to hear a pin drop to the

ground. Oliver North's voice cracked slightly above, as if he either lied or was deeply affected:

"I have never done a single act, not one, without my permission from my superiors."

No matter how close Lt. Col. Oliver North had set out to control the truth of this Congressional hearing, so it had to be
intrinsically vertical untrue that he had sought prior consent of all
his actions by his superiors.
This patriotic country kid highly decorated Vietnam veteran, for five years Reagan's most active organizer of
anti-terrorist activities around the world and the driving force behind the secret weapon-modgidsler Trade with Iran and
illegal arms transfers profits to the Contra movement in Central America, how could he in each situation obtaining his
superiors?
The claim was sufficiently grotesque that it explained the disdainful smile with congressional members who sat in tight rows, staring at the

lieutenant colonel in the witness stand.

"I have come to tell the truth, the Good, the Bad and the Ugly Truth," assured the North with a theatrical
reference to Sergio Leones film of the same name. There could thus be an admission of his illustrious even joy
of being in the action. He had driven Reagan's private foreign policy in a global showdown with communism in
the same way as Clint Eastwood chases the villains in said film. In any case, it gave consultation with specially
Oliver "Ollie" North a fictional character who, despite the hundreds of concrete facts contributed to this man's
meeting with his political jurors became an instant
worldwide television drama.
For politicians understandable irritation turned the famous Caucus Committee room, where also the Watergate hearings had

taken place for theater Tribune. North's superiors had in previous months distanced itself from him and given to understand that he

was easier unpredictable and a smug bray.

But North turned out to be articulate, on the border with the rhetorically gifted. A man who was on the mat, where a
lieutenant colonel belongs, with wholehearted devotion statements to "the commander-in-chief" President Reagan, which he
repeated statements had been and still was happy to serve under.

It's the kind of patriotic rhetoric that Americans have a weakness for, and helped make Ronald Reagan for
president. North's lines and voice was like something from a Hollywood production. But no one was wrong. This was
the political reality of the 1987th
"I came to the National Security Council six years ago to work under a great President's leadership. As a member of the
staff I was able to understand his goals and desires. I admired his politics, his strength and his ability to bring our country
together ... and get us to recognize that our nation is in a prone position in a dangerous world. Therefore, we must act. "

Too cold warrior Ollie North words came seemingly from the heart, over which his six rows of medals on the uniform chest
glistened in the photographers' strobes. Parting was crisp and bright blue Irish eyes stared defiantly at the congress panel. Not
humble but cocky, often with a twinkle in his eye and a quick smile when he exchanged rapping comments interrogations
lawyers. A fighter who was frygtesls to Congress meeting piercing eyes, regardless of the stripe of illegal acts he had actually
committed.

"I go from here," averred North, "with heads held high and shoulders straight, because I am proud of my efforts."

But he was furious that congress hearing now revealed what he considered America's legitimate secrets
against the country's enemies: "It is our enemies laugh at us and our friends to cower in terror."

People hero for a summer

At the American people is a great sounding board for patriotic emotion - a need that is unmet in peacetime. Vietnam War struck
swath of this penchant for national patriotism, and Oliver North as a highly decorated Marine returned home in 1969 from
Saigon, it was of the firm conviction that it was not the soldiers 'fault, but the press and the politicians' responsibility when the
war went awry.
Here so that from coast to coast in live TV this energy to the pack. Vietnam hero to the gray, sallow
political overlay.
Even at the height of the Watergate affair was a similar dramatic structure. The only man who had been able to keep a
defensive speech that North was Richard Nixon in 1974, but he hid in the White House, and although he had tried would only
few have the associated Tricky Dicks burglary at the Democratic Party headquarters with patriotism.
 Nevertheless, it was still the Watergate days, there was aroused in memory with headlines such as "The best show in town
since Tricky Dick dropped out." About 80 million Americans followed the transmissions from the Russell Building, since
broadcasters resolutely deleted they scheduled the broadcast look. In the offices not to take in the hours consultation with North
lasted. Taxi drivers and their passengers listened to the car radio, and even a dentist in New York set a TV in front of the flushing
bowl at his clinic because his patients would otherwise have been at home.

The drama on Capitol Hill acted not only on an officer who might have committed some wrongdoing. It was
basically a confrontation between the legislative and executive branch, Congress and the president. 200 years
after the US Constitution was enshrined, was here a clear case of that power corrupts ruler, or rather his staff of
employees.
The Constitution was originally built in "checks and balances" to ensure that the executive, president, controlled by the
legislature, the Congress, and the other is limited by the first not to talk about the third force, the courts . Constitution
fathers in the newly established United States of America had at this carefully specified separation of powers sought to
ensure that the old world diseases were not overjoyed with the land of liberty.

Hole in the Constitution

But CIA Director William Casey and Reagan's advisors of the National Security took advantage of a gap in the Constitution network,
more so than former presidential advisors had done. Reagan's personal staff of the National Security Council, NSC, stood under the
Presidential and no congressional control.
In this case, it meant that Casey deftly moved the secret foreign policy, "Project Democracy" into the National
Security Council. If there should be created a state outside the state, and according to the North it was exactly what
William Casey had in mind, was NSC the place to gather the threads. The assumed true that the president had agreed
to their actions.
On this particular point, namely the president's involvement in the details of the arms trade and transfer of money to the Contras,

revealed an important technical detail, of great fundamental importance for the control mechanisms of the American system. What did

the President? And when did he know it? echoed from the Watergate days.

The answer was sounded allegation that the president did not knew about the transfer of profits from the Iran arms
sales to the Nicaraguan rebels. At least he could say in good conscience that he had been told by security adviser John
Poindexter thereof. Technically called it "plausible denial" a credible denial. They had acted in the president's spirit, but
without asking him or inform him about the consequences of the actions that he did not know. It was a new variation on
presidential power many ingenious attempts to circumvent congressional control. But a variation that Ronald Reagan
claimed that he had not been consulted on.

The date was July 1987. The eleven-week congressional had with Oliver North and John Poindexter reached their
climax.
On his third day in the Caucus Room had Oliver North allowed to put forward his own opinion and
addressed to Congress panel, he said:
"One thing is certain, I think. They will not examine yourself ... There is not much chance that the result of these
consultations will conclude that Boland-adoption and Their frequent political course change was unwise, or that your
restrictions should not have been imposed on the executive . "
"They conclude unlikely that the administration acted properly by trying to keep the fighters in Nicaragua heavens when
they were left to themselves, and the once hardly forward to praise President of the United States who tried so valiantly to
liberate our people ( hostages, ed.) and achieve an opening to the strategically important Iran ... "

It was an unprecedented situation. Accusations against the Congress is fokommet as often. But in a direct tvudsendelse
where a lieutenant colonel dishes indictment of the US legislature? About a third of the US population was sitting in offices,
barber shops, bars and bus stations and followed intense showdown.

Play for 80000000

When North came on Reagan's staff in 1981, he was just an unknown major, there should be folder carries, but in 1986 he ended
up as the world's most powerful lieutenant colonel. Rarely had any individual had the opportunity to explain in Direct TV - for days
and for 80 million television viewers - why his view of the world was so important.

"He's a Rambo with doctorate, hard in the clinch but eloquent," it was said in a telegram from an admirer, who
added the hearing: "Stop finally not now. Give the filipensbelagte politicians a game. The only risk they ever expose
themselves are getting AIDS in one of Washington's sauna clubs. "

As the brave tin soldier strutted Oliver Lawrence North, 43, protruding chin and chest and counter shoulders for a
week up and down the Capitol steps. When asked whether he had not discussed the secret transactions with the
president, said this man, who for some years had had an unimaginably large impact on key sections of US foreign
policy:
"I do not have the habit to question my superiors. If my chief executive (president, Ed.) Asks me to stand on his head there in
the corner, so I do it without a fuss. And if they dismiss me from the staff of the National Security Council, then I salute and thank
you for that I got the opportunity to serve him. This is what the lieutenant have to do. "

North corresponds critics

North's defiant appearance in Congress made him sympathy, especially in the US right circles appreciated not only his
ostentatious patriotism but also his emotional criticism of the politicians who stood in the way of the policy that a majority of
voters had given Ronald Reagan mandate to lead.
North found it intolerable that he was questioned humiliated on issues of greatest secret for the country. Not only does
he questioned the safety committees in Congress could hold on
secrets which by law to keep a stir with. Now dragged the congress even the administration's leading people into a public
hearing, where America's enemies could listen in. This was meant North, to the detriment of America's interests, and thus
showed the politicians really disdain for both democracy and the president need to keep secret sensitive information vital
to the nation.

When congressional legal experts ruled that Oliver North had lied not only to the intermediary Ghorbanifar, but
also to Congress and other government agencies, so retorted North angrily that he had been within his rights to, for
it was part of his deception maneuvers that would prevent America's enemies to know the administration's policy.

In the "dangerous world" where the North was operating, there were patriots and freedom fighters on one side, and then
there were dupes on the other. Melodramatic repainted he is a world in white and black, where Nicaragua was the place
where America's national security was at stake. Only he and his "superior", including the president, were able to assess
how this vulnerability was handled. To avoid that Congress leaked vital information may his actions carried out in secret.
Therefore, he was forced to lie to Congress. Yes, covert operations were by their very nature untrue, he claimed.

North had a very peculiar interpretation of the checks and balances between the president and Congress. The president
was probably responsible to the legislature, but North was quite certain that the president's staff had no obligation to comply
with other rules than those they received from the president himself. Congress had no power to demand the president's NSC
staff accountable.
Legally had Oliver North may be right. This fact has never been the subject of legal analysis. One can not exclude
that the courts would give North and Poindexter right that there be an amendment to the order that Congress can
force the president's staff to reveal mysteries of the kingdom. Congress can call ministers and CIA Director in, the must
be accountable to the legislature. But the president's own staff, ie North and Poindexter, is only accountable to the
president.

In deathlike silence sat congress committees' representatives and stared at Oliver North, while TV cameras drove
from face to face. Tanned and crafty physiognomies with Italian-sounding names like Dante Fascell and smooth
ambitious white-Anglo-saxian-Protestant's with names like George Mitchell - as diverse as the American population is
different.
This showdown was about more than legal niceties. It was about that US laws presumably had been used by
some officers of the President's staff, who had not even told the president what they did. If legislators did bonnet in a
hole of Oliver North's patriotic rhetoric, then one would not certainly have to NSC were doing the same in the future.

"Can people approve secret government?" Asked the chairman of the Senate committee, Senator Daniel Inouye, aggrieved.
Here in the 200th anniversary of the US Constitution he would use the exact as a yardstick for assessing the North's actions:
"Consider the people the constitution of a valuable document?" He asked. "I suggest that we study this document and how it has
been
soiled by this episode. "

Congressional requirements on the insight

The fact was that the politicians of course could or should prevent the president in conducting parts of its foreign
policy in secret. These hidden initiatives or actions might be room for a great power's foreign policy if it could
work.
But Iran-contra affair was not only such "covert operation", it was in itself a foreign policy that was in direct
contradiction to the president's own formulated foreign policy, and he was even not fully informed about the deviation. If
presidential advisers do not have to answer for their actions other than the president, and they informed him of what they
did, then led the presidential advisers real US foreign policy on its own.

When the same advisors even kept it secret, so it was hardly just to hide it from the enemy, but because "the
American people would not accept their policies," suggested a questioning attorney.

The formal wording "the American people" was a term that was turned and twisted during the Congress of the hearing. It
arises from the Constitution language. The people have the central position in American political thought, because it is the
highest authority in given periods delegate the job to a president and to Congress, but it is the American people who
conceptually top placed on the democratic ladder.

Ronald Reagan had been elected on a program determined that the United States does not negotiate with terrorists. That was the line that

had been followed against Libya. Terrorists and their sponsors should be punished, not rewarded.

But Iran Gate revealed that not only did Reagan's advisors negotiated with some of the terrorists 'real masterminds,
namely Iran, they had even sold the country weapons as an award for the release of the terrorists' hostages. Volunteer to
give terrorists the weapons that they needed to continue their terror was not only criminal. It was cynical.

The longing for true patriotism

With regard to the Contras, they were both voters and Congress divided on whether to support Ronald Reagans program. The
president wanted to support the Contras so much that they could take power in Nicaragua. Sabotage of oil tanks, storage
facilities and pipelines were launched. Later the CIA mining and blockade of Nicaraguan harbors. Congressional majority
responded with five consecutive decisions, named after Democrat Edward P. Boland. It was these Boland-decisions by the
President and his staff scornfully neglected in hidden smuggling weapons, supplies and money to the Contras.

The message to Congress was therefore in its brutal simplicity: the politicians would not like to interfere in the
important work of the President's staff performed. It was outside their
authority.
Congress people were never put Oliver North to the wall. He left after a week selection room and flash lamps with legislators
whiff end condemnations in the ear, but outside the Capitol, he was hailed for his patriotism and courage.

This was a test for American democracy. Optimists argued persistently that the elucidation, hearings, purges in
the White House, was an expression of the triumph of democracy.
American society had since WW2 been through other ordeals, for example. In the past, during the Korean War and the

Vietnam War. The American General Staff was unanimously passed against an escalation of the Korean War, and General

Douglas MacArthur was dismissed by President Truman and called home. But he was, despite his controversial behavior been

hailed by huge sectors of American society, as in him as a courageous, resolute soldier who put his life into the struggle against

communism.

Oliver North was significantly enough in July 1987 just compared with Douglas MacArthur, and the grounds were the same as in
1951. Not since MacArthur's return from Asia, wrote a newspaper that had been in the United States registered a comprehensive
patriotic tribute to an American officer.
It was nothing less than absurd. In the north'ske home overturned in tens of thousands of tribute letters through the letterbox,
staged by the right-republican associations. At the same time received his support committee over a million dollars in voluntary
contributions to pay legal costs. This happened, mind you after the dismissed lieutenant colonel in the Senate Caucus Room
openly acknowledged that he had made false statements, had previously lied to the Congress, had forged documents, had written
misleading reports and that he had destroyed important evidence.

Fascination turned out to be only a summer infatuation. A public opinion survey found that 65% of Americans found that
the North had more wrong than right. As is anything but liberal "Army Times" wrote in a cool and dissociative editorial:

"If there really had to be a groundswell of sympathy for the sale of arms to Ayatollah Khomeini's regime, then we have
certainly not discovered it."
"Olli mania" faded as the summer drew to a close.

Fear of communism
But back was contra affair and Nicaragua, which was the theme that had aroused right-wing clerics during the hearings. How did
that Reagan and his advisers could convince so many Americans into that Nicaragua was really navel of the world?

For Europeans, it is difficult to understand why a large majority of Americans are almost obsessed with the threat of
sandiniststyret in Nicaragua. Europeans coexist with the communist-controlled countries and Western Communist parties daily.
But for Americans is communism as an evil ghost that in an unguarded moment will sneak up on them and once and for all
destroy the American way of life.
In the US, rising paranoia up the throat of the American at the idea that the communist threat without notice suddenly tear
the foundation out from under his capitalist freedom dream.
 It was this string Oliver North was estimated when he in Congress said that if the Contras did not receive the widest possible support,

would the Nicaraguan communists, supported by Fidel Castros brigades, spread so much fear that the refugees would flow over the Rio

Grande into the belly of the whale , the United States itself.

One would need a wall along the US southern border, believed North, as he thought of a copy of the Great Chinese Wall,
which ancient China with its enemies physically incapable of the empire.
 17. Behind the veil

"Earn in silence. Do not reveal military information. It's against the law! "

Entries in the CIA headquarters in Langley,

The real dynamite in congressional questioning of Oliver North was the Colonel's description of the long-term plans, as
CIA director grappled with. Thus it was revealed that William Casey had played a pivotal, in fact leading, role in the
Iran-contra affair. Furthermore, he had been planning to move the secret business into a brand new organization
located "off-the-shelf", outside US territory.

The idea was originated by the efficient cooperation Casey established with the small group of NSC. The need was for William

Casey beyond to trade weapons with Iran and provide Contras money and weapons. When Casey died in May 1987, was Oliver North

one of the few sources of Casey's plans for the future.

Oliver North explained 19 July 1987 in Congress:

"Director Casey had in mind, as I understood him, an overseas entity would be able to lead activities that could support
US foreign policy objectives. It should be free-standing, self-financing, independent of money funds and able to lead
activities similar to those we had done here (Iran-Contra activities, ed.). There were other countries considered as
recipients of this kind of support, and other activities including anti-terrorism. "

At lawyer Arthur Limans question whether it would not be a "CIA within the CIA" correspond North in the negative,
then Liman asked if it not supposed to be an organization that would be able to lead a secret foreign policy?

"It need not necessarily be secret," retorted North. "Director (Casey, ed.) Was interested in an organization outside the
continent that could finance itself and stand freely and be able to initiate activities at America's behalf ... These activities
were discussed between the Director Casey and Admiral Poindexter, and some of them should be implemented together
with friendly intelligence services. What they needed was financial. "
 What Reagan's loyal pages tinkered with was a deep konspirativt and unconstitutional entity in which Iran-contra project
was only a first step. The small circle in the White House had been in the process of forming a parallel government that
would lead a private foreign policy around the external control bodies. Notice that the North first speaks of a "unit" (an
entity), but after that Liman has put the word organization in his mouth call North it "an organization".

There are two schools in the American debate over who was the driving force behind Iran Gate affair. On one side you will find
the Tower Commission, which in its conclusion found that the president's principal advisers had the overwhelming responsibility and
that Ronald Reagan himself was a victim of her relax "management style". The Commission found that Reagan probably had not
been able to grasp the extent of American involvement in Iran deal and the intricate details of the secret negotiations.

It is a view that because of the Tower Commission's authority and large process was good Latin up to and during the hearings
in the summer of 1987. Oliver North and especially John Poindexter had shielded the president had not told about the profits that
were sent on to the Contras, etc.
But as Ronald Reagan himself said in his comments after Congressional hearings as a direct reply to Poindexters attempt
to take full responsibility for the affair: "The buck stops with me." Reagan, not Poindexter, was "buck".

Reagan gives in reality expressing the second main point in the debate, namely the president with his order ( "finding") January
17, 1986 took a conscious and controversial stance: Iran Gate should go ahead, even though Defense Secretary Weinberger,
Secretary of State Shultz and former. Security Adviser McFarlane advised against it.

A junta in the White House

This second view is most convincingly put forward by historian Theodor Draper in an analysis in the New York
Review of Books 8 October 1987 entitled "The Rise of the American Junta".

Immediately appears the term "junta" misplaced in an analysis of the circumstances of President Reagan and his
advisers. But Draper comes his critics forestalled by saying that his use of the word junta is not going to mean a
conspiracy that seeks to override the president. No, "the junta," writes Draper, "came into the world to overthrow an
established constitutional law with the president's help."

Theodor Draper frame its view of former President James Madisons words: "I think there are more cases of limitations
on people's freedom by those in power gradual and silent violence than by violent and sudden seizure of power."

Transferred to Reagan-era believe Draper that with the ideological main survey Reagan Doctrine represented, and with the
likes of CIA director William Casey and officerstreklveret McFarlane, Poindexter, North to manage the doctrine following the recipe
end justifies the means, then came the first outline this junta appeared after Boland-adoption in October 1984 which prohibited any
military aid to
Contras.
Rather than calling it "a government within the government" or "secret government" prefer Draper word junta, because the
small group operated as if it were a junta. The concept associate for Latin America and the banana republics, which is
unfortunate for Reagan junta acted in a completely different pattern.

Theodor Draper finds that the players were a group of strategically placed people who did not have an own government
resources with which to bring their plans to fruition. Therefore they had to tamper with the existing government to get their way.
That it was allowed to continue for so long was due solely to activists in their midst, the two most powerful people, President
Reagan and CIA Director Casey.

With frown adds Draper: "If North's operation had been merely nearly as broad as a government, or if he had
had the resources of the type available, so no one can say how far this could have resulted."

No, it is not going to happen, it is hard to predict. But of course Draper right in his perception of Oliver North. This
was as it should be seen, an activist with an imagination, which fortunately only few officers with political power cut. His
radius of action seemed limitless practical problems he solved the same rate as they arose, his combination ability was
perfect, and he could
under other circumstances, was a dangerous man to the United States. As it was, it was bad enough.

But if Oliver North could have been dangerous, so was William Casey dangerous. Drapers analysis is a gifted
review of decision-making in Iran Gate, but it seems to fail at a crucial point.
By equating Ronald Reagan with William Casey as topaktrerne the junta ignores Draper vast difference there was between
the two men in recent years. Where Reagan was uenergisk, had an uncertain hand with both detail and overview, William
Casey, until a brain tumor paralyzed him langtskuende, vital, full operational strength, and with a clear vision for how his
conspirative worldview could be realized within the existing decision-making system.

Bob Woodwards book "The veil"

Therefore, Bob Woodwards book on Casey's CIA, "Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA 1981-1987" a valuable
contribution to understanding the period, Casey and his political ideas. It has been said that it is the cunning fox, spy
chief William Casey, who from the grave through the book writing its own obituary while disinformerer public because
maybe he was hiding even more secrets, which may not escape.

The book's richness of detail, its in-depth portrait of a CIA chief in work clothes, his ideology and uncontrollable desire to apply
the world's anti-communism, is valuable. The authenticity of the lines and the dialogue is problematic, but the CIA people and
good friends as columnist William Safire says that this is the William Casey, they know. Almost 50 interviews with Casey has
done Woodward able to give a reliable picture of the man who had formed an independent self-financing organization to lead
foreign policy in cooperation with friendly governments (including Israel and Saudi Arabia).
What Woodward's book is in the details missing the turn in the analysis. There is a lack inlet to really explain what Israel
and Saudi Arabia's roles was in the Reagan doctrine and Iran Gate. The book betrays no junta and barely "a government within
the government". Oliver North's revelations during the Congressional hearings of Casey's foreign policy organization - which
would take foreign policy initiatives that the US government could not lay back to - seems to have come behind the writer Bob
Woodward that it came as a surprise to most. Here the book has nothing of importance to add to what North said, in addition to
revealing the secret Saudi operations course itself is sensational. The author has not dared or been cut to the bone and
describe Casey's central role as a leading force in the alternative foreign policy.

A key question pops out of Woodward's book: "Why betrayed Casey so many of intelligence secrets? He was the
boss, who had demanded of his staff that there was to be tad too heavy and he had made it clear that if the CIA's
motto "Earn in silence" that could be read on Langley's walls were not respected, as was it out of the guard.

William Casey was a man who had a strict sense of the things he did. He did not break his confidentiality by mistake, or
only to strengthen his ego and reputation in posterity. Naturally enough connoisseurs of Casey wondered what he would
hide by talking. It sounds like a paradox, but Casey was also the paradox champion.

One possibility is that he betrayed Woodward was a lie. It could, for instance. mean that Saudi Arabia still had financed
and organized liquidation attempt against Sheikh Fadlallah in Beirut in March 1985 that the Saudis had given about 32
million. $ to the contra movement through monthly payments of Prince Bandar, the Saudis had not invested money in an
anti-Kaddafioperation in Chad and a campaign against the Communist Party of Italy.

But from the other hand, we know that the Saudis in some of these cases actually had done exactly this. There can be no doubt

be on the million-takers to the contra movement were given. After all that King Fahd had done for the Reagan administration, it would

be more than absurd for Casey to belittle Saudi friends with lies. Let us assume that Casey was telling the truth about Saudi Arabia's

role.

A reverse "deep throat"

The second interpretation of Casey's indiscretion is that he would influence Woodward's work in a desired direction. By telling
the journalist some secrets he found while out of what Woodward knew from the other side. A constant "damage control".
Casey the agent, closely following his victim, in this case Woodward, into the secret tunnel times and notes how much the
victim finds out. At the same time Casey cover for other tunnel times that he does not want known and revealed to the world.

Is it a before speculative interpretation of Casey's confidences? I do not think so. How to think and act a spy chief.
Technically works Casey in the situation to Woodward as an inverted "deep throat" (Woodward's anonymous source in the
Washington case), that he feeds reporter with confidential information not to reveal overall or competitors as it must have
been the case in
Watergate, but to prevent his own deepest secrets are spilled.
Casey had no chance to prevent Woodward in writing his book, and Woodward's revelations would in any case be
embarrassing. But you can take what in English is called "spin control", ie, that brings the crashed plane out of its spin,
dishes it up and hopefully get it brought to earth with the least possible damage. Seen in this light becomes "Veil", Blurred, a
very interesting book. It should be read with the aim also to clarify the relationship of the CIA succeeded Casey to hide the
book's author.

If with this approach read the book, then sticks it in his eyes that despite the fact that William Casey had a very positive view
of Israel, so you have to look like for a needle in the haystack to find anything other than fragments thereof in "Veil ".

This really seems to be the point where Casey carefully follows his own decree to "serve in silence."

So much is clear, however, that the CIA and Israeli intelligence services had no straightforward relationship. When
Begin government in July 1981 precision bombed Iraq's nuclear reactor outside of Baghdad, it was made on the basis of
US satellite shots.
Casey had to accept that his deputy partially closed Israel's access to satellite transmissions. From the Pollard affair, one
can also see that there apparently was some information that Israel did not get. Both the CIA and the Pentagon were several
stops in order to close Israel's access to information.

It irritated Casey, and in general it is cumbersome bureaucratic CIA apparatus irritated him. There was too much control of
the organization, especially from the Congress, and most of his subordinates took the letter about what the CIA could and could
not quite literal. Casey reorganized his staff, but only to discover that the more unorthodox activities was on his mind, still could
be carried out by his organization. The idea to ally with NSC was the way forward for the Reagan doctrine corsairs.

Casey looking for money for the Contras

Nicaragua and contra affair was close to Bill Casey's heart. Congress was divided, but the skeptics were in the majority and limited with

Boland-decisions assistance to the Contras. These prohibitions had circumvented. In that regard, there was agreement at the White House.

Casey and Security Adviser McFarlane put their heads together and agreed to find countries that would support the case, since the United

States was officially prevented.

First sent McFarlane its employee Howard Teichert to Israel, codenamed "Country One". But the answer was no, at least
if we are to believe what came out in Congressional hearings. But there is good reason not to do, everything suggests that
the Israelis through Costa Rica and Honduras sell Contras weapons.

Then it was "Country Two" which was Saudi Arabia. McFarlane and the Saudi Washington ambassador, Prince Bandar,
agreed that it would be useful to the kingdom supported this good cause, provided that nothing got out to the public. From July
1984 fell eight monthly contribution of every one million dollars.
 In February 1985 visited the King Fahd US official. Washington was on the other end. The king gave a banquet, standing reputation of

where metropolis political jet-set was invited. Before had Ambassador Bandar announced McFarlane that the king had given to understand

that the monthly amount would be put up to two million dollars. Reagan gave Fahd a discreet warm handshake in gratitude for this act of

friendship. The subject was so sensitive that the two men could hardly talk about it, but a few hints and one look was enough. Reagan and

Fahd understood each other.

It was an offensive term in King Fahd's charm offensive to Washington. It was the same period that Casey and Bandar had lunch

together in the Saudi ambassador's residence and on a stroll afterwards in the ambassador's having signed the agreement that Saudi

Arabia would fund a counter-terrorism operation against Sheikh Fadlallah in Lebanon, which was suspected of being terrorist common

command.

It was also the period when Khashoggi was active in finding a channel for arms sales to Iran because Fahd wanted to make
sure that Iran does not sabotaged the annual pilgrimage to Mecca or widespread the Shiite beliefs to the Arab Gulf countries.

CIA sabotage of Nicaragua

Nowhere are the devil-right activism more apparent than in Nicaragua policy. With Duane "Dewey" Clarridge had Casey
got a division manager for Latin America, who understood the spirit of the Reagan doctrine and in practice could expand
on it.
On his first visit to Western Europe after the Reagan administration was formed in 1981, got Casey saw "Dewey", as the CIA
station chief in Rome was called. A 49-year-old, energetic problem solver, like Casey represented the new blood CIA needed.
Clarridge would "clean up" in Central America and prepare for Casey's war against the Sandinistas.

William Casey himself set the tone, so none of his employees have to be in doubt that the right extremist views were
sought. Senators on Capitol Hill liked Casey to mention that "these fuckers" ( "bastards" is almost too nice translation)
whose ideas about Nicaragua and the Contras was "bullshit". Oliver North held the same lstuestil in his language. Went
Secretary Shultz against Casey-NSC Group's operations said the North "fuck the Secretary of State". North had not
forgotten Shultz 'patronizing words after the North in 1982 had bypassed the State Department to report to the White House
about Sharon's plans in Lebanon.

"Bastard must transpire," said Casey on sandiniststyret in Nicaragua, and he put Clarridge started with a series of sabotage
operations. If Casey's staff could not find new harassment against Managua regime, they got a reminder of Casey with orders that
the CIA was no nursing homes, and that it was necessary to obtain Sandinista government in the world. It was Reagan's desire,
and the funds were subordinates.

Clarridge put the thumbscrew on Nicaragua. Oil deposits along the coast was blown up, oil pipelines sabotaged, and in
1984 were laid mines in Nicaraguan ports. It was, however, the straw that broke the liberal Democrats in Congress to explode
and a new Boland-adoption that year was adopted in the House of Representatives with 411 votes to zero. Casey pulled just on
the shoulder.
 CIA was with Casey back on the old track from the 1960s, and it suited him fine. Deputy directors and area managers were
either transferred or dismissed if they were reluctant, or listened too much after congressional denunciations. Casey would blow
Congress a piece. There sat his enemies, but also a few sympathizers. The last mobilized Casey in Nicaragua debate. For public
opinion was important. Not only abroad but also in the United States was collected money for the Contras. Millions were given,
Oliver North traveled around with his inflammatory speech, the biggest donors were invited to the White House, so Reagan could
touch their hand.

"Project Democracy"
William Casey and Oliver North thrust his hands deep in his pockets, and up came old CIA officers and soldiers of fortune from twenty-five

years of secret underground work. It was the real "cowboys", the so-called "secret network" of most professional ex-soldiers and ex-agents

from the time when the difference between the two things were not so great.

The framework for these covert activities was "Project Democracy". The program was originally started as a respectable,
transatlantic initiative, praised by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan on official occasions. It gave the state money to
democratic projects.
But on the shady side grew from 1,982 a deep secret foreign policy project forward, under the same name. Oliver North was
responsible for it from about 1983, and it was the very foundation of NSC's and Casey's secret police, led from the side building in
the White House.
North had code names for all his secrets, and "Project Democracy" abbreviated Prodem, was well suited for weapons and
training program for the Contras. In recent arms negotiations with Iran were under one code "Project Recovery." Anchor man
on the action side of both projects, Richard V. Secord, went under the pseudonym "Copp". As North wrote on its internal
computer McFarlane "A man of many spoken, 'ol Secord ice", and nothing could be truer.

Secord is being closed, arrogant man, for whom nothing in this world is strange. A man in his military career aspired high,
achieved to become deputy assistant to Defense Secretary Weinberger 1981-83, after which he resigned and disappeared into
the "business", where his old acquaintances took nicely against him.

1: Vietnam and Laos:

In the 1960s Secord bomber pilot in Vietnam and operator on secret flights over Laos who came from Thailand. Here he met CIA
veterans, Theodore Shackley, Tom Cline and Felix Rodriques, who with Shackley as the CIA station chief in Miami had been
deeply involved in the CIA's failed operation in the Bay of Pigs, Cuba, 1961. The CIA conducted a secret war in Laos, an offshoot
of the American effort in Vietnam, led by General Singlaub, who in Saigon in 1966 had formed a special operation group.
Lieutenant Oliver North served for a brief period during Singlaub during his stay in Vietnam.

In the Vietnam War last stage created Shackley, Secord and Cline's a private company in Southeast Asia,
acted with weapons and equipment. The downloaded thousands of tons of military equipment out of Vietnam before the fall of Saigon,

and stored it in Thailand. The unearned wealth they would use for anti-communist activities.

Vietnam and Cambodia "fell". The group moved.

2: Tehran and the Middle East:

Next station was Tehran, where the group provided the Shah's secret police, SAVAK, with funds and ideas. It is worth noting
that more than ten years before "Project Democracy" occurs has Secord and Cline's done extensive experience in trade
weapons through a private company. From 1975 to 1978, Secord head of the US military office in Tehran. Here he learned the
businessman Albert Hakim know who had created an American company Stanford Technology Corporation, Secord entered into
after he left the Ministry of Defense in 1983. Secords job in Tehran was to sell Iran and other countries in the Middle American
weapons, and already when he used Hakim company that examination stage.

In Tehran met Secord and Hakim businessman Manucher Ghorbanifar, which should be useful for those few years later.
During Congressional hearings in 1987 told Hakim that he is in Iran known Ghorbanifar as agent for both SAVAK and the
Israeli Mossad. Ghorbanifars agency of Mossad was thus of old date. And just in Tehran was the experienced Israeli
intelligence officer, David Kimche who was Mossad chief. Israel's military attach in Tehran was also the recent arms dealer
Yaakov Nimrodi. In Tehran assembled, therefore, the wires between the players in the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal.

Shah "fell". It was again moving day.

3: Nicaragua:
The group had when in 1978 came into contact with the Somoza regime in Nicaragua, control over several bank accounts in Switzerland,

Panama, Cayman Islands. Companies such as Lake Resources and Companie de Service Fiduciares was established and millions are

circulated from the extensive arms dealer in Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

Since the Carter Administration banned the sale of military equipment to the Somoza regime was "the secret network" into sales

deals on arms, ammunition, aircraft and dynamite to the reactionary regime, which it was hoped could stay in power. When Somoza

fell and his National Guard formed the first contra forces, supplied network them weapons. This was nothing new for Shackley and

Cline. It was the same thing they had done with exiled Cubans after Castro's takeover twenty years earlier.

Somoza fell. Where there were friends to help were now enemies to fight. Wheel of fortune spun.

4: AWACS deal:
Richard Secord and Oliver North were on high alert after Carter crashed "Operation rneklo" in the Iranian desert, which was
intended to free the American hostages in Tehran.
 Secord and North were in Turkey, near the Iranian border. But their rescue expedition to Teheran was canceled.

Then Ronald Reagan president. "Right revolution" moving into the White House with Reagan's staff Allen, Clark,
Casey, Meese, Weinberger, who all hate communism of a good heart.
To convince Congress accuracy in selling Saudi Arabia the new radar aircraft AWACS lent Oliver North, Richard Secord,
Robert Lilac Others to the White House. During AWACS debate they meet the Saudi military attach, Prince Bandar. New
tape attached. North transferred afterwards to the NSC, Secord remains in forsvarsminisetriet to 1983 after which he paired
with Albert Hakim, Lilac leave later NSC and become a consultant for Bandar at the Saudi Embassy.

But Casey was where he was, in the espionage headquarters in Langley, where he intended to change the world and put an
end to the evil forces that plagued the free world.
But the forces could William Casey not stop. They tormented still his contemporaries when he six years later had to
yield to an internal threat, a malignant brain tumor. Here ended the life circle of the old spy and anti-communist, who
ironically had learned his craft in cooperation with communist spies behind Hitler's lines forty years earlier.

There were becoming empty of old friends in the White House. Reagan-era went to end.
 18. Assess in the Gulf

I was in the first days of November 1986 in the Iraqi city of Basra, a few kilometers behind the front to Iran since the BBC began
broadcasting the surprising bulletins about US arms sales to Iran. First it sounded unbelievable, as was the news from another
planet. Reagan f. Security Adviser Robert McFarlane had in May secretly visiting Tehran to sell theocracy weapons in
exchange for American hostages in Lebanon released!

Behind the horizon could be heard the muffled sounds of Iran's guns, occasionally interrupted by incoming artillery shells, which

hissing whistling crashed into the Iraqi millionbys residential neighborhoods. Precisely in those days was the shelling of Basra relatively

intense. The shells fell in the morning between 8 and

11, and after a rest yet. 15 again. The war was in its seventh year, and the Iranian gunners sat obviously appreciate a good long siesta. It

seemed the one in Basra was a nice thing. Hotel Basra Sheraton, with its thick concrete walls the only safe building in the city. The foyer and

cafeteria in the basement was filled with Iraqis every time the attacks began.

In the nearly seven years, the war cost at least a million dead and wounded men. Saddam's victory did not materialize,
Ayatollah too. Today sitting hundreds of thousands of men in their trenches or lies like invalids in hospitals and curse the two
uncompromising regimes, both feel they have invested too much to the dry peace without victory.

Some days later in Baghdad, I went to the government spokesman. The man was speechless both repressed anger and fear of being cited

for anything. In Baghdad, is the boundary line between the gallows and a ministerial appointment often subtle. The dictatorship in Baghdad

paused ominously, while it was waiting for Washington's explanations.

I called the US ambassador to comment. He knew at that point yet that his boss, Secretary of State George Shultz,
had also been excluded from the events of John Poindexter and Oliver North in the White House. Ambassador's
thoughts at the moment of his Foreign Minister mental state of mind would be worth their weight in gold. On the phone
he was so discreet that his remark "no comment" almost sounded like an indiscretion.
 Baghdad was deeply shocked.

Stars and Stripes over the Tigris

To visit Iraq today is like stepping into the totalitarian state George Orwell described in his book "1984". No matter where
you are, you feel the president's stabbing gaze at the neck. Poster poster he turned up on all walls and fences, in
uniform, in suits, in beduinantrk, legged, etc. One is tempted by Gertrude Stein to say: A Saddam is a Saddam is
Saddam! A popular joke in Baghdad reads: We are 28 million people here in Iraq. 14 million Iraqis and 14 million posters
of Saddam Hussein!

Like all genuine history tyrants have also Saddam Hussein one hofpoet who has written a tribute to the leader:

"Iraq's perfume, its dates, its two

rivers fertile delta, its sword and
shield,
the eagle whose greatness amazes even the sky. Since there
has been an Iraq have you been waiting, Saddam. "

Despite rumors of US arms sales to Iran were mutual charm offensive between the US and Iraq not called off. America was in the
midst of a remarkable cultural campaign. A glittering floor show from Hawaii and country singers from Nashville filled Baghdad's
better nightclubs.
At the city lunch restaurants so that American trade people engrossed in conversation with Iraqi colonels. As the Stars and
Stripes flew over the Tigris River in November 1984 was passed 17 years ago Iraq in 1967 during the Arab-Israeli six-day war broke
diplomatic relations with America. Now, only two years after the thaw, were Saddam Hussein confirmed his own maxim that in
politics one should never trust anyone, and certainly not the great powers.

It might look like an ironic coincidence that in the year in 1970'- are where Saddam really grabbed the reins of the Iraqi power
unit since lived an Iranian pastor of exile in Iraq. The man was Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, one of Shah's genuine critics. He was
considered by the Iraqis for a ekcentriker, but it was on the other side so many Shiite clerics were. It was not until 1977 that the
Iraqis gave Khomeini actual house arrest in the holy city of Najaf, because the old man's hate speeches generated Shah's ear.

It ended with Saddam Hussein personally had to expel Khomeini, which the imam never forgiven Iraq's president.
Via Paris turned Khomeini after the fall of the Shah home and was received in triumph. The following year Saddam
Hussein fatal war decision. Thus, for Khomeini a personal revenge in now to continue the war until Saddam regime
collapse.
Both Iran and Iraq are today led by two strong-willed men. One clerical, the other secular. Both have total power, with no
restrictions. And in both countries, the cult worship remarkable. In Tehran
can the bazaar buy tapestries and shawls pray with Imam Khomeini's portrait on. In Baghdad, one can find cake plates,
watches, and even notebooks for school children with Saddam's likeness.
The accounts of Saddam Hussein's policy must not only counted the corpses and cripples, but also in money. It is assumed that
the Gulf War in its first seven years has cost upwards of $ 200 billion. Iraq had in 1986 an outstanding debt of $ 50 billion, a record
which rises steadily and inexorably.

The parallel to Kissinger China-opening

The Iraqi regime acted wisely in not taking immediate consequences of the discovery of America's secret arms sales to
Iran.
At worst, it meant arms sales in the United States had reached the conclusion that Iran would win the war and that
Washington therefore did not bring him attuned to Iran's new rulers.
The humiliating revselsesproces that the Reagan administration was pulled through by Congress and the media, the
redundancies in the White House and commission reports showed, however, clear that Baghdad did not have to take too gloomy
conclusions. Weapons Sales to Iran was not a completed action, based on serious considerations.

The fact that McFarlane group arrived with a chocolate cake with a golden key in the glaze, symbolizing the key to open the
gates of Heaven betrayed the mission adventure character. To McFarlane then quite undiplomatic broke off negotiations and
angrily went home because he immediately got all the hostages in Lebanon released, showed the hostages was the journey real
goal. It was not a bold long-term opening to Iran.

Later, Robert McFarlane in a letter to the editor defending the mission to Tehran as a huge thought strategic disposition
similar to Henry Kissingers secret mission to China that led to the thaw between the US and China. Had it really been a
similar policy, marked by strategic foresight which gave rise to the secret mission so that Iraq had had good reason to
worry.
With the benefit of hindsight, one can afterwards note that Reagan's advisers were not only little informed about the internal

debate in Iran, but neither showed interest in understanding the clerical regime's pattern. There were insightful Iran Specialists in the

United States, but they were not been consulted when the White House would cast its own foreign policy.

The Islamic millennial

In the great revolutions, and so is Iran, broken contradictions inevitably for a longer period after the change of regime. The
different wings trying to dominate the revolutionary controlled future program. It was difficult in the decade after the French
monarchy's fall in 1789 to predict the impact of the surging power struggle in Paris until Napoleon in 1801 seized power. Also in
Russia from the Tsar's fall with the October Revolution until Stalin's consolidation of his power decade later.

The revolution in Iran was in 1986 still only seven years old.

Interestingly, one can in Iran see a resemblance to the Soviet debate that took place in the first years after
revolution, ie the confrontation between those who wanted the world revolution and those who would bet on the revolution in one

country. Soviet Union.

Revolution regime in Iran had in the first years after the fall of the Shah a boundless urge on the wings of Islam Green Wave to

revolutionize the world.

Iran was the country from which Imam Khomeini as spiritual and temporal leader would launch a revival worldwide. The
modern society was through corrupted by materialism and moral disintegration that Iran also had been before the revolution.
Now the temple cleansed of wickedness and the fundamentals put in place.

From their lofty redoubt looked ayatollahs and mullahs their self-conscious beyond the globe, although the daily had enough to
do to cope with the Middle East. They seemed to think that the world had a greater need for Iran than Iran to the world.

The road to Tehran

In the fall of 1984 was heard but new tone from Tehran.

Prime Minister Mir Hossein Musavi admitted that the regime had difficulties in obtaining the necessary supplies
of equipment for war. He was especially pains to emphasize that the Arab Gulf countries had nothing to fear from
the Iranian revolution.
Ayatollah Khomeini was quoted as saying that "we must have relations with all governments, with the exception of a
very few that we have no connection with the moment."
In the Saudi capital Riyadh studied it with interest Prime Minister Mousavi statement: "We do not want to export
the armed revolution to any country. It is a big lie. It is our aim to promote the Islamic revolution through persuasion
and by truth and courage. "
It was the start signal for King Fahd's suitor process to Tehran.

In the following winter months opened Iran, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and eventually the United States up to dialogue with each other. If

you dare to take Prime Minister Musavi on the floor, so it was now that Saudi Arabia through discreet diplomacy should build bridges

between the West and Iran. He put Khashoggi started by Israel and the Israeli-Iranian agency Ghorbanifar to find the way to Tehran.

As recently as 1986 declared Ayatollah Khomeini: "There has been a period in which the situation was chaotic and everything was in

ruins, but thank God everything is now as it should be ... domestic and international affairs as they should be" .

Yamanis star off

About Khomeini's statement also covered the sheik Yamanis crash from the OPEC cartel's summit must be unsaid. But if it was,
it was good news for Iranians.
Saudi Arabia's powerful oil minister for 25 years, Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani, lost many of his friends in OPEC circuit in
1985-86. Together with his colleague in Kuwait had Yamani in 1985 put the oil production in the weather. Altogether could the 13
OPEC countries produce 33 million. barrels of oil per day.
But partly because of the new non-OPEC producers Norway, Great Britain and Mexico there was no room in the
market to sell more than half of OPEC's capacity.
Now would Yamani by increase output force the price down - and hopefully North Sea producers etc. out
of the market. It should certainly not pay to put new fields into production in the North Sea.

From 2 million. barrels of oil daily put Yamani production in Saudi Arabia up to 5 million. barrels a day. On the other hand fell crude oil price of

about $ 28 per. barrel in 1985 to approximately $ 8 in 1986.

Yamanis price war should imprinted with letters of fire in our modern history books. It is probably the most onerous measure to
a commodity association has implemented. OPEC's total revenue in 1986 was about $ 50 billion lower than the previous year.

The price fall was a disaster for the population rich oil countries. Of the 350 million people living in the 13 OPEC countries, live
only 6-7 million in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Distraught as countries such as Indonesia, Nigeria and Iran price fall below what the
1973 figures had been before the first oil crisis.
The revolutionary government in Iran, which both had an expensive war to fight and a hungry people to feed, as oil
revenues fall from 16 billion $ in 1985 to 6 billion years then. Curiously signaled the four US operators, Exxon, Mobil, Texaco
and Chevron, represented in the Saudi ARAMCO that they were interested in an increased Saudi production.

This means that while President Reagan's advisers tried to put pressure on the Iranian government that it should provide
hostages in Lebanon free, decreased Iran's oil revenues so dramatic that it triggered a crisis of the Iranian economy. Pastor's
Cabinet did not like Yamanis manipulations.
No wonder that Iran's oil minister appeared particularly aggressive towards Sheikh Yamani when they met at the major OPEC
meetings. Yamani demanded that the other OPEC countries had to get through the crisis, the only way you could get OPEC
historical market return.
Iran pressed, and King Fahd gave way. With a stroke of the pen he sacked in October 1986 of the third world's most respected

commodity strategists. Exit Yamani.

Fahd offered Yamani because he was so strongly interested in that appeasementspolitikken against Iran would succeed. Reaching

an understanding, be it ever so indirectly, with the Ayatollah's Iran had Fahd's highest priority and was the driving force behind the arms

sales, as Khashoggi was intermediated by Israel and the United States.

Oil prices swung almost immediately up to $ 18 per. barrel after the Saudi oil production was reduced.

Hashemi-wing obstruct Rafsanjani

At the same bet King Fahd on the pilgrimage to Mecca in the autumn of 1986 had to be calm and dignified. Agreements with the

Iranians that effect were in place.

But in October, the Iranian revolution ambassador, Mehdi Hashemi, suddenly arrested when he tried to smuggle
explosives into Saudi Arabia in connection with hajj'en. It was the same man who six years earlier had tried something
similar in Bahrain and how it led to the arrest of
60 Iranian.
Hashemis strength was partly his radical commitment to spreading revolution clerics outside Iran, and partly because he was the

brother of Ayatollah Montazeris son. Montazeri is Khomeini's designated successor. Based in Ayatollah's office in the holy city of Qum

created Hashemi headquarters of his Movement for World Liberation, and he was in Qum surrounded by many disciples who saw him

as a revolutionary light.

But the light was extinguished when he would smuggle unauthorized dynamite into Saudi Arabia. Hashemis supporters who
saw their leader smoke in Iranian prison, however, took a cruel revenge against President Hashemi Rafsanjani, who personally
was glad that was put tape on the radical Hashemi. By leak information to the magazine "al-Shira" in Lebanon Rafsanjani-wing
arms deals with the United States would Hashemi-Rafsanjani wing put in a bad light. To negotiate secretly with Iran's enemies
could be construed as unpatriotic behavior.

The secret diplomacy bursts

There is a tragicomic glow over the McFarlane group's mission to Iran. The powerful men in the White House, Robert
McFarlane, Oliver North, Howard Teicher with Israeli Amiram Nir landing at Tehran's Mehrabad airport in May 1986 on a
visit that is so secret that there is someone to receive them.

Here were these powerful decision-makers in Washington, who graciously extended a hand out to strike a deal with the
Shah's heirs - and then you have forgotten them.
Lost stood in the arrivals hall with their fictitious names on fake Irish passport with poison vials in his inside pocket, and
some most peculiar gifts for the ayatollah and his associates: a cake, some pistols and a Bible with Reagan's dedication. If
McFarlane had imagined that this was Machiavellian diplomacy of Henry Kissingers style, then the dirty lufthavnshal and the
total lack of interest in his person have given him second thoughts.

Here at the airport was Hashemis people aware of the Americans' presence. Some days later they tried to
kidnap Americans from their hotel to take them hostage. But Rafsanjani's people lay down hard from.

On this detail, this utterly amateurish excursion, revealed the junta in the White House. Also Iran's secret connection to the
United States were revealed. But Reich tactician Rafsanjani was not inclined to be outmaneuver so easily Hashemis people.
He let the buck to the Americans. They were unsolicited come flying, he argued, to buy the hostages free, but it was not there
been something of.

It is interesting to make a comparison between the article in the pro-Syrian "Al-Shira" and so Rafsanjani's own explanation. Beirut-sheet

states that Iran and the United States was heading towards an understanding that could have gotten the US to take Iran's side in the Gulf War

and deliver the weapons. Rafsanjani, on the other hand, downplays McFarlane's mission, claiming that the group were detained for five days in

a hotel in Tehran.

But then adds Rafsanjani surprising conditions for how Iran and the United States still can negotiate further. Iran would be

prepared to try to get the hostages released if the United States will in turn
"Prove" that it is not fighting or conspire against Iran and that it will terminate bndlgningen of Iranian values in the
West.
Iran The performance was a mixture of total amateurism and an artful exploitation of the nation's limited political
resources. Their tactical skill had to instill respect.
The option to turn off the fuse that could trigger a larger explosion in the Gulf was missed. It was small consolation that Mehdi
Hashemi in September 1987 was executed by the Iranian government for its corrupt actions. US and Iran were moving away
from each other again.
The Americans chose Iraq and golf Arabs page.

Against war?
"The United States is currently at war with Iran," said the Iranian headquarters of War Information October 19

1987, after the US Navy the same day had shot at and destroyed two Iranian oil platforms. "The United States has moved into
a swamp," claimed Iran, "which is not the safety of the containers coming out." The Prime Minister promised that the "perfidious
aggression" should be reciprocated.
It had been almost a year from Rafsanjani's disclosure of Iran Gate until the martial declarations in October 1987. It was a dramatic

shift in development. Now there was just under 40 US warships, and some two dozen Western Europe, inside and outside the Gulf in

the biggest fldeopmarch since the Korean War. 25,000 American soldiers and sailors were ready for immediate war effort if Iran

believed his threats seriously.

The day before had the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee submitted a report, which stated: "The United States
runs a serious risk of being drawn into a war in the Persian Gulf. There are currently a view to a steady expansion of the
war and not much chance for the success of peace talks. "

It was the first time in the seven years since the war's start, to experts in the US Congress put an overall assessment
until the Gulf War. An Iraqi defeat was "a realistic option", and it would be a disaster for Western interests in the region.
This chief are of course the oil. Gulf contained still 2/3 of the known oil reserves in the world. Could you imagine that Iran
could get control of this vital raw material?

Yes, it could Senate committee: "Iraq is under a severe military pressure, and its ability to resist Iranian attack is an open
question." It was even possible that Iraq would lose its southern city of Basra. The probability of an Iraqi defeat "will be an
immediate threat to the sparsely populated Arab principalities."

How did it happen that the United States in almost a year had been drawn into the gulf war as Iran's enemy? The
explanation lies in Kuwait, the small but extraordinarily rich principality, which neighbors Iraq. From government buildings
in the center of Kuwait city, only a half hour drive to the Iranian cannon mouths at Faw, Iran's foremost point on the war
front. A few days earlier the Iranians with a rocket destroyed a Kuwaiti ship, flying the American flag. It was the act that
had triggered the US retaliatory strikes against the two Iranian oil platforms.
The timid Kuwait
Kuwait fears today for its future. Therefore, its leaders with an astonishing boldness pulled the United States and the Soviet
Union into a hedge its thoughts fleet. By playing the two powers against each other resulting Kuwait that both went different
ways with assistance. The United States undertook to move eleven Kuwaiti tankers under American flag and legislation. Not
only that, the United States also sent naval forces to the Gulf to protect tanker fleet. Just why was the Iranian rocket shelling of
the US-registered vessel was a provocation.

The US could not be neutral when it stood behind Kuwait, the principality had in all seven years actively supported Iraq. The
escalation was a fact. In Washington pointed skeptical lawmakers on how the United States was drawn into the Vietnam War,
formally, on an episode in the Gulf of Tonkin off Vietnam. Later it turned out that the Gulf of Tonkin affair was not the
provocation, as had been assumed. But then it was too late. The United States had entered the war.

In Washington feared that Kuwait and Iraq would likewise draw a reluctant United States into a war with Iran, a war that the
United States could hardly win. A war that would be deeply controversial and divide the American nation. A war where the Senate's
experts even predicted that the United States entered on the losing party.

Fourteen years after the US Army withdrew from Vietnam was 25,000 US troops on the deck of the US Navy
ships in the Gulf and staring into what could become a national tragedy.

Massacre in Mecca
On July 31, 1987 was a black day in the relationship between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Two million Muslims had sought to Mecca on
the annual pilgrimage. From Iran had come over 150,000 pilgrims.
On this day the Iranians make a procession that would end at kabaaen and the Great Mosque. They carried banners and
signs with sayings of Ayatollah Khomeini, and the mood was not exactly peaceful. Khomeini's words to them on departure that
was played from small tape recorders, were provocative. Ayatollah did not conceal that it was his Shiite thinking that should
apply to Islam's holiest site.

In the Iranian procession found themselves representatives of the Iranian Parliament, Khomeini's wife and five mullahs. The
last to speak on the march peak where it was supposed to be adopted, a resolution that would clarify Iran's views on the political
situation and more importantly the demand for a pan-Islamic administration of the holy places of Mecca and Medina. It would be
a challenge to the royal family of Saud, which for over fifty years had been a sacred place guardians.

In fact, the Iranians made similar demonstration marches in previous years. But this time things

went wrong.

The unarmed Saudi order officers who tried to assuage the protesters were brutally pushed aside by Iranian
Revolutionary Guards. Broke out brawl. Iranian bar blades. It belongs to the pilgrimage because they are needed by the ritual
slaughter of a sacrificial animal. Now, however, it was a Saudi officer who got his head cut off during the uproar.
 When the Saudi colleagues discovered it, they lost his temper. Armed forces were alerted. The Iranian demonstrators shouted

epithets against both the "Saudi traitors" and against the royal family. It was ordinary Saudis and other pilgrims to interfere. Everything

ended in chaos, and finally in a bloodbath, both because the Saudi officers used their firearms, and because the great procession was

dissolved in panic, where sick and elderly were trampled underfoot. Some of the pilgrims were war invalids in wheelchairs. It ended

with over 400 killed and a shameful scandal for the Saudi regime.

Sooner or later would an Iranian delegation having been ordered to occupy the Great Mosque and prevent the king from
carrying out the traditional ceremony that ends the pilgrimage. But nothing indicated that Khomeini had given, yet.

However, he has never concealed that one day "Hejaz", which is the province where Mecca and Medina are brought
under Iranian domination. In each case, sacred sites in Shiite control.
The Iranians have already established permanent accommodation for 200,000 Iranians in Saudi Arabia, organized through

effective Islamic committee. The Iranians represent a difficult security problem for the Saudi authorities. In the Eastern Province,

facing the Gulf, there is a minority Shia, and immediately after slaughter in Mecca there was near-disturbances in the Eastern

Province. It was immediately stopped by the authorities.

Iran's subversion of the House of Saud

Iran does not need to use its military power to topple the Saudi royal family. It can be even better done by
subversion that psychological aims to provide middle and upper classes impression that "Iranian conditions"
ahead, in the hope that they choose to move abroad.

Is the first community terrorized by fear of the Persian threat, the royal family passed by a single well-aimed nudge.

But it is an Iranian presumption based too much on the personal experience. After the fall of the Shah in 1979 was heard in the

international press dommedagsbasuner for Saudi Arabia. When the Shah could be overthrown, so could the royal family of Saud it probably

is.

It was an assumption that all connoisseurs of Saudi Arabia lightly swept off the table, and probably rightly so. The differences between

Iran and Saudi Arabia are greater than the similarities. Iran with its almost 45 million inhabitants and an oppressed people can not be

compared to the well-fed Saudi people on 67 million where there are material well enough for everyone. Moreover, the Saud family, with

more than 5,000 princes and princesses a completely different strong princely power than the shah family.

Saud dynasty has its members located on all levels of local and central administration. A proverb says: "No
reeds shaken by the wind, without notification when a royal ear."
The royal family strive consciously towards a consensus policy with the population. Exceeds ruler standards for what he can afford,

make sure the crown council of brothers to remove him and restore confidence in the country's ruling leader. It happened with King

Saud in 1964, when Faisal already in a period had effectively ruled the country. When Khaled in the early 1980s became ill, took over

the Crown Prince Fahd daily

management.

Today sounds presumptions that King Fahd's days are numbered, because of the failed policies and scandals. Crown
Prince Abdullah is ready to take the reins. They are all brothers - Abdul Aziz ibn Saud left behind 37 sons - and together they
create a solid and varied royal dynasty. When Abdullah takes power, the obvious pro-American, conspirative rate change in
favor of a broad Arab consensus line. There will also be less corruption and wastefulness at court.

US as Saudi Arabia's guarantor powers

The United States is closely monitoring these developments. Saudi Arabia's security entirely dependent on US technology and experts.

Americans will not be able to allow Saudi Arabia and Kuwait will be taken from inside or outside of Iranian forces.

Therefore, the Reagan administration went so energetically for the convoy sailing in the Gulf and the full security of Saudi
Arabia. The Saudis are obviously annoyed by the eternal debate in Congress on whether the country should buy American
weapons. In the fall of 1987 pushed the Israel lobby in the new ban on arms sales to Saudi Arabia. It was a time when not only
Israel's friends, but the whole world had to understand that Reagan could not say no to the Saudis want the crisis in the Gulf
considered.

Saudi Arabia is technologically equipped with the best quality of American weapons, and even without the assistance of US
forces in the region is the country able to reject Iranian threats from the air and at sea.

The real long-term threat comes rather on land. If redoubts at Basra fall and Iran occupy southern Iraq, Kuwait
immediately threatened, and behind Kuwait waiting Saudi Arabia.
In autumn 1987, the month of Muharram, when Shiites mourn their martyrs, featured the 400 martyrs from Mecca strong in
the Iranians' minds. Where it used to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, the United States ( "The Great Satan") and Israel ( "The
Little Satan") that have been targeted so moved King Fahd and his regime in 1987 to the forefront.

Ayatollah Khomeini described the House of Saud as "mulhid" meaning heretics and udhngte a spell on it with the
words "mahdur ad-damm" meaning those whose blood may be shed by the true believers. Khomeini added this
bandbulle:
"I can perhaps forgive the American Great Satan. I could perhaps forgive Saddam Hussein. But I will never forgive
the Saudi heretics. "
A few days after published Bob Woodwards book "The veil", which showed that King Fahd had paid to have the Shiites spiritual

leader in Lebanon, Sheikh Fadlallah, liquidated in 1985. One can make out his thoughts on how this information has been assessed in

Tehran and Qom, the Iranian holy city, notwithstanding that Fadlallah was not killed.

Reagan's last tango?

From Reagan's advisors in 1986 intensely courted Tehran's leaders and to the large US Navy in the fall of 1987 circled in the gulf's

waters, literally with all antennae out, there has been a 180-degree course change in Reagan's Iran policy.

From the idea of a bold political opening had reversed the relentless confrontation. Iran's president actually said that

the two countries were at war.

In 130 years had rested Gulf within the British Empire, and this corner of the world was paternalistic controlled from
the Colonial Office in London. As Lord Salisbury had once said about the imperial policy in the gulf: "Britain's policy is lazy
to drive down the stream, sometimes with a timely boat hook overboard to avoid collisions."

Nothing would have suited Ronald Reagan better. But Lord Salisbury's words came from long before oil prices soaring
and the revolution in Iran. Gulf slept no more an undisturbed slumber.
Therefore held Gulf States in the autumn of 1987 the weather to see how the crisis between the United States and Iran would develop. There was

no need for a boat hook, but a great power's strongest guardian if the crisis were to war.

The dance floor was cleared, the audience in place. Should a war against Iran become Reagan's last tango, then it would
certainly be objective reasons rather than personal desire that forced the 76-year-old president out of what rather than a tango could
seem a clinch with the 86-year-old Khomeini. Possibly the ayatollah was not older than the President, the appointment to the
Ayatollah's Iran customary to put ten years of age. The higher age for added weight behind the clergy's authority and opinions. Quite
the reverse of American thinking.

The obvious difference between the US and Iran's perception of power in the gulf was that Reagan looked at trends over a short

number of years, perhaps only until the next presidential election in 1988, while Iran saw its ambitions for an ecclesiastical and political

theocracy the art in light of the 21st Century. About Iran wins the war against Iraq now or in the 1990s is less important than the fact

that it wins it.

US can mine the Iranian ports as mined Nicaragua. Pentagon have the technology to do it both from the air, from the sea
surface or from submarines. Iran has not, however, minesweepers that could defuse the new American mines. US can
therefore achieve complete blockade of maritime routes to Iran, and therefore oil exports.

But Americans can not make a Continental System of Iran. A war with the United States could provoke Iran and the Soviet
Union into a closer strategic cooperation. It was hardly the deeper meaning of the Reagan Doctrine. Just like at all that a war
against Shiite theocracy had nothing to do with Reagan's anti-communist program. Maybe it was not just a great power, but
Ronald Reagan himself who was astray?

US can bomb Iran's cities as it bombed Hanoi and Haiphong in North Vietnam. It can bomb Iran "back to the Stone
Age" that General Westmoreland's formula sounded twenty years earlier. But it can not force Iran to surrender. First of
all, the US does not win a ground war of Iran.
The Iranian communities in the seven years of war with Iraq lost more soldiers on the battlefield than the US total lost in
WW2, Korea and Vietnam. "Lebanon-factor" is an expression of the American weakness. Will the domestic opposition in
public opinion and Congress too large, there is no
US president to continue a bloody war against Iran on the other side of the globe. In 1984, Reagan withdrew US
forces from Lebanon after eighteen months. Could this "Lebanon factor" recur asked the gulf Arab states from 1987.

How would the president's hinterland react when Dan Rather a few weeks in a row in the CBS newscast at 19.00
reported large US loss of life in the Gulf, and Ted Koppel of ABC's late-night broadcast had followed the news with
inquisitorial questions about the administration's decision-makers.

Ted Koppels popular program was also created during the hostage crisis in Iran in 1979-80, and because it was such a
success, given the resources and manpower to be fixed program. Ted Koppel had once been the ayatollah to thank for his
personal success.

The paranoid style

Iran has up to half a million deaths in the Gulf War lost nearly ten times as many soldiers in the seven years that the United States lost

in Vietnam.

Annually there are 442,000 Iranian men who turn 18 and can be enrolled for military service - if not already called. So the
mullahs have no problem in finding recruits for the death route. The motivation is not missing. The is death prepared. That is their
strength. To die in war for the cause of God is an honor, a raising - never an accident.

Shiite Muslims' perception of the world is conspiratorial, in contrast to the thinking of the moderate Sunni Muslims. Shiites feel

excluded and persecuted. At the same time Islam flagellants. This is purely physical, when on the death day of their religious leaders,

Ali and his son Hussein, whipping themselves bloody. But the Shiites are also spiritual flagellants. They believe that the whole world has

conspired together against them. Their spiritual strength lies in this outsider mentality for their own isolation interpreted as an expression

of God's will and grace.

Ironically, it is precisely the American right also prone to paranoid fantasies, the paranoid style as it has been
called. It is a belief in conspiracy as a driving force in the political game for power.

But a war in the Gulf is not only a matter of Ronald Reagan and the American right. The time has come when the
crusader, taught by seven years of ups and at the last particular hardship, do not have the will more either to fight for their
political or economic ideals. Therefore, Ronald Reagans grip on Iran policy now be dictated by consensus considerations. It is
a national matter. Here is the definition mechanisms necessary to steer clear of a foreign policy disaster.

For Ronald Reagan himself is prom begun.

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