DIARY
ALEXANDER CHANCELLOR ThWashington e portrait of himself which Ronald Reagan at first so cheerfully accepted, that of a befuddled old President fiddling while Nicaragua burned, has been drastically altered by the Iran-Contra hearings on Capitol Hill. The Tower Commission re- port, which was published last February, deplored the US administration's secret dealings with the Iranians and the Nicara- guan Contras, but it put most of the blame on Mr Reagan's advisers. Because of a management style' which involved de- legating practically all decisions to his subordinates, the President 'did not seem to be aware', it said, of the sleazy and legally dubious things that were being done to free American hostages in Lebanon and wage war against the communist rulers of Nicaragua. He went on television to say he was sorry for having been that way and would try to keep a closer eye on things in the future. Humiliating though this admis- sion was, it was intended to protect him against accusations of any conscious wrong-doing. But by the end of last week Mr Reagan was saying: 'As a matter of fact, I was very definitely involved in the decisions about support to the freedom fighters [of Nicaragua] — my idea to begin with.' This statement reflected a sharp change of posture by the White House following days of testimony to the Iran- Contra Congressional committees by the President's former National Security Adviser, Robert McFarlane. Mr McFar- lane said he had briefed the President `dozens' of times about what he, Lieutenant-Colonel Oliver North and other White House aides had been doing to help the rebels. He had also mentioned to him 'occasionally' that Colonel North might be tempted to solicit money for the Contras from outside the government, an activity that Mr McFarlane believed could be illegal under Congressional restrictions on Contra aid. It is now, of course, known that millions of dollars were solicited both from private American citizens and from foreign governments to keep the Contras armed after Congress had forbidden the use of American government funds for this purpose. And Mr McFarlane testified that Mr Reagan himself had discussed Contra aid during a meeting in 1985 with King Fand of Saudi Arabia, shortly after which the Saudis doubled their contributions to the rebel cause from $1 million to $2 million a month.
here were other tit-bits in Mr McFar- lane's testimony confirming the strength of Mr Reagan's commitment to the Contra cause. He was said to have personally telephoned the President of Honduras,
Roberto Cordova, asking him to release a blocked shipment of arms for the rebels. Mr McFarlane also recalled that it was Mr Reagan who approved the mining of Nicaraguan harbours by the Central Intelli- gence Agency in 1984, an act which en- raged Congress and led directly to the passing of the measure known as the Boland Amendment, which for two years banned official US military aid to the Contras. These revelations so weakened the President's position that the White House decided to set up a new line of defence. While it stood by its claim that Mr Reagan did not solicit funds for Nicaragua, it started to argue that, even if he had done so, he would not have been doing anything illegal. The Boland Amendment forbade US federal government agencies giving military assistance to the Contras, either directly or indirectly. But the White House says that this prohibition does not apply to the National Security Council staff, who are personal advisers to the President, nor to the solicitation of funds from private or foreign sources. This is an argument that can have no resolution unless it is tested one day by the Supreme Court. But the President is now on much shakier ground than he was a couple of weeks ago. There is only one White House claim that re- mains unpunctured. This is that Mr Reagan had no knowledge of the illegal diversion of funds to the Contras from the proceeds of his arms sales to Iran. But perhaps Mr McFarlane's most shocking bit of testimony was that the President approved a secret attempt by the Drug Enforcement Agency to free American hostages by paying $2 million in ransom and bribes. I cannot count the number of times Mr Reagan has said he would never contemplate paying ransom to terrorists. Of this alleged incident, he now says he has `some trouble remembering that'.
Aformer administrator of PTL, the scandal-torn religious television ministry, recalls arguments he had ten years ago with the now defrocked evangelist Jim Bakker, whose sexual and financial misdemeanours have brought it to the brink of ruin. Already then Mr Bakker was greedy for money and became petulant when the administrator, Bill Perkins, showed reluct- ance to give him more. 'Jim used to quote from Psalms 37:4, "Delight thyself also in the Lord.; and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart",' Mr Perkins told the New York Times in an interview, argued that the scripture does not mean worldly wealth and fame, or fancy cars or big houses.' According to Mr Perkins, Jim Bakker would then respond with another quota- tion from the scripture, intending to bring the conversation to an end: 'Touch not God's anointed and do His prophets no harm.' The arrogance of this is almost unbelievable, but there is a lot of evidence that Mr Bakker and his wife Tammy, a fellow evangelist, saw no conflict between their Christian mission and their yearning for wealth and luxury. We now know the extent to which they fulfilled their material dreams, showering themselves with gifts and perks at the expense of the devout who contributed to their church. PTL is now headed for bankruptcy with $92 million missing from the books. There are strong similarities between the backgrounds of Mr Bakker and Gary Hart, the former Demo- cratic presidential candidate who was forced to pull out of the race because of his alleged affair with a Miami model. Both were brought up in small-town America Mr Bakker in Muskegon, Michigan, and Mr Hart in Ottawa, Kansas. Both came from poor families and both belonged to austere fundamentalist religious sects in which drinking, smoking and even dancing were forbidden. Both felt inferior as a result, turned their backs on their past, and became obsessed with success. Neither appears capable of recognising that he has ever done anything wrong.
The Potomac River flows from Washington out into Chesapeake Bay, a huge stretch of water, 140 miles long, which is rich in oysters and crabs. Most of the people living on its shores supplement their incomes by catching the creatures. I was there last weekend and learnt a rather disgusting fact. The most popular bait used for catching crabs is bulls' lips. The bulls' lips are exported to Maryland from the slaughterhouses of Texas, a by-product of the meat industry. The crabs think them irresistible and, because of their rubbery texture, find them easy to cling on to. But how anybody ever had the idea that they would make good bait is a mystery to which I could not find the answer.
Alexander Chancellor is US editor of the Independent.
Previous page
