Why Secret 1986 U.S.-Iran “Arms for Hostages” Negotiations Failed
by George Cave
Much has been written about "Irangate." There was extensive press coverage of
the original revelations. Then there was televised coverage of the
congressional hearings on the affair. If that was not enough, there also was
press coverage of the trials. Now, with Col. Oliver North the Republican
Party senatorial candidate in the state of Virginia, the whole affair may be
revisited by the media with even less accuracy than before.
This is not to say that nothing worthwhile has appeared in print. Theodore
Draper's book, A Very Thin Line, is a good factual account of what
transpired. There is another book by Samuel Segev, The Iranian Triangle,
which goes into great detail about Israel's extensive role in the Iran-Contra
affair, both in providing logistical support and lobbying senior members of
the American government to take advantage of a "strategic opening" to Iran.
Vol. 2, No. 2 of the Iranian periodical Mehregan contains an excellent
article about Irangate's effect on the religious hierarchy of the Iranian
government, particularly on how and why it changed the succession to the late
Ayatollah Khomeini. There has been no similar attention in the American
coverage to how the Iranians and Americans directly involved were affected by
the affair.
As a member of the American team that arrived in Tehran on May 26, 1986, it
is clear to me now that the major problems we encountered stemmed from the
lack of prior preparation by both sides. Because there had been only limited
advance contact with one Iranian official, we had to rely on Manuchehr
Ghorbanifar as our principal advance go-between with the Iranian government.
He would subsequently be referred to during the hearings as "the first
channel."
Regardless of his honesty or lack thereof, to his credit he had proposed that
Colonel North and I accompany him to Tehran in April to handle preliminary
negotiations with Iranian officials and draw up a jointly agreed agenda for a
subsequent meeting.
As the Iran specialist and interpreter, I enthusiastically endorsed this
idea, since prior misunderstandings on either side could prevent successful
negotiations. However, Admiral John Poindexter, the White House national
security adviser, ruled out a preliminary trip on the grounds that it was too
dangerous.
Neither Colonel North nor I were able to understand why it was too dangerous
for the two of us to fly unobtrusively to Tehran, but it was all right
subsequently for a party of six to fly to Tehran in a chartered jet. However,
with the preliminary trip ruled out, we were forced to finalize arrangements
at a May 7 meeting with Ghorbanifar in London.
These arrangements were relayed by telephone to Ghorbanifar's primary contact
in Tehran, a senior official in the Iranian prime minister's office. This
official guaranteed the safety of the American team and was provided the
aircraft's registration information.
The Iranian negotiating team had not believed we would actually come to
Tehran.
Our American delegation arrived in Tehran at 9 a.m. on May 25. It was headed
by former National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane, and included Colonel
North, Howard Teicher of the National Security Council staff, Amiram Nir, who
was the Israeli representative, a communications officer and myself.
There were problems from the beginning. McFarlane and North felt they could
only stay three or four days before people in Washington would start asking
questions about their whereabouts. Given the Iranian predilection for
protracted negotiations, four days was far too little time to accomplish
anything significant.
The initial meeting with the four-member Iranian team commenced during the
afternoon of May 25 with the Iranian spokesman enumerating American sins. The
American response was to insist that what is past is past.
On the following day, although Ghorbanifar had emphasized to the American
team that everything had been arranged, two problems emerged. The first was
that Ghorbanifar had made some very extravagant promises to his contact in
the prime minister's office with regard to America's willingness to sell arms
in exchange for the release of hostages. Second, he had jacked up the price
of the promised Hawk spares to $24.5 million. This was very high, and caused
serious headaches later.
By the morning of May 27th, it was clear that the Iranians would have trouble
securing the release of any of the hostages remaining in Lebanon. One of the
members of the Iranian negotiating team told me they had not believed we
would actually come to Tehran. As a result, they had only sent someone to
Lebanon on the evening of May 25th, after our arrival in Tehran, to negotiate
with the actual hostage holders.
At one point that evening, while standing on the balcony of my room, I heard
two members of the Iranian team in the next room arguing over how to proceed.
When I asked Ghorbanifar about this, he revealed that all the political
factions in Iran were represented on the Iranian team. This was to insure not
only that each faction took part, but also that it assumed responsibility for
keeping the negotiations secret.
Another complication was that, inorder to protect himself, Ghorbanifar had
informed the Iranian team that AmiramNir was an Israeli. Subsequently, in
dealings with the so-called "second channel," the Iranians insisted there be
no "Israeli footprints."
An Ultimatum
Late in the evening of May 27, McFarlane gave the Iranian side an ultimatum.
If the hostages were released before early morning, he would order the rest
of the Hawk spares flown in. If not, the American party would break off the
negotiations and depart Tehran.
On the morning of May 28, as we prepared to leave, the Iranians told
McFarlane that they needed more time to secure the hostages' release. They
proposed that Colonel North and I stay behind in Tehran. They would guarantee
our safety. McFarlane rejected this proposal and we left the hotel for the
airport.
By then, apparently, word of our presence in Tehran had leaked. When we had
arrived in Tehran three days earlier, our plane had been directed to the
civilian side of Mehrabad Airport and parked near the VIP lounge. We were
driven to the Istiqlal (old Hilton) Hotel via the super highway.
However, when we left the hotel we were taken over back roads to Shah Reza
Avenue. From there we were taken to Mehrabad Airport and entered it on the
military side. The pilot explained that he had been instructed to taxi the
plane from the civilian to the military side of the airport.
While the others boarded the plane, I talked to two members of the Iranian
team, one of whom showed up subsequently as a member of the second channel. I
asked him if part of the problem was that the Iranians had not done any
preparation for our coming. He conceded that the senior levels of the
government only began dealing with our presence after we arrived. Both men
hoped that the channel could be kept open. It was agreed that we would remain
in touch via Mr. Ghorbanifar.
If the trip to Tehran had one positive result, it was to demonstrate to the
Iranians that the United States was at least prepared to talk. This was the
consideration that motivated the Iranians to seek the release of a hostage,
even though our mission was aborted. Ghorbanifar also was active in urging
the Iranians to release a hostage, as he had a financial interest in the
dialogue continuing. At the end of July, Father Lawrence Janko was released.
By this time, both sides saw a need to have American and Iranian officials
deal directly with each other, rather than through such go-betweens as Mr.
Ghorbanifar. Thus, in mid-August, General Richard Secord met in Brussels with
the Iranian official who thereafter was referred to as the second channel.
In mid-September, the Iranian in charge of the second channel paid a secret
visit to Washington, DC. The American view was that these meetings denoted
progress. The Iranian side made some proposals with the aim of gradually
improving Iranian-American relations. This led to subsequent meetings in
Frankfurt on Oct. 8 and 9 and in Mainz, Germany at the end of October. The
Mainz meeting led to the release of David Jacobsen, and the sale and delivery
to Iran of 500 TOW missiles.
At the Mainz meeting, however, the second channel warned us that in
mid-October a memorandum had been circulated in Tehran exposing the trip of
our team to Tehran five months earlier. We were told that Ayatollah
Montazeri's son-in-law, Mehdi Hashemi, was responsible. He also had arranged
to have the story surface in a newspaper published in Baalbek, Lebanon, but
this had not been picked up by other media.
The second channel was concerned because it seemed certain the secret
contacts would be exposed in the near future. In fact, the trip was exposed
only days later in the Nov. 3 issue of the Lebanese news magazine Ash Shiraa.
Nevertheless, there was a meeting with one of the members of the second
channel in Geneva on Nov. 8, 1986. The Iranians were hopeful that after a
couple of months, when things had died down, we could resume the dialogue
even if the U.S. was unable to continue arms shipments.
As it turned out, the Iranians underestimated the negative reaction in the
United States to knowledge of the initiative. When the Contra connection also
surfaced, any further dialogue became impossible.
A final meeting was held on Dec. 14 in Frankfurt. The Iranians were
represented by two members of the second channel and the United States by
Ambassador Charles Dunbar and me. Prior to this meeting, responsibility for
the Iran initiative had been transferred from the National Security Council
to the Department of State. The respective positions taken by both sides at
the December meeting effectively ended the Iran initiative. There was a final
phone call in mid-January which did nothing but close this communication
channel between the two governments.
There was a broad consensus in Iran for improving relations with the United
States.
What may be of more lasting significance than these details of the actual
meetings constituting the Iran part of the Iran-Contra scandal is what they
revealed about policy-making and the political forces at work in
Revolutionary Iran. In 1982 Professor Rouhollah Ramazani edited a collection
of essays on the then political conditions in Iran. This collection was
subtitled, "In Search of a Consensus."
It was clear at the time that within the Iranian government the necessary
broad consensus on what Iran's basic policies should be did not exist. In a
democracy like the United States there may be contending parties and
policies, but there is a general agreement that once a policy is adopted
everyone should work to implement it. This certainly was not the case in 1986
in Iran, where it was a radical splinter group that revealed the initiative.
When the second channel arrived in Washington in September, 1986, one of the
proposals it brought was for formation of a commission to meet in secret to
discuss ways gradually to improve relations. The Iranians already had
selected four senior officials for their side, including representatives of
all factions. The Iranian second channel told us that the fact that all
factions would be represented on the Iranian side demonstrated that there was
a broad consensus in Iran for improving relations with the United States.
In fact, the surfacing by the radical faction of the contacts with the United
States created additional political tension between that radical faction and
other Iranian political factions. It took active intervention by Ayatollah
Khomeini himself to end the crisis.
The lack of a political consensus continued to bedevil Iranian politics after
Iran-Contra. At the time of the death of Ayatollah Khomeini on June 3, 1989,
it was still such a problem that the executive branch had difficulty getting
the Majlis to approve policies it proposed. In his final years, Khomeini
constantly scolded the politicians in his speeches for their inability to
agree on anything.
This problem continues today among Khomeini's successors. Besides this
factional infighting, the question of secular influence and religious
authority deeply divides the Iranian government.
This current problem arises from the last revision of Iran's constitution. To
control executive power and not create a new shah, executive authority was
divided between the president and the office of the supreme leader. The
problem is that any Irani president can only serve for eight years. The
supreme leader, Khamenei, assumes office for life.
George Cave, a retired U.S. government official, was interpreter and
political adviser to the Robert McFarlane mission to Tehran in May 1986.
Revelation of this mission to trade arms for hostages set off the Iran-Contra
scandal that cast a shadow over President Ronald Reagan's final two years in
office.
