When Republicans Loved a Filibuster By Robert Parry >January 27, 2006 > Supporters of George W. Bush are lambasting Sen. John Kerry for a >threatened filibuster against U.S. Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito. But >15 years ago, their attitude was different as backers of George H.W. Bush >wielded the filibuster to block a probe into Republican secret dealings >with Iran that could have doomed the Bush Dynasty. > In 1991, the Democratic-controlled Senate was planning an investigation >into whether Republicans had conducted secret negotiations with Irans >Islamic fundamentalist regime during the 1980 campaign, when Jimmy Carter >was still President and Iran was holding 52 Americans hostage. > The unresolved hostage crisis destroyed Carters reelection hopes and >gave an important boost to Ronald Reagan when the hostages were released on >Jan. 20, 1981, immediately after he was sworn in as President and George >H.W. Bush became Vice President. > A decade after those events, some Democrats wanted to get to the bottom >of recurring allegations that George Bush Sr., a former CIA director, had >joined clandestine negotiations with Iran in fall 1980 that may have >delayed release of the hostages for political gain, what was called the >October Surprise mystery. > Meanwhile, Republicans were worried that a full-scale October Surprise >investigation might implicate Bush in near-treasonous talks with an enemy >state and devastate his 1992 reelection campaign. Confirmation of the >allegations also would have eviscerated the legitimacy of the Reagan-Bush >era. > So, in November 1991, Republican leaders used the filibuster to block >funding for the investigation. The Democrats mustered 51 votes a majority > but fell short of the 60 votes needed for cloture. A fully funded >investigation was prevented. > Historical Marker > The Republican success in blocking a full Senate probe received little >attention at the time, but represented an important historical marker. It >was an early indication of how neoconservative journalists, then rising >inside the national news media, could collaborate with Republicans to shape >the information reaching the American people. > The preponderance of evidence now suggests that in 1980, Republicans >most likely including Ronald Reagans campaign chief William Casey and >then-vice presidential nominee George H.W. Bush did negotiate with >representatives of Irans Islamic government behind Carters back. [For >details, see Consortiumnews.coms The Imperiums Quarter Century or >Robert Parrys Secrecy & Privilege.] > But exposure of those secret dealings, a prequel to the Iran-Contra >arms-for-hostage schemes of 1985-86, would not only have sunk George H.W. >Bushs reelection hopes in 1992. The revelations would have exposed >collaboration by Israels right-wing Likud government in the October >Surprise scheme. Likud wanted Carter ousted in 1980 because he had >pressured Israel to make major concessions to the Palestinians. [See David >Kimche's The Last Option.] > If revealed, the truth had the potential to hurt some very powerful >people and to change the direction of American history. > So, as the October Surprise secrets began to spill out in 1991, the >increasingly neoconservative New Republic, which had strong ties to the >Likud bloc in Israel, swung into action, publishing a cover story in fall >1991 that purported to debunk the October Surprise allegations. > At the center of the New Republic article and a similar one published >by Newsweek was a complex alibi for the whereabouts of Casey on a key >weekend in July 1980 when one witness, Iranian businessman Jamshid Hashemi, >alleged that Casey met with Iranian emissaries in Madrid. > ABCs Nightline had discovered that Casey had taken an unannounced >trip to London on that July 1980 weekend for a World War II historical >conference and there appeared to be enough time in Caseys schedule for a >side trip to Madrid. > However, in their debunking articles, the New Republic and Newsweek >cited attendance records for the World War II conference, supposedly >accounting for enough of Caseys time to exclude the two-day meeting in >Madrid that Hashemi had described. > The two magazine articles had enormous effect on Washingtons >conventional wisdom, which had been caught off-guard five years earlier by >the Iran-Contra disclosures and would have looked even sillier if the >history of the 1980 election also needed to be rewritten with Reagan and >George Bush Sr. as the villains. So the debunking articles were warmly >received by influential Washingtonians. > Eventually, however, the New Republic and Newsweek debunking stories >would be shown to be false. The magazines had misinterpreted the London >conference attendance records and had put Casey at a crucial conference >session, which he had actually skipped. > Inside Newsweek, investigative reporter Craig Unger later told me that >he had been shocked by the magazines disingenuous work on the window of >Caseys known whereabouts. They knew the window was not real, Unger said >of his Newsweek editors. It was the most dishonest thing that Ive been >through in my life in journalism. > But the falsity of the New Republic and Newsweek articles was not known >in November 1991 when the Senate considered funding a thorough >investigation of the October Surprise charges. Indeed, the two bogus >stories represented the centerpiece of the Republican argument against >proceeding with the investigation. > Doles Filibuster > Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole led the fight against the October >Surprise investigation, much as he had spearheaded attempts to discredit >the work of Iran-Contra special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh, who was slowly >deconstructing the Republican cover-up of the Iran-Contra scandal. > On Nov. 22, 1991, Dole mounted a filibuster against any independent >Senate inquiry of the allegations that the Iran-Contra arms-for-hostage >deals had been, in effect, the second act of secret Republican negotiations >with Irans radical mullahs. Dole invoked party discipline to defeat a >cloture vote on funding for the probe. > >Though denied the money, a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee still >sponsored a small-scale investigation, with attorney Reid Weingarten hired >as the lead investigator. But Weingarten found the lack of money only one >of the limitations on his investigative efforts, he later told me. > As the probe proceeded, Republican Senators Mitch McConnell and Jesse >Helms summoned Weingarten into a closed-door meeting in which McConnell >brow-beat Weingarten with personal insults. For his part, Helms barred >Weingartens investigators from interviewing witnesses outside Washington. > >Though hamstrung by lack of funds and Republican obstructions, Weingarten >did make some significant discoveries. > Weingarten obtained testimony corroborating claims that Casey had known >Cyrus Hashemi, Jamshid Hashemis brother who allegedly also took part in >the Madrid meetings. Plus, the Senate investigators found that some FBI >wiretaps of Cyrus Hashemi in 1980 might have been intentionally erased. > Weingarten found, too, that key Casey records his 1980 passport and >several pages from his personal calendar were missing and that the Casey >family was withholding documents. (Casey, who was Reagans first CIA >director, had died in 1987.) > But, running out of money, the best Weingarten could do was conclude >that Casey had been fishing in troubled waters on the hostage issue and >was engaged in informal, clandestine, and potentially dangerous efforts on >behalf of the Reagan campaign to gather intelligence on the volatile and >unpredictable course of the hostage negotiations. > >The House Probe > Thanks to the Dole filibuster, most of the October Surprise >investigation was delivered into the friendlier hands of a House task >force, where Republican Rep. Henry Hyde battled the probe from the inside >while Democratic Rep. Lee Hamilton tried to be as accommodating to George >H.W. Bush as possible. > Hamilton even agreed to blackball one Democratic staff investigator >because the Republicans didnt want him involved and because the staffer >thought the October Surprise allegations might just be true. The >investigator, House Foreign Affairs Committee chief counsel Spencer Oliver, >had written a memo questioning another dubious alibi that had been used to >clear George H.W. Bush of suspicion. > Though the Senate filibuster succeeded in limiting the investigation of >how the Reagan-Bush era began, it did not spare George Bush Sr. from defeat >in 1992. Amid growing public suspicion that Bush had lied about his claim >to be out of the loop on the Iran-Contra scandal, Bush lost to Democrat >Bill Clinton. > In the weeks after Clintons victory, the House October Surprise task >force tidied up the history of 1980 by sweeping inconvenient facts under >the rug. > In December 1992 and January 1993, new evidence poured into the task >force corroborating allegations of Republican complicity in secret contacts >with Iran in 1980. But the information was mostly kept from the American >people. > There was little incentive for either side to fight for the truth. The >Republicans on the House task force wanted to protect the Reagan-Bush >legacy and the Democrats no longer saw any political imperative in exposing >wrongdoing by George H.W. Bush. > Though the Democrats didnt understand the significance at the time, >their collaboration in the October Surprise cover-up opened the door for a >Bush Restoration eight years later. One of George W. Bushs few credentials >for being President was his fathers reputation as an honorable politician. > So the Republican filibuster in 1991 served a crucial political function >by undermining an investigation that might have eliminated the electoral >viability of the Bush Family. > The Alito Nomination > Now, 15 years later, a back story of George W. Bushs nomination of >right-wing jurist Samuel Alito is that the U.S. Supreme Court could end up >being the final arbiter of attempts to investigate wrongdoing by the >current President Bush. > With Alito joining reliable pro-Republican votes Antonin Scalia, >Clarence Thomas, John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy Bush will have an >important card up his sleeve should a legal question about the Presidents >right to keep secrets from Congress or a prosecutor ever wind its way to >the high court. > This time, ironically, a Democratic filibuster might be the only way to >prevent the Bush family from concealing more chapters of Americas history. > [For more on the October Surprise mystery, peruse Consortiumnews.coms >archives or see Parrys narrative of the 1991-92 investigation, Trick or >Treason., or his account of the latest evidence in Secrecy & Privilege.] > >--------------------------------- > Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for >the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: >Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at >secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999 >book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.'
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