Has a new book, irancontra, which is based on an extraordinary amounts of research and documents and diaries and interviews with individuals with a truly a mountain of material and documents the tunnel think anyone else has ever systematically and seriously looked at a lesser prosecutor. In the end user butchers would not look as well as they should have permitted the picture that emerges out of changes are damaged artery in. I think it changes in a somewhat disturbing point too often the president and his aides to a correction first and worried whether it was proper later. Proper and legal later. At the heart of the scandal were to secret intelligence operations which is what the intelligence wants to focus on the spirit to one in Central America and one in the run. Shes to intelligence operations were never properly notified to the congress of the United States. Theyre for almost by definition they were in the door from the start, particularly the operations in nicaragua. The irancontra scandal had immense consequences. I think that it is safe to say that the march of folly and led to the air or in 2003 can be traced back in many ways worse the most disturbing part of this book is that the oversight system to which has already been alluded failed us. We did not cover site. Rihanna lot of hearings and articles in the press, but there was no real systematic effort to prevent future president s in the future or a house said from abusing power. Last but not least sadly all of this has haunting reminders today. The United States once again has hostages being held in the middle east by extreme islamists organizations which have demonstrated that theyre prepared to carry of horrific acts of brutality. Two presidencies were in many ways concerned by hostage issues. Unfortunately barack obama the psyche as one today. Ask you to turn off your cell phones now. The format will be simple. I will interview malcolm for about 40 minutes or so about the book using the product of a chair, and then i will open it up to you to ask any questions that i was not smart enough to think of. Let me start asking about where you place in in this order of the irancontra scandal . Thank you for having me. It is an honor to be your. Im so happy to be will talk about this book. Youre right. This picture of reagan is emblematic of our i think how he comes out of this affair. I see him fitting end up at the top. It is a complicated story which a lot of you will remember. There is not a lot of 20 somethings in the room. All of you will remember that the hearings were a long, drawnout process. Complicated because it affected two Different Countries three if you include israel. It involved a lot of policy issues and go lot of crazy, del well matters as the affair wound down and drank it down for years and years. Keeping on top of the issues is a challenge. And judging where reagan sets you have to sort of decide what exactly youre talking about in terms of irancontra, what the new, what he believed, what people told him, with things happened that were under his right or. It is a multilayer kind of story. But to put it as briefly as i can, i see reagan as being the driving force behind the scandal both elements of the scandal he was guided primarily by his concern for the hostages. He was awarded the knowledge to have been emotional and very moved by his meetings with the hostage family in 1985. This really drove him. For personal and political reasons, one of the great politicians of the 20th century touting the have political motivations. He was intent on finding a solution to the hostage crisis. On the contra side of things he was less aware of what was happening on the part of his staff and its from other agencies that there seems in my view there is no doubt that he provided the guidance and created the atmosphere in which people like norman macfarlane, nationalsecurity adviser in all the others took their inspiration and took their instruction. You remember the famous race back in the congressional hearings where mcfarlane said that in 1984 president reagan took him aside and said it is up to you to keep the contras together body and soul. In anticipation of very stringent restrictions on government aid to the contras that were about to take place, the infamous boland amendment it was as you look back at the record it was clear to everybody including reagan will was about to happen. This was seen as virtually complete shutdown official u. S. Assistance. Reagan was not about to let them go. He was emotional about the Freedom Fighters as he was about the hostages, and he was intent on finding ways to get around congressional prohibitions. Whether he understood everything that was to happen was legal or illegal, we can get into those details will but the basic point is that he was at the top of the pyramid and without him i dont think any of this would have happened. The heart of the affair was trading arms for hostages. Now, america has a long policy how do we end up negotiating with terrorists . And even worse, giving the weapons . This is part of a complex story within a story prefer estival, i just want to say that i was really surprised that a few days ago i did what i often do which is a scanned at times website and look at the minutes that they have, videos that they put together that are helpful to encapsulate particular issues. There was one of few days ago on hostage matters. And it advertised itself has showing some of the very rare instances where the u. S. Has broken with policy and is not negotiating for hostages. Nowhere did the phrase irancontra, and to play. For me not just because i have been buried in the subject, but that seems to me to have been the most egregious example of a violation of policy. A little reflection of our four many different aspects. As we well know it is not a simple thing. There are many causes in most cases. So several things have to come into play. One was as we already talked about, his emotional attachment. But early on in the administration which may come as a surprise, this question had come out about how to deal with it, and i can get into that in more detail, but the point right now is that mcfarlane did not come up with this idea by himself. He was not the first one to come up with the. There were others to come up with him. But Nothing Happened until mcfarlane was hit by an Israeli ForeignMinistry Official who was the director general of the foreign ministry. I remember his name. He approached mcfarland in the late spring of 1985 with a message from the Prime Minister to the effect that the israelis were willing to help the americans out in an area where they knew they wanted assistance, which was an understanding the new Islamic Republic of iraq. He wanted his early assistance. They have ideas about how to go about a. Nor, prius said that he got this idea from a couple of different coincidences. One was the appearance in his room of michael d. Michael levine who at the time was a consultant to the National Security council on terrorism issues, leftist socialist politics in europe. But dean had according to his account been told by an associate of his he does not name that the israelis had some ideas about how to approach a run. If so with his approval he went to israel and talked to prison a few others to get their sense of things, are there ways to get into too far behind the veil so this week. Some a was one part of what part his years of. The other part was coincidently before that two of the more dark and gloomy figures of this affair appeared on the scene through a couple of longtime friends and shimmer and and not eat. Everyone knows the billionaire, quite the flamboyant figure. This scoundrel of the affair, an arms dealer, a shady middleman with ties to his nose to it a lot of people thought it was the israelis. The israelis say no way. The people assumed it was not in intelligence. He clearly had ties with ronnie and people in the power structure. So they come, the father of the israeli aircraft industry. An arms dealer but someone who had been stationed under the shaw. Some threw that connection they raised this idea of maybe we can make some money because piranhas in the throes of its war which started september of 1980. If that war had not been going on and there would not have been this opening. So through this coincidence of events, the work with the appearance of these figures in one place and an external spark in the form of kimchi meeting mcfarlane and telling him that there may be possibilities. During the course of different conversations the subject comes up. No, by the way, maybe the best approach to showing your goodwill would be if you had were willing to offer some of your weapons that they need. Of course, we all remember that the military was based on america. They still had a lot of missiles, antiaircraft missiles, all kinds of high level equipment that have been managed to get out of different president s. This is the spark that he needs because he has been after this as an idea for a long time, not because he is interested in hostages. I believe he really did think that there was a strategic opening a and. In fact, he and wrote about the comparison between the possibility of with Henry Kissingers opening to china and everyone suggested that he thinks he is henry kissinger. I think he did think that there was a good possibility. Of course the robber was the most important country in the persian gulf for a lot of reasons. A lot of good reasons to try to see what was possible to achieve how it got into trading arms for hostages is, again, it comes down to reagan. He may have been told that this is a strategic possibility and that we should explore it will be in fact, he got support and an idea from another then secretary of state and secretary of defense who years afterwards and to this day will deny that they have a thought that this was any kind of a good idea. In fairness as a possible opening those two senior cabinet officers he essentially said it is okay by us. Go ahead and pursue this. In certain accounts. So when the summer of 85 reagan was in the house will of this point having surgery done and meets with mcfarlane and then discuss this ideal of a course of a couple of weeks ago. The discussion continues. It is unclear what he thinks that it eventually comes back. So then it is another story. How it goes from there. There is one other figure of this that has not been mentioned , the director of central intelligence, bill casey. His own agency is saying that we cannot trust these people. Very polygraph, not that polygraphs are the perfect instrument, but in this case he is polygraph repeatedly in the style is a catastrophic. A catastrophic fire. And yet despite his own professional advice he keeps pushing this is about. How do you explain his role in all of this given his unique relationships, it was reagans Campaign Manager of the 1980 campaign. The critical figure who helped it reagan elected. They are old friends. He wants him to be secretary of state. He was not given that job but took the cia directorship after he was promised that it would be a cabinet level posted he would have an influence in policy. No exaggeration to say that reagan came into office and casey hit the ground running and within a month or two he had a draft president ial finding authorizing covert action on reagans desk in the case of a jen and nicaragua and el salvador. Those in their way formed the groundwork for was to come. So if you remember what a wrong policy was in the Reagan Administration back in command if you do will give your goldstar because the short answer is there were lots of competing ideas. In fact, the Reagan Administration which is a little bit of a surprise to some people who remember how reagan swept into office and the Unifying Force that he seemed to be in terms of presenting a new ideology and a new approach to the u. S. Will of the war. Behind closed doors in the corridors of the white house and elsewhere from the testimony of people who experienced it, it was almost pandemonium. And both of these areas in particular. It was basically not to simplify it too much, three basic approaches. One was essentially to overthrow kalemie. And one cia official who has spoken about this said that theyre growing gap between 30 and 40 offers per year from various groups saying we can do this, get rid of these guys pantages give us the weapons, the wherewithal and we will do with. Taken with the particular idea and involved some relatives and an old style clandestine activity like setting of the Radio Station broadcasting and other kinds of activities that they could do to create, you know, uncertainty and hopefully dislodge the ayatollah. So from the ghetto he was pretty aggressive in terms of how he wanted to approach. Very quickly cover the other two in terms of the policy ideas, the second approach was essentially to contain heroin which gives you into a very scary issue, the u. S. Role in supporting Saddam Hussein and the air on a rock war. Their is a whole book about that that we have both been a part of a third approach was another kind of Old School Idea which sounds antiquated now but was critical at the time. As you remember, the antisoviet approach collectors of officials including the white house who believe that as reagan used a famously say, the source of all evil and its time to go to the source and mini to eradicate influence around the world. There were great fears at the time. Just invaded afghanistan. Was firmly believed by lot of people in washington and in europe as well as elsewhere that next on the list was drawn. We now know from soviet records that the invasion of afghanistan was essentially a defensive desperate gamble on the assumption that it was the United States about to go into afghanistan. We can talk about perceptions and misperceptions also. This notion of the soviet threat was critical. It was critical in caseys thinking and his ability to block their right chords. We have extraordinary National Security advisers to the United States going. I remember he is home for the bible. One of the big myths. As red. There was no viable. It is extraordinary to conceive the notion of baking a cake with you. I cannot recall another Diplomatic Mission with cake. Anyway, it turns out that the iranians think theyre going to meet, do not need, and it all comes out and we now have the investigations. How would you characterize how the rate administration approached the business of the investigation and particularly important issue of how to deflect the president from being at the center of this . Well, i hope we can go back and talk about some of those details of the chair. As for how they treated the investigation, that takes up a big chunk of this book and is a crucial part of leading me to the conclusion that i started out with about the role of the president but also of his top advisers and everyone else involved. There are virtually no heroes in this story unfortunately. It is not a happy story. Even somebody like George Shultz who was one of the few who repeatedly spoke out against this. There are a couple of documents that i will read from. Pretty dramatic. But even he fell prey to the Old Washington scandal have been of retreating into a shell and figuring out a way to try to minimize his exposure in a way that did not do him justice. I will just throw out the thought that this was another thing that was laid at the feet of Ronald Reagan. In his unwillingness or inability and it is probably of to consider their Collateral Damage and of the decisions that he made, one of those bits of damage was the effect that this had on all of the advisers and everyone who worked for him candid repeatedly say this is a dumb idea and an illegal and you have to stop it. Reagan refused. Hendon by a nefarious neerdowells. In the handwriting of people like warren burger, is very clear on that. What happens to them my belief was that at some point during the investigative process after the natural reaction of tightening your defenses and circling the wagons and so on there was a sense that they not only had to protect the president put themselves, especially the independent counsel. But in the course of doing both of those people like shultz and weinberger and mcclellan and cia folks and other people involved basically got the short end of the stick to put it mildly. Why . There were protecting their president s and policies and party and themselves. But there were basically thrown under the boss as a result. Not not really answering a question here, but there was a process that took place. Remember that scandal basically was exposed in three steps. First and early october 1986. Allegedly cutting off all military aid to wrigley or indirectly. One of the aircraft that have been organized with the general and some of the other folks from one of the supply aircraft crashed in a jungle of nicaragua who was shot down by 90 yearold kid he was stunned that he actually hit it. Raised his target. It crashed. One survivor. Drayman from an International Tv he bared his soul and said in been hired by the cia. Was an american operation. That led to an immediate scramble by those people involved, not just appalling north in the middle of a negotiation with the iranians, abrams of the state department, says the counterpart at the cia and others often immediately got to get it to try to minimize the effects. And the record now shares despite the testimony to the contrary that they all knew about the connections to that flight and to that resupply operation. And they did their best ticket the contras to take credit for it to get the general to tax our responsibility. He refused and had nothing to do with it. A real uproar, a quiet uproar if you well behind closed doors. The next event is well remembered, the lebanese news magazine gets a hold of the story that undoubtedly comes out of tehran in domestic politics. Somebody thought that the leaders are losing their taste for the war or dealing with americans, circulated a bunch of pamphlets advising the population of this. The story gets picked up and printed in a couple of different places, and that kids picked up right away. Of course that exposes an arms fo