Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 13, 1990 TAG: 9003133408
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Bob Willis Associate Editor
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Six other men who played roles in the Iran/Contra scandal have been tried. One got off scot-free because the administration said his trial could expose vital government secrets. Five others pleaded guilty to, or were convicted of, lesser offenses than they were originally charged with; all are on probation.
No one has gone to jail. Each of those convicted, at last report, was living well if not handsomely; the lecture circuit beckons, and some already are reaping the rewards of notoriety.
Special prosecutor Lawrence E. Walsh has spent more than $18 million on these cases so far. The public knows little more about what went on behind the scenes than came out during the congressional investigations after the scandal broke in late 1986. And it appears that the latest executive-branch effort to subvert the Constitution will become a footnote to history.
Who were these men already brought to book? A rundown:
Albert Hakim, Iranian-born arms dealer, was charged with conspiring to defraud the government in connection with the sales of U.S. weapons to Iran. He was sentenced to two years' probation; under an agreement with Walsh, Hakim kept $1.7 million of the $9 million in arms-sale proceeds frozen in Swiss bank accounts. The judge praised Hakim for "exceptional" cooperation with Walsh.
Richard Secord, Hakim's partner, also was put on two years' probation, with 11 more serious felony charges dismissed. The judge said he had had enough "punishment."
Joseph F. Fernandez, former CIA station chief in Costa Rica, saw all charges dismissed after the government barred release of classified information he said was necessary for his defense.
Carl R. "Spitz" Channel and Richard R. Miller, who raised funds for Oliver North's secret arms network, were charged with conspiracy to defraud the government of taxes on money raised for the Contras. They received two years' probation apiece.
Robert C. McFarlane, who preceded Poindexter as Reagan's national security adviser, was charged with lying to Congress. He pleaded guilty to four misdemeanors, got two years' probation and was fined $20,000, as well as having to perform 200 hours of community service.
Oliver North, an aide to Poindexter, was convicted of obstructing Congress, unlawfully mutilating government documents and accepting an illegal gratuity. A jury acquitted him on the nine most serious charges, ignoring the judge's instruction not to be influenced by the argument that North was only following orders. He was fined $150,000, given a three-year suspended sentence and put on probation for two years, and ordered to perform 1,200 hours of community service. He is trying now to overturn his conviction.
You do not hear many voices raised in protest of these light sentences; those who usually decry the coddling of criminals are silent. Nor does much fear or indignation seem to linger in the wake of what was, by all lights, a truly sinister plot against our system, hatched in the basement of the White House.
Why make a fuss about it? To answer that, I like to go back to the summary offered in the summer of 1987 by Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., who chaired the House committee that investigated the affair. "Let me mention a few things that stand out in my mind," he said:
"An elaborate private network was set up to carry out the foreign policy of the United States. Private citizens, many of them with divided loyalties and profit motives, sold arms and negotiated for the release of American hostages.
"Private citizens were given top-secret codes and encryption devices that had access to Swiss bank accounts, used for U.S. covert actions and operations.
"The president was involved in private and third-country fund raising for the Contras. Wealthy private contributors were courted at the White House, solicited in coordination with government officials and given what they were told was secret information. American policy became dependent on the contributions of private individuals and third countries. . . . "
Those who still defend such actions see them as patriotically motivated. One could wish that the "patriots" had evinced as much devotion to the principles on which our country was founded. George Mason, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison all warned against putting the war-making power in the same hands as those that held the public purse. Raising money secretly to pay for a war - or almost any other governmental operation that Congress has refused to fund - violates those principles and the Constitution as well.
by CNB