The_Info_Web/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Ronald Reagan.md

title	aliases	created	updated	category	tags	summary	born	died	location	relations
Ronald Reagan	Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan Reagan President Reagan Governor Reagan	2024-04-25	2026-10-05	Political Figure	KeyFigure Person Politician President DarkAllianceInvestigation OctoberSurprise IranContra Inslaw Contras 1980s	Fortieth President of the United States (1981-1989) whose 1980 campaign, Contra policy, Iran arms sales and Justice Department were the subject of the October Surprise, Iran-Contra and INSLAW inquiries.	1911-02-06	2004-06-05	Tampico, Illinois	type with start end role fn head_of United States 1981-01-20 1989-01-20 40th President 1 type with role fn appointed William J. Casey campaign manager in 1980, then Director of Central Intelligence 3 type with role fn appointed Edwin Meese Counselor to the President, later Attorney General; supervised the White House task force chaired by Earl Brian 11 type with role fn appointed William French Smith Attorney General who signed the February 11, 1982 memorandum of understanding with the CIA 6 type with start end role fn participant_in Iran-Contra Affair 1985 1986-11 approved the 1985 Israeli arms shipments to Iran, signed the December 5, 1985 retroactive finding and the January 17, 1986 finding, and directed that Congress not be notified 8 type with reverse role fn investigated Lawrence Walsh true Independent Counsel concluded his conduct fell well short of prosecutable criminality; sworn interrogatory answers and July 1992 deposition 8 type with start end role fn subject_of October Surprise 1980-07 1981-01-20 named beneficiary of the alleged 1980 contacts between his campaign and Iranian representatives; the House Task Force found no credible evidence 3

Ronald Reagan, born in Tampico, Illinois on February 6, 1911 and died on June 5, 2004, served as the 40th President of the United States from January 20, 1981 to January 20, 1989.¹ Before that he was Governor of California. The inquiries that touched his campaign, his National Security Council and his Justice Department are summarized below in the order in which they arose.

Sacramento, October 1970

On a Sunday afternoon in October 1970 Pat Boone, Shirley Boone, Harold Bredesen and George Otis visited Governor Reagan and Nancy Reagan at the leased Tudor house in Sacramento, driven from the airport by the governor's legal affairs secretary Herbert E. Ellingwood after a Christian rally. Otis led a prayer; in the account written by the CBN executive Bob Slosser from the participants' recollections, Otis's words changed to a first-person address to Reagan as "My son" and ended: "If you walk uprightly before Me, you will reside at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue." Slosser wrote that Reagan then looked at Otis and said "Well!", and that Otis later said his own hand had shaken during the prayer and that Ellingwood told him Reagan's other hand had shaken similarly; Ellingwood recalled feeling a "bolt of electricity." Otis told Slosser the prophecy was "conditional" and "hinged on Reagan's actions." During the same visit Reagan discussed the fulfilled prophecies concerning the founding of Israel with Bredesen, who pressed the case for a coming outpouring of the Holy Spirit.²

The 1980 campaign and the October Surprise allegations

William J. Casey managed Reagan's 1980 campaign. Gary Sick, Barbara Honegger, the Hashemi brothers, Ari Ben-Menashe and others alleged that Casey and other campaign figures met Iranian representatives in Madrid and Paris in 1980 to delay the release of the American hostages until after the election, in return for arms and the release of frozen assets; the hostages were released on January 20, 1981, the day of Reagan's inauguration. Those claims are set out on the October Surprise page.

The House Task Force to Investigate Certain Allegations Concerning the Holding of American Hostages by Iran in 1980, chaired by Lee Hamilton with E. Lawrence Barcella, Jr. as chief counsel, reported on January 3, 1993. It stated that it had interviewed or deposed more than 230 people in the United States and ten other countries, reviewed tens of thousands of documents from the State Department, Defense Department, CIA, National Security Council and other agencies, and had the FBI's electronic surveillance of Cyrus Hashemi (more than 21,000 recorded conversations on 548 tapes, September 1980 to February 1981). Its findings included that there was "no credible evidence supporting any attempt or proposal to attempt, by the Reagan Presidential Campaign" to delay the hostages' release, and no credible evidence of a link between arms transfers to Iran and the hostages' release. The same report records that the campaign established formal and informal working groups on the hostage issue, spoke to executive branch counterparts to learn what they could, and kept "visual monitoring of certain military locations" for signs of a rescue mission, hostage staging or arms shipments; it found no credible evidence these activities were illegal, while the majority wrote that "legitimate questions can be raised" about the campaign's failure to notify the government of certain "over the transom" information and about passing information to selected media outlets.³

Osirak, June 1981

The journalist Seymour Hersh wrote that when national security adviser Richard V. Allen informed Reagan of the Israeli bombing of the Iraqi reactor at Osirak in June 1981, Reagan privately remarked, "Well. Boys will be boys," and that, despite State Department condemnation and proposals from Caspar Weinberger and others to cancel F-16 sales to Israel, Reagan had no intention of doing so; the suspension of F-16 deliveries was lifted two months later. Hersh is the sole source for the passages so cited.⁴ See Osirak bombing.

Executive Order 12333 and the 1982 reporting agreement

Reagan signed Executive Order 12333 on December 4, 1981. Section 1.7 covers collection of information on "international narcotics activities" and directs senior intelligence community officials to participate in developing procedures approved by the Attorney General governing criminal narcotics intelligence activities abroad.⁵

In 1982, under 28 U.S.C. 535 and the executive order, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Department of Justice entered into a memorandum of understanding titled "Reporting and Use of Information Concerning Federal Crimes," signed on February 11, 1982. The Justice Department's Inspector General wrote that it defined "employee" as staff or contract employees, which left open whether the CIA had to pass on information about "assets" or paid informants, and that its list of crimes reportable even when a non-employee was involved omitted narcotics trafficking. Attorney General William French Smith wrote to Casey the same day that "no formal requirement regarding the reporting of narcotics violations has been included in these procedures"; Casey replied on March 2, 1982 thanking Smith for the letter without comment on its reporting point. A 1995 memorandum added reporting of drug-law violations by non-employees.⁶

The writer Gary Webb wrote that the executive order gave the CIA veto power over Justice Department crime-reporting proposals, that Reagan signed it the same week he authorized CIA operations in Nicaragua, and that the secret 1982 agreement between Casey and Smith exempted CIA assets from drug-crime reporting; he also wrote that anti-crack legislation passed during Reagan's presidency filled prisons with young black dealers while the cocaine importers who supplied them walked free.⁷

The Contras, 1984 to 1986

The Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters, Lawrence Walsh, wrote that Reagan "created the conditions which made possible the crimes committed by others by his secret deviations from announced national policy as to Iran and hostages and by his open determination to keep the contras together 'body and soul' despite a statutory ban on contra aid," and that it could not be proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Reagan knew of the criminal underlying facts or made criminal misrepresentations about them.⁸

At a National Security Planning Group meeting on June 25, 1984, William J. Casey reported that the CIA had $250,000 left from its fiscal 1984 Contra appropriation; Vice President George H.W. Bush said the problem would arise only if the United States promised third parties something in return for help to the Contras; and Robert McFarlane proposed that "none of this discussion will be made public." The minutes record Reagan: "If such a story gets out, we'll all be hanging by our thumbs in front of the White House until we find out who did it." In May or June 1984 McFarlane told Reagan that the Saudi ambassador, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, would deliver $1 million a month to a Contra bank account, and according to McFarlane Reagan answered "Good news" or "That's fine"; in February 1985 King Fahd told Reagan in Washington that the Saudis would double it to $2 million a month, and McFarlane testified that Reagan directed the information not be shared. The Final Report puts Saudi grants at $32 million and Taiwanese grants at $2 million, with about $1.7 million of private contributions routed through the National Endowment for the Preservation of Liberty to accounts controlled by Oliver North.⁸

Reagan was a frequent fundraising speaker for Contra causes beginning in April 1985, and met and corresponded with donors to the National Endowment for the Preservation of Liberty, which his sworn answer compared to its public-information work on the Strategic Defense Initiative. On April 25, 1985 he telephoned Honduran President Roberto Suazo Córdova to ask him to release a Contra weapons shipment seized by the Honduran army; a May 1985 briefing memo for the Suazo meeting advised reminding him that "in return for our help" the United States expected cooperation on the Contras, and in his deposition Reagan agreed that was the expectation. At the May 16, 1986 meeting Alan Fiers recalled Reagan saying, "Can't some of Ollie's people help out?", after which Chief of Staff Donald Regan changed the subject; the official minutes record a question about private groups that pay for advertisements. Walsh also wrote that North was regularly briefed through McFarlane and John Poindexter, that the President's diary is "replete with references to the contra-aid struggle with Congress," and that the OIC was permitted to read only excerpts deemed relevant by White House counsel and to take notes but not copies.⁸

North entered into evidence at his trial seven "Heads of State" documents showing, in the Independent Counsel's words, greater presidential knowledge of contra-assistance efforts than previously public; one, of October 30, 1985, indicated that McFarlane sought Reagan's approval of reconnaissance overflights of Nicaragua and that the President was informed of the illegal air-drop of recoilless rifles.⁹

The Iran arms sales

According to Walsh, Reagan was informed of and approved in advance an Israeli shipment of 504 TOW missiles to Iran in August and September 1985 and a November 1985 shipment of HAWK missiles, directing that Congress not be notified; he knew the sales conflicted with his announced policies, and Weinberger and Secretary of State George P. Shultz opposed them. On December 5, 1985, ten days after the HAWK shipment, Reagan signed a finding retroactively authorizing CIA assistance; he has said he does not recall signing it, and Poindexter testified he destroyed it on or about November 21, 1986. The January 17, 1986 finding listed three purposes: a more moderate Iranian government, intelligence, and the release of the hostages held in Beirut. In 1986 the United States itself sent 1,000 TOW missiles in February and spare parts for HAWKs in May and August through the CIA and the Enterprise; the Enterprise collected about $16 million more from Iran than it paid the CIA, and about $4 million of it went to Contra support controlled by North.⁸

In November 1986, after the disclosure, Poindexter and Casey advised "no comment" while Regan and the White House staff argued for fuller disclosure; the November 10 and 12 briefings, according to Walsh, left out the 1985 sales. Meese told a November 24 meeting that the President "did not know" of the November 1985 HAWK shipment, although Shultz had told him two days earlier that Reagan recalled contemporaneous knowledge. On November 25 Reagan announced Poindexter's resignation and North's dismissal and left the podium to Meese, then telephoned North for two minutes and, in his sworn answer, said he "may have referred to LtCol North as a national hero." Meese and Regan testified Reagan was "shocked" on learning of the diversion on November 24; Poindexter testified he never told him. Walsh wrote that it was "doubtful that President Reagan would tolerate the successive Iranian affronts during 1986 unless he knew that the arms sales continued to supply funds to the contras," but that "only Poindexter could supply direct evidence" and North's destruction of records "eliminated any possible documentary proof."⁸

Walsh found no prosecutable evidence that Reagan authorized or knew of the illegal features of North's operation. He recorded that North testified on July 7, 1987 that he believed the President had authorized the diversion and that Poindexter believed Reagan would have approved it had he been asked.⁸ On December 24, 1992 President Bush pardoned Weinberger, McFarlane, Elliott Abrams, Duane Clarridge, Clair George and Fiers.¹⁰

INSLAW and the Reagan Justice Department

The House Judiciary Committee's 1992 report on INSLAW records that Earl Brian, whom the Hamiltons alleged received the stolen PROMIS software, was Secretary of the Health and Welfare Agency in Governor Reagan's administration, chaired the White House Health Care Cost Reduction Task Force during the first two years of the Reagan presidency, reporting to Meese, and was nominated by Reagan to the National Science Board; the nomination was approved by Reagan and later withdrawn, and the committee wrote that an FBI background report and the independent counsel report by Jacob Stein contradicted Brian's account of why. The Stein inquiry of April 1984 examined a $15,000 loan by Edwin W. Thomas to Mrs. Meese to buy stock in Biotech Capital Corporation, which Brian controlled, and Meese's offer of a White House counselor post to Thomas before the loan. Meese and Brian swore that their contacts after the governorship were sporadic and social.¹¹

Bill Hamilton and Nancy Hamilton alleged that Meese and Deputy Attorney General Lowell Jensen manufactured a contract dispute to drive INSLAW into bankruptcy and give Enhanced PROMIS to Brian's Hadron, Inc.; Elliot Richardson, counsel to INSLAW, alleged a possible criminal conspiracy including Meese, Jensen and Brian. On September 28, 1987 Bankruptcy Judge George Francis Bason, Jr. ruled orally that the Department "took, converted, and stole" Enhanced PROMIS "by trickery, fraud, and deceit," and on February 2, 1988 awarded INSLAW $6.8 million in damages and $1.2 million in fees; on November 22, 1989 District Judge William Bryant upheld the liability and damages findings. The committee wrote that its investigation "largely supports the findings of two Federal courts" that the Department took the software and that officials at the highest levels were involved, while stating it could not reach a definitive conclusion on motive. The Justice Department's position was that the matter was a contract dispute.¹¹

The 1987 United Nations address

On September 21, 1987, Reagan told the United Nations General Assembly: "I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world. And yet, I ask you, is not an alien force already among us? What could be more alien to the universal aspirations of our peoples than war and the threat of war?"¹²

Astrology

The May 1988 disclosures that the Reagans consulted the San Francisco astrologer Joan Quigley are recorded on the pages for Quigley, Donald Regan and Marlin Fitzwater.

Footnotes

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1. Miller Center, University of Virginia, "Ronald Reagan: Life Before the Presidency" and facts page (birth February 6, 1911, Tampico, Illinois; inaugurated January 20, 1981; term ended January 20, 1989; died June 5, 2004). https://millercenter.org/president/reagan ↩︎

2. Slosser, Bob. "A Prophecy," from Reagan Inside Out (Word Books, 1984), reproduced by the Christian Broadcasting Network. https://cbn.com/article/relationships/prophecy ↩︎

3. U.S. House of Representatives, Joint Report of the Task Force to Investigate Certain Allegations Concerning the Holding of American Hostages by Iran in 1980 ("October Surprise Task Force"), H. Rept. 102-1102, January 3, 1993, Executive Summary, sections A.1 to A.4. https://archive.org/details/14148-h.rp.-1102 ↩︎

4. Hersh, Seymour M. The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy. Random House, 1991. Sole source for the passages so cited. ↩︎

5. Executive Order 12333, "United States Intelligence Activities," December 4, 1981, section 1.7, 46 Fed. Reg. 59941. https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/codification/executive-order/12333.html ↩︎

6. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, The CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine Controversy: A Review of the Justice Department's Investigations and Prosecutions, December 1997, ch. XI, "DEA's Response to Information About Contra Drug Trafficking," discussion of the 1982 memorandum of understanding and Smith's letter of February 11, 1982. https://oig.justice.gov/special/9712/ch11p1.htm ↩︎

7. Webb, Gary. Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion. Seven Stories Press, 1998, chapter 9 ("He would have had me by the tail"), the epilogue and chapter 27. Sole source for the passages so cited. ↩︎

8. Walsh, Lawrence E. Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters, Volume I, August 4, 1993, ch. 27, "President Reagan," including notes 6, 7, 10, 15, 45 and 50 to 53, 64 and 103 to 119. https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_27.htm ↩︎

9. Walsh, Final Report, vol. I, ch. 2, "United States v. Oliver L. North," section on the "Heads of State" documents and note 55. https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_02.htm ↩︎

10. Walsh, Final Report, vol. I, Executive Summary. https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/execsum.htm ↩︎

11. U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, The INSLAW Affair: Investigative Report, H. Rept. 102-857, September 10, 1992, sections on INSLAW allegations, Dr. Brian and Mr. Meese, the Bankruptcy Court ruling and Judge Bryant's decision. https://archive.org/details/InslawAffairInvestigativeReport ↩︎

12. Reagan, Ronald. "Address to the 42d Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, New York," September 21, 1987, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speech/address-42d-session-united-nations-general-assembly-new-york-new-york ↩︎