August 1987

8/1/87

One really wonders about the NYT. A story, “Cheerful Days on the Road to Mecca” has a sidebar mentioning the riots started by Iranian pilgrims with knives.

NBC caved in to Israel (see 7/25) & will allow them to air objections

John Connally, formerly Sec Treasury, dec bankruptcy


8/2/87

Evidently, the US is keeping quiet on the fact that the ship hit in May in the Persian Gulf was hit by 2 Iraqi planes on purpose, not accident. Incidentally, one of the re-flagged & renamed ships, the Bridgestone (I wonder what the Amer. public would think if the media called it by its Kuwaiti name, the “Left Nipple of Allah,” or whatever) was damaged by an Iranian mine. Seems no one thought of that.


8/4/87

FCC ends the Fairness Doctrine

Br got an injunction on the NZ Dominion & in Hong Kong against pub of Spycatcher. The News of the World will be prosecuted for ignoring the Br injunction

The open hearings of the Iran-Contra hearings ended yesterday. In the last week, Shultz, Regan, Weinberger testified, saying little of great interest. Gosh, they all didn’t know & objected strenuously

Bani-Sadr, ex-prez Iran, to Flora Lewis of NYT. When Iraq invaded Sep80, had only 5-10 days’ supplies, so started negotiations w/US. “But,” he says, “in October, everything suddenly stopped. My aides found out it was because the group in charge of hostage policy, Rafsanjani, Mohamed Beheshti, and Khomeini’s son, did not want Carter to win the election. There was a meeting in Paris between a rep of Beheshti & a rep of the RR campaign”---Richard Allen, Rob’t McFarlane & Lawrence Silberman. Rasanjani has accused Chirac of making a similar deal.

Iran, while US escort ships in the Gulf, is having naval maneuvers called “Martyrdom”

And the “I can’t remember” record for the I-C hearings goes to Poindexter, w/184!

Economist: “There are deprived times ahead for political junkies. For the best part of 3 months, Americans have had a free ticket to all-day political theatre and now the show is closing...”

After Meese testified, many talk of his wearing too many hats


8/5/87

RR Admin has proposed a ballyhooed “peace plan” in conjunction w/Speaker of House Jim Wright--I never did like the man. It is a plan for a cease-fire w/Contras. No foreign aid to Contras if Nic. rejects Cuban & Soviet aid. Democratization & free speech & everything in Nic. & elections. All this Sept. 30. And then there will be a vote on Contra aid. So what this is is a method of getting that vote, which otherwise would be delayed in cmte (much of the 2 mos = recess, anyway). The problem is that this is so obviously a cheap ploy & the press doesn’t care. Contras will get “humanitarian” aid. And RR will shut up.

AMC will be absorbed by Chrysler

Daniel Ortega has proposed dir talks w/US


8/6/87

An article in Nation of I-C theories talks of Hitchens’s “October Surprise.” Multiple Iran arms sales theory. Says Iran & Israel could blackmail RR, so how could we threaten Iran w/war or prosecute an Israeli spy. And why did a new channel to Iran have to be created 1985-6 for new hostages?

Nation says Ollie North got assistance from Gen Noriega of Panama

NSC memo from North to Poindexter 6/3/85 on Alfonso Chardy of the Miami Herald talked of “rumors of stories being prepared which allege an NSC connection to priv funding and () support to the Nicaraguan resistance. The rumors originally surfaced with a reporter Alfonso Chardi (sic)... At my request [deleted] went to Chardi...and told Chardi that if he (Chardi) printed any derogatory comments about the FDN or its funding sources that Chardi would never again be allowed to visit FDN bases or travel with their units.” Interesting that the NSC spoke for the Contras

US rejects dir talks w/Nicaragua. Shultz says there must be regional talks. (Why isn’t that the case in Middle East?) Fitzwater days Nic. has 2 weeks to respond or RR goes on the warpath

107 Congressmen are going to court to invoke the War Powers Act against convoying Kuwaiti ships

The Br SPD votes 37% to merge w/Libs. David Owen resigns


8/7/87

The potential deal eliminating short- and medium-range missiles is being screwed by the presence of US Pershings in W Ger. We now pretend these are German & we can’t negotiate on them. If so, both W Ger & US are in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty

The Cent. Amer. countries came up w/their own peace plan. RR’s plan was ignored

Standard Chartered Bank pulls out of SA--the last big foreign bank.


8/8/87

RR announces new procedures for covert ops, like notifying Congress in 48 hrs, informing in writing, no ex post facto finds. As if procedure was the main problem in I-C


8/9/87

“Most history is just gossip that has grown old gracefully.” -- Sidney J. Harris

Clemenceau: “America is the only nation in history that miraculously has gone directly from barbarianism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization.”


8/10/87

It’s taken this long for someone to blame Iran for the mine that got the Bridgeton. A US fighter fired on Iranian aircraft but missed.


8/12/87

RR speech. Again demands a balanced budget amend--if Congress votes on it, he will bargain on every pt in budget, he says (since his power is solely negative, who cares). And threatened a const conv

There is a major mining strike in SA. Today the police arrested 78 leaders of the Nat Union of Mineworkers

Bork has opposed Sup Court rulings against racially restrictive covenants in deeds & against an Okl. law for involuntary sterilization of inmates & right of married couples to purchase contraceptives, one person one vote.


8/13/87

Botha is talking about restricting mvmt of a) diplomats, b) everyone else, citing liberal Afks’ trips to visit the ANC in Senegal last mo.

Yesterday’s RR speech was so bland the NYT doesn’t even have an editorial on it. 15 minutes, 7 on I-C. This is his idea of a response. Didn’t mention any specifics on what was done wrong or mention Casey or North by name. “You won’t be able to shut me up” he said last mo.

Australia is beginning to recognize the Fijian coup regime, boo hiss


8/14/87

The Cent. Am. peace plan will--> dir. talks between Salvadoran gov & rebels

John Ehrlichman applied for a prez pardon


8/15/87

A Labour MP placed a copy of Spycatcher in H of C library

Corporal punishment was ended in Br

A Bork scorecard on his 109 cases in Court of Appeals--though only dealing w/54 decisions not unanimous--sided w/regulatory agencies against pub interest groups 14 to 1 but for business against reg agency 7:1. Against const claims 7:2, for employers against NLRB 3:0, for gov agency against FOIA petitions 6 to 1 (the one not being in favor either). American Bar Assoc Journal called him “Attila the Hun of the Const”


8/17/87

The official heading the US humanitarian aid program for Contras twice ordered planes to shuttle weapons at order of Elliott Abrams

David Lange’s Labour Party won NZ election 47.6%

Rufolf Hess d. at 93


8/18/87

AFL-CIO to fight Bork nomination

Hess hanged himself

Anglo American had talks w/the miners’ union over prevention of violence, but they broke down. Now, AAC is threatening to close two mines that it will probably close soon as unprofitable anyway


8/20/87

NYT just discovered the plan in 1984 to get training & equipment for Contras from SA. I wonder if they’re living in the real world; all that came out in the I-C hearings. Feb85 Eden Pastora got 200,000 pounds of SA equipment. CIA denies a role. Apr84 Shultz approved use of SA


8/23/87

State Dept denies Shultz involvement in SA aid to Contra plan

In Br training for riot control, 20 cops were sent to hospital. Incidentally, it was those acting as rioters who put the others in the hospital

A fed district judge ordered DoD to stop extensive investigations of homosexuals seeking security clearance jobs w/contractors. DOD contended that homosexuals more susceptible to blackmail & that homosexuality = mental disorder


8/24/87

Israel is trying to get US to restore favorite-nation status to Romania, revoked when R. persecuted its Hungarians


8/25/87

RR broadcast into Nicaragua on a Contra transmitter

Congressional investigation cleared the Contras of drug trafficking

Rev Allen Hendrickse, leader of the SA coloured chamber, quit the Cabinet because of Botha’s plan to postpone a gen election for the white chamber from 1989 to 1992. Botha told him & other colored last week they should be “grateful” the NP let them participate in politics.


8/26/87

Hong Kong lifted the ban on “Spycatcher”

The navy in the Gulf are getting hazard pay, but gov still insists there is not the danger to require invocation of the War Powers Act

W Ger will go along w/Soviet demands to inc Pershing missiles in deal


8/27/87

Coup attempt by pro-Marcosers in Philippines

Contras have some idea about putting aid in escrow pending outcome of the peace process

Sam Nunn will not run for prez. Nor Paul Laxalt

A judge in Ore. allowed a child molester out on probation but must move & put out a sign “Dangerous sex offender no children allowed” & on any car.

USSR will have mandatory AIDS testing

Judge Hand’s exclusion of “secular humanist” textbooks has been reversed

Bork said 1978 that president as commander in chief had power to order wiretapping w/out warrants. In 1971 that pres. could send troops into Cambodia since activity already permitted in that region. Last yr dissented, saying that prez could exclude foreigners. Has always voted strictly on “standing,” denying court access to those challenging the presidents inc when Congress sued to stop RR using pocket veto during temp recess (1984). Believes special prosecutors illegal

Anglo American has fired 18,000 striking workers, threatened 13,000 more


8/28/87

Fed appeals court overturned Minn. law requiring ♀ under 18 getting parental or judicial permission for abortion

SA sanctions all told nominally affect only 8% of exports. Abu Dhabi discovered that its import of “Swazi” fruit amounted to 4X the entire Swazi crop


8/29/87

Those seeking immigration amnesty, 560,000 so far, will have to be tested for AIDS

RR is taking a pension from CA. This may be illegal.

US said would support a single-candidate plebiscite in Chile if no fraud (why would there be?)


8/30/87

New HHS regs blocking all fed-financed family-planning clinics even mentioning abortion. Any that have them would have separate offices, entrances, phone #s, records

From “Spycatcher”: James Angleton, head of CIA counterintelligence, 1964 charged Harold Wilson w/being a Soviet agent. MI5 agents leaked anti-Wilson info to press. Wright says Angleton wanted to take over MI5

The papers seem to be so bored w/Philippines coups that they aren’t even trying to investigate Marcos’s or Enrile involvement in this one


8/31/87

SA gold & coal strike over

Justice Dept filed a brief supporting North & Michael Deaver’s contention that special prosecutors are illegal

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