- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - --> [Send the 1-line message GET WHEREWAS GEORGE ACTIV-L to ] [LISTSERV@UMCVMB.BITNET for a copy of this file. ] --> [Send GET ACTIV-L ARCHIVE ACTIV-L to above address for a ] [listing with brief descriptions of other files available] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ============================= T H E F I R S T S T O N E ============================= By Joel Bleifuss In These Times, May 15-21, 1991 [See bottom for subscription / free issue info] Attacks, heart and otherwise ============================ On May 3, President Bush finally addressed allegations that he helped the 1980 Reagan-Bush presidential campaign strike a secret deal with Iran to have the 52 American hostages held in Teheran until after the election. Emphasizing the point with well rehearsed gesticulations, he labeled the charges "sickening." He meant it. The next day Bush was laid up in Bethesda suffer- ing the trials and fibrillations of a disintegrating presidency. The ever-chipper vice president was one irregular heartbeat away from assuming office. And the the public was left wondering whether their president had approached the 1980 election with the same wisdom that in 1988 led him to choose Dan Quayle as a running mate. So where was George? "Was I ever in Paris in 1980? Definitively, definitely no. That's all. Please print it. And let's try to stop this rumormongering that's going on. Stop repeating rumors over and over again," he said in his May 3 executive order. But, Mr. President, the press has tried to stop the rumors, with no one trying harder than the Washington Post. The Post finally assigned a staff reporter to cover the issue, though it has yet to give the allegations a serious examination. Thomas Lippman, in his front-page May 4 article, "Tale of Hostage Intrigue Refuses to Die," didn't even try. Lippman's piece in Washington's newspaper of record set a dis- mal standard. His story, like others that appeared across the na- tion that Saturday, highlighted Bush's denials without explaining exactly what the president was denying. Lippman did say that "the tale keeps surfacing ..reinforced by a chain of circumstantial evidence." But rather than describe that evidence, he wrote simply that in "some versions" of the story, "George Bush, then Reagan's running mate, participated in a sec- ret meeting in Paris that sealed the reported deal." He then prints the denial by an "angry President Bush." But having raised the question of Bush's whereabouts, Lippman left it at that. He did say that during the May 1990 perjury trial of CIA operative Richard Brenneke, the Justice Department failed to prove that Brenneke lied about attending one of three October 1980 meetings in Paris where the alleged deal was finalized. Sev- eral accounts place Bush, soon-to-be CIA chief William Casey and then-Carter White House national-security aide Donald Gregg at these meetings. While Lippman admitted that the Justice Department's case against Brenneke was unable to establish a believable alibi for Casey and Gregg, he did not address where Bush was on the weekend of Oct. 18 and 19,1980, when the Paris meetings are said to have taken place. This much is known: at 9 p.m. that Saturday, Bush concluded a speech at Widener University in Delaware County, Pa. He was next seen in public at 7 p.m. Sunday in Washington giving a speech to the Zionist Organization of America. PICK A BUSH, ANY BUSH: Why did candidate Bush disappear from public view for some 20 hours just two weeks prior to what was a very close presidential election? And where did he go? The Bush administration appears to be working overtime to provide an alibi. But these over-eager efforts have not been coor- dinated. The alibis follow, in order of appearance: * In the fall of 1988, Republican presidential campaign workers explained that Bush spent those unaccounted hours at the Chevy Chase Country Club in suburban Maryland, on private business. This story was supported by a heavily redacted Secret Service re- port that said Bush was at the club with unknown parties. In May 1990, at the Brenneke trial, the Justice Department offered two Secret Service agents as witnesses to explain Bush's whereabouts. In unconnncing, lackluster testimony, the two had trouble mak- ing their case. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [For more information on this trial, see the article "The Verdict is Treason" from Z magazine, available from the ACTIV-L archiver by sending the 1-line message: GET VERDICT TREASON ACTIV-L to: LISTSERV@UMCVMB.BITNET] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - * On April 22, Vice President Quayle was asked on Detroit's ABC-TV affiliate WXYZ where Bush was on that weekend in Oc- tober. Quayle said he didn't know but promised to get back to the station with an answer. The next day the vice president's of- fice faxed its version of Bush's itinerary to the station. According to Alan Upchurch, executive producer of WXYZ news, the fax in- dicated that on the Sunday in question Bush spent all day at home without a Secret Service escort. On May 9,I called the vice president's office and asked for a copy of that itinerary. I was told to contact the president's press office. * Last week, on May 8, the _Wall Street Journal's_ Gordon Crovitz provided Bush with another itinerary for his lost weekend: "Sunday, Washington, D.C., Lunch with Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart and Mrs. Stewart." This alibi originates with the Secret Service, which several months ago provided that informa- tion to the Government Accounting Office. Apparently, brunching with a Supreme Court Justice looks more presidential than an overnight visit to a Washington country club with parties un- known. Further, Bush's brunch cannot be confirmed -- the judge is dead and his wife suffers from chronic memory loss. * Also on May 8, Jerry Seper of the Washington Times reported that Bush was at home with a Secret Service escort. He wrote, 'he Secret Service says he awoke about 6:30 a.m. [Sunday], had lunch at his Washington home and spent the day there preparing the speech [to the Zionist Organization of America in Washington]." * On May 9, I called the White House media-relations office and asked for a copy ol Bush's itinerary for October 18 and 19,1980. A woman named Jeanie said she would fax it to me. When the itinerary did not arrive, I called back and she told me, "We're still working on that." - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - SICK SPINS: Concurrent with this attempt to cover the president is a campaign to smear Cary Sick. It was Sick, a veteran of both the Ford and Carter White Houses, whose April 15 op-ed piece in the New York Times gave "official" legitimacy to the story of the alleged 1980 deal. One of the main ways Sick's credibility has been attacked is by associating his account with that of former Reagan White House defector Barbara Honegger. In early 1987, In These Times received a long article on the al- leged 1980 deal written by Honegger, who served as White House policy analyst until 1982. In her story, Honegger, employing an untenable combination of fact and intuitive interpretation, laid out details of the 1980 deal -- and much more. While we found Honegger's central thesis credible, we could not substantiate all of her allegations. So we assigned staff writer Jim Naureckas to work with her. In These Times published the portion of her story that could be confirmed on June 24,1987. The entire version of Honegger's story can be found in her 1989 book _October Surprise_. In the Washinglon Post, Lippman quoted a Los Angeles Times review of Honegger's book, saying that parts of it were "on par with the accounts of political events favored by paranoid cult- ists." Lippman admitted that Sick's account is "harder to dismiss," but he stirred the pot with, "Brenneke, who got some of his infor- mation from [Barbara] Honegger, who got some of hers from Bani-Sadr, who also talked to Sick, was acquitted." The Washingon Times' John Elvin did a similar job on Sick in his "Inside the Beltway" column. On May 1, he wrote: "Defenders of Mr. Sick point to a previous 'October Surprise' book by former White House staffer Barbara Honegger as further evidence of a conspiracy. But Miss Honneger's credentials are dubious, as _Human Events_ newspaper notes this week, dating to her proclamation that she heard voices telling her to go to Washington to play a major role in the women's movement. She later quit the administration in a flaming feminist fury, but not before becoming legendary for ap- earing at White House functions in a bunny suit." The next day, Elvin followed up with a dash of redbaiting. "And who is Gary Sick anyway?" he wrote. "A booster of the National Security Archive .... [which] has personnel and philosophical links to the Marxist-oriented Institute for Policy Studies." Elvin told me he "spun" this story with the aid of someone at an unnamed con- servative think tank. It was perhaps these words from Elvin that inspired Bush to say at his May 8 press conference, "I am really turned off by all this, and I'm really disappointed in this Mr. Sick, whoever he is." Within an hour of Bush's attack, I spoke to Sick. "I'm not sur- prised at all," he said. "When I wrote the story, I fully anticipated there would be attacks on me. It is not a pleasant thing, but in the end I'm not the story." "The interesting thing about the press conference," he con- tinued, "is that Bush personally denied his personal involvement and he attacked me for impugning motives to him that were to- tally unworthy. What was missing was any statement at all about the broader issues of whether such a deal was done. I think that is really surprising. If there is no deal, why not say so?" Sick said he soon expects more revelations about the alleged 1980 deal. ""There are a number of good reporters who are begin- ning to look at this story seriously," he said. When that happens, Sick said, it will be the substance of the story that makes the news, not attacks on his credibility. Tom Blanton, deputy director of the National Security Archive, said such attacks call to mind a famous quote by the late Demo- cratic Sen. Sam Ervin, who said, "As a young lawyer I quickly learned that when the law is against you, argue the facts. And when the facts are against you, argue the law. And when the law and the facts are against you, attack your opponent." ################################################################## Info on In These Times (if you call the number, I think you need to ask for "In These Times" first. 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