Arms for Illusions

THE IRAN-CONTRA affair was the one serious mistake the Reagan Administration made during the seven years I served as Secretary of Defense. The President’s motives were the best, and completely understandable to anyone who knew, as I did, his compassionate nature, and the revulsion he felt over Americans being held hostage by fanatical terrorists. But Mr. Reagan was badly served by some of his staff, who were unwilling to recognize their own severe limitations of intellect, knowledge, and morality.

I was not in office on November 4, 1979, when militant Iranian students seized our embassy in Teheran, kidnapping 66 Americans. My feelings about that incident were, I suppose, no stronger than those of most other Americans, but I felt strongly then and do to this day that conduct of the kind Iran exhibited during the seizure of our embassy completely disqualified it from any civilized intercourse with other nations. I feel that as long as the leadership in Iran remains as it is (and in my opinion it has not changed substantively since Ayatollah Khomeini’s death), it is futile to expect that any kind of agreement with such a government would be of any value. I also thought, with some support from the intelligence community, that since 1984 most of those held hostage in the Middle East were kidnapped either by Iran directly or by its surrogates.

CW

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Caspar W. Weinberger

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THE IRAN-CONTRA affair was the one serious mistake the Reagan Administration made during the seven years I served as Secretary of Defense. The President’s motives were the best, and completely understandable to anyone who knew, as I did, his compassionate nature, and the revulsion he felt over Americans being held hostage by fanatical terrorists. But Mr. Reagan was badly served by some of his staff, who were unwilling to recognize their own severe limitations of intellect, knowledge, and morality.

I was not in office on November 4, 1979, when militant Iranian students seized our embassy in Teheran, kidnapping 66 Americans. My feelings about that incident were, I suppose, no stronger than those of most other Americans, but I felt strongly then and do to this day that conduct of the kind Iran exhibited during the seizure of our embassy completely disqualified it from any civilized intercourse with other nations. I feel that as long as the leadership in Iran remains as it is (and in my opinion it has not changed substantively since Ayatollah Khomeini’s death), it is futile to expect that any kind of agreement with such a government would be of any value. I also thought, with some support from the intelligence community, that since 1984 most of those held hostage in the Middle East were kidnapped either by Iran directly or by its surrogates.