The Constitution contains a one-sentence definition of treason:
<tt> Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. </tt>
If you're an American pondering whether to sell missiles to a foreign power with a proven history of sponsoring
terrorism against the United States, you probably ought to think twice. It could reasonably be argued that this would be giving aid to an enemy of the U.S., and therefore expose you to a charge of treason. Seems pretty straightforward, doesn't it?
And yet this is precisely what President
Ronald Reagan did. But did he get impeached? Nope. The American people decided that if the President was paving a road with his very best intentions, it didn't really matter where that road ultimately led. Who cares about a few broken laws? And in the wake of overwhelming public apathy, the whole affair was quietly set aside.
Illegal Arms for Terrorists
In spite of a weapons embargo, Reagan authorized illegal arms sales to the nation of
Iran, a country he had himself declared to be a "terrorist state." It was certainly an apt description. In section 59 of Arlington National Cemetery, near the graves of 21 American soldiers killed in the line of duty, there is a cedar tree with this marker:
<tt> LET PEACE TAKE ROOT </tt> <tt>THIS CEDAR OF LEBANON TREE GROWS IN LIVING MEMORY OF THE AMERICANS KILLED IN THE BEIRUT TERRORIST ATTACK AND ALL VICTIMS OF TERRORISM THROUGHOUT THE WORLD. </tt>
In October 1983, a
suicide bomber drove a truck loaded with 2.5 tons of TNT into the Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. The explosion killed 241 American servicemen. And the Iranians were behind it. They financed the operation. They coordinated it from their embassy in Syria. They trained the suicide bomber in Iran. They even manufactured the truck there. The Iranians were in it up to their eyeballs.
And we knew it. One month before the Beirut bombing, the
NSA intercepted a phone call made by the Iranian ambassador to Syria. The ambassador described having given Hezbollah orders to kill American forces in Lebanon and also "undertake an extraordinary operation against the Marines" in Beirut. Somehow, this information got lost in the Pentagon until two days after the bombing.
President Reagan later described the events in his memoirs:
<tt>The evidence indicated that both suicide vehicles were driven by radical Shiite fundamentalists suicidally bent on the pursuit of martyrdom. They were members of the same group responsible for the barbarous bombing of our embassy in Beirut the previous April, a group whose religious leaders promised instant entry to Paradise for killing an enemy of Iran's theocracy. Nancy and I were in a state of grief, made almost speechless by the magnitude of the loss. </tt>
In July 1985, President Reagan denounced Iran as part of a "confederation of terrorist states" which had committed "outright acts of war" against the U.S. He declared Iran to be an enemy of the United States:
"Iran, Libya,
North Korea, Cuba,
Nicaragua -- continents away, tens of thousands of miles apart, but the same goals and objectives. I submit to you that the growth in terrorism in recent years results from the increasing involvement of these states in terrorism in every region of the world. This is terrorism that is part of a pattern, the work of a confederation of terrorist states. Most of the terrorists who are kidnapping and murdering American citizens and attacking American installations are being trained, financed, and directly or indirectly controlled by a core group of radical and totalitarian governments -- a new, international version of
Murder, Incorporated. And all of these states are united by one simple criminal phenomenon -- their fanatical hatred of the United States, our people, our way of life, our international stature."
And yet only
39 days after making that speech, Reagan's men began furnishing some of these fanatical America haters with what would eventually amount to 107 tons of anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles. These shipments continued for more than a year. They even continued beyond August 1986, when President Reagan signed into law a federal ban on arms sales to terrorist nations, which included Iran.
That's how he committed treason. But if Ronald Reagan's a traitor, he also had a whole bunch of accomplices. Like his Vice President,
George HW Bush. But thanks to some convenient Presidential pardons, everybody got away scot-free.
But why would they do this? What rationale did they have for selling missiles to a bunch of terrorists? Why would our highest elected leaders commit treason against their own country?
Illegal Payments to the Contras
In the Central American nation of
Nicaragua, a war was raging. An army of guerrillas was engaged in a struggle to overthrow the Communist regime which had recently come to power. The Reagan administration supported the revolutionary force, known as the Contras, in their bid to overthrow the Sandinistas and restore a pro-American government to Nicaragua. Unfortunately, the Congress felt differently. Much differently. So differently, in fact, that it passed a set of laws making it a crime to give aid to the Contras. In doing so, the U.S. government had forbidden itself from furnishing the Contras with money or supplies of any kind.
The White House was suddenly facing a crisis. They weren't allowed to send money. But even if they were, where would they get it? During a June 1984 meeting of the National Security Planning Group, the President and his closest advisors weighed their options:
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="10"><tbody><tr> <td align="right" nowrap="nowrap" valign="top"><tt>KIRKPATRICK</tt>:</td> <td>If we can't get the money for the anti-Sandinistas, then we have to make the maximum effort to find the money elsewhere.</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="right" nowrap="nowrap" valign="top"><tt>SCHULTZ</tt>:</td> <td>I would like to get the money for the Contras also, but ... Jim Baker said that if we go out and try to get the money from third countries, it is an impeachable offense.</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="right" nowrap="nowrap" valign="top"><tt>CASEY</tt>:</td> <td>Jim Baker said that if we try to get money from third countries without notifying the oversight committees it could be a problem.</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="right" nowrap="nowrap" valign="top"><tt>SCHULTZ</tt>:</td> <td>Baker's argument is that the U.S. government may raise and spend funds only through an appropriation of the Congress.</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="right" nowrap="nowrap" valign="top"><tt>PRESIDENT REAGAN</tt>:</td> <td>We must obtain the funds to help these freedom fighters.</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="right" nowrap="nowrap" valign="top"><tt>VICE PRESIDENT BUSH</tt>:</td> <td>The only problem that might come up is if the United States were to promise to give these third parties something in return, so that some people could interpret this as some kind of an exchange.</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="right" nowrap="nowrap" valign="top"><tt>McFARLANE</tt>:</td> <td>I certainly hope none of this discussion will be made public in any way.</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="right" nowrap="nowrap" valign="top"><tt>PRESIDENT REAGAN</tt>:</td> <td>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.</td></tr></tbody></table>
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