http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0206-10.htm
It is his role in the 1980 election that is perhaps most intriguing
about Silberman's appointment.
He is alleged to have set up and participated in a mysterious meeting
in Washington on Oct. 2, 1980 -- one month before the election -- with
Reagan's top foreign policy adviser, then-Marine Lieutenant Colonel
Robert McFarlane (Reagan's national security adviser during the
Iran-Contra scandal), and at least one Iranian arms dealer.
It was the culmination of a series of secret meetings -- never
reported to the U.S. government -- between Reagan campaign officials
and Iranians who purported to represent the government of the
Ayatollah Khomeini.
The precise purpose of those meetings has never been resolved, but one
school of thought, propounded most effectively in the early 1980s by
Carter's top National Security Council adviser on Iran, was that the
Republican campaign was trying to ensure that Tehran would not make a
deal with Carter to release U.S. Embassy hostages who were being held
in Iran until after the November elections.
In return, Iran would be covertly supplied with U.S.-made weapons via
Israeli middlemen, according to the theory.
Reagan officials, including Silberman, have vehemently denied this
version of events.
Nonetheless, it appears that Silberman was a key conduit to Iran
during the early 1980s.
According to one source, after he received his judicial appointment,
Silberman passed along his Iranian contacts to Michael Ledeen, a close
associate of Richard Perle at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI),
who played a key role with McFarlane in the transfer of U.S. weapons
to Tehran in the deal that gave rise to the Iran-Contra scandal.
Several years later, Silberman cast the deciding vote on a three-judge
panel in a decision that resulted in dismissing the criminal
convictions of Admiral John Poindexter and Lt Col Oliver North for
lying to Congress in connection with the scandal.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0206-10.htm
Published on Friday, February 6, 2004 by Inter Press Service
Co-Chair of Bush Panel Part of Far Right Network
by Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON -
President George W. Bush's choice to co-chair his commission to
investigate intelligence failures prior to the Iraq War is a
long-time, right wing political activist closely tied to the
neo-conservative network that led the pro-war propaganda campaign.
Federal appeals court Judge Laurence Silberman, who will share the
chairmanship with former Virginia Democratic Senator Charles Robb,
also has some history in covert operations.
In 1980, when he served as part of former Republican president Ronald
Reagan's senior campaign staff, he played a key role in setting up
secret contacts between the Reagan-Bush campaign and the Islamic
government in Tehran, in what became known as the ''October Surprise''
controversy.
_______________________________________________________
Kinda guy Bush would want on his "independent" commission
investigating himself, right? Of course.
Harry
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