THIS FAR AND NO FURTHER
A Timeline of Events Surrounding the Radical Right's Attempt to Subvert American Democracy
Written and Compiled by Black Max
1982
Searching This Site by Topic
Highlights of This Page
US covert support of Iraq in its war with Iran. Arbusto Oil and Spectrum 7. Britain invades the Falkland Islands. Israel invades Lebanon. Reagan deregulates the US S&L industry. Boland Amendment signed into law and routinely ignored.
Clickable Links for Each Month
"I never use the words Democrats and Republicans. It's liberals and Americans." -- Secretary of the Interior James Watt
US covert support of Iraq in its war with Iran
- The Reagan administration provides covert support of Iraq against Iran, giving Saddam Hussein with billions of dollars in credits, US military intelligence and advisors, and weaponry. This is sparked by early successes by Iran in the battlefield, prompting Reagan to state that Iraq could not afford to lose the war and US assistance would be provided to keep Iran at bay. In his testimony to Congress, NSC official Howard Teicher says, "The CIA, including both CIA Director [William] Casey and Deputy Director [Robert] Gates, knew of, approved of, and assisted in the sale of non-U.S. origin military weapons, ammunition and vehicles to Iraq." Secretary of State George Shultz, formerly a board member of Bechtel Corporation, dispatches his envoy Donald Rumsfeld to meet with Hussein to advance a joint US-Iraq project for an oil pipeline to be built by Bechtel. Teicher later testifies, "I personally attended meetings in which CIA director Casey or CIA deputy director Gates noted the need for Iraq to have certain weapons such as cluster bombs and anti-armor penetrators, in order to stave off Iranian attacks." The Bush administration will push Congress to continue supplying Iraq even after the 1988 gassing of Iranian and Iraqi Kurds by Hussein. The gas attacks will be carried out in part by crop-dusting helicopters provided to Iraq by the Reagan administration on the advice of Shultz. (US/Iraq Relations Timeline, Consortium News, Laura Flanders)
- A young black lawyer from the Monsanto Corporation, Clarence Thomas, is named head of Reagan's Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. He is a critic of the NAACP and an opponent of government intervention in affirmative action and non-discrimination cases, though he has personally benefited from affirmative action programs. Laura Flanders later writes, "He was on record as opposing the very laws he was appointed to implement. Thomas took over the chairmanship of the EEOC in 1982 and drove the agency just where he was expected to -- directly into the ground." (Laura Flanders)
Iranian troops battling Iraqi tanks.
- During the year, Israel completes its withdrawal from the Sinai, over the protests of Jews who have already settled there. In the north, the PLO continues its violent harassment of Israeli settlements from Lebanon; Israel retaliates by striking at Palestinian refugee camps within Lebanese borders. Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon devises a plan to drive the PLO out of Lebanon as well as to strengthen the Lebanese Christians who might throw their support more towards Israel. In January, Lebanese Christian leader Bashir Geshamel, the head of the Christian Phalange, agrees to work with Israel in expelling the Palestinians from Lebanon. (Dan Cohn-Sherbok)
- Colonel Oliver North is part of a group that draws up secret wartime contingency plans, which, according to a 2002 report in the Sydney Morning Herald, provide for "the imposition of martial law, internment camps, and the turning over of government to the president and FEMA." Columnist Jack Anderson reports that FEMA's emergency "standby legislation" is meant to "suspend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights." Two years later, the Rex-84 "readiness exercise" program is conducted by 34 federal departments and agencies under Ronald Reagan's directive. Reportedly established to control illegal aliens crossing the Mexican/U.S. border, the exercise tests military readiness to round up and detain citizens in case of massive civil unrest. (Buzzflash)
Arbusto Oil and Spectrum 7
- Arbusto Oil, still floundering after $3 million of donations, goes public and changes its name to the Bush Exploration Oil Company. To avoid bankruptcy, Arbusto sells 10% of its stock to Bush family friend Philip Uzielli (a Panamanian businessman and Princeton classmate of James Baker) for $1 million (the stock is valued at less than $40,000). Uzielli will lose his entire $1 million investment but will describe the investment as "great fun." Arbusto (known as "Are-busted" for its record of drilling dry holes) merges with another small oil firm, Spectrum 7, in 1984; Spectrum 7's president, Paul Rea, later says that George W. Bush was made chairman and CEO of the merged firm because of his family name. Bush is awarded 14% ($600,000 worth) of the stock, along with a consultancy that pays him up to $120,000 a year; 50 original Arbusto investors are cashed out at less than one-fifth of their initial investments. (Molly Ivins reports that Arbusto was never meant to be a profitable company, instead it was conceived and operated as a tax writeoff company, allowing its investors to write off up to 75% of its losses to be paid by the American taxpayer.) Two Cincinnati investors, William DeWitt and Mercer Reynolds, own Spectrum 7; both have connections with professional baseball, and will later assist Bush's move to buy the Texas Rangers, with the help of Bush family friend Eddie Chiles, an aging oil millionaire. (Spectrum 7 will follow Arbusto's financial path, accumulating $3 million in debt in less than two years.) Much of the local money for the buyout is provided by Richard Rainwater, the chief financial advisor to the billionaire Bass family. Bush family friend Peter Ueberroth, currently the commissioner of baseball, is an enthusiastic supporter of the Rangers takeover. Bush will buy 2% of the team with a $500,000 loan from a Midland bank of which he had been a director, along with $106,000 in loans from other sources. Bush, one of the smallest shareholders in the Rangers, becomes the public figurehead of the Rangers' ownership; he even has baseball cards with his picture printed up for distribution. (Village Voice, Bushwatch, Consortium News, Joe Conason, Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose)
- January: Reagan tells one anecdote about British legal traditions several times throughout the year. According to Reagan, in England, it used to be that "if a criminal carried a gun, even if he didn't use it, he was tried for first-degree murder and hung if he was found guilty." Reagan continues to tell the story even after he and his staff are told that it isn't true; Reagan's press secretary says at one point, "Well, it's a good story, though. It made the point, didn't it?" (Time)
January 1982
- January 23: CBS's flagship news show 60 Minutes airs an interview with General William Westmoreland, the commander of US forces in Vietnam for the bulk of that country's time during the Vietnam war. During the interview, reporter Mike Wallace makes the assertion that intelligence officers under Westmoreland's command had manipulated intelligence estimates in 1967, to show far fewer Communist personnel in South Vietnam than were actually there, in order to create an impression that the Vietnam War was being won. Westmoreland sues for libel, and after over three years of legal wrangling, Westmoreland drops his suit in return for a statement by CBS that he chooses to characterize as an apology. CBS refuses to retract its contentions made in the broadcast, but says that it had "never intended to assert, and does not believe, that General Westmoreland was unpatriotic or disloyal in performing his duties as he saw them." (Westmoreland may have dropped the suit after the testimony of two former intelligence officers, Major General Joseph McChristian and Colonel Gains Hawkins, that proves the accuracy of the substantive allegations of the broadcast.) What is not commonly known is that the $3 million in costs incurred by Westmoreland during the course of the trial is subsidized by reclusive conservative billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife, including hiring a public relations director for the general. (Wikipedia, Wikipedia, Joe Conason and Gene Lyons)
February 1982
- February: Over the objections of many lawmakers, Reagan removes Iraq from the US list of nations that support terrorism. (CCR, Iran Chamber Society)
- February - November: Arkansas real estate and land speculator Jim McDougal loses in a bid for Congress. His bank and S&L are, in wife Susan's words, "left to drift on their own" during the campaign. McDougal's Madison Bank goes bankrupt, triggered by a huge loan to a local farmer that goes into default. (Susan McDougal)
March 1982
Britain invades the Falkland Islands
- March 19: Argentina invades the Falkland Islands, a small archipelago off its western shore that have long been in dispute of ownership with Great Britain. The invasion and its British reaction are both heavily politically motivated, with the dictatorial Argentinian junta under President General Leopoldo Galtieri attempting to shore up its faltering fortunes and distract the population from the current economic crisis, and the British Tory government under Margaret Thatcher using the invasion as a prop for Thatcher's own troubled leadership. On this date, 50 Argentinian civilians raise the flag on South Georgia Island, but the actual invasion begins on April 2. Britain reacts strongly, dispatching both naval and ground forces to retake the islands, which, after a short set of skirmishes, it succeeds in accomplishing. The conflict brings even more civil unrest to Argentina, and helps bring about the fall of the Galtieri government; in contrast, a wave of public support and overt patriotism works to the benefit of the Thatcher government, helping ensure her re-election as Prime Minister. The war is best remembered in American political circles as the source of Thatcher's advice to George H.W. Bush, when she advises Bush that the best way to shore up his faltering presidency is with a war; Bush takes her advice and shortly thereafter launches the Persian Gulf War against Iraq. (Wikipedia)
April 1982
- April 17: For months, anecdotal stories of the prototypical "welfare queen," indulging in luxurious living off the government dole, have emanated from the White House, including from Reagan himself. Similar stories, such as the welfare recipient who bought vodka with his food stamps, are also circulating throughout the media. A diligent investigation proves that none of these stories are true, and that Reagan's "welfare queen" does not exist. When confronted about one of these lies, Reagan spokesman Larry Speakes replies, "Well, it's a good story, though. It made the point, didn't it?" (Washington Post/Paul Waldman)
May 1982
- May 5: A mail bomb injures a secretary at Vanderbilt University. This is the sixth known bomb mailed by the "Unabomber," and the fifth to inflict injuries. (Unabomber Timeline)
- May 30: Spain joins NATO. (CBS News, NATO and UN History)
June 1982
Israel invades Lebanon
- June 6: Israel invades southern Lebanon in an attempt to create a 25-mile "security zone" that would afford protection for northern Israeli settlements from PLO attacks. (The justification for the invasion is the attempted assassination of Israel's ambassador to Great Britain; the pretext is undermined by the fact that the PLO did not carry out the assassination attempt. The ambassador was shot by a gunman from a rival faction, Abu Nidal's Sabri al-Banna. Prime Minister Menachem Begin is not concerned about the affiliation of the assassin; to Begin, all Palestinians are PLO and must be dealt with harshly.) Israeli ground forces thrust northwards, hoping to join Christian Phalangist forces in Beirut and cut the Beirut-Damascus highway. Syria's intervention stops the Israeli incursion, but Israeli forces are able to join with their Phalangist allies outside of Beirut. Defense Minister Ariel Sharon is reluctant to risk Israeli lives in driving PLO fighters out of western Beirut, and leaves that chore to the Phalangists, a task they are unwilling to undertake. American intervention allows the beleagured PLO guerrillas to leave the city by sea. Arafat is forced to take refuge in Tunisia, far from the action. Sharon and Phalangist leader Bashir Gemayel plan to search the refugee camps for PLO fighters, but Gemayel is assassinated before the end of June. Phalangist troops retaliate by slaughtering over 300 Palestinian refugees, including women and children (some reports place the death toll at closer to 2,000). The news of the massacre angers many Israelis; protests against the invasion result in Menachem Begin's resignation as Israel's prime minister and Ariel Sharon's resignation as Defense Minister (it is widely believed that Sharon gave the order to allow the Phalangists into the camps). Yitzhak Shamir forms a government, but Shamir's government is eventually toppled due to rampant inflation and general discontent with the right-wing policies of Begin's Likud Party. The US gives covert support to Israel in its invasion of Lebanon. The US chooses not to invoke its laws prohibiting Israeli use of US weapons except in self-defense, and vetoes several Security Council resolutions condemning the invasion. Through 1984, the US supports the Phalangists over other rebel forces, and a contingent of Marines briefly expels the PLO from Lebanon. US Navy warships shell Muslim and Syrian positions. (ZNet, ZMag, Dan Cohn-Sherbok, Dawoud el-Alami)
July 1982
- July 2: A pipe bomb explodes in a faculty break room at UC-Berkeley, seriously injuring an engineering professor. The bomb is the latest from the "Unabomber." (Unabomber Timeline)
- July 11: Wall Street Journal editor Robert Bartley, a hard-line conservative, says that "there aren't any poor people left [in America], you know, just a few hermits or something like that." (Wall Street Journal/Paul Waldman)
Fall 1982
- Fall and Winter: In the run for the governorship of Texas, incorrect lists of so-called "felons" are provided to electoral boards, disenfranchising thousands of legitimate voters. (A number of successful slander lawsuits will ensue.) Additionally, armed law enforcement officials were posted at voting venues, ostensibly to enforce order. Texas lawmakers later find that the list of supposed felons is composed overwhelmingly of Democratic, or presumably Democratic, voters, and that the presence of law enforcement officials at voting venues serves to dissuade some ethnic voters from coming onto the premises. Some Democratic observers view the 1982 Texas election as the "blueprint for the Florida 2000 election." The posting of armed guards and the use of intimidating signs is a well-known and well-documented GOP strategy called the "Ballot Security Task Force" (BSTF). The tactics of the BSTF are illegal, and as part of a 1982 settlement of a 1981 federal lawsuit (DNC vs RNC), the Republican National Committee promised to never do it again. Shortly thereafter, the Texas GOP uses the selfsame tactics to win the gubernatorial election. (Note: the same illegal tactics were used in a 1981 New Jersey gubernatorial election, where Republican Thomas Kean won by a razor-thin margin against Democrat Jim Florio. Signs reading WARNING; THIS AREA IS BEING PATROLLED BY THE NATIONAL BALLOT SECURITY TASK FORCE; IT IS A CRIME TO FALSIFY A BALLOT OR TO VIOLATE ELECTION LAWS were prominently displayed in election areas throughout New Jersey. The New Jersey GOP posted the signs in violation of state law requiring political material to be kept at a distance from the polls. Since the signs did not identify their source, they appeared to be non-partisan announcements. Precincts that were largely Afro-American or Hispanic were patrolled by an "army" of hired security guards wearing sidearms and BTSF armbands, who challenged black and Hispanic voters, blocked a number of legitimate voters from entering voting places, and forcibly restrained some poll workers from assisting voters with properly casting their votes. In 1986, the Louisiana GOP tried to have thousands of voters in predominantly black districts purged from the rolls. Louisiana state judge Richard E. Lee called the ballot security measures "an insidious scheme by the Republican Party to remove blacks from voting rolls." The DNC believes that the ballot integrity program in Louisiana was part of an RNC effort in seven other states to illegally purge one million black and Hispanic voters from the rolls and to keep those voters away from the polls on election day.) (Democrats.com)
October 1982
Reagan deregulates the US S&L industry
- October: Reagan signs a bill deregulating the thrift and savings & loan industries, and quips, "All in all, I think we've hit the jackpot." Instead of promoting new economic growth and investments, the legislation will open the door for the collapse of the savings and loan industry, costing the American taxpayer up to a trillion dollars. The unregulated looting of the S&Ls that will follow leads to the speculative junk bond run on the stock market, which will conclude in dozens of criminal convictions of Wall Street speculators and a national recession. But, thanks to the timely intervention of President George H.W. Bush during his term, a number of heavy financial hitters will "earn" tremendous "profits" because of the S&L bust, profits paid for by the US taxpayer. (FDIC, Joe Conason)
November 1982
- November 9: Former Arkansas governor Bill Clinton defeats incumbent Frank White to win back the governorship. He will continue in the position for the next ten years until he runs for president in 1992. Clinton is a moderate Democrat who mollifies conservative opposition by his business-friendly policies, while retaining the backing of most Arkansas Democrats by, among other things, his staunch support of civil rights and desegregation policies. (Wikipedia)
- November 9: Democrat John Kerry, a decorated Vietnam veteran, is elected lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, beginning a long and distinguished career in politics. (Bush-Kerry Timeline)
- November 9: Republican Bill Clements is narrowly re-elected to the governorship of Texas. His campaign is managed by political consultant Karl Rove, who leaks a mock newspaper article accusing Democratic challenger Mark White of being drunk when White wrecked his car as a college student. The allegations have no basis in fact, but put White on the defensive and contribute to his defeat. (James Moore and Wayne Slater)
December 1982
- December: Hughes Aircraft ships 60 Defender helicopters to Iraq. (Iran Chamber Society)
Boland Amendment signed into law and routinely ignored
- December 21: Reagan signs into law an appropriations bill that includes the "Boland Amendment," The amendment effectively outlaws US assistance to the Nicaraguan Contras, the US-sponsored rebels attempting to overthrow the democratically elected Sandinista government, but allows overt efforts to stop military equipment from going to Nicaragua. House Democrats want a far more stringent amendment, but don't have the votes to get such restrictive legislation passed; Democrat representative Edward Boland crafts a compromise amendment. The Boland Amendment prohibits the federal government from providing military support "for the purpose of overthrowing the Government of Nicaragua." Reagan officials and the administration's supporters dismiss the amendment as an unconstitutional interference with the president's ability to conduct foreign policy, and routinely ignore it in their further backing of the Contras. The amendment is narrowly interpreted by the Reagan administration to apply to only US intelligence agencies, allowing the National Security Council, not so labeled, to channel funds to the Contra rebels. In order to block this, the amendment is later changed to prohibit any funds for military or paramilitary operations. After that, the amendment is ignored entirely, until its repeal by a later, Republican Congress.
- By 1985, the Contras are feeling the constraints of the limitations on American support. The Contras, as discussed in earlier entries, are a motley group, made up of wealthy landowners and businessmen, former Somoza apparatchiks and guards, anti-Sandinista agitators, unemployed Nicaraguans who prefer being paid as paramilitaries to fishing or picking coffee, and a few genuine democratic reformers. Their loudest supports in the US Congress are GOP House members Henry Hyde and Dick Armey, but their colleague Dick Cheney is just as impassioned and obdurate in his support -- from behind the scenes. Unlike most of the hardline Gingrich followers, Cheney also has excellent access to the White House.
- Many believe that Cheney represents the Reagan administration's position on the Contras. In negotiations with more moderate Republicans and with Democrats, Cheney is always calm and polite, but completely unmovable. "He's good in negotiating, because in negotiating with him there is no negotiating," recalls a Democratic opponent. "You would have this sense that he's listening intently. But he's an ideological person who was planning his rebuttal or reaction while he appeared to be listening to you. But he won't be moved. He was also anchored by his ideology. He was also anchored by his partisan politics." Cheney and the Reagan administration both feel that the defeat of the Contras on the floors of Congress rather than in the Nicaraguan jungles is, as authors Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein write, "the fault of cut-and-run Democrats willing to accept a Soviet beachhead in Central America." (Wikipedia, Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein)
1982-1988
- 1982-1988: The US Defense Intelligence Agency provides detailed information for Iraq on Iranian deployments, tactical planning for battles, plans for air strikes and bomb damage assessments. (Iran Chamber Society)
1982-1991
- 1982-1991: The production of opium in Afghanistan soars from 250 tons in 1982 to 2000 tons in 1991, a direct result of American funding of the mujaheddin. The CIA didn't mind working with Afghanistan's drug cartels as long as they were opposed to Soviet rule; in the words of Dr. Alfred McCoy, "If their local allies were involved in narcotics trafficking, it didn't trouble CIA. They were willing to keep working with people who were heavily involved in narcotics." (CCR)
