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
1984
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Highlights of This Page
CIA illegally mines Nicaraguan harbors in support of Contras. CIA agent tortured and killed by Palestinian captors; other Americans taken hostage. Rumsfeld gives US approval for Iraqi chemical warfare. Osama bin Laden peddles arms and opium with CIA approval. Iran-Contra scandal brewing. Reagan wins re-election in a landslide. US ships chemical and biological toxins to Iraq.
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- The former Arbusto Oil, now renamed Bush Exploration Co and facing bankruptcy, merges with another Texas oil company, Spectrum 7, which is owned in part by George W. Bush's Yale friend William DeWitt, Jr. DeWitt names Bush the CEO and gives him 1.1 million shares of stock. Spectrum quickly becomes a flop, with all of its oil ventures failing; the company loses over $400,000 and amasses over $3 million in debt. Another bailout for the failed Bush oil ventures comes along in 1986: a merger with Harken Energy. (Village Voice, Consortium News, Mark Crispin Miller)
January 1984
CIA illegally mines Nicaraguan harbors in support of Contras
- January-March: The CIA illegally mines the harbor of Managua, the capital city of Nicaragua, and other harbors on both the eastern and western coasts, in an attempt to weaken the rule of the democratically elected Sandinista government and further the attempts of the US-backed rebels, the "Contras," to overthrow the Sandinistas. Several Nicaraguan patrol boats and civilian fishing craft, and a number of foreign craft, are damaged or sunk by the mines. Dozens of Nicaraguans, mostly civilians, are killed or wounded, as well as several foreign nationals uninvolved in the conflict. Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann, Nicaragua's foreign minister, writes a letter to US Secretary of State George Shultz, on February 28, formally protesting the mining and the attacks by Contras in US-provided patrol boats, writing, "At all events, those acts amount to the imposition of a military blockade in addition to the attempts as an economic and political blockade of Nicaragua in which your Government is engaging, in open violation of international legal norms." After receiving no reply, and with further attacks and mine explosions, Brockmann writes again to Shultz on March 8, accusing the US of sponsoring terrorism: "In presenting its most formal and vigorous protest against this new escalation in the criminal attacks against economic and military objectives that endanger areas densely populated with civilians, the Government of Nicaragua expresses the firm belief that such acts form part of the new Strategy of the CIA, aimed at spreading terror in Nicaragua following the total failure of its earlier plans, and that they are intended to disrupt the process of institutionalising the Revolution and democratically strengthening Nicaragua."
- The explicit purpose of the mining operations, as NSC staffer Oliver North and his NSC colleague, Constantine Menges, report to NSC director McFarlane in a top-secret March 2, 1984, memorandum entitled "Special Activities in Nicaragua," is "to severely disrupt the flow of shipping essential to Nicaraguan trade during the peak export period." In order to "advance our overall goal of applying stringent economic pressure" and to "further impair the already critical fuel capacity in Nicaragua" they recommend an even more dramatic operation -- to sink an oil tanker in a Nicaraguan harbor. "It is entirely likely that once a ship has been sunk, no insurers will cover ships calling in Nicaraguan ports," states the memorandum, effectively ending Nicaragua's access to Western petroleum. McFarlane authorizes the plan and briefs Reagan on March 5. But the operation never comes to fruition, perhaps because the CIA's mining of Nicaragua's harbors explodes into an international scandal three weeks later.
- On March 20, Nicaragua's UN ambassdor formally complains of the mining and the patrol boat attacks to the United Nations. The UN Security Council meets on March 30 to hear Nicaragua's complaints. The Security Council voted to approve a Security Council resolution, introduced by Nicaragua, that would have condemned mining of Nicaraguan ports, but the US vetoes the resolution. On April 6, Shultz writes to UN Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar, saying that though the US does not consider itself bound by international law forbidding such rogue military actions, the US would decide whether to voluntarily comply and cease the mining operations. On April 9, defense secretary Caspar Weinberger denies that the US military has mined Nicaraguan harbors, but when asked whether his denial includes CIA activities, says, "Well, I'm not talking about anything the CIA is doing or not doing."
- The mining finally comes to the attention of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. The chairman of that committee, Barry Goldwater, writes to CIA director William Casey, "All this past weekend, I've been trying to figure out how I can most easily tell you my feelings about the discovery of the President having approved mining some of the harbors of Central America. It gets down to one, little, simple phrase: I am pissed off! I understand you had briefed the House on this matter. I've heard that. Now, during the important debate we had all last week and the week before, on whether we would increase funds for the Nicaragua program, we were doing all right, until a Member of the Committee charged that the President had approved the mining. I strongly denied that because I had never heard of it. I found out the next day that the CIA had, with the written approval of the President, engaged in such mining, and the approval came in February! Bill, this is no way to run a railroad and I find myself in a hell of a quandary. I am forced to apologize to the Members of the Intelligence Committee because I did not know the facts on this. At the same time, my counterpart in the House did know. The President has asked us to back his foreign policy. Bill, how can we back his foreign policy when we don't know what the hell he is doing? Lebanon, yes, we all knew that he sent troops over there. But mine the harbors in Nicaragua? This is an act violating international law. It is an act of war. For the life of me, I don't see how we are going to explain it. My simple guess is that the House is going to defeat this supplemental and we will not be in any position to put up much of an argument after we were not given the information we were entitled to receive; particularly, if my memory serves me correctly, when you briefed us on Central America just a couple of weeks ago. And the order was signed before that. I don't like this. I don't like it one bit from the President or from you. I don't think we need a lot of lengthy explanations. The deed has been done and, in the future, if anything like this happens, I'm going to raise one hell of a lot of fuss about it in public."
- The next day, Goldwater tells the Senate, "This afternoon, CIA Director Casey appeared before my committee, in closed session, to brief us on this issue. I learned, to my deep regret, that the President did approve this mining program. And, that he approved it almost 2 months ago. Furthermore, I learned that, in spite of the legal requirement, that the intelligence family keep the members of our committee fully and currently informed on this sort of matter, we had not been so informed. By contrast, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence had been fully briefed on this matter several weeks ago. The chairman of the House Committee on Intelligence, Edward Boland, reveals on August 12 that select members of his committee had been briefed on the harbor mining in January. On April 12, the House approves legislation that denies all funds "for the purpose of planning, directing, executing, or supporting the mining of the ports or territorial waters of Nicaragua." On May 10, the World Court unanimously issues the following ruling: "The United States of America should immediately cease and refrain from any action restricting, blocking or endangering access to or from Nicaraguan ports, and, in particular, the laying of mines." The US has, of course, already declared its intention to ignore any World Court rulings concerning its actions in Central America.
- In a May 1984 interview, Ronald Reagan says that the mines are too small to do any real damage, and in any case the mines had been planted by the Sandinistas themselves in order to discredit the Contras and the United States. The last damage from a CIA mine is reported in June. (Washington Post/WarLaw, US-UK Interventions, Michael Isikoff and David Corn)
- January 1: The US goes public with its support of Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war. The Washington Post reports that the US, "in a shift of policy, has informed friendly Persian Gulf nations that the defeat of Iraq in the three-year old war with Iran would be contrary to US interests and has made several moves to prevent that result. (FactMonster, Amy and David Goodman)
March 1984
- March 5: The US issues a watery condemnation of Iraq's use of chemical weapons against Iran: "While condemning Iraq's chemical weapons use.... The United States finds the present Iranian regime's intransigent refusal to deviate from its avowed objective of eliminating the legitimate government of neighboring Iraq to be inconsistent with the accepted norms of behavior among nations and the moral and religious basis which it claims." Later that month, a State Department spokesperson is asked whether the US's conclusion that Iraq had used chemical weapons would have "any effect on U.S. recent initiatives to expand commercial relationships with Iraq across a broad range, and also a willingness to open diplomatic relations," the spokesperson responds, "No. I'm not aware of any change in our position. We're interested in being involved in a closer dialogue with Iraq." (National Security Archive)
- March 5: A Washington Post story reveals that, in a conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Ronald Reagan claimed that he himself helped liberate imprisoned Jews from a Nazi concentration camp, then repeated the tale several months later to Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal. The truth is that Reagan never served overseas during World War II, but served his duty in Hollywood making training films for the Army. Unless Reagan just out-and-out lied to Rabin and Wiesenthal, he has mixed up moments from films he either acted in or saw with reality. Stories of this and other fabulously untrue claims by Reagan either sink from sight in the American press, or are treated gently, without criticism. (Washington Post/Paul Waldman)
CIA agent tortured and killed by Palestinian captors; other Americans taken hostage
- March 16: CIA Station Chief William Buckley is kidnapped from Beirut, Lebanon by terrorists from Palestinian Islamic Jihad and taken to Iran where he is brutally tortured and killed. He is held captive for 15 months before dying from the torture he receives. In 1991 his body, wrapped in blankets, will be dumped on a road near the Beirut airport. Other terrorists, mainly from Iranian-aligned Hezbollah, take a number of other Americans hostage, mostly in Beirut. To win their freedom, the Reagan administration sets up a three-way solution that would not only free the hostages by funneling yet more military arms to Iran, but would channel some of the profits from the arms sales to the Nicaraguan contras. In late 1986, the revelation of this three-way deal will precipitate the Iran-Contra scandal. Only three US hostages -- Benjamin Weir, David Jacobson, and Martin Jerico -- are released as a result of the secret arms deals. Others, most notably Buckley, are tortured to death by their captors. In stark contrast to the US media frenzy weathered by the Carter regime over American hostages, this time the media virtually ignores the hostages. (American Victims of Islamic and Arab Terrorists, Kevin Phillips)
Rumsfeld gives US approval for Iraqi chemical warfare
- March 24: Special envoy Donald Rumsfeld returns to Iraq to meet secretly with Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz, presenting Aziz with a memo detailing an offer of secret Israeli assistance. Aziz refuses to accept the memo, stating that he would be executed on the spot if he even looked at it. The same day, UPI reports that Iraq has used mustard gas laced with nerve agents against Iranian targets. After Rumsfeld's visit, the New York Times reports that "American diplomats pronounce themselves satisfied with relations between Iraq and the United States and suggest that normal diplomatic ties have been restored in all but name." Later that spring, the US decides to export "dual-use" equipment to Iraq for the establishment of a nuclear weapons program. In 2003, Rumsfeld will cite Iraq's 1983 use of poison gas as a reason to attack the country, but now Rumsfeld conveys the US's tacit support of Iraq's gassing of its enemies and its own people. (In August 2002, the Pentagon will unsuccessfully deny that Rumsfeld had visited Iraq during March of 1984. In September 2002, Rumsfeld will unsuccessfully deny that he knew anything about Iraq's use of chemical weapons during 1983.) (Consortium News, Common Dreams/Rumsfeld's Iraq Connection, National Security Archive, Amy and David Goodman)
- March 30: After blocking a UN Security Council resolution blocking an Iranian request for condemnation of Iraq's use of chemical weapons, the US helps pass a Security Council presidential statement generally condemning the use of chemical weapons, without naming any specific offenders. The day before, Iraqi interests section head Nizar Hamdoon had met with Deputy Assistant Secretary of State James Placke. Hamdoon said that Iraq strongly preferred a Security Council presidential statement to a resolution, and wanted the response to refer to former resolutions on the war, progress toward ending the conflict, but to not identify any specific country as responsible for chemical weapons use. Placke said the US could accept Iraqi proposals if the Security Council went along. He asked for the Iraqi government's help "in avoiding...embarrassing situation[s]" but also noted that the US did "not want this issue to dominate our bilateral relationship." A State Department memo circulating the draft text of the UN statement observes that, "The statement, by the way contains all three elements Hamdoon wanted." (National Security Archive)
April 1984
- April 5-13: The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), in association with 34 other US government agencies, holds an exercise dubbed REX-84, shorthand for Readiness Exercise 1984. A related exercise, Night Train 84, is held simultaneously. The exercise is primarily to see how quickly and efficiently the US can declare martial law and round up and detain tens of thousands of dissident citizens in case of a "national security emergency." Scholar Diana Reynolds writes, "The Rex-84 Alpha Explan (Readiness Exercise 1984, Exercise Plan), indicates that FEMA in association with 34 other federal civil departments and agencies conducted a civil readiness exercise during April 5-13, 1984. It was conducted in coordination and simultaneously with a Joint Chiefs exercise, Night Train 84, a worldwide military command post exercise (including Continental U.S. Forces or CONUS) based on multi-emergency scenarios operating both abroad and at home. In the combined exercise, Rex-84 Bravo, FEMA and DOD led the other federal agencies and departments, including the Central Intelligence Agency, the Secret Service, the Treasury, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Veterans Administration through a gaming exercise to test military assistance in civil defense. The exercise anticipated civil disturbances, major demonstrations and strikes that would affect continuity of government and/or resource mobilization. To fight subversive activities, there was authorization for the military to implement government ordered movements of civilian populations at state and regional levels, the arrest of certain unidentified segments of the population, and the imposition of martial rule." Evidence of a master military plan to impose martial law and detain citizens, "Garden Plot," and an earlier contingency plan, "Lantern Spike," was unearthed by journalist Ron Ridenhour in 1975. In April 2002, Garden Plot will be considered one of the major emergency plans for use by the Department of Homeland Security; plans to build numerous detention camps across America, putatively for a massive and chaotic influx of illegal immigrants, will be contracted to oil and construction giant Halliburton. (Wikipedia, Wikipedia, )
May 1984
- May: George W. Bush admits that he joined the National Guard in order to avoid duty in Vietnam. He tells the Houston Chronicle, "I was not prepared to shoot my eardrum out with a shotgun in order to get a deferment. Nor was I willing to go to Canada. So I chose to better myself by learning how to fly airplanes." (World Net Daily)
Summer 1984
Osama bin Laden peddles arms and opium with CIA approval
- Summer: Osama bin Laden begins operating out of Peshawar, a Pakistani town on the Afghani border, and runs weapons and money over the border to the rebels. He is closely supported by both the ISI and the CIA. He becomes heavily involved in the opium trade as well. (CCR)
July 1984
- July 24: Shimon Peres forms a coalition Likud-Labour government with him as Prime Minister. He agrees to swap posts with Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir after two years. During Peres' term, stiff economic cutbacks manage to trim inflation to 20%, and a security zone in southern Lebanon is established. Palestinian uprisings and rebellions are chronic and difficult to suppress. These uprisings form the beginnings of what becomes known as the Palestinian intifada. The Israeli attempts to suppress the uprisings, and the atrocities committed as a result, draw tremendous pressure from around the globe for the Israelis to find a peaceful solution to the problem, and garner great sympathy for the Palestinians and their cause. Unfortunately for Israel, their favored solution was the assassination of PLO leaders, which hurt the PLO but did nothing to stop the street-level uprisings and attacks on Israeli troops by rock-throwing civilians. (Dan Cohn-Sherbok, Dawoud el-Alami)
Fall 1984
Iran-Contra scandal brewing
- Fall: The last of the series of "Boland Amendments" passes Congress, forbidding any CIA aid to the Nicaraguan Contras. The CIA goes outside legal channels, funnelling cash and arms from Iran, among other sources, to the Contras. At some point in the mid-1980s, Salem bin Laden is connected to the Contra funding effort by French intelligence.
November 1984
- November: Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega wins the presidency with 63% of the vote, in an election certified as fair and open by international observers. The only major objection to the vote is the United States government, who supported pro-US candidate Arturo Cruz. When it became evident that Cruz would lose, he withdrew from the race at the behest of the Americans, and Reagan officials then denounce the elections as a sham. The Contra insurgency continues, fed with money and arms funnelled to its representatives by Reagan officials in direct violation of US law. Ortega will lose his bid for re-election in 1990, to US-backed candidate Violeta Chamarro, after a six-year term marked by his Sandinista party's attempts to nationalize many private industries, redistribute much of Nicaragua's farmlands from corporate and family owners into the hands of the peasantry, and the ever-escalating violence between the Sandinistas and the Contras. (Wikipedia, Consortium News)
Reagan wins re-election in a landslide
- November 8: Ronald Reagan cakewalks to his re-election as president, trouncing Democrat Walter Mondale in a landslide that delivers 49 of the 50 states to Reagan. Reagan was unopposed during the Republican primary, while Mondale was chosen after a bruising primary fight that featured candidacies from African-American activist Jesse Jackson and a young, energetic Colorado senator, Gary Hart, among others. Mondale, the favorite of the centrist Democrats, runs in contrast to Reagan a quite liberal campaign, promising to raise taxes and opposing Reagan's economic policies. In contrast to the rather lackluster Democratic campaign, Reagan's is a vigorous effort with its own panoply of dirty tricks, the worst focusing on Mondale's running mate, representative Geraldine Ferraro. New hire Karen Hughes helps run the Ferraro smear campaign, using the same brutal tactics the Republicans have used against abortion clinics: vicious slanders and baseless accusations in an orchestrated media campaign, while protesting that they themselves had nothing to do with such tactics. Investigative journalists are able to prove that the anti-Ferraro campaign was, indeed, masterminded within the Reagan campaign. An audio tape of one campaign training session shows how participants are trained to deny their involvement with the Reagan campaign, and are coached to say, 'I'm a concerned citizen,' not, for example, 'I'm with Students for Reagan.' The mainstream media feasts on the anti-Ferraro allegations but pays little attention to their source. The specifics of the Ferraro accusations center around supposedly questionable business deals made by her husband, realtor John Zaccaro, and ugly rumors about Zaccaro's supposed ties to the Mafia. The allegations are not fully disproven until well after the election. After the election, Hughes's efforts will send her to several positions as campaign consultant for a number of Texas GOP races. (Wikipedia, Wikipedia, Laura Flanders)
- November 8: The night of Reagan's re-election victory, the State Department's Office of Public Diplomacy, which is mandated to releasing false information to the American press that serves the administration's interests (such information being called "white propaganda" by Reagan officials), tells the press that the USSR is shipping MiG fighters to Nicaragua to aid the Sandinistas. No such shipments ever took place. The OPD's prime duties seem to be to prime American fears about the Sandinistas, and to bolster American support of the contras. Another, earlier tale from the OPD has the USSR clandestinely providing the Sandinistas with chemical weapons. The office will be shut down in 1987 after a report by the US Comptroller-General finds that some of their efforts are "prohibited, covert propaganda activities." While the OPD itself will be closed, its duties will be taken up by a host of intelligence agency, Defense Department, and private corporations, including the Rendon Group, a public relations agency in the employ of the Reagan and Bush administrations, and who will, along with fellow PR firm Hill & Knowlton, orchestrate public support for the 1991 Persian Gulf War. (Christian Science Monitor)
- November 26: Iraq and the US restore full diplomatic relations. Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, in Washington for the formal resumption of ties, meets with Secretary of State George Shultz. When their discussion turns to the Iran-Iraq war, Aziz says that his country was satisfied that "the US analysis of the war's threat to regional stability is 'in agreement in principle' with Iraq's," and expresses thanks for US efforts to cut off international arms sales to Iran. He said that "Iraq's superiority in weaponry" assures Iraq's defense. Shultz, with presumed sardonic intent, "remarked that superior intelligence must also be an important factor in Iraq's defense;" Aziz had to agree. The joke has a double edge: the US had been sharing intelligence with Iraq for years. The US ignores the fact that Iraq is using mustard and nerve gases in its war with Iran. Additionally, the US works to promote business and financial ties between the two countries, including helping promote a $100 million credit extension to Iraq from the Atlanta branch of BCCI. By 1990, taxpayer-backed loans to Iraq will reach $267 million. (National Security Archive, New American)
1984-1988
US ships chemical and biological toxins to Iraq
- 1984 - 1988: The US Dept of Commerce OK's over 70 shipments of chemical and biological agents to Iraq, including anthrax, West Nile virus, E.coli, and botulism. This will continue even after the 1988 massacre of 5000 Kurds in the town of Halabjah. (US/Iraq Relations Timeline)
1984-1994
- 1984 - 1994: Through USAID and the University of Nebraska, the US spends millions of dollars producing textbooks for Afghani schoolchildren. The textbooks are designed to indoctrinate the children in opposing Soviet occupation, and are filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings (for example, children are taught to count using images of tanks, landmines, and missiles). The Taliban continues to use these texts well after 1994. In 2002 the US begins producing less violent versions of the books, but no explanation is ever given as to why, if the Soviets left in 1989, the US continued to produce the books for another 5 years. (CCR)
Mid-1980s
- Mid-1980s: The ISI, under the direction of the CIA, begins training special cells of agents who use profits from heroin production to conduct covert activities. The cells promote the cultivation of opium and the production of heroin in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. After the Soviets withdraw from the region, the ISI uses these cells to funnel heroin to the West. Its profits are so huge that ISI heroin money keeps the Pakistani economy from collapsing; not coincidentally, the ISI becomes the single most powerful organization in Pakistan. Some observers call it Pakistan's "shadow government."
