THIS FAR AND NO FURTHER

Written and Compiled by Black Max

1989

• US Senator Bob Dole visits Iraq, accompanied by fellow senators Howard Metzenbaum, Frank Murkowski, Jim McClure, and Alan Simpson. Dole, the Bush administration's point man on derailing sanctions against Iraq, pronounces Saddam Hussein "an intelligent man," and insists that there is real "potential for improving our relationships." The Bush administration has made Iraq one of the US's largest markets for American rice, corn, and wheat, some of which is grown in Dole's home state of Kansas. One American congressman notes that the Bush administration's policy towards Iraq is "Business uber alles." (Amy and David Goodman)

Prescott Bush ties with Japanese crime lords

• During the year, presidential brother Prescott Bush Jr. is accused of arranging investments in two US firms by a front company for Japanese organized crime figures. His Prescott Bush &Co. firm set up a deal with West Tsusho, a part of the Susumu Ishii criminal empire. Bush, who is paid $500,000 for his participation, denies any involvement. Bush has already come under investigation in 1988 for his partnership with the Japanese firm Aoki, which was shown to have tried to get business contacts in Panama by bribing Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega. (Village Voice, Wall Street Journal/Campaign Watch, USA Today)
• Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor writes a letter urging Republicans to adopt a resolution stating (incorrectly) that the Supreme Court has held the United States to be "a Christian nation...based on the absolute law of the Bible, not a democracy." She will be later joined by theocrats Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, who has spoken eloquently about the "divine authority behind government" and that the "government carries the sword as 'the minister of God,' to 'execute wrath' upon the evildoer." (Mark Crispin Miller)
• Presidential son George W. Bush, a part-owner of the Texas Rangers, privately tells strategist Karl Rove, "You know, I could run for governor but I'm basically a media creation. I've never done anything. I've worked for my dad. I worked in the oil business. But that's not the kind of profile you have to have to get elected to public office." Rove will disagree, telling Bush that his visibility as the Rangers' owner gives him the stature to attempt a run for public office. Rove begins grooming Bush, giving him crash courses on Texas government and introducing him to key Republicans that will later play critical roles in vaulting Bush into the Texas governorship and, later, the US presidency. (Buzzflash, Moore and Slater)
• Douglas Feith creates the firm International Advisors Inc., a lobbying firm whose main client is Turkey, and also works with defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin and Northrup Grumman. His ex-boss and fellow neoconservative Richard Perle joins the firm as an advisor, and stays through 1994. During the second Bush administration, Perle will later intervene with Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld to get Feith his position in the Pentagon. Feith and Perle will work together in 1996 to advise Israel's prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu; their advice includes working for regime change in Iraq. Feith and Perle also work closely with Iraqi exile and criminal Ahmad Chalabi, who went to school at the University of Chicago with Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, learning neoconservative economics from Milton Friedman and Albert Wohlstetter. (Wikipedia, Seymour Hersh, Greg Palast)

January 1989

• January: US Senator John McCain testifies that the US is sending bacteria to Iraq, ten times as lethal as anthrax, that can be used to create biological weapons. (New American)
• January: Bush claims executive privilege to avoid testifying in the Oliver North trial, thus becoming first president to use this power to keep his acts as vice president out of the public eye. (Bushwatch)
• January: Neil Bush bails out of JNB Exploration; just days before, he helps form Apex Energy, contributing $3000 to the fledgling firm. He invests $3,000 of his own money and got $2.3 million from two companies run by his father's friend Louis Marx, heir to the Marx toy fortune, a loan backed by the Small Business Administration. Like JNB, Apex will eventually go belly-up without ever showing a profit; Bush will bail out of the firm before he can be saddled with any of the debt. Neil uses Marx's money to pay himself a salary of $160,000, and he sells a Wyoming gas lease that he owned to Apex for $150,000. The lease proves worthless. In fact, Apex, like JNB, never found anything worth pumping. After two years, Apex goes broke. Bush had received more than $300,000 in salary but Marx got nothing, and the Small Business Administration, which had backed Marx's investments, was left having to pay off the $2.35 million loan. Bush is rescued by another of his father's rich friends. Bill Daniels, a multimillionaire cable TV baron who raised $330,000 in 1987 for George H.W. Bush's presidential campaign, hires Neil to a $60,000 job at TransMedia Communications. "Anyone who hires Neil Bush is going to get some heat," Daniels notes, "but somebody had to do it." TransMedia is headquartered in Texas, so Bush sells his $500,000 house in Denver and moves his wife and three children to Houston. Peter Wehner of Colorado Business magazine calls TransMedia to find out exactly what Bush would be doing for the company: "I'm trying to find a title for him, if you want to know the truth," says Dick Barron, TransMedia's president. "He'll be learning the business, basically." (Bushwatch, Mother Jones, Washington Post)
• January: George W. Bush tells listeners that one of the differences between him and his father is that, "He went to Greenwich Country Day and I went to San Jacinto Junior High School in Midland." The implication is that while his father is a product of preppy private schools, the son is an ordinary public-school kid. The implication fails to mention that George W. attended public school for a single year, then attended an elite private school in Houston and spent his high school years at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, one of the most exclusive private schools in the United States. He will continue this statement throughout his various political campaigns. (Paul Waldman)
• January 13: Key conspiracy and theft charges against North are dismissed because of classified information problems. (Federation of American Scientists)

Bush escalates secret support of Iraq

• January 20: George Bush takes office in what is more or less a continuation of the Reagan administration. In line with Bush's top-secret National Security Decision to provide "economic and political incentives" for Iraq, and to provide American corporations with the opportunity to do business in Iraq, James Baker pushes through a $1 billion line of "agricultural" credit for Iraq, thus allowing Hussein to use his assets for a massive military buildup. Bush ignores Congressional wishes to end loans to Iraq (for human rights violations) and routes another $1 billion in loans through BNL (Banco Nazionale del Lavom), an Italian bank; again, most of this money is used for arms purchases. BNL's Atlanta branch funnels monies to, among others, corporate clients of Henry Kissinger's consulting firm. Kissinger, Nixon's Secretary of State, had been a member of the BNL advisory board between 1985 and 1991, and in 1989, two top Kissinger Associates officials with strong Republican ties, Lawrence Eagleburger and Brent Scowcroft, will become leading advocates for Iraq upon becoming Bush's deputy secretary of state and national security advisor. The illegal, covert BCCI/BNL loans are later discovered, and scandal erupts. Investigation of "Iraqgate" is stymied by complete lack of cooperation from the Bush administration, though Bush and his cohorts are red-faced when word leaks in 1990 that Iraq, with the knowledge and complicity of the Reagan/Bush administrations, is in the early stages of developing nuclear weapons. Privately, Bush is angry and embarrassed by the revelations of just how deeply the two administrations have been in bed with Hussein, and resolves to do something dramatic to prove that he is Hussein's enemy. (PBS, Bushwatch, US/Iraq Relations Timeline, Kevin Phillips)

February 1989

• February 15: The Soviets complete their withdrawal from Afghanistan after a brutal 10-year campaign. The disparate rebel elements struggle for control of the country, and eventually the Taliban, one of the most extreme and despotic of the rebel groups, manages to seize power. Many of the mujaheddin, especially the foreigners living in and around Peshawar, go back to their home countries, where many of them will engage in acts of terrorism. None of them would have received the training and support they got without the help of the CIA; one Western diplomat says "the consequences for all of us are astronomical." Afghan Communists sympathetic to the Soviet Union remain in control of the capital, Kabul, until 1992. (CCR)

March 1989

George W. Bush buys into Texas Rangers

• March: George W. Bush is part of a syndicate of investors who purchase the Texas Rangers. While Bush appears to lead the group, investor Edward Rose actually controls how the business is run, and the money is channeled primarily from Richard Rainwater, chief financial officer for the billionaire Bass family. Bush's stake in the $86 million deal is less than 2%, financed with a $500,000 loan from a Midland Bank of which he had been a director and $106,000 from other sources. He will eventually sell his stake for $15 million. Bush and his consortium pressure and "bully" Arlington officials into raising taxes on its citizens to pay the $200 million required to build the Rangers a new stadium; the stadium is promptly turned over to the consortium even though it was built with public funds. Additionally, the consortium pressures Arlington into driving private landowners off of their property so that their land can be put up for stadium use. "A group of wealthy and influential people threatened and traded their way into an unprecedented takeover of government power and private property in an awesome display of greed and avarice," charges a lawsuit by the landowners, in what strikes me as a fair recitation of events. Another suit charges that the deal "can only be described as astounding, unprecedented and blatantly illegal." A copy of the secret agreement among Bush and the other Rangers owners shows that they intended to make money not just by running a baseball club but also by land speculation. For example, one owner found a parcel of land and sent a memo suggesting that it "sounds like another condemnation candidate if you want to work the site into your master plan," according to the court documents. Another of the owners' internal memos states bluntly about a parcel of privately owned property not connected with the stadium: "We plan to condemn this land." (One family who refuses to sell its 13-acre parcel has its lands seized and turned over to Bush and his partners; an outraged jury later awards the family $4 million in damages.) Arlington, Texas mayor Richard Greene uses the stadium contract to help him settle a massive lawsuit against him concerning the collapse of Sunbelt Savings & Loan, of which he was the former president. Greene is allowed to pay a pittance of $40,000 towards settling the Sunbelt collapse, which lost $2 billion and cost the federal government around $297 million. Greene successfully convinces Democratic governor Ann Richards to sign into law legislation creating the Arlington Sports Facilities Development Authority, the organization used to seize private lands. (Bushwatch, New York Times/Property Rights Research, Joe Conason)
• March: Bush names former Wyoming congressman Dick Cheney to be his Secretary of Defense, a post he will hold until January 1993. During his tenure, Cheney will attempt to shut down more than 81 weapons programs, close over 70 domestic military installations, and reduce the size of the military by 700,000 service members. Cheney's overarching idea is to "privatize" the military. He oversees "Operation Just Cause," the invasion of Panama. (Nationmaster, Bush-Kerry Timeline)
• March 9: Former senator John Tower, a Republican, is rejected as a nominee for Secretary of Defense. Neoconservative activist Paul Weyrich testifies that he has personally seen Tower in public, inebriated, and in the company of women not his wife. (Weyrich's allegations are accurate; Tower is a notorious libertine.) Partially because of the allegations, and partially because of Tower's suspicious connections with a number of defense contractors, Tower is opposed by, among others, influential Democratic senator Sam Nunn, and is narrowly rejected by the Senate. Bush will name House member Dick Cheney as his Defense Secretary instead; Cheney passes Senate muster quickly after undermining Tower's nomination with President Bush and saying that Bush needs someone like himself who can not only handle the position, but work closely and efficiently with Congress. Cheney is also the favored choice of NSC head Brent Scowcroft, partially because Cheney would almost certainly sail through the Senate confirmation hearings. The only questions raised about the ideologically extremist Cheney are those surrounding his health -- Cheney had recently undergone quadruple bypass surgery on his heart. Cheney will claim that the very serious operation was done completely by his choice, and only because he wanted to continue downhill skiing. A cooperative cardiologist backed up Cheney's assertions, and questions about his health are waved aside.
• Former neoconservative writer David Brock notes that Weyrich most likely opposed Tower for being too moderate and pro-abortion. He goes on to observe that "it fundamentally changed the way political battles were fought in Washington, seriously eroding the barrier between public and private. Though most Beltway conservatives were aghast at what Weyrich had done, he identified a dormant culturally conservative constituency in the Christian Right that believed the private lives of public people mattered just as much, perhaps even more, than their policy views. Weyrich's vicious attack on Tower demonstrated the new power of sexual politics, of making accusations with no proof, and of using ill-defined issues of 'judgment' and 'character' to to discredit opponents based solely on alleged personal behavior. Sexual McCarthyism had been introduced into modern right-wing politics."
• Though Cheney dodged military service during Vietnam, and had never served on a House committee dealing with military issues, he becomes a quietly efficient and ideologically rigid Defense Secretary. "The world we live in would be totally different if Dick Cheney had not been plucked from the House to take the place of John Tower," says former Republican representative Mickey Edwards, who served in Congress with Cheney. "Dick was in line to become the [GOP]'s leader in the House and ultimately the majority leader and Speaker," Edwards says. "If that [had] happened, the whole Gingrich era wouldn't have happened." As authors Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein write in their 2006 political biography of Cheney, Vice, Newt Gingrich, formerly a GOP backbencher in the House, "ushered in fifteen years of rancorous, polarized politics." Cheney, though as partisan as Gingrich, preferred to operate with a less fiery methodology. "[N]o one...could envision Dick Cheney taking the House down the path that Gingrich followed when he became Speaker," Dubose and Bernstein write.
• Cheney, lauded in hindsight by Republicans such as Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who contrasted Cheney with the inept Les Aspin from the Clinton administration (Cheney "made decisions," Wilkerson will recall. "Contrast that with the other one I saw [Aspin], who couldn't make a decision if it slapped him in the face"), is quick to exert his own control over the Defense Department. Within a week of taking office, Cheney openly criticizes Air Force chief of staff General Lawrence Welch. For a secretary of defense to openly criticize a four-star general is unprecedented. Cheney falsely accuses Welch of "freelancing" by conferring with members of Congress to define several options surrounding the basing of ICBMs. Welch had offended Cheney by going outside the Pentagon -- and himself, though he was brand new in the post. "There are two ways to take command of a military unit," Wilkerson says. "One is you come in and try to bribe, wheedle, and persuade everybody. The other is you come in and fire a couple of people and let everybody know who's boss, then back off.... If yo've got to pick one, the best pick is to be a hard*ss." In fact, Cheney tells Aspin, currently the House Armed Services Committee chair, that his dressing-down of Welch "was useful to do that."
• Cheney's hard*ss stance has quick results. The Secretary of the Air Force, James McGovern, resigns; the chairman of the Joint Chiefs quietly disagrees with Cheney's lambasting of Welch, and some of the top brass seethe in impotent anger over Cheney's criticisms of Welch -- who had received permission from McGovern to speak with Congressional members. "He was just an easy target for Cheney," recalls one retired officer. The day after Cheney's public whipping of Welch, he summons the Pentagon's top civilian officials in for a briefing. He tells them that the Welch affair is over and done with, and that he will not tolerate the generals getting "out ahead of civilian leadership -- in particular the secretary of defense." He then evicts a general out of the office next to his and brings aboard his crony from the Iran-Contra committee, David Addington, to be his assistant. Cheney is making his presence felt from the outset. He is also asserting, as he will as vice president in the administration of George W. Bush, that civilians will always trump generals in matters of overarching military policy.
• As a Republican leader in the House, Cheney had rammed through huge defense budgets, which are sometimes credited with helping bring down the Soviet Union, which bankrupted itself trying to match American defense spending. Even after the Berlin Wall was knocked down and the USSR's Mikhail Gorbachev was presiding over the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Cheney continued to press for ever-larger increases in defense spending, even as congressional Democrats called for drastic reductions. Business Week called the recalcitrant congressman "the last Cold Warrior." As Bush's defense secretary, Cheney will try, with some success, to keep the spending up. During the 1999-2000 Bush-Cheney presidential campaign, Cheney will claim, falsely, that he presided over $300 billion in defense spending. Defense spending did indeed stop rising under Bush, though not because of Cheney, but it had not dropped when Bill Clinton took office in 1992.
• Cheney will bow to the inevitable in one major area: troop reductions overseas. He turns the chore of handling that to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Colin Powell. Powell will smoothly and efficiently "draw down" American forces stationed overseas, mostly in Europe, with minimal impact on the US presence in those countries. The "reductions" in defense spending are largely because of Powell's force reductions. (Powell is not Cheney's first choice for JCS chair; Powell, who had served as Reagan's national security advisor, had criticized the Iran-Contra operations as prime examples of rogue military officers like Oliver North going out of channels and running unauthorized operations. But Bush pressed for Powell's chairmanship.) Cheney also sees that out-of-control spending on some of the largest and most costly weapons programs is scaled back. He will cancel the Navy's A-12 fighter jet program after it climbs to over $1 billion over budget without any real results, and fire the vice admiral in charge of naval aviation, Richard Gertz. Cheney also slashes spending on the development of the B-2 Stealth bomber, and tries, unsuccessfully, to target the Marines' pet program, the V-22 Osprey, a tilt-rotor, vertical-takeoff helicopter perennially plagued with development problems. Congress, led by delegations from Texas and Pennsylvania where the Osprey will be manufactured, derails the cuts. (By 2006, the Osprey still hasn't been finalized, and has racked up an impressive total of killing 26 Marines and four civilians in test flights.) Dubose and Bernstein write, "Cheney didn't deliver a peace dividend, but he did stop the exponential growth in the military budget that, along with tax cuts, had driven the deficits during the Reagan presidency." Cheney will reverse his course once he becomes vice president.
• Interestingly, in light of more recent events, Cheney asks one high-ranking Tower appointee to stay at Defense: neoconservative Paul Wolfowitz. Like many neocons, Wolfowitz is a former conservative Democrat who once worked on the staff of senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson. Wolfowitz became a Republican and worked in both the Nixon and Ford administrations, and stayed on at a midlevel post at the Pentagon during the Carter administration. During his service under the Carter presidency, Secretary of Defense Harold Brown asked Wolfowitz to look at Third World countries which might one day pose a threat to the US. Wolfowitz produced what is called the Limited Contingency Study, which focused on the possibility of a "rogue" Persian Gulf nation seizing Saudi Arabia's huge oilfields. The country Wolfowitz focused on primarily was Saddam Hussein's Iraq, which he called the preeminent military power in the region. While Hussein was considered an ally of the United States, had not developed chemical weapons, had not consolidated his power, or threatened any of his neighbors, Wolfowitz was most concerned about oil.
• Brown found the report appalling, and shelved it, fearing that if it leaked, Iraq might believe the US was working on behalf of the Saudis. But Wolfowitz wouldn't let it die. When Cheney takes over the Pentagon, Wolfowitz finds himself in a much better position to once again focus on the Gulf's oilfields. He will produce, in 1992, the first Defense Planning Guidance document that doesn't focus on the USSR. He will give the DPG project to his own deputy, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who in turn will give it to another official, Zalmay Khalilzad. Both Lewis and Khalilzad will, with Wolfowitz, return to prominence under the Bush-Cheney administration. The DPG is frightening in its scope, envisioning America as an empire so powerful that it can, when it chooses, intervene in any conflict anywhere in the world. The US will become the world's leader, both economically and militarily, using the threat of its nuclear arsenal to keep other nations in check and keep other nations from developing their own weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). The report envisions possible conflicts that might threaten US oil interests in the Persian Gulf along with possible terrorist threats to US citizens, and the use of WMDs and ballistic missiles. The document provides two case studies against "rogue" regimes: Iraq and North Korea. And the report makes it clear that the United States will act unilaterally, disdaining any real role by the United Nations.
• A Defense Department official sympathetic to Wolfowitz's aims leaks the report to the New York Times, causing a localized firestorm of controversy. Bush immediately repudiates the report. The report becomes a political football in the 1992 presidential campaign after Bill Clinton denounces the report's militaristic and imperialistic contents. It angers foreign leaders who see it, rightfully so, as a blueprint for American global hegemony. But Cheney embraces the report, and issues it under his own name. "He wanted to show that he stood for the idea," Khalilzad recalls. "He took ownership to it."
• While the DPG is shelved by Clinton, the ideas promulgated in the report will resurface in the Bush-Cheney presidency, where it becomes a key element of the younger Bush's own foreign policy. (Washington Post, David Brock, Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein)

Exxon Valdez oil spill

• March 24: The oil tanker Exxon Valdez runs aground on Bligh Reef and spills 11 million gallons of oil into the biologically rich waters of Prince William Sound, in the southern coast of Alaska. The oil spill is one of the most devastating ecological disasters in US history, killing hundreds of thousands of specimens of marine life and doing horrendous damage to the Alaskan seashore. Captain Joseph Hazelwood, commander of the Valdez, apparently gave orders to change course to avoid several small icebergs; for reasons as yet not fully determined the ship did not restore its course quickly enough, and ran aground on the reef. Exxon itself will spend over $2 billion cleaning up the oil, most of which is recouped through tax writeoffs and insurance claims; the government will spend more. In February 1990, Exxon will be indicted on five criminal counts related to the wreck. After years of judicial wrangling and ancillary lawsuits filed by fishermen and others harmed by the spill (many of which are still in the courts), a jury fines Exxon $287 million for actual damage and $5 billion in punitive damages, a finding Exxon will immediately appeal. Hazelwood, who during his own trial will be shown to be a chronic drinker who had been drinking during the voyage, denies being drunk when the ship ran aground; he will be convicted of negligence, fined $50,000, and will no longer be able to find work as a ship captain. As the court cases grind on, less and less evidence seems to point to Hazelwood as being solely negligent; evidence of his alleged drunkeness during the voyage is less than convincing, and errors by third mate Gregory Cousins, helmsman Robert Kagan, and Vessel Traffic Service watchstanders, who tested positive for alcohol and marijuana, seem to be the direct cause of the wreck. The spill itself may well have been contained had it not been for the abysmal condition of the Alyeska Oil Company's spill control equipment and the "circus" of contradictory decisions made by Exxon, Alyeska, and state officials. Hazelwood's biggest error may have been in leaving the bridge and entrusting the ship to Kagan and Cousins. "It all boils down to the fact that Hazelwood wasn't on the bridge," says Samuel Teel, professor of nautical science at Maine Maritime Academy. "I'm sure he's a great guy and a good captain, but he should have been there and he wasn't. He's got to live with that." Fellow captain and shipmate John Wilson adds, "I say to this day it wasn't his fault. He just put too much trust in certain people. Joe should have watched his mate a little bit closer." Cousins is back at sea, working as a mate for a private carrier. Kagan, the only crew member on the bridge that night to receive no penalties, lives in Louisiana, having negotiated retirement from Exxon; his wife calls him an "emotional wreck." The ship is later renamed Sea River Mediterranean and now, banned from Alaskan waters, plies the waters between the Middle East and Europe. Exxon continues to post record-breaking profits. As for Prince William Sound, the beaches may appear clean, but dig down a bit and you find oil. (NOAA, Wikipedia, Living on Earth, Outside Online)

April 1989

Solidarity wins recognition in Poland, and will eventually win governmental power, supplanting the Communist regime

• April: After a crippling round of worker strikes, Poland's Solidarity federation of trade unions is formally recognized by the Polish government and allowed to participate in the upcoming elections. Solidarity candidates win a resounding victory at the polls, sparking a round of counterrevolutions in a number of Central and Eastern European states. By the end of August, the Communist dictatorship of Poland is no more, and a coalition government with Solidarity co-founder Lech Walesa as president will assume control of the country. In retrospect, the Solidarity movement, and the anti-Communist movements it inspired, will receive much credit for freeing many European countries from Communist rule and contributing to the breakup of the Soviet empire. (Wikipedia)
• April: Democrat John Kerry concludes a Senate investigation into terrorism, narcotics, and drug smuggling that reveals the Reagan/Bush administration's tolerance of, and complicity in, drug smuggling under the aegis of national security. The committee concludes that administration officials "abandoned the responsibility for protecting our citizens from all threats to their security and well-being." (Bush-Kerry Timeline)
• April-June: Pro-democracy student protests are held in Tiananmen Square in China. Confrontations between students and police turn deadly after the Communist government declares martial law. (PBS)

May 1989

Newt Gingrich successfully forces Jim Wright out of power

• May: Congressman Newt Gingrich, the Republican whip, files a huge number of ethics charges against Democratic Speaker of the House Jim Wright. While the vast majority of the charges are groundless, a few find their target (Gingrich will later call the charges "a fishing expedition that caught a whale"). The House Ethics Committee finds Wright guilty of violating House rules in a business arrangement, and of getting around speaking fee limits by selling copies of a book he wrote to lobbyists. Wright resigns, but blasts Gingrich for introducing "mindless cannibalism" into the chamber. Right-wing politicians, operatives, and pundits see Wright's forced resignation as a great victory, and resolve to continue the trend. (Ten years later, Gingrich will also resign as Speaker of the House after being convicted of a number of ethics violations, including illegally profiting from inflated book sales, and other flagrant breaches of House ethics rules, mostly involving his political action committee, GOPAC. He will admit his guilt but blame it on his failure to hire a lawyer.) Gingrich's colleague Mark Goodin, communications director of the Republican National Committee, immediately attacks Thomas Foley, Wright's successor, with innuendo about Foley being a closet homosexual. The attacks cease after openly gay Democrat Barney Frank threatens to out the closeted gays in the Republican caucus. Gingrich apologizes to Foley and Goodin resigns, but the personal attacks continue. After Gingrich's successful attack on Wright, he is named House minority whip. He uses his corporate-funded political action committee, GOPAC, and its offshoots to help fund and train right-wing candidates across the country, largely financed by the pharmaceutical and telecommunications industries. He teaches a class called "Renewing American Civilization" at two Georgia colleges, the course funded to the tune of $600,000 by the tax-exempt Progress and Freedom Foundation, and sells the broadcast and videotape rights to GOP recruits. Gingrich and GOPAC violate a plethora of tax laws and ethical standards in their machinations. (ABC, Buzzflash, David Brock, Hilton and Testa, Al Franken)
• May: Now in California, Susan McDougal goes to work for Nancy Mehta, Zubin Mehta's wife, as her personal assistant. The position would last through 1992, when Mehta will falsely accuse McDougal of fraudulently using one of her credit cards (Mehta had been allowing McDougal to put charges on the credit card in lieu of a salary.) The charges, though transparently false and easily disproven, will be used to bring charges of embezzlement against McDougal in December 1993. It is later ascertained that Kenneth Starr's OIC was instrumental in ensuring the case continued. McDougal was found innocent of all charges by a jury. (Susan McDougal)
• May 4: Oliver North is convicted of three counts in his Iran-Contra trial and acquitted of nine others He is sentenced to three years in prison, but that sentence is suspended, and is given two years' probation and a $150,000 fine, which he does not pay, and 1200 hours of community service. His convictions will later be overturned because of problems with Congressional immunity previously granted; North will later insist, falsely, that he was never convicted of anything. Much of the testimony for which he was granted immunity will later prove to be false. (The same appeals court will later overturn five counts against former NSC director John Poindexter.) In 1994, Nancy Reagan will slam North during his failed attempt to win a Senate seat, saying of North, he "lied to my husband and lied about my husband." (Federation of American Scientists, Daily Howler, Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein)

June 1989

Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing

• June 4: After seven weeks of protests for democratic reforms in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, Chinese troops shoot hundreds of protesters, mostly students, and clear the square. Tanks moved through the capital's streets late the previous day, as the army moved into the square from several directions, randomly firing on unarmed protesters. The world is shocked by the Chinese's sudden and vicious response to the peaceful protest. US President George Bush says he deeply deplores the use of force, and UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher says she is "shocked and appalled by the shootings." Amid the panic and confusion students could be heard shouting "fascists stop killing," and "down with the government." The Chinese government refuses to release a final death toll, but casualties are estimated to be in the thousands. (BBC)

Male prostitute ring with connections to high-level Reagan/Bush officials is covered up by joint White House/media efforts

• June 29: The conservative Washington Times runs a front-page story alleging that the Bush administration has ties to a ring of male prostitutes, some of which regularly visit the White House. Some of the male prostitutes are underage, with one identified as being 15 years old. One of the clients, a senior White House official, conducted a 1 a.m. tour of the White House on June 3, 1988, for himself and five others, two of whom are male prostitutes. The story is being investigated by the Secret Service and a grand jury investigation is promised. Evidence of the potentially explosive allegations include hundreds of credit card vouchers, some signed by senior White House officials. Two officials who charged homosexual prostitute services on credit cards are Charles Dutcher, former associate director of personnel in the Reagan administration, and Paul Balach, the personal liason between Labor Secretary Elizabeth Dole and the White House. Dutcher is a former staff member of Vice President Dan Quayle when Quayle was an Indiana congressman. A third former Reagan official whose credit card shows similar charges, Todd Blodgett, denies the allegations.
• The biggest name linked to the scandal is Republican financier and trade representative Craig Spence. Spence, who arranged the White House tour, reportedly spent upwards of $20,000 a month on gay prostitutes who provided sex to him and his friends, some of which are military personnel Spence calls his "bodyguards." (One of Spence's "bodyguards" is Secret Service agent Reginald deGueldre, who accompanied Spence on the White House tour.) Spence is a longtime client of the firm Professional Services Inc., which openly solicits customers for its "male escorts" in Washington tabloids and the Yellow Pages. White House officials are not alone in allegedly soliciting male prostitutes -- at least one foreign officer used a Department of Defense credit card to solicit his own "escort." A former top-level Pentagon official says that for the past eight years, military and civilian authorities have been concerned that "a nest of homosexuals," some of whom may be Soviet agents posing as prostitutes, have penetrated the highest levels of the White House. The official says that one of their major concerns is that KGB agents have compromised closet homosexuals in the White House and are blackmailing them for secret information. Witnesses confirm that several administration officials have been blackmailed for money and other favors in order that their secret sexual lives be kept confidential; the blackmailers are using videotapes, audiotapes, and still photographs made during the encounters.
• One regular client of Professional Services, Henry Vinson, speculates that the investigation will be kept as quiet as possible because of the litany of White House officials who can be linked to the prostitution ring. Balach, who has been forced to admit to his own homosexuality because of the story and will resign his position as Dole's White House liason, says that Vinson believes someone at the top level of the White House will successfully cover up the story, in part to hide his own involvement. Vinson refuses to name the official, and is later convicted of numerous charges related to the prostitution scandal (Vinson's lawyer is Greta van Susteren, who later becomes a commentator for Fox News). Dutcher, who has been charged with hiring his friends and sexual partners for White House positions during his time as personnel director for the Reagan administration, admits that he is bisexual, but says he only purchased the services of a male prostitute once, and denies placing any friends or partners in White House positions. Blodgett, whose main job was to dig up dirt on Democratic political opponents, says his credit card was used by a friend to pay for prostitutes. The Washington Times will print over a dozen other stories about the scandal, including allegations that Spence brought at least one underage prostitute to the White House and passed the child off as his son, apparently even introducing the child to news anchor Ted Koppel. (Spence will later be charged with possession of cocaine and illegal weapons, and will be found dead in a Boston hotel room later in the year. Spence reportedly bragged of his connections to the CIA, and told friends he was worried that he might be killed and his death made to look like a suicide.)
• Amazingly, though the New York Times also reported on the scandal, and a related incident involving a Nebraska credit union and Republican financier Lawrence King using funds for low-income housing being spent instead on gay prostitutes and related improprieties, the national media refuses to pick up on this story, ignoring both the sexual and the national security implications; the investigation quickly dies a quiet death, and no more articles are published. The entire affair is whitewashed and never discussed; Reagan and Bush officials who are named as active participants in the scandal are never called to testify. Nebraska state senator John DeCamp, a Republican who attempted to investigate the credit union sex scandal, says that over a dozen people who could have testified to the truth of the allegations and to the connections between the Franklin Community Credit Union, the GOP, and the Bush White House, have died under mysterious circumstances. DeCamp will later write a book called The Franklin Coverup. It is noteworthy that First Lady Barbara Bush publicly stated that the idea of a male prostitution ring in the White House does not bother her, but she is glad that the Washington Post and other media outlets refused to follow the story.
• The only aspect of the story that gains much national attention is the peripheral involvement of Democratic representative Barney Frank, an outspoken homosexual who admits that he had employed a gay prostitute, but denies knowledge of his apartment being used as the site of further rendezvous. It is interesting to note that even this early, the media has much more of a taste for a sidebar story involving a Democrat than a full-blown scandal involving Republicans, especially in light of the media's relentless pursuit of the Clinton-Lewinsky affair and the Gary Condit allegations. (Washington Times/Indymedia, Washington Post/Washington Times/Voxfux, Voxfux)

July 1989

• July 3: The Supreme Court, in the case Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, upholds a Missouri statute that says human life began at conception, bars the use of public funds for abortion, prohibits abortions at public health facilities, and requires physicians to test for fetal viability after the 19th week of pregnancy. The overall effect is to allow Missouri to restrict the use of public money, medical personnel or facilities in performing abortions. Also upheld is a requirement that doctors determine, when possible, whether a fetus at least 20 weeks old is capable of surviving outside the womb, by testing lung capacity and conducting other tests. Other states will use the Webster ruling to restrict abortions for their own citizens. (CBS, About)
• July 12: Billionaire investor George Soros, who owns a chunk of Harken Oil stock, unloads all of his Harken stock after becoming impatient with George W. Bush's lackadaisical efforts to bring in business from the Persian Gulf. "I didn't know him," Soros later tells an interviewer. "He was supposed to bring in the Gulf connection. But it didn't come to anything. We were buying political influence. That was it. He was not much of a businessman." (Joe Conason)

August 1989

BCCI investigation

• August: Five BCCI officials are arrested in what is supposedly a secret FBI raid against BCCI. Days before the arrests, many of the most powerful drug dealers with BCCI accounts withdraw their funds from the bank. Some insiders believe they were tipped off by an individual or individuals within the Bush administration. A simultaneous raid of the Atlanta branch of BNL found massive fraud involving the Agriculture Department's Commodity Credit Corporation (Iraq had become one of its biggest customers) and billions of dollars' worth of secret loans to Baghdad. "some of the loans," reports Rachel Flick in the January 1991 Reader's Digest, "went to British, American, and West German companies exporting militarily useful technology to Iraq, some to Iraq's central bank." Henry Kissinger's firm represented BNL until just before the raid; a number of Kissinger's corporate clients, including Volvo, Midland Bank, Fiat, and Asea Braun Bovert, were involved with Iraq. Many of those same companies were also the beneficiaries of BNL loans to Iraq or were involved with BNL-Atlanta. (Bushwatch, New American
• August: President Bush pardons oilman Armand Hammer. Hammer had pleaded guilty in 1975 to laundering $54,000 in illicit contributions to Nixon's reelection war chest. Shortly before the pardon, Hammer contributes over $100,000 to the Republican Party and another $100,000 to the Bush-Quayle Inaugural Committee. Hammer's legal team includes Bruce Kauffman, a close friend of Attorney General Richard Thornburgh, and Theodore Olson, a very close friend of Bush's new White House counsel C. Boyden Gray, whose job includes passing on pardon requests to the president. (Salon, US House of Representatives)

Fall 1989

Arkansas gubernatorial campaign provides source of smear information later used against Bill Clinton

• Fall: Republican campaign guru Lee Atwater is apparently the first to recognize the threat posed to the party by the young, charismatic governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton. Atwater, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, flaunts time-honored tradition and his own party's rules in taking an active role in a state primary, but Atwater has hand-picked a candidate, Democrat-turned-Republican Tommy Robinson, to challenge not only Clinton, but a wealthy Republican challenger who is Robinson's former benefactor. "I don't give a f*ck who is governor of Arkansas," Atwater tells the two Republicans in the clandestine meeting, financiers J.J. Vigneault and Rex Nelson (Atwater's chief assistant, Mary Matalin, is also present). "My only job as chairman of the Republican National Committee is to get George Bush reelected. The media's full of talk about Mario Cuomo or Bill Bradley. We know how to pain them up as northeastern liberals like Dukakis. That's easy. What scares me is a southern moderate or conservative Democrat, and the scariest of them all, because he's the most talented of the bunch, is Bill Clinton. ...We're going to take Tommy Robinson and use him to throw everything we can think of at Clinton -- drugs, women, whatever works. We may or may not win, but we'll bust him up so bad he won't be able to run again for years."
• Robinson himself is a flamboyant former sheriff notorious for chaining a group of mostly black inmates to the gates of a prison and defying state police to free them. His political backers include the billionaire duo of Jack and Mary Ann Stephens, two country-club Republicans whose political influence had waned under Clinton's tenure as governor; Mary Ann sees herself as "the Pamela Harriman of the GOP," according to a close friend of the family. "After Jack [thirty years her senior] was gone, she saw herself maybe living in the Virginia horse country, having the Bushes over for dinner, hosting high-society party functions. Even an ambassadorship wouldn't have been out of reach." Robinson himself came to state prominence during the trial of Little Rock lawyer Bill MacArthur, a lurid proceeding that, though resulting in MacArthur's acquittal for the murder of his wife, was front-page news throughout Arkansas in 1982 and 1983. Robinson's performance was abetted by municipal judge David Hale, who did Robinson's bidding throughout the trial and would emerge years later as one of the most prominent Clinton accusers in the Whitewater debacle. Robinson's reputation as a "man of the people" is belied by his bankrolling by a consortium of wealthy backers in the timber, banking, natural gas, and electric utilities industries.
• Long known as a conservative "boll weevil" Democrat, Robinson announces his change to the GOP at a July 28, 1989 press conference in the White House Rose Garden with President Bush by his side. Mary Ann Stephens, resplendent in a Nancy Reagan-style red dress, applauds from the front row.
• As the campaign begins, Atwater recommends finding dirt on Clinton in preparation for any later moves by Clinton towards national prominence, particularly sexual dirt, having already heard lurid tales of Clinton's sexual escapades. Atwater is an expert in the tactics of smearing opponents via the revelation of factual, or fictional, sexual allegations, partly because he himself is an "outrageous party animal" and an "infamous sex addict." As early as 1984, Atwater's womanizing so worried some GOP operatives that they recommended that Bush distance himself from Atwater. "He reveled in telling stories of conquests," recalls Atwater biographer John Brady, "telling stories of conquests, sharing details with office colleagues.... Disposable sex without commitment was a huge piece of his ego, a badge of honor." As chairman of the RNC, Atwater is using an RNC credit card to house his girlfriend in a Virginia hotel, telling his wife he was traveling on business. Later in the year, Atwater will persuade a Washington Post reporter to drop a story revealing Atwater's own philandering by insisting that "innocent bystanders would be hurt." Meanwhile Atwater is gathering every scrap of fact, rumor, and fiction about Clinton's sex life in an attempt to pre-emptively destroy Clinton's career as a national politician -- and successfully fending off a Washington Post reporter who confronts him with photos of him at the apartment of a female White House staffer with whom Atwater is carrying on an affair. Atwater prevails on the reporter to spike the story because "innocent bystanders would be hurt." Joe Conason and Gene Lyons write, "[Atwater] thus escaped the same wound he was simultaneously planning to inflict on Bill Clinton. In the politics of sexual morality, hypocrisy was a common occupational hazard."
• Robinson's primary opponent is another Democrat-turned-Republican, Sheffield Nelson, another former protege of the Stephens family. Nelson is a former ally of Clinton's who found himself overshadowed by his charismatic and ambitious fellow Democrat, and felt betrayed when, in 1988, Clinton chose to run for reelection as governor instead of running for either the Senate or the presidency. Nelson feels he has a better chance of defeating Clinton as a Republican instead of in the Democratic primaries, but doesn't count on the opposition of either Robinson or Atwater. Atwater and Robinson blast Nelson as a corporate crony, causing a rift between childhood friends Robinson and natural gas magnate Jerry Jones, who is livid over the Robinson campaign's portrayal of him as a corporate crook. Jones has his revenge when copies of Robinson's confidential medical records, proving him to be an alcoholic and an addict to prescription sedatives, are leaked to the media. Robinson blames Nelson, but the damage is done. Worse for the campaign, Atwater drops out at the height of Robinson's travails, diagnosed with the brain tumor that will eventually kill him. Thousands of key Democratic voters cross party lines specifically to blow Robinson out of the water. Nelson wins the Republican gubernatorial primary by a scant 8000 votes.
• Meanwhile, Clinton's Democratic opponent, former Peace Corps volunteer Tom McRae, lagging far behind Clinton, is approached by Republican operatives bearing a treasure trove of smutty opposition research against Clinton along with a fat check, most likely from Stephens and Atwater. McRae, a principled candidate, refuses the gift, snapping, "Has it ever occurred to you that there might be something more important than winning?" Stephens then offers his organization's equally smutty research into Nelson to the Clinton campaign; though Clinton's people refuse the bulk of the material, the campaign does use allegations about Nelson's apparently corrupt dealings with Jones's natural gas holdings to plaster Nelson, and the governor orders an investigation, which eventually results in $17 million being refunded to Arkansas ratepayers. Nelson is infuriated and embittered, and retaliates by releasing a television ad using some of the worst of Atwater's sex-and-drugs accusations against Clinton. Though the ad never airs, it makes a media scandal (Nelson's own research shows that had the ad actually aired, the backlash against his own candidacy would have been fierce). Joined by an ad that does air, which uses a creative edit from a Clinton speech to falsely suggest that the governor intends to raise taxes, the combination of the smut allegations and the "raise and spend" economic smear damage Clinton's place in the polls. Though Nelson loses the gubernatorial election to Clinton, he keeps the Atwater-sourced opposition research, composed largely of rumors, innuendo, and unfounded allegations without any credible sources, for later use against his political and personal enemy. (Mark Crispin Miller, Joe Conason and Gene Lyons)

September 1989

• September: After the Tiananmen Square massacre in Peking, Bush declares China off-limits to American investment; apparently this ban doesn't apply to his brother, as Prescott Bush Jr. flies to Shanghai to complete an $18 million real estate deal. Prescott Bush Jr. also visits Japan, searching for consulting contracts just ten days before his brother arrives on a presidential tour. The Japanese firm that pays Prescott $250,000 in consulting fees comes under investigation for exchange law violations and links to the Japanese mob. Later in the year, Prescott Bush Jr. is a major player in the sale of three US satellites to China. Bush is currently the head of the USA-China Chamber of Commerce. (Bush Family Values Photo Album, USA Today)
• September: Harken Oil sets up a subsidiary, Harken Bahrain, on the Cayman Islands, a notorious offshore tax haven. George W. Bush is a major stockholder and board member of Harken; in 2002, he will declare that "We ought to look at people who are trying to avoid US taxes as a problem." Harken Bahrain will avoid paying millions of dollars in taxes to the United States, monies that have to be made up by the taxpayers. (Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose)

October 1989

• October: President Bush signs National Security Decision Directive 26, mandating more economic and political incentives to change the behavior of Iraq. NSD 26, which will become the basis for US action until the 1990 invasion, essentially calls for plying Saddam with assistance, though stipulating (in its declassified mode) punishment if Baghdad used chemical or biological weapons or sought nuclear weapons. The State Department is already aware of malfeasance and fraud with the US government loans being used to bolster Iraq's military. Frank Lemay of the Bureau of Legislative Affairs sends a memo to his boss in the office of the Under Secretary for Economic Affairs, a memo that is later relayed to Secretary Baker, then given the unusual secretive designation "Not for the System." The October 13, 1989 memo warned that nuclear-related equipment was being bought by Iraq with government-backed farm loans. Speaking about the federal investigation in Atlanta, Lemay wrote: "If smoke indicates fire, we may be facing a four-alarm blaze in the near future." After Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz goes to James Baker to claim that the BNL scandal did not involve Iraq, Baker personally lobbies Agriculture Secretary Clayton Yeutter on October 13th for more loan guarantees. Customs will eventually conclude that missile- and chemical-weapons technology was bought with the money, but after Justice Department intervention, no indictments came until after Operation Desert Storm. The cause of that delay is now a matter of contention. Though some in the Bush Administration advised against it, the President followed the advice of State Department officials Lawrence Eagleburger and Robert Kimmitt, approving another $1 billion in loan guarantees for lraq in 1990. During the month, the CIA releases a report that says, in part: "Baghdad has created complex procurement networks of holding companies in Western Europe to acquire technology for its chemical, biological, nuclear and ballistic missile development programs." The report also cites numerous corporate links between BNL-Atlanta and Iraq. (New American)
• October 28: Federal judge Alcee Hastings, a Florida Democrat, already having been impeached by the House of Representatives for perjury, bribery, and corruption, is convicted by the Senate of all charges on a 69-26. In 1992, Hastings will win election to the House of Representatives, running as an opponent of Reagan's economic policies and portraying his conviction as racist and unwarranted. A federal judge vacates his 1989 conviction because the Senate failed to properly hold hearings on the impeachment, though the Supreme Court will later overturn the ruling. Hastings continues to represent Florida in the US House as of 2006. (Hilton and Testa)

November 1989

Berlin Wall falls

• November: The Berlin Wall comes down, signaling the end of the Soviet Union and the Cold War. Within a week, Colin Powell makes a case to President Bush that the United States shift its focus from countering Soviet attempts at world dominance to ensuring American dominance of world affairs. He tells a group of Congressmen, "I want to be the bully on the block." On August 2, 1990, the day Bush invades Iraq, the President makes a public statement acknowledging this viewpoint as the new focus of American foreign policy. Neoconservative Ben Wattenburg echoes the sentiment, urging the US to "wage democracy" all over the globe with the US military as the instrument of change. Fellow neocon Charles Krauthammer urges that the US "integrate" with Europe and Japan inside a "super-sovereign" entity that would be "economically, culturally, and politically hegemonic in the world." Krauthammer says that his "new universalism would require the conscious deprecation not only of American sovreignty but of the notion of sovreignty in general. This is not as outrageous as it sounds." (PBS, CCR, Pat Buchanan)
• November 8: Richard Secord pleads guilty to making false statements to Congress as part of the Iran-Contra trials. His partner Albert Hakim will file a guilty plea two weeks later. (Federation of American Scientists)

December 1989

• December 19: Edvard Shevardnadze becomes the first Soviet foreign minister to visit NATO headquarters. (NATO and UN History)

"Operation Just Cause:" Noriega regime in Panama overthrown by US

• December 20: The US overthrows the regime of dictator General Manuel Noriega in Panama, just in time to install a puppet government to oversee the "return" of the Panama Canal to Panama by January 1, 1990. Panama provokes a US reaction by shooting a US serviceman, kidnapping another soldier and his wife (whom the Panamanian troops detaining them threaten to sexually assault before letting the two go free), and arresting a CIA operative operating a clandestine radio station. Certainly these are ugly actions, but where most American presidents would have chosen diplomacy and UN interventions over invasion, Bush uses Panama's actions to justify overthrowing Noriega, who is eventually arrested on drug charges and placed in maximum security incarceration in the United States.
• Bush's new secretary of defense, Dick Cheney, tries his hand at micromanaging the invasion, attempting to block the use of Stealth bombers (which are most likely used just because the military wants to play with its new toy more so than of any need for such a sophisticated aircraft to be used against the relatively primitive Pananamanian air defenses), refusing to let the kidnapped soldier's wife discuss her detention on television (he feared that her discussion of the Panamanian soldiers' sexual taunts would be inflammatory), and modifying bombing target selections. His biggest contribution may be to keep Congress at bay for what he calls encroachment on the president's right to conduct foreign policy without Congressional oversight or participation. He rails against congressmen calling executive branch agencies and even American officials in Panama for information and to dispense advice, saying that all they are doing are "creat[ing] all sorts of problems. [They] certainly complicate our lives when they run out and make public pronouncements in front of the press, knowing only half of what there is to know." He refuses to provide Representative Charles Rangel copies of combat videos shot by Apache helicopter crews when Rangel, responding to numerous complaints that most of the civilians killed in the attacks died during Apache attacks on civilian targets, demands the videos. Authors Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein write that the invasion of Panama "bore all the signature marks for which Dick Cheney would become known. Willingness to exercise broad executive authority, low regard for the role of Congress in foreign policy, high tolerance for non-American civilian casualties, and near absolute-secrecy."
• The invasion, predictably, is a success, with only 15 Americans killed in combat even if, as Dubose and Bernstein note, "it involved the conquest of a small country already occupied by 13,000 American troops." Cheney successfully manages the press coverage of the Panamanian invasion by only allowing reporters in the US to cover the assault, although there were qualified, bilingual American reporters on the ground in Panama. The result was sporadic, carefully controlled coverage of the invasion, which only lasts a few days. The American media dutifully swallows the Pentagon's claims that only 200 civilians died in the onslaught, though the Catholic Church insists that the death tolls are far higher.
• Noriega himself proves more difficult to capture than the Americans had planned. He takes shelter in the offices of a papal nuncio. Rather than violate the sanctity of a church that also serves as a diplomatic mission, US forces surround the nuncio and torment Noriega, and his hosts, with high-decibel rock music played through an enormous speaker system. After Noriega and his hosts decide they can no longer tolerate the Americans' sonic assault, Noriega surrenders to American forces.
• "Operation Just Cause" is, more than anything else, a dry run for the upcoming invasion of Iraq that will come to be known as "Desert Storm."
• Noriega has an interesting set of connections to the US and to President Bush. From the 1950s to 1977, Noreiga is a CIA spy, making up to $100,000 yearly for his activities. He graduates with acclaim from the infamous School of the Americas in 1967. By 1971, hard evidence of drug trafficking by Noriega is in the hands of US authorities, and President Nixon targets him for possible overthrow and assassination. Instead, the CIA protects Noriega. (Noriega is given several US awards for fighting drug trafficking in Panama, though the CIA is aware that Noriega is merely fighting rival drug lords who oppose his own Medellin Cartel connections; see below.)
• In 1976, CIA chief George H.W. Bush gives Noriega a personal tour of CIA headquarters; Noriega stays at the residence of the CIA Deputy Director while he is in Washington. The Carter administration has him removed from the CIA payroll in 1977. In 1981, Panama strongman Omar Torrejios dies in a plane crash orchestrated by Noriega and the CIA; Noriega assumes power. That same year, the Reagan administration puts him back on the CIA payroll. For the next few years Noriega has extensive dealings with the Medellin cocaine cartel in Colombia; instead of being a target of US intervention, Noriega is lauded by the Reagan and Bush administrations, and in November 1983 is welcomed to Washington, where he tours the State Department, the Pentagon, and the White House, and is given a private audience by CIA director William Casey.
• Through 1986, Noriega cooperates with CIA spying efforts against the Nicaraguan and Cuban governments, and assists in supporting the Nicaraguan contras. Unfortunately, Noriega acts as a double agent, spying for Cuba and the Nicaraguan Sandinistas as well as the US. In 1984, Noriega's handpicked candidate for Panama's president, Nicolas Barletta, is declared the winner in a rigged election managed by the CIA that actually has Barletta losing the election by over 4,000 votes; the US ambassador to Panama helps cover up the election fraud.
• By 1985 the US Drug Enforcement Agency takes an interest in Noriega's drug trafficking activities; though Noriega is protected for a time by US officials such as Oliver North and William Casey, in 1988, Noriega is charged with a variety of drug-related offenses by the DEA. In May 1989 Noriega "wins" an election charged with fraud and violence; in October 1989 Noriega is captured and held for two days by rebel elements of the Panamanian military, who offer him to the US. President Bush refuses the offer and Noriega is rescued by his own troops. In December, Bush invades Panama to capture Noriega. Over 500 Panamanians, mostly civilians, are listed dead; unofficial body counts range into the thousands. 23 Americans are killed. A reporter asks Bush after Noriega's capture, "Was it really worth it to send people to their death for this? To get Noriega?" Bush replies, "[E]very human life is precious, and yet I have to answer, yes, it has been worth it." Post-invasion plans call for a complete US occupation of Panama, with the head of the US Army Southern command as Panama's ruler. Instead, US puppet Guillermo Endara is installed as president, but even the Pentagon terms his government "merely a façade." Endara, one of the two vice presidents, and the attorney general, all have links to drug trafficking and money laundering. The US confiscates thousands of boxes of Noriega government documents and refuses to hand over any of them to Panamanian investigators. By 1991, Colombian drug cartels and associates of Noriega will once again turn Panama into a narcotics transshipment center; there are far more cocaine production facilities than ever existed under Noriega, and drug use in Panama is reportedly at a far higher level. (Eric Lormand, The Real Drug Lords, Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein)

Late 1989

• Late 1989: BNL, a subsidiary of BCCI, is found to have given Iraq billions of dollars in illegal loans. This discovery sparks the investigation into what will become known as "Iraqgate." (US/Iraq Relations Timeline)
• Late 1989: Vice President Dan Quayle calls the collapse of the Soviet Union "just a public relations extravaganza." Sweet Liberty)

Quick Navigation Menu

• Main Page

• 1897-1960
• 1961-1970
• 1971-1979
• 1980
• 1981
• 1982
• 1983
• 1984
• 1985
• 1986
• 1987
• 1988
• 1989
• 1990
• 1991
• 1992
• 1993
• 1994
• 1995
• 1996
• 1997
• 1998
• 1999
• 2000
• 2001
• 2002

2003 Month by Month

• Jan 03
• Feb 03
• Mar 03
• Apr 03
• May 03
• Jun 03
• Jul 03
• Aug 03
• Sep 03
• Oct 03
• Nov 03
• Dec 03

2004 Month by Month

• Jan 04
• Feb 04
• Mar 04
• Apr 04
• May 04
• Jun 04
• Jul 04
• Aug 04
• Sep 04
• Oct 04
• Nov 04
• Dec 04

2005 Month by Month

• Jan 05
• Feb 05
• Mar 05
• Apr 05
• May 05
• Jun 05
• Jul 05
• Aug 05
• Sep 05
• Oct 05
• Nov 05
• Dec 05

2006 Month by Month

• Jan 06
• Feb 06
• Mar 06
• Apr 06
• May 06
• Jun 06
• Jul 06
• Aug 06
• Sep 06
• Oct 06
• Nov 06
• Dec 06

2007 Month by Month

• Jan 07
• Feb 07
• Mar 07
• Apr 07
• May 07
• Jun 07
• Jul 07
• Aug 07
• Sep 07
• Oct 07
• Nov 07
• Dec 07

Other Pages On This Site

• 9/11
• They Said
• Stolen!
• Katrina
• Who Is?
• Citations
• Links
• Biblio
• Impeach
• Imperial
• Cabinet
• Rationale
• Assist
• Updates