by Jon E. Lewis
“I declare,” says he, “and I challenge all mankind to contradict my declaration, that no man can give any account of the Order of Free Masonry, of its origin, of its history, of its object, nor any explanation of its mysteries and symbols, which does not leave the mind in total uncertainty on all these points. Every man is entitled, therefore, to give any explanation of the symbols, and any system of the doctrines, that he can render palatable. Hence have sprung up that variety of systems which for twenty years have divided the Order. The simple tale of the English, and the fifty degrees of the French, and the Knights of Baron Hunde, are equally authentic, and have equally had the support of intelligent and zealous Brethren. These systems are in fact but one. They have all sprung from the Blue Lodge of Three degrees, take these for their standard, and found on these all the improvements by which each system is afterwards suited to the particular object which it keeps in view. There is no man, nor system, in the world, which can show by undoubted succession that it should stand at the head of the Order. Our ignorance in this particular frets me. Do but consider our short history of 120 years. – Who will show me the Mother Lodge? Those of London we have discovered to be self-erected in 1716. Ask for their archives. They tell you they were burnt. They have nothing but the wretched sophistications of the Englishman Anderson, and the Frenchman Desaguilliers. Where is the Lodge of York, which pretends to the priority, with their King Bouden, and the archives that he brought from the East? These too are all burnt. What is the Chapter of Old Aberdeen, and its Holy Clericate? Did we not find it unknown, and the Mason Lodges there the most ignorant of all the ignorant, gaping for instruction from our deputies? Did we not find the same thing at London? And have not their missionaries been among us, prying into our mysteries, and eager to learn from us what is true Free Masonry? It is in vain, therefore, to appeal to judges; they are no where to be found; all claim for themselves the sceptre of the Order; all indeed are on an equal footing. They obtained followers, not from their authenticity, but from their conduciveness to the end which they proposed, and from the importance of that end. It is by this scale that we must measure the mad and wicked explanations of the Rosycrucians, the Exorcists, and Cabalists. These are rejected by all good Masons, because incompatible with social happiness. Only such systems as promote this are retained. But alas, they are all sadly deficient, because they leave us under the dominion of political and religious prejudice; and they are as inefficient as the sleepy dose of an ordinary sermon.
“But I have contrived an explanation which has every advantage; is inviting to Christians of every communion; gradually frees them from all religious prejudices; cultivates the social virtues; and animates them by a great, a feasible, and speedy prospect of universal happiness, in a state of liberty and moral equality, freed from the obstacles which subordination, rank, and riches, continually throw in our way. My explanation is accurate, and complete, my means are effectual, and irresistible. Our secret Association works in a way that nothing can withstand, and man shall soon be free and happy.
“This is the great object held out by this Association: and the means of attaining it is Illumination, enlightening the understanding by the sun of reason, which will dispel the clouds of superstition and of prejudice. The proficients in this Order are therefore justly named the Illuminated. And of all Illumination which human reason can give, none is comparable to the discovery of what we are, our nature, our obligations, what happiness we are capable of, and what are the means of attaining it. In comparison with this, the most brilliant sciences are but amusements for the idle and luxurious. To fit man by Illumination for active virtue, to engage him to it by the strongest motives, to render the attainment of it easy and certain, by finding employment for every talent, and by placing every talent in its proper sphere of action, so that all, without feeling any extraordinary effort, and in conjunction with and completion of ordinary business, shall urge forward, with united powers, the general task. This indeed will be an employment suited to noble natures, grand in its views, and delightful in its exercise.
“And what is this general object? THE HAPPINESS OF THE HUMAN RACE. Is it not distressing to a generous mind, after contemplating what human nature is capable of, to see how little we enjoy? When we look at this goodly world, and see that every man may be happy, but that the happiness of one depends on the conduct of another; when we see the wicked so powerful, and the good so weak; and that it is in vain to strive, singly and alone, against the general current of vice and oppression; the wish naturally arises in the mind, that it were possible to form a durable combination of the most worthy persons, who should work together in removing the obstacles to human happiness, become terrible to the wicked, and give their aid to all the good without distinction, and should by the most powerful means, first fetter, and by fettering, lessen vice; means which at the same time should promote virtue, by rendering the inclination to rectitude, hitherto too feeble, more powerful and engaging. Would not such an association be a blessing to the world? [. . .]”
Such is the aim, and such are the hopes of the Order of the Illuminated [. . .]
IRAN–CONTRA SCANDAL
Like Watergate, the Iran–Contra scandal – “Irangate” – was unambiguously true. A president didn’t fall, but he wobbled alarmingly. Worse for succeeding administrations, the lid on the can of worms that is US foreign policy in extremis was opened . . . and it was an unforgettable sight.
The beginnings of Irangate lie in the 1979 Islamic revolution, which overthrew the pro-Western Shah of Iran. Supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini’s regime invaded the US Embassy in Tehran and held staff hostage for a year. The inability of US President Jimmy Carter to secure the hostages’ release cost him a second term. (By the “October Surprise” conspiracy theory, candidate Ronald Reagan did a deal with Tehran that they would delay the hostages’ freedom until the presidential election campaign was done so he could win.) The anti-American militancy of the Khomeini regime, together with its sponsorship of Islamic terrorist outfits like Hezbollah, led Washington DC to implement Operation Staunch: an arms embargo against Iran.
Once in power, the new Republican administration of Ronald Reagan found it had its own personal hostage crisis. In Lebanon, CIA station chief William Buckley was seized by Hezbollah. A moderate wing of Khomeini’s regime suggested to Israel that, if the US sent Iran a shipment of arms, it would secure Buckley’s release. On 18 July 1985 Reagan, his chief of staff Donald Regan and National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane discussed the Iran deal, and two weeks later, over the opposition of some government advisers, it was agreed to send Iran a shipment of BGM-71 100 TOW (Tube launched, Optically tracked, Wire guided) missiles.
No hostages were released. The Iranian moderates asked for 400 more TOW missiles, at which Hezbollah released not Buckley but another hostage, Reverend Benjamin Weir. A further 3,500 missiles were sent to Iran. McFarlane and a National Security Council staff officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Oliver D. North, went to Iran secretly to press the US case – in clear contravention of the Reagan mantra that “America will never make concessions to terrorists” – but Hezbollah still failed to release Buckley. At this point the Lebanese newspaper Ash-Shiraa published a report on the arms deals between the US and Iran, which Iran confirmed. The Iranian side of the Iran–Contra scandal was well and truly public. In a damage-limitation exercise, Reagan set up a commission of inquiry under John Tower on 26 November 1986. A Republican, Tower was criticized for going softly, softly on the scandal (which was arguably the intention in appointing him), but his commission did find incriminating Iran-deal emails on Oliver D. North’s computer. The investigators also found evidence of another covert US operation with North at its nexus: the Contra part of the scandal.
In 1979, the same year that Khomeini ejected the Shah of Iran, halfway across the world in Nicaragua left-wing Sandinistas overthrew the military dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza. Later, the Sandinistas (more properly known as Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional) won f
ree and fair democratic elections. Somoza supporters, meanwhile, kept up a contra-revolution (hence “Contras”) against the Sandinista regime. In 1982 Reagan authorized the CIA to create a 500-strong army of Nicaraguan exiles to fight alongside the Contras. Queried by a Congressional intelligence committee over this “action team”, CIA director William Casey misleadingly stated that its activity was restricted to intercepting arms sent by the Sandinistas to El Salvadoran Marxist revolutionaries. The disingenuity of Casey’s reply was exposed, and Congress passed the Boland Amendment which banned the spending of federal money on the Contras. Ignoring the Boland Amendment, Reagan tasked the CIA with mining Nicaragua’s harbours. Congress responded in June 1984 with a second Boland Amendment, which explicitly forbade all CIA operations in Nicaragua.
Fast forward two years. On 5 October 1986 a plane piloted by one Eugene Hasenfus was shot down over Nicaragua while carrying arms to the Contras. Hasenfus appeared on TV, where he publicly announced that his co-workers were CIA operatives. This story coincided almost exactly with Ash-Shiraa’s investigation into US–Iranian arms deals. A political A-bomb detonated. On 25 November Reagan’s Attorney General Edwin Meese admitted that the Contra scandal was connected to the recent Iranian arms scandal. Oliver North had directly channelled profits from the Iran arms deals to the Contras, thereby neatly but illegally bypassing Congress, the United Nations and everyone else who might disapprove. Reagan, meanwhile, tried to keep it all at arm’s length by, on 26 November, setting up the Tower Commission.
Oliver North and his immediate superior, Admiral John Poindexter, the National Security Advisor who had replaced McFarlane, were convicted on multiple accounts of lying and obstruction of justice, but their convictions were overturned on appeal because their testimonies had been used against them despite a grant of immunity. A final 1987 report into the affair by Congress failed to answer the key question: how much Reagan knew. Some researchers consider that North’s five memos sent to the president on the Contras’ illegal funding might give a clue. Then there is the entry in Reagan’s own diary from January 1986: “I agreed to sell TOWs to Iran.”
William Buckley was killed after torture by captors in Iran.
Reagan approved illegal arms deals to Iran which enabled illegal funding of Contras in Nicaragua: ALERT LEVEL 10
Further Reading
Lawrence Walsh, Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters, Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters, 1993
DOCUMENT: FROM THE FINAL REPORT OF THE INDEPENDENT COUNSEL FOR IRAN/CONTRA MATTERS (THE WALSH REPORT)
Part III
The Operational Conspiracy: A Legal Analysis
The central and perhaps the most important criminal charge developed by Independent Counsel was the conspiracy charge against Oliver L. North, John M. Poindexter, Richard V. Secord and Albert Hakim. According to that charge – set forth as Count One of the indictment returned on 16 March 1988 – these four men conspired to defraud the United States by deceitfully (1) supporting a war in Nicaragua in defiance of congressional controls; (2) using the Iran arms sales to raise funds to be spent at the direction of North and Poindexter, rather than the United States Government; and (3) endangering the effort to rescue Americans held hostage in Lebanon by pursuing ends that were both unauthorized and inconsistent with the goal of releasing the hostages.
[. . .]
The Reagan Administration was unambiguously hostile to this count. In a move that Judge Gerhard A. Gesell described as “unprecedented”, the Justice Department in November 1988 filed an amicus brief supporting North’s claim that the count was legally insufficient and should be dismissed. Subsequently, having been informed by Independent Counsel that the conspiracy count could be tried only if a small amount of classified information were declassified, the Administration refused to release that information. Because there was no way to appeal such a refusal to declassify, Independent Counsel was forced in January 1989 to drop Count One in North and a related charge that the diversion of profits from the Iran arms sales was a theft of Government funds.
Although Count One was not tried, it was established as a matter of law that if North, Poindexter, and the others had done what they were charged with doing, they had committed criminal acts. In rejecting the challenges of the Department of Justice and North, Judge Gesell ruled that the count “allege[d] [a] well-established offens[e]” and that the activity set forth in the count was criminal. He stated: “The indictment clearly alleges a conspiracy which involved concealing the very existence of the profits of the enterprise from the start and hiding from Congress information relating to the conspirators’ assistance for the Contras.” In addition to holding that the indictment set forth a crime, Judge Gesell also found that his review of the evidence presented to the Grand Jury indicated there was probable cause that that crime had in fact been committed.
At the heart of the Iran/Contra affair, then, were criminal acts of Reagan Administration officials that the Reagan Administration, by withholding non-secret classified information, ensured would never be tried. Yet Judge Gesell’s decision marked an important, if incomplete, accomplishment of Independent Counsel. Judge Gesell’s decision unambiguously established that high national security officials who engage in a conspiracy to subvert the laws of this country have engaged in criminal acts, even when the laws themselves provide no criminal sanctions.
A successful prosecution would have allowed Independent Counsel to present comprehensively the results of his investigation into the operational conspiracy. Much of the evidence of the conspiracy was presented at the trials of the dismembered individual charges of obstruction and false statements but the questions of intent were different, the diversion of funds from Iran to the contras was peripheral rather than central, and the absence of the conspiracy charge deprived the North case of its cohesiveness and completeness.
The following discussion is an attempt to present in an abbreviated fashion what would have been Independent Counsel’s case at a conspiracy trial of North, Secord, Poindexter and Hakim, and an explanation of the criminal nature of their actions.
[. . .]
First Object of the Conspiracy: The Secret War Activities
The crux of the first charged object of the conspiracy was an agreement to provide military assistance to the Nicaraguan Contras and to deceive Congress about the fact that support was being provided. Poindexter, North, and their co-conspirators carried out their “secret war” in a way calculated to defeat legal restrictions governing the conduct of military and covert operations and congressional control of appropriations, and they concealed their activities from legitimate congressional oversight.
Had the case been tried as indicted, the Government’s proof of US secret war activities would have fallen into three broad categories: (1) the organization and direction of a resupply operation to provide the Contras with logistical and other support; (2) funding of the resupply operation, including exploitation of the Iran initiative; and (3) attempts to conceal from Congress the conspirators’ involvement in these activities.
The Evidence
Organization and Direction of the Resupply Network
During the last half of 1984 and the first half of 1985, North had developed a loose structure for Contra support. Secord, responding to Contra requests through North, was selling arms. Thomas G. Clines, a Secord associate, arranged for their purchase; Hakim, assisted by Swiss money manager Willard I. Zucker, set up the structure to finance the activities with funds provided to the Contras through North and raised primarily by President Reagan and National Security Advisor Robert C. McFarlane.
The creation of the conspirators’ more tightly organized secret resupply network dated from a meeting in Miami, Florida on 28 June 1985. This meeting was attended by, among others, North, Adolfo Calero (political leader of one Contra faction known as the FDN), Enrique Bermudez (commander of the FDN’s military forces), Secord, Clines and Rafael Quintero, an associate of Secord. At the Miami meeting
, North informed Calero and Bermudez that the Contras would no longer be left to decide what arms they would purchase or from whom they would buy them. In the future, North would provide the Contras with materiel, and Secord would deliver it to the Contras in the field. In addition, North directed that actions be taken to develop and resupply a “southern front” along the border of Costa Rica and Nicaragua.
Following the Miami meeting, North assumed a central role in the Contra war effort. Using Robert W. Owen as a courier, North provided the Contras with significant military advice and guidance. At the same time, with the assistance of Secord, North in the following fashion secretly brought into being the resupply operation that he had described on 28 June.
First, North directed Owen and William Haskell, another North courier, to travel to Costa Rica and help activate a southern military front. Owen and Haskell, aided by CIA Costa Rican Station Chief Joseph F. Fernandez, undertook to build a clandestine airstrip to be used to resupply it. Haskell eventually negotiated the acquisition of property for the strip, which was funded using Swiss accounts controlled directly by Secord and Hakim, and indirectly by North. Within the United States, North attended planning sessions and personally commissioned private individuals to do preliminary site work and engineering tasks necessary for the construction of a usable airstrip.
