SARAH MCCLENDON'S WASHINGTON REPORT
October 5, 1992
IN THIS ISSUE:
1. White House Staff Assess Bush Chances.
2. The Punishment for Daring To Be An Independent--- the Perot Phenomena.
3. Shocking Record of Reagan-Bush on Arms and Hostages
4. Revelations: Sen.John Tower and Publisher Robert Maxwell Were Partners;
5. "People-Do Not Realize".
1. White House staff members who do not think they will be back there after January are sending their resumes to possible new employers. Two on the staff of speech writers for the President are convinced that he will not be re-elected. "Why can't he just sign one bill for consumers?" wailed a staunch Republican ally who has helped raise considerable money for his campaign.
Citizens are beginning to question how he can spend so much time away from the job campaigning. Of course the view is that the President is the President wherever he is, traveling or not, and that he can conduct White House business on an airplane but just the same critics are beginning to see why lack of greater concentration on drafting programs could be the reason why Congress felt it could not accept most of his programs. Leaders such as Sen. George Mitchell, D., Maine and Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, D.,Texas, said these were incomplete programs which was the reason they were defeated in Congress. On the other hand, Congress delayed action on 13 appropriations bills this year until the last minute, because they were rewriting the bills to conform with what the President said he would require to avoid his well known veto. He has vetoed 36 bills. Writing bills at the last minute at midnight and Sunday sessions, is the very way to make mistakes in drafting laws, say experienced legislators.
2. Ross Perot, who is being pilloried by reporters on all the talk shows, may want to go to Rhode Island and gaze up at the statue on the state capitol. It is "The Independent Man" put there to glorify that spirit at a time when it took real guts to be a nonconformist in religion and other matters. Perot will need all the courage he can muster.
Why the nation's press is coming down on him so hard, much more so than they did in his earlier campaigning, shows how really conservative most of the press is. Instead of being liberal to appreciate change, it actually is highly conservative. It also shows how the press is thinking in terms of Washington, the capital, and not thinking of the people "out there". Most of the press in this writer's observance are not fully aware of what the people think and what they have been wanting for years. One example is the press ignoring public desire for cuts in health care costs. This has been a neglected issue, while the press and the candidates debate, the debates.
Reporters could ask any taxi driver in Washington if they wish to see how popular is Perot. Of course opposition to him will lose their jobs if the incumbent president does not get re-elected.
3. New book just out, "Profits of War, Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network", by Ari Ben-Menashe, who was for 15 years top Israeli Intelligence officer, tells the U.S. citizen for the first time how their government traded arms for hostages and engaged in a multi-billion dollar worldwide arms sale that continues today. The publisher is Sheridan Square Press, Inc., of 1145 West 4th St., New York, N.Y.,10012-1054.
Ben-Menashe who was offered $2 million to stay silent about these things, refused it and instead tells that President George Bush, despite denials, did go to Paris, in October, 1980 to cinch the deal to provide Iran with requested spare parts for American-made missiles to fight in war with Iraq. The payment was that Iran which was ready to release 52 American hostages in July promised to keep these hostages until after the November election so they could be delivered to Ronald Reagan, not to President Jimmy Carter, to help Reagan win the election. Ben-Menashe says he saw Bush and William Casey get off the elevator in a hotel, shake hands with the group waiting there, and then go into a conference room. (Bush claims he did not go and three Secret Service agents tell different tales about where Bush was in this country on that same day.) Ben-Menashe when interviewed by this writer for Independent Radio from Clearwater, Fla.,this week said "there was a 24-hour window open that gave Bush time to go to Paris and back.
(Incidentally, the pilot, Gunther Russbacher, who claims he flew Bush to Paris along with Sen. John Tower, Jennifer Fitzgerald and others remains, in jail in Missouri and is about to be deported by the federal government this next week. The same pilot says he flew Bush back shortly after the meeting, this time in an SR71, the Black bird and fastest aircraft in the U.S. fleet, in 1 hour and 45 minutes.)
Ben-Menashe says he later briefed Bush as vice president, in Israel on the world wide arms sale. Israel at the time was trying to get the U.S. to stop selling arms also to Iraq, Israel's most feared enemy. Robert Gates, now head of the CIA, was then the main contact for arms sale to Iraq.
In 1980 talks, Ben-Menashe said the Israelis and the Iranians were stunned at how the Republican leaders with whom they talked did not want to get their hostages home quickly, but wanted them kept until Carter was out of office and Reagan credited as deliverer.
Ben-Menashe tells how General Manuel Noriega of Panama was used to bring in tons of drugs from South America by plane to the United States to be sold to get money for a slush fund at the Central Intelligence Agency. The money was then used for more gun buying and selling. Part of the money from the slush fund had come from the sale of arms to Iran.
Ben-Menashe tells how Israel and the United States government got control of Promis, a computer software developed by Bill Hamilton who formed a company named Inslaw. Promis could go into other computers around the world and bring out information for Israeli intelligence. Promis was leased to the U.S. Justice Department which then claimed it turned it back to its owners, Bill and Nancy Hamilton. They found that the Promis system was then being sold by the U.S. to other countries around the world. The Hamiltons sued. Their case has been recently investigated by the House Judiciary committee. The CIA and others were involved in the sale of Promis under Ed Meese. Israel planned to use it to keep up with movement of terrorists around the world. Meese wanted it to keep up with criminals.
Ben-Menashe recently testified before the House Task Force to investigate the claimed deal between Republicans and Iranians in 1980 to keep 52 American hostages longer than Carter's term so they could be delivered to Reagan. Ben-Menashe told them he saw President Bush at the Paris meeting to put the final touches on this deal. The Israeli had previously told this to two senators on the Senate Foreign Relations sub-committee investigating the same October meeting. The Israeli added he did not know until later that a deal had been made between the Republicans on the House task force'and the Democrats under Rep. Lee Hamilton before they started the investigation to declare Bush had not gone to the Paris meeting. Ben-Menashe testified Hamilton had held a preliminary press conference and announced that one thing was "certain"--Bush did not go to Paris.
Ben-Menashe says repeatedly in his book that this information was withheld from the American public.
4. Revelations about Sen. John Tower, R., Texas are even more startling. Ben-Menashe tells how Tower and Robert Maxwell were long time close friends. Tower was heavily involved in international arms trading and at times helped the Israelis by attending meetings. Tower got Maxwell to introduce him and close friend, George Bush to some Soviet Intelligence people whom Bush "wanted to meet." Maxwell then became Tower's bosom pal and Maxwell named Tower to the board of his MacMillan publishing company, which published Tower's book. When Maxwell asked Israel to give him considerable funds from the slush fund which included U.S. and CIA money, the Israelis said they would do it if the U.S. agreed. Tower gave the word for the U.S. and the Israelis gave Maxwell $1 billion which Maxwell then used to buy his newspaper kingdom around the world. Tower also helped Maxwell to become chief salesman for the Promis software around the world. Tower went to South America at the Israeli's request to try to stop Carlos Cardoen from selling U.S. cluster bombs and other equipment to Iraq.
Tower was denied the post of secretary of defense under Bush who was Tower's strong backer in the Senate. Tower was later killed with his daughter in the crash of a small foreign plane in commercial service over Georgia. Almost weekly I receive an inquiry as to whether Tower's plane was sabotaged because he was getting ready to tell more about the government's activities.
Reportedly his briefcase was never found, The plane had defective blades on the propeller, say aviation experts. But the story of how he might have been killed is strongly believed by some of Tower's own later staff. Earlier Tower employes while he was chairman of the Senate Armed Services committee say they have no knowledge of Maxwell or of arms dealing by Tower. I thought I knew Tower's activities in Washington and Geneva very well but I never heard of this either.
5. My favorite expression: "People Don't Realize" has been used so much in speeches and talk shows that people write me now and then to inquire if this is the title of a book they can buy. No, it is not a book title, yet. But here are some examples:
Seven women employees of the Veterans Administration who told the House Veterans Affairs committee they had been sexually harassed by VA doctors appear to be getting nowhere. The doctors may get re-located and continue the same treatment to other female employees, says Mary O'Connor of Massachusetts ....
The FBI has imprisoned Stu Webb of Denver at Houston for making harassing telephone calls to his ex-father- in-law, a rich developer, in a custody battle over Webb's child. We was chased by FBI for many months across the continent. He may be sent back to Colorado for court trial, despite strenuous battle by public defender lawyer Sokolow to free him. Webb also squealed about father in law and friends allegedly engaged in a big development plan in Denver using funds from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The Denver developers who are Webb's target are said to be close friends of President Bush.