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Colin Powell the untouchable
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March 20, 2000 | WASHINGTON -- Powell is an interesting, perhaps unique, phenomenon in public life: an untouchable. I discovered this firsthand a few years back when I broke a story indicating that Powell had lied as part of an Iran-Contra coverup. The evidence against him was strong, yet the media largely ignored the story. One news network even killed a report on it. The incident showed how tough it is to question Powell's sterling reputation. It also revealed that the retired general does have warts that, should he leap into the spotlight as a politician, could come into view. In 1993, after nearly seven years of work, Lawrence Walsh, the Iran-Contra independent counsel, produced his massive final report. Buried within it were a few paragraphs devoted to Powell, who had been Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger's senior military assistant when the Reagan administration was secretly trading arms with Iran. As part of his investigation, Walsh had brought a case against Weinberger. Consequently, Powell came under the scrutiny of Walsh's investigators.
In 1987, Walsh had requested that Weinberger hand over any records relevant to the Iran-Contra affair. In reply, Weinberger produced a modest amount of material, nothing incriminating. Then, in 1991, Walsh's investigators discovered that Weinberger had sent thousands of pages of diary and meeting notes he had kept while defense secretary to the Library of Congress. This material showed that, contrary to his sworn testimony, Weinberger knew in advance that the Reagan administration was shipping weapons to Iran in exchange for hostages. A grand jury indicted Weinberger for concealing these notes from Congress and from the independent counsel and for lying about his knowledge of the arms deal. Powell played a small but key role in the Weinberger episode. In 1987, seven investigators from the House and Senate Iran-Contra committees questioned Powell in the White House situation room. In the course of this sworn deposition, Powell was asked a standard question: Did Weinberger keep a diary? The investigators wanted to know if documentary evidence existed that could help them unravel the scandal. Powell replied, "The secretary, to my knowledge, did not keep a diary." But, as Walsh's investigators found out four years later, Weinberger had kept an extensive diary. Perhaps it was possible Powell had not known about Weinberger's notes. But in 1992, when Weinberger was under investigation for having lied about the notes, Powell had a different story to tell about his old boss's diaries. In a sworn affidavit submitted to Walsh's office by Weinberger's attorney, Powell said, "During the period I worked with Secretary Weinberger ... I observed on his desk a small pad of white paper, approximately 5" by 7". He would jot down on this pad in abbreviated form various calls and events during the day. I viewed it as his personal diary." In a subsequent interview with Walsh's office, Powell revealed that he even knew that Weinberger had stored his diary notes "in his desk on the right side." Powell's 1992 statement contradicted his 1987 statement. But he wasn't ratting out Weinberger. In fact, he was supporting him, for Weinberger was then claiming that he had not conspired to hide his notes, that his diaries had not been a secret to those around him, that his failure to turn over thousands of pages was merely an oversight. Weinberger's line was: See, everyone knew about them. Powell was backing him up.
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