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January 25, 1987

The Iran Affair: An Insider’s Account

By Michael A. Ledeen

One of those present at the creation in the Iran affair was Michael Ledeen, at the time a consultant to the National Security Council. Ledeen, currently a senior fellow at Georgetown University's Center for Strategic and International Studies, has testified before Congress but said little in public so far about his role in the Iran affair. In this article, he tells part of that story. Ledeen's account inevitably reflects his own point of view and, by his own account, is incomplete in some areas. But it does provide an insider's explanation of how the Iran affair began.

DISCUSSION OF the American initiative toward Iran has often overlooked what is for me the most interesting part: The original push came not from Washington, nor from Jerusalem, but -- so far as I can reconstruct the story -- from Tehran. The "Iranian connection" that was first established in the summer of 1985 was almost certainly that: An initiative that started in Iran and extended through Jerusalem to Washington.

Reconstructing the story is difficult, for there may be no single individual who, at this point, has all the essential facts. I had a brief involvement in this affair and, so far as I know, was the first American to meet with an authoritative Iranian.

As part of my work as a part-time consultant to the National Security Council on issues related to terrorism, I was interested in getting a better picture of the true state of affairs inside Iran. There was good reason for the American government to be concerned about Iran. The prolonged war with Iraq had taken a considerable toll, and the meager information available to the American government suggested that drastic change inside Iran was not unlikely, even in the relatively near term.

Khomeini's health was notoriously fragile, social violence -- reminiscent of the late Middle Ages when private armies warred against each other in the name of their seigneurs -- was reportedly rampant, and Iran seemed quite close to the Hobbesian state of nature: "the war of every man against every man." Moreover, there was concern that this sort of dynamic chaos presented numerous opportunities for the Soviet Union, with its long joint border with Iran, and its tradition of periodic intrusion into Iranian affairs. The presence of no less than five Soviet divisions along the Iranian border still gives considerable emphasis to such anxiety.

Despite our strong feelings about the current Iranian regime, we had a decided preference for a government in Tehran that would be more moderate. And given the choice between an Iran under Soviet influence and one closer to the West, we decidedly preferred the latter -- just as we do in Afghanistan.

On the Iranian side, the deep-seated (some would say irrational) suspicion of the United States was changing. Many Iranians -- both inside the country and in exile, followers and opponents of Khomeini -- had again begun to look to the United States to play a role in the outcome of their latest national crisis. The American government had been repeatedly approached by Iranian exiles asking for help in challenging the Khomeini regime, and, as the events of 1985-86 have amply demonstrated, even high-ranking members of the Iranian government -- despite their violent denunciations of the United States -- were willing to work toward an improvement in relations between the two countries.

In early 1985 there was, then, a solid basis on both sides for some sort of initiative. But the United States government lacked the detailed information necessary for the design -- let alone the conduct -- of a sensible policy.

The policy debate in Washington reflected the paucity of good information. Some officials thought that the Shiite revolution was irreversible and that we ought to come to terms with it, working towards normalization of relations, even without any change in Iranian behavior. Others believed that we should attempt to demonstrate that the United States could move effectively against the Iranian regime before the death of Khomeini, on the grounds that if he died without some such American action, he would become a legendary figure and an inspiration for countless millions of radical Moslems throughout the world.

Each of these views was plausible but lacked a sound foundation. For we simply did not know enough to decide if there was any responsible and productive role for the United States to play in the immediate future of Iran.

I had written about Iran in the past, and was encouraged to work toward a better understanding of the country, and its role in international terrorism, for the NSC. I discussed these questions with several experts in a variety of Western countries, and many of them suggested that the Israelis probably knew more than anybody else. Accordingly, in early May of 1985 I traveled to Israel to continue my research.

I was on good terms with several of the officials of the government headed by Labor Party leader Shimon Peres, for in 1981-82, as an official of the State Department, I had met regularly with leading figures in the Socialist International -- including Peres and his top advisers.

The May discussions in Israel were with people ranging from high-level governmental officials to recent immigrants from Iran. The topic was improving our mutual understanding of Iran; the subject of American hostages in Lebanon was not discussed. Two main points emerged from virtually every one of those conversations. The first was that even the best-informed Israelis were themselves dissatisfied with their own understanding of Iranian affairs; the second was that they, like us, believed that the matter was sufficiently important to warrant further investigation. They therefore promised to continue their own efforts and to share with us any worthwhile results.

Israel obviously had its own reasons for seeking contact with Iran -- including its hostility toward Iraq and concern about the Jewish population in Iran -- which the United States didn't necessarily share. Nevertheless, the United States had its own reasons for drawing on Israel's expertise.

In early July of 1985, a person I had not previously known -- Al Schwimmer, the retired chief of Israel Aircraft Industries and a personal friend of Prime Minister Peres -- came to Washington from Israel to inform me that the Israelis had been contacted by an apparently very well-informed Iranian named Manucher Ghorbanifar, who not only possessed a profound understanding of his country but -- apparently with the encouragement of leading members of the Iranian government -- was interested in discussing future relations between Iran and the United States. Ghorbanifar had been introduced to the Israelis -- my impression was that the encounter had taken place quite recently -- by the celebrated Saudi Arabian businessman, Adnan Khashoggi. Schwimmer urged a meeting with the Iranian as soon as possible to listen to his story.

I went to Israel in the second half of July, and the meeting took place there towards the end of the month. The others present were David Kimche (the director general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry), Schwimmer, and Jacob Nimrodi (a businessman and arms dealer who was fluent in Farsi as a result of his activities as former Israeli military attache in Tehran). During the course of the conversations with Ghorbanifar, it became evident that while Khashoggi had arranged the contact, Ghorbanifar had been seeking a channel to the United States for quite some time. The route through Jerusalem was the latest in a series of his efforts.

At this meeting and during subsequent conversations, Ghorbanifar demonstrated an extraordinary ability to seek maximum gain for his own country while simultaneously finding ways to accommodate the interests of the parties with whom he was dealing. A self-made businessman who had twice achieved considerable financial success, Ghorbanifar proved himself to be one of those rare individuals who understands not only the subtleties of his own culture, but our own as well. And his interests and energies were seemingly unlimited; for example, he managed to find the time to translate a lengthy book about Soviet espionage from English into Farsi -- writing in longhand in the small hours of the night.

The long conversation with Ghorbanifar in late July was significant, both for the analysis of the situation in his own country that he presented, and for the message that he carried: Leading members of the Iranian government were willing to take steps to improve relations with the United States, provided that the United States responded in like manner. It was a wide-ranging conversation. Among other points, it was made clear to Ghorbanifar that the United States could not possibly have good relations with a country that continued to support international terrorism. While stressing that the Tehran government vigorously denied any direct role in terrorist activities, Ghorbanifar indicated it might be possible to take steps to prevent any further actions. Further, he said, the United States would see other, visible evidence of the seriousness of the Iranian government.

Ghorbanifar was told that the United States would need some evidence that the Iranian did indeed represent a valid channel to his government. He brought with him no document from anyone in Tehran, no proof of his bona fides. How could one believe that he was who he said he was? And, even if it was determined that he was in fact a legitimate emissary of the Khomeini government -- or some elements of it -- why should anyone accept his assurances that the Iranians would in fact change a significant number of their policies? On his side, he posed similar questions; how could he assure the Iranians that the United States was indeed willing to work toward better relations with a government that was regularly denounced by every leading American official as one of the most hateful regimes in the world?

The questions of hostages and weapons first emerged in this context. Ghorbanifar raised these matters, not as a proposed swap, but as a way that each side could satisfy the other about the legitimacy of the channel, and the ability of the respective governments to take steps to demonstrate the seriousness of their intentions.

Iran, he said, could not move toward better relations with the United States so long as America acted forcefully to deprive Iran of the ability to obtain the weapons needed to defend itself against Iraq. Thus, he said, a symbolic gesture -- permitting Iran to obtain weapons hitherto beyond its reach -- was called for. By a similar symbolic gesture -- acting to free Americans held hostage by terrorists -- Iran would show its willingness and ability to combat terrorism waged against the United States.

The hostage issue was a vexing and complex humanitarian question for the United States in the summer of 1985, for one of the American hostages in Lebanon was an official of our government, and was reportedly being subjected to systematic torture. What, if any, were the obligations of the United States government toward William Buckley, the American official taken hostage in Lebanon? Was the policy of "no negotiations, no concessions" to apply also to governments in a position to influence events? Or should the United States categorically refuse to make any gesture towards Iran that might, albeit indirectly, lead to the release of an American official?

Shipping arms to Iran, or even acquiescing in their shipment, raised many issues, among them the prospect of long-term linkage. The gesture proposed by Ghorbanifar was likely to be read in Tehran as a willingness to ease the arms embargo if the Iranians changed their policies. It was made clear that, whatever happened, there was no prospect that the United States would do anything to enable Iran to overwhelm Iraq.

On the Iranian side, Ghorbanifar said that Iranian willingness to cooperate with the United States would be demonstrated in several ways. One fairly public act did in fact occur a short time thereafter, during the week of the celebration of the Khomeini Revolution in September. On past occasions, the Iranian leaders had always denounced the United States as the "Great Satan" and proclaimed the unrelenting hatred of the ayatollahs for America and everything we stand for. In September 1985, however, the leading spokesmen for the Iranian Government did not attack the United States, and at least one of them attacked the Soviet Union instead.

What should the American government have done in the late summer of 1985? To begin with, there was the matter of the reliability of the Iranian interlocutor. He was known to be active for Iran in the international market, and his story could have been a fable invented for the purpose of obtaining weapons for his country, and commissions for himself. He could even have been an agent provocateur, sent by the Iranians -- or even the KGB -- to test American intentions or to ensnare us into an embarrassing action which they could then expose.

There were questions about Ghorbanifar's integrity at the time, and it has since emerged that he failed more than one lie detector test. The polygraph problem may have stemmed from his need to protect information he deemed sensitive. Despite our suspicions, he proved to be a reliable channel whose analyses of the Iranian situation were quite valuable.

If Ghorbanifar was indeed a legitimate channel from top governmental officials in Iran, would the United States not be acting irresponsibly if we didn't respond to his initiative? In other words, if Ghorbanifar were capable of putting the United States in direct contact with powerful Iranians interested in better relations, why should we be concerned about his private moral standards or business activities? The question that had to be answered was not "Who is he?" but rather, "What can he do?"

The first order of business then, was to attempt to learn more about the Iranian's connections back in Tehran. He quickly passed an initial test: During the course of the July conversations, he picked up the telephone in Tel Aviv, dialed the number of one of the top members of the government in Tehran, got the official on the line, and spoke openly about his meetings with us and the possibility of positive results. Listening on the extension was Nimrodi, who was able to verify the nature of the conversation and the person with whom the Iranian was speaking. Other evidence was acquired in the following days, sufficient to provide at least a reasonable basis for believing, at a minimum, that Ghorbanifar had high-level connections in Tehran.

Early in August, David Kimche described the contacts with Ghorbanifar, along with the considerable body of information about the Iranian situation that had been gathered in the meantime, to Robert McFarlane, the national security adviser. I was not present at the conversation and have no first-hand knowledge of what transpired. Nor did I know the particulars of the financial activities taking place behind the scenes, apparently again involving Khashoggi.

What was clear was that a joint test of the sort that had been discussed did in fact take place in September. Weapons reached Iran, and an American hostage, the Rev. Benjamin Weir, reached freedom. Each side was entitled to conclude that the channel was authentic. The dialogue had now to turn to the central issue: the evolution of the American-Iranian relationship.

The conversations continued in several meetings during the autumn of 1985 involving persons from the United States, Israel, and Iran. Quite predictably, the dialogue revolved around two questions: an expanded agenda of cooperative actions between Iran and the United States, and future actions involving arms and hostages.

Inside the U.S. government, one view -- which I shared -- was that all discussions of hostages and weapons should cease. Quite aside from the general principle that it is almost always a mistake to pay ransom for hostages, it was urgent to see if the Iranian leaders were willing to alter their policies in order to achieve better relations with us. If, at the same time, the Iranians found it possible to continue to obtain American-made weapons, we might never be able to evaluate the real intentions of the Iranian leaders with whom we were in contact. They might simply be pretending to cooperate with us in order to acquire arms. This was also McFarlane's assessment.

The other view was that hostage release should be a principal objective of our dialogue with the Iranians, even if it meant further arms transfers. This view was obviously based on a compassionate belief that it was improper for the government of the United States to stand by when something could be done to liberate the hostages.

One of the paradoxes of the contemporary scene is that even the most resolute Western leaders have fallen hostage to such compassion; Israel's Begin and Sharon -- notoriously tough with terrorists -- negotiated the deal whereby over 1,000 Arab and Japanese terrorists were traded for three junior Israeli army officers. President Mitterrand and Prime Minister Chirac in France have both devoted enormous efforts to negotiating the release of French hostages in Lebanon. These actions were not the result of cynical political calculations, for both the French and Israeli governments negotiated the release of hostages at a time when there was no particular public demand for them to do so. Whatever pressure existed came from the hostages' families and from the innermost convictions of the leaders. So it seems to have been in the American case in the autumn of 1985.

These would have been difficult questions even under the best circumstances, and the circumstances were far from good. For the autumn of 1985 produced the third personnel crisis for the National Security Council in 4 years, leading in December to the departure from the White House of Robert McFarlane. And McFarlane, perhaps in part because he was preparing to resign, had indicated to me and others in mid-November that he was inclined to abandon the entire Iranian venture. Shortly thereafter I was asked to direct my energies to other aspects of the terrorism issue.

I have no first-hand knowledge of the events of the past year, and even during the period of my involvement there is undoubtedly a good deal of which I am ignorant. But it seems fair to draw a few conclusions:One of the great tragedies in the Iran affair is that the efforts to improve the relationship between the two countries got so intimately intertwined with the question of hostages that it is difficult to judge whether the diplomatic and geopolitical objectives could have been achieved. This judgment is crucial not only in evaluating past behavior, but in shaping future policy.

Nonetheless, I believe that there was -- and may still be -- a strong inclination on the part of at least some top officials within the Iranian government to work towards better relations with the United States. There was fierce opposition to their efforts, and each step toward better relations with us entailed enormous internal stress and strain. But they have made headway, as is demonstrated even by the way in which this matter came to light: It was revealed to the world by forces violently opposed to the evolving relationship with the United States. Moreover, according to the best experts in this country, during the course of this dialogue, Iranian-sponsored acts of terrorism against the United States ceased. (Indeed, just as in the case of the spectacular "leak" that exposed the affair, it may well be that those who took the most recent American hostages in Beirut were trying desperately to undermine the moves toward better relations.)

Khomeini's behavior itself suggests the growing strength of the pro-Western forces in Iran. In recent times, along with his increasingly delicate health, the ayatollah has played the role of arbiter among the conflicting factions. Had he wished to deliver a stern lesson to those working for better relations with the United States, the revelations of early November would have provided a splendid opportunity; yet he moved quickly to block any investigation. At this point there appears to be no demand for full disclosure to special investigatory committees in the Iranian Majlis.

All this suggests it would have been a grave error for the United States to ignore the opening from Tehran, even though the September 1985 "test" was fraught with risk. The decision to pursue the Iranian connecton at least succeeded in leading to a continued dialogue. The advantages to the United States from such a dialogue were substantial, and not limited to mere words or to the release of a few hostages. How many lives were saved by the suspension of acts of Iranian-sponsored terrorism? And the prospect of future progress remains.

This brings us to the all-important question: Where do we go from here? I do not know whether the channels are still open, or whether the Iranians with whom the United States has dealt for the past year are still willing to play what is a very risky game. But one must hope that the Iranian initiative, in the sense of high-level contacts, will be continued. It is certainly in the interests of both the United States and Iran. Only the Soviet Union stands to lose from such a dialogue.

If we intend to continue this dialogue, some care needs to be exercised. Certainly all the publicity in Washington, even before the revelation of the Central American connection that apparently developed in 1986 after my involvement had ended, cannot have helped. Congress, or at least an appropriate subset of its members, is entitled to know in detail what happened. But one would hope that Congress and the executive would together decide to protect whatever does not involve illegal conduct.

It is in all our interests to demonstrate to the rest of the world that America knows a strategic country when it sees one and that, in our efforts to begin relations with such a country after a period of estrangement, we are worthy of trust and cooperation.