In typical fashion for a member of the CIA’s Bush-Clinton-Obama network of U.S. political leaders who would have never reached their respective pinnacles of power, save for the fact that they were all groomed by the powers who run Langley, former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is supposedly “telling all” in his book, “Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War.”
Not surprisingly, Gates’s book heaps warm praise and empathy upon the two presidents for which he served as Secretary of Defense: George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Gates only mildly criticizes former Vice President Dick Cheney for always calling for military action over diplomacy, as if that was Cheney’s only transgression. Gates also sympathizes with Hillary Clinton for having to wade through the micromanagement of the Obama White House. Gates praises Mrs. Clinton for her role as secretary of state and feels that he and she were hamstrung by inexperienced aides and advisers in the White House.
Gates does not have much to say about his own background as an aide inside the White House, specifically the National Security Council (NSC) during the administration of President Jimmy Carter. Gates’s role in the Carter White House as a CIA officer on loan to the NSC is a prime example of Gates practicing the kind of treason for which the CIA has become notorious.
Gates was the primary snitch within the Carter White House who transmitted classified information to the 1980 Reagan-Bush campaign on efforts by Carter’s team to free U.S. hostages in Iran before the November 1980 election. It was the provision of information on White House talks with Iran’s government that permitted Reagan campaign officials, most notably George H. W. Bush and campaign chairman William Casey, to circumvent Carter’s initiative and cut their own deal with Iran that saw arms shipped to Iran by the CIA in return for no hostage release prior to the election. The failure by Carter to free the hostages is cited as the primary factor in his defeat by Reagan.
On February 5, 2008, WMR reported: “A March 16, 1981, memo written by then-unconfirmed Associate Attorney General [Rudolph] Giuliani to the Acting Criminal Division chief John Keeney, which was titled ‘CIA Referral—Alleged Foreign Government Interference With 1980 Presidential Election,’ suggests that the CIA referred to the Justice Department evidence that there was criminal activity involving a foreign power in the 1980 presidential election.
That criminal activity is now known as the Reagan-Bush campaign’s ‘October Surprise’ and, as previously reported by WMR, included using the US-flag merchant vessel, SS Poet, to ship arms and spare parts from Philadelphia to the Iranian regime in October 1980 to ensure the hostages were kept in place until after the November election. The Poet was reportedly disposed of during the Iran-Iraq ‘fog of war’ in the Persian Gulf, along with its crew of 34 US merchant mariners.”
On July 2, 2008, WMR followed up with the following report: “WMR has learned from a former CIA clandestine services officer that the SS Poet, after delivering its arms to Iran, was dispatched by the military forces of a ‘third party.’ Apparently, the idea that there were 34 Americans who were witnesses to an act of treason against the United States and the illegal influencing of an American presidential election, was too risky for the conspirators. When asked the identity of the ‘third party,’ the CIA source responded simply: ‘the Israelis.’
Instead, George H. W. Bush, Reagan’s vice presidential candidate, along with Reagan campaign manager William Casey, Carter National Security Council staffer Robert Gates, Donald Gregg of the CIA, and other criminal conspirators, negotiated secret arms shipments to Iran in return for ‘no hostages’ prior to the election. WMR has reported that Bush and Casey secretly visited Paris on October 19, 1980, to hammer out the ‘arms-for-no hostages’ deal with representatives of the Ayatollah Khomeini’s government.”
Gates would also like the American people forget about his sizable role in the Iran-contra scandal. WMR’s November 9, 2006, report was a reminder of Gates’s role in the scandal that put in jeopardy the presidency of Ronald Reagan:
“Defense Secretary-designate Robert Gates in position to know about Iran-Contra scandal. The final report of Judge Lawrence Walsh, the independent counsel for Iran-Contra Matters, issued on Aug. 4, 1993, concluded, ‘Robert M. Gates was the Central Intelligence Agency’s deputy director for intelligence (DDI) from 1982 to 1986. He was confirmed as the CIA’s deputy director of central intelligence (DDCI) in April of 1986 and became acting director of central intelligence in December of that same year. Owing to his senior status in the CIA, Gates was close to many figures who played significant roles in the Iran/contra affair and was in a position to have known of their activities.’”
“The report continued, ‘Gates was an early subject of Independent Counsel’s investigation, but the investigation of Gates intensified in the spring of 1991 as part of a larger inquiry into the Iran/contra activities of CIA officials. This investigation received an additional impetus in May 1991, when President Bush nominated Gates to be director of central intelligence (DCI).’
“Walsh refocused on Gates after Clair E. George, the CIA’s Deputy Director for Operations stonewalled the prosecutor on the role of Gates in Iran-Contra crimes. Walsh reserved the right to re-open the investigation of Gates but was stymied by the noncooperation of George and Gates. Walsh said new information ‘could have warranted reopening his inquiry [of Gates], including testimony by Clair E. George, the CIA’s former deputy director for operations. At the time Independent Counsel reached this decision [not to prosecute Gates], the possibility remained that George could have provided information warranting reconsideration of Gates’s status in the investigation. George refused to cooperate with Independent Counsel and was indicted on September 19, 1991. George subpoenaed Gates to testify as a defense witness at George’s first trial in the summer of 1992, but Gates was never called.’
“It is clear from the Walsh Report that Gates was an integral part of the illegal network that sold TOW anti-tank missiles to Iran in exchange for the release of U.S. hostages in Lebanon and that proceeds from the arms sales were illegally diverted to the Nicaraguan Contras. That put Gates inside a web of conspirators in the illegal arms sales and money transfers who included Oliver North, National Security Adviser John Poindexter, former National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane, intermediaries Manucher Ghorbanifar, Albert Hakim, Mohsen Kangarlu, and Maj. Gen. Richard V. Secord, Hashem Rafsanjani (the nephew of Iranian leader Ali Akbar Rafsanjani), and other senior CIA officials.
“Former CIA officer Mel Goodman’s charges against Gates are cited in Mark Perry’s book Eclipse: The Last Days of the CIA. Goodman said that Gates and CIA director William Casey were very much involved in the Iran-Contra scandal, having ‘purposely manipulated the Directorate of Intelligence in order to support the opening to Iran in 1985.’ Goodman also charged that Gates and Casey ‘consistently underestimated evidence of economic problems in the Soviet empire because the data did not accord with their own beliefs; they had suppressed and derailed intelligence estimates that called into question Soviet sponsorship of international terrorism; they had dictated a study that showed Soviet complicity in the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II when no such evidence existed.’ Gates’ predecessor, Judge William Webster, according to Perry’s account, opened an investigation of Casey’s and his deputy Gates’ attempt to politicize the CIA. The Democratic Congress should subpoena the Webster investigation report in the confirmation hearings of Gates to be Defense Secretary.
In what makes the more recent lying about pre-war intelligence on Iraq seem like déjà vu, Goodman said that Gates ‘had contempt for a process that was designed to allow independent analysis [and] the President of the United States was given falsified reports and uncoordinated analysis.’
“Gates obfuscation on Iran-Contra continues to this day. As president of Texas A&M University, Gates has been the host for the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library. In the bowels of the library are presidential papers that could shine a bright light on the Iran-contra scandal. However, in November 2001, George W. Bush signed an executive order that upended the 1978 Presidential Records Act and permits the Bush Iran-Contra papers to be kept secret in perpetuity. The executive order also affects 60,000 pages of papers from the Reagan Presidential Library that include details of then-Vice President George H. W. Bush’s role in Iran-contra. Robert Gates has always been a trusted consigliore for the Bush family. At the Pentagon, he will undoubtedly use his two years to clean up for Dubya and suppress incriminating information on the Iraq debacle—all in a continuing effort to protect the Bush family legacy. His nomination should be rejected.”
Gates is now rewriting history and trying to rehabilitate himself in the process. In 1987, Gates withdrew his nomination to be CIA director because he faced certain rejection by the Senate. Gates was nominated to be CIA director after Casey’s very timely death and “death bed” interview by The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward. And it just so happened that Woodward was given a sneak preview by Gates of his new memoirs. In 1991, Gates barely squeaked by in the Senate vote to confirm him as CIA director. In the interim, Gates served as President Bush’s deputy national security adviser, where he ensured that all “smoking gun” documents related to his and Bush’s role in Iran-contra never saw the light of day.
Gates’s book is typical codswallop from the oligarchical elite that runs America. Gates’s critical views of kleptomaniac Afghan President Hamid Karzai and South Korea’s liberal President Roh Moo-hyun are in keeping with the low traditions of American consigliores criticizing leaders of U.S. client states who have the temerity to challenge Washington’s authority. While Gates’s factoids about his dissing of world leaders may be of interest to buffs of historical trivia, it is best to wait until his book appears on the $1 remainders’ table before reading about them.
Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.
Copyright © 2014 WayneMadenReport.com
Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report (subscription required).
