Customer Reviews

Firewall: The Iran-Contra Conspiracy and Cover-up

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

While I was at times confused by the legal problems Walsh's team were confronted with, I did clearly understand why Lawrence Walsh did not get very far with his investigation. Mainly it was because the targets of his investigation had designed a highly secretive plot and had the protection of the CIA or the National Security Council. Documents were denied or shredded, subjects lied or refused to testify all on the basis of "national security" or out of a belief that Congress had no right to interfere in foreign policy. After reading this book, I was shaken by the realization that under the guise of a "higher purpose" or holy war our democratic principles could so easily be dispensed with. Oliver North and President Reagan were rewarded with national affection despite showing utter contempt for the rule of law! Iran-Contra was a true case of Machiavellian politics because all of our most sacred principles were run over for the sake of the dictators ideology - that the end justifies the means. Firewall reveals the incipient dictatorship lurking beneath our fragile democracy.

This book is the story of a life-long Republican retired federal judge's seven year struggle to unravel the truth behind a vast government conspiracy to conceal willful violations of our country's laws by President Ronald Reagan and many members of his cabinet,CIA officials, members of his national security team and assorted Republican political operatives both inside Congress and out. Mr. Walsh does yeoman work in presenting the unvarnished truth he and his many assistants were finally able to decipher out of hundreds of thousands of original documents and the direct testimony of those his team were able to catch in their lies and bring into court under indictment. The complex legal issues and large cast of perpetrators makes this a difficult and necessarily repetitve slog, but the chilling story is one that Americans of any political persuasion need to be aware of. Lead by a naive President in the early stages of Alzheimers disease,and guided by a perverse notion of patriotic anticommunism that was the bedrock of cold war Republicanism, our top leaders deliberately violated laws put in place by Congress and even their own foreign policies relating to terrorism. When discovered these "patriots" launched an unprecedented web of lies and stonewalling to save Reagan from possible impeachment. Mr. Walsh was impeded at every step of his investigation and by all branches of the government. The importance of this account by Mr. Walsh is that irregardless of the legal results of the investigations, the truth of what happened and who did it is revealed for all to see. When this party touts its patriotism, beliefs in the rule of law and self responsiblity and the importance of character, remember what happened here.

A previous reviewer was critical of Walsh for not being able to get Oliver North for anything more than "spitting on the ground." Had this reviewer taken the time to actually read the book, he would have realized that Congress made that task next to impossible by granting North immunity in exchange for his testimony. The shredding of evidence and claims of "national security" for those few pieces of evidence that did survive made Walsh's task that much more difficult. Walsh is a lifelong Republican and was appointed by a Republican President to investigate a Republican cover-up (contrast this with Republican Kenneth Starr's appointment by Democrat Bill Clinton). Under the circumstances, he did a tremendous job. Though it is necessarily dry in the first few chapters (as he gives the legal background for the story to follow), this book dutifully recounts that struggle

Even for someone familiar with the Iran-Contra scandal, Walsh's account helps to clear up many details of the Washington power structure, and to understand the odds which he was against. The White House never intended him to do what he did. The book is sensational! NYTimes says first chapters are dull. Hah! Since the NYTimes didn't pick up on the scandal from the beginning, now it sniffs. What did NYTimes want.. photos of Hoover in his undies?

Finally a book that exposes the TRUTH on the Reagan administration. Readers need to keep in mind that although Judge Walsh did his homework, he could not get a DESERVED conviction due to a strong GOP Congress and Reagan's "halo effect" in the press's and public's eyes who refused to believe the TRUTH that Walsh, et al uncovered.

This book sheds light on the Reagan administration for all it's worth: lies, corruption, cover-up, deceit, treason, cabal. Always an actor in the Oval Office.

America should re-examine this SAD, UGLY incident in American history (TRUE high crimes and FELONIES) and stop worrying about Clinton's sex life (low crimes and misdemeanors).

At times, this reads as a text book. At times, it reads as a spy thriller. Walsh goes into great detail on the investigation and attempted prosecution of those involved in the Iran-Contra scandal. This book is best suited for those interested in the affair, and are anti Reagan/Bush. I was moved by the compassion of Walsh when after interviewing Reagan, felt it would have been more damaging to our nation to try and prosecute Reagan when it was apparent alzheimers had set in. Walsh felt Reagan knew more then he said, but he also knew that the alzheimers would have been humilitaing to Reagan, and would have made prosecution impossible.

The Iran-Contra case is well known as a bipartisan bludgeon. Are the news outlines of it accurate? Was the affair a minor bureaucratic transgression preyed upon by liberal hacks; a deceitful attack on the constitutional separation of powers (checks and balances); or a hyped media event?

Presiding (Republican) Judge Lawrence E. Walsh skillfully relates the jurisdictional history of the investigation and trial in `Firewall.' This includes the record of defendants Oliver North and Admiral Poindexter (both convicted), as well as Judge Silberman (known as `our ambassador to Iran' before he overturned the verdicts).

Media star Oliver North now makes an bountiful living hawking American `New-Order' patriotism for Australian Rupert Murdock. Admiral Poindexter left the current administration only after he sponsored a prospective internet website speculating (wagering) on terrorism targets. Judge Silberman was recently enlisted for an intelligence committee report (to obscure the 9/11 Commission findings?).

Though this may seem ancient history, the principals remain active. Walsh provides the best vehicle to examine their early history. You decide.

We at this point in history are required to grow misty eyed at the sudden recent discovery some twenty years later of alleged carefully hand written diaries beautifully bound of the now hallowed Reagan's recollections of times and events he later swore under oath he could not recall. We must remember earlier alleged handwritten diaries said to have been passed poolside at Managua's Intercontinental Hotel prior to a devastatng earthquake, from the scrawny hand of the elder Howard Hughes to an author later revealed as a fraud.

Let us rather bravely face the truth about the Reagan dynastic empire, run by papa bush (who claimed to be "out of the loop" while actually weaving it), and father to our present peril. Judge Walsh tells all, and then some, and describes all the subterfuge used to prevent his careful and judicious investigation from bearing any other fruit than an Ollie North career change.

As incredible as it may now appear, this book bears the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, supportable in a court of law as verifiable. Read it and watch how far down this darkly machiavellian path we have now proceeded, from this former time a generation ago in which the courts could still have possibly considered objective truth such as this.

This thick tome merits a place of honor upon your night reading stand. A more complete report may not be found in one place, but scattered throughout several other books and journals of that time. The criminals received no other punishment for their crimes against humanity and our Constitution than continued residence in the Oval Office.

Venceremos. No hay mal que dura un siglo.

While Firewall was excellent reading, I was able to broaden its conclusions by reading the biographies of Ronald Reagen and Oliver North.

In his book `Firewall,' purportedly the "definitive Iran/Contra book," Walsh decries the "lies and dissembling" by the "political upper crust" in the Reagan Administration to multiple Congressional inquiries into foreign policy. Therefore in my review, I feel it only fair to decry Walsh's disingenuous analysis of historical facts in general and the Constitutional balance of power between the three branches of government specifically, in order to justify his seven year inquisition, which cost taxpayers more than $35 million. This sacred quest that he imagined himself to have been on for the Holy Grail that Walsh calls, ad nauseam, to be the "rule of law," had very little to do with the factual record and in reality was simply a retaliation by Congressional Democrats against Reagan for defeating the incumbent Jimmy Carter in the 1980 presidential election. There can be little doubt that Congressional Democrats felt it particularly poetic when they were able to create a scandal for Reagan from Iran/Contra, since it was the Iranian hostage crisis that is generally accepted to have caused Carter's defeat at the polls. The basis of this conclusion, contrary to Walsh's misrepresentations, is that both the Iran arms deal and the Nicaraguan Contras can be tied directly to policy decisions made during Carter's tenure as president.
In 1979 as the Sandinistas overthrew the Anastasio Somoza regime - the Carter Administration made it known that America wasn't going to idly standby while Nicaragua experimented with a Marxist government. Then president, Jimmy Carter, insisted that the Sandinistas retain Somoza's National Guard, the Sandinistas balked and so Carter ordered the CIA to enlist Argentine officers to train the Nicaraguan exiles. These were the same Argentine officers who were running death squads during Argentina's own "dirty war," prior to the debacle with the British over the Falklands. The CIA called the exiles, made-up mostly of Somoza's former National Guard, Contras. Also in 1979, a coup overthrew the Romero dictatorship in El Salvador; the Carter Administration's response was to send millions in aid and riot equipment to the Salvadoran military, who were killing nearly 1,000 peasants and workers per month, send in military trainers and train Salvadoran officers in Panama. The Reagan Administration merely continued an existing policy toward Central America, albeit more successfully.
It was the mining of Nicaraguan harbors in 1984, which was condemned in the World Court at The Hague that prompted retaliation by Congressional Democrats against the intelligence community, specifically the CIA and Department of Defense. Although the predominant sentiment in Congress was that continued aid was critical to stop the spread of communism in Central America, then Speaker of the House, Democrat -- Jim Wright, sought to appease the Sandinistas at the expense of the Contras by attempting to usurp foreign policy from Reagan by using the "power of the pocketbook." In a series of contentious and close votes, Congressional Democrats pushed through a highly limited, very ambiguous compromise bill, because they didn't have the votes for a comprehensive ban, titled the Boland Amendments. These amendments were generally considered to be an unconstitutional interference of a president's ability to conduct foreign policy and were limited only to appropriated funds spent by intelligence agencies.
Reagan's national security officials used non-appropriated funds spent by the National Security Counsel as a stopgap measure to circumvent this petty amendment until the votes could be acquired to reinstitute funding in support of the Contras. No court ever made a determination on whether the Boland Amendments covered the NSC, and because it was a prohibition rather than a criminal statute, no one could be indicted for violating it anyway. As a final note, the Boland Amendments were repealed by a later Congress, elections forced on the Sandinistas by the Contras ousted the Marxists from power, and the "scandal" of Iran/Contra has been rightfully relegated to historical irrelevance. In view of the history, trivial nature and political atmosphere surrounding the details to the Iran/Contra so-called scandal, there should never have been an Independent Counsel investigation. No amount of rationalization by Walsh will justify the time and expenditure that went into his spurious crusade - as a taxpayer, and as a booklover I feel twice cheated. Firewall, much like the Iran/Contra scandal it depicts, is a fizzle.