Secret Intelligence; The Enterprise; 104

<v Narrator 1>Secret Intelligence is made possible by public television stations and the Corporation <v Narrator 1>for Public Broadcasting. Additional funding has been provided by United Airlines, <v Narrator 1>rededicated to giving you the service you deserve. <v Bill Kurtis>[marching band playing] January 20th, 1981. <v Bill Kurtis>On this day, Ronald Reagan replaced Jimmy Carter as president of the United <v Bill Kurtis>States. <v Ronald Reagan>I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States and will <v Ronald Reagan>to the best- <v Bill Kurtis>[Reagan still speaking] Carter had come to office determined to curb the excesses of the <v Bill Kurtis>CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies. <v Bill Kurtis>[applause] Reagan believed the result had crippled America's espionage capabilities. <v Bill Kurtis>Yet both of their intelligence policies failed them. <v Bill Kurtis>[wind blowing] Iran would play the pivotal role in those failures. <v Bill Kurtis>Carter's attempts to rescue American diplomatic hostages ended in tragedy in the Iranian <v Bill Kurtis>desert and doomed his hopes of reelection.

<v Bill Kurtis>[music plays] The rescue attempt also led to the formation of a highly secret Pentagon <v Bill Kurtis>anti-terrorist unit: The Special Operations Division. <v Bill Kurtis>As we shall see from this unit sprang the idea of The Enterprise, <v Bill Kurtis>an unaccountable group of secret warriors created by the Reagan White House <v Bill Kurtis>to conduct covert operations first in Central America and then <v Bill Kurtis>throughout the world. <v Man 1>Existing off the shelf, self-sustaining standalone <v Man 1>entity that could perform certain activities on behalf of the United <v Man 1>States. <v Bill Kurtis>From the zealous men who ran the secret enterprise would come the controversial affair <v Bill Kurtis>now known as Iran-Contra, a government crisis not only of men, <v Bill Kurtis>but of the Constitution itself. <v Bill Kurtis>In this, the final hour of our series, we'll see the disturbing consequences <v Bill Kurtis>of what happens when the pendulum of U.S.

<v Bill Kurtis>espionage swings from one extreme to another. <v Bill Kurtis>America's new president, himself a former CIA director, will have to determine <v Bill Kurtis>just what role America's secret world of intelligence will play in pursuing <v Bill Kurtis>his policies. What he decides may very well determine the outcome <v Bill Kurtis>of his presidency. [music plays] <v Bill Kurtis>[shouting] [crashing] In January 1979, after months of rioting, the shah of <v Bill Kurtis>Iran was overthrown. <v Bill Kurtis>Ayatollah Khomeini seized power in the name of Islam.

<v Bill Kurtis>The United States was vilified as the Great Satan. <v Bill Kurtis>Soon after, the U.S. embassy was seized. <v Gary Sick>There were open lines to Tehran and we had these disembodied <v Gary Sick>voices from the other side of the world coming through to us describing a <v Gary Sick>really terrible situation. There were uh militants beating on the <v Gary Sick>door outside there uh, the wall that they had uh they <v Gary Sick>had withdrawn to. <v Gary Sick>Uh there was uh things were getting very hot. <v Gary Sick>They were burning uh paper inside trying to destroy classified documents. <v Gary Sick>And what they couldn't tell and one never can tell, I'd been in a vault like that once, <v Gary Sick>um uh was whether the heat was coming from inside or

<v Gary Sick>whether, in fact, the embassy was on fire. So they didn't know at all what their status <v Gary Sick>was. And they were fighting. <v Gary Sick>Uh I mean, they were they feared for their lives and they had good reason to fear for <v Gary Sick>their lives. <v Bill Kurtis>[shouting] As Iranian militants stormed the embassy, American hostages were taken. <v Bill Kurtis>They would be held captive 444 agonizing days. <v Bill Kurtis>These events took the United States and its intelligence agencies by surprise. <v Bill Kurtis>Only six months earlier, the CIA had reported to Carter that Iran <v Bill Kurtis>is not in a revolutionary or even prerevolutionary situation. <v Jimmy Carter>Iran, because of the great leadership of the Shah, <v Jimmy Carter>is an island of stability <v Jimmy Carter>in one of the more troubled areas of the world. <v Gary Sick>The Iranian revolution was a major intelligence <v Gary Sick>failure on the part of the United States.

<v Gary Sick>The knowledge that there was trouble in Iran was uh universal. <v Gary Sick>Uh nobody had any doubt that uh the Shah was in trouble, that his regime was <v Gary Sick>facing a challenge. Uh there were, after all, riots in the street every 40 <v Gary Sick>days [honking] that the ?inaudible? overlooked. The question was not whether there is <v Gary Sick>trouble in Iran. The question and making policy was <v Gary Sick>how far is it going to go? What is the outcome of this going to be? <v Gary Sick>And so it involved a determination about whether the Shah could realistically <v Gary Sick>expect to survive that challenge or whether he was going to go under. <v Gary Sick>And that was where the failure came in, was in estimating what the effects of this were, <v Gary Sick>how deep it went and what it was likely to do as far as policy was concerned. <v Bill Kurtis>[music plays] [chanting] Iran was America's worst intelligence failure since Pearl <v Bill Kurtis>Harbor. But how had this breakdown of analysis happened? <v Bill Kurtis>Blind support of the Shah was one reason. <v Bill Kurtis>The intelligence policies of Carter was another. <v Bill Kurtis>He won the presidency as an outsider, a leader untarnished by Vietnam,

<v Bill Kurtis>Watergate and the excesses of the CIA. <v Bill Kurtis>At CIA headquarters, he announced his intention to reform <v Bill Kurtis>the agency. <v Jimmy Carter>I'll do all I can working with past directors who are here <v Jimmy Carter>and the secretary of defense who is here, the attorney general who is here, <v Jimmy Carter>and other leaders who are here to let the American people have an accurate assessment- <v Jimmy Carter>and the deepest possible commitment. <v Jimmy Carter>But every action of the intelligence community now and <v Jimmy Carter>in the future will be legal and proper. <v Bill Kurtis>Carter was determined to minimize secret actions by secret agents <v Bill Kurtis>to replace humans wherever possible with spy machines. <v Bill Kurtis>There were many to choose from. <v Bill Kurtis>New and dazzling ones, like the KH 11 satellite and ?ol'? <v Bill Kurtis>reliables. Among them, the high flying U2 and the world's <v Bill Kurtis>fastest airplane, the SR 71.

<v Bill Kurtis>The eagerness to exploit this technology was shared by Carter's CIA director, <v Bill Kurtis>Admiral Stansfield Turner. <v Stansfield Turner>It was clear to people in American intelligence that the technical systems <v Stansfield Turner>for collecting data had overwhelmed the old spy systems. <v Stansfield Turner>That meant that all of us running intelligence turned in different <v Stansfield Turner>directions, and this had happened long before my time, but we were just beginning to <v Stansfield Turner>really appreciate that the revolution had happened when I got there. <v Stansfield Turner>We turned in different directions when we had a problem, when we had a crisis. <v Stansfield Turner>Our instinct was to go for one of these technical systems and say, I want <v Stansfield Turner>some information right now about what's happening. <v Bill Kurtis>But many CIA officers resented Turner and his emphasis on machines and resigned. <v Bill Kurtis>Robert Simmons was one of them [Simmons speaking]. <v Robert Simmons>I think that when uh the Carter administration came into power,

<v Robert Simmons>they had a deep distrust of the intelligence community, in particular, uh a distrust <v Robert Simmons>of the clandestine service. They weren't comfortable with dealing with people who <v Robert Simmons>led secret lives, but human source collection, talking to somebody <v Robert Simmons>in a foreign country, debriefing a defector, uh talking <v Robert Simmons>to prisoners of war. These are vital elements uh of the whole intelligence <v Robert Simmons>picture. And I felt that the Carter administration in particular <v Robert Simmons>uh and Admiral Turner were focusing much more on the <v Robert Simmons>technical aspects of intelligence collection and <v Robert Simmons>much less on human source collection. <v Robert Simmons>And so I quit in disgust. <v Robert Simmons>Uh I was frustrated by the situation that I was faced with, and I think many of my <v Robert Simmons>colleagues were frustrated as well. <v Bill Kurtis>Those worries about overreliance on technology were shared by Carter's national security <v Bill Kurtis>adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski. <v Zbigniew Brzezinski>The American intelligence is about the best in the world

<v Zbigniew Brzezinski>when it comes to the scientific technical dimensions of intelligence. <v Zbigniew Brzezinski>But it's certainly not up to par when it comes to <v Zbigniew Brzezinski>making sound political judgments, when <v Zbigniew Brzezinski>it comes to cultivating and nourishing <v Zbigniew Brzezinski>important political relationships that yield intelligence. <v Zbigniew Brzezinski>What are you gonna do uh- <v Bill Kurtis>[Brzezinski inaudibly speaking] Turner quickly learned the limitations of technology when <v Bill Kurtis>he was unable to produce information requested by the president. <v Stansfield Turner>Well, there was a small war and a remote con- <v Stansfield Turner>pair of remote countries and the president, I think more as an experiment <v Stansfield Turner>than anything because he was new and I was new and he'd like to see some pictures <v Stansfield Turner>of what was going on. And I told the satellite people, quick, get us some pictures for <v Stansfield Turner>the president. I was embarrassed day after day, week after week when we did <v Stansfield Turner>not have any. [speaking] It turned out that the instructions to the

<v Stansfield Turner>satellite people uh were misinterpreted. <v Stansfield Turner>I was uh several weeks before I finally got some pictures for the president. <v Stansfield Turner>Very embarrassing, but it was typical of the problem we had. <v Stansfield Turner>We were just really coming into this whole new age and learning to <v Stansfield Turner>give the right instructions, learning to use these devices to best advantage. <v Bill Kurtis>But pictures even when in hand cannot ?divine? <v Bill Kurtis>thoughts and intentions. <v Bill Kurtis>[music plays] This, the United States would learn, in Iran. <v Bill Kurtis>a place teeming with U.S. listening devices for eavesdropping on the nearby Soviet <v Bill Kurtis>Union. But a country where the CIA had virtually no human assets, <v Bill Kurtis>no one who was probing inside the minds of the Iranian people. <v Man 2>[singing in Arabic] <v Bill Kurtis>The shah ?reigned? because of U.S. supports.

<v Bill Kurtis>But behind the pageantry, laid political repression, even torture carried out <v Bill Kurtis>by Iran's CIA trained secret police SAVAK. <v Bill Kurtis>[music plays] This fact, U.S. presidents from Eisenhower to Carter, overlooked. <v Bill Kurtis>Yet despite America's unwavering support, Iran's ruler was deeply suspicious <v Bill Kurtis>of the nation that had brought him to power. <v Gary Sick>In 1953, the United States had conspired to put the Shah back on the throne <v Gary Sick>uh when he was under uh challenge in what has been referred to <v Gary Sick>as a [people shouting] countercoup, a covert action. <v Gary Sick>That stuck, of course, in the Shah's mind and he was constantly aware after that <v Gary Sick>and feared that the United States could do the reverse, that if we disagreed with him, we <v Gary Sick>could uh take him off the throne as well. <v Gary Sick>And so he wanted to do as much as possible to keep us out <v Gary Sick>of his domestic activities. <v Gary Sick>And I think he succeeded uh very well in getting us out of those activities.

<v Gary Sick>We quit looking uh at the opposition uh in Iran and <v Gary Sick>in effect, ended up being very badly prepared for what came along. <v Bill Kurtis>The White House was badly prepared in another way. <v Bill Kurtis>With few political resources inside Iran, there were even fewer options <v Bill Kurtis>for rescuing the American hostages. <v Bill Kurtis>Carter, who had come to office wary of covert operations, found himself <v Bill Kurtis>turning more and more to America's secret warriors for solutions. <v Zbigniew Brzezinski>We spend a great deal of time agonizing over what kind of a charter <v Zbigniew Brzezinski>ought to be promulgated under which the intelligence activities would be conducted. <v Zbigniew Brzezinski>I think subsequently, but not too long thereafter, the president started <v Zbigniew Brzezinski>approving quite a few covert activities. <v Bill Kurtis>[airplane whirring] In desperation, Carter approved a military mission to free the <v Bill Kurtis>American hostages. U.S. <v Bill Kurtis>helicopters loaded with Delta ?commandos?

<v Bill Kurtis>flew through the night of April 24th, 1980, to a rendezvous spot <v Bill Kurtis>codenamed Desert One. <v Bill Kurtis>There, they met disaster. <v Jimmy Carter>Late yesterday, I canceled a carefully planned operation <v Jimmy Carter>which was underway in Iran to position our rescue team <v Jimmy Carter>for a later withdrawal of American hostages. <v Jimmy Carter>As our team was withdrawing after my order to do so, two <v Jimmy Carter>of our American aircraft collided on the ground following <v Jimmy Carter>a refueling operation in a remote desert location in Iran. <v Jimmy Carter>[music plays] To my deep regret, 8 of the crewmen of the two aircrafts <v Jimmy Carter>which collided, were killed. <v Bill Kurtis>The wreckage in the Iranian desert became a symbol of Carter's inability to

<v Bill Kurtis>respond to world events. <v Bill Kurtis>It was also a humiliation for the Pentagon special forces, which resolved <v Bill Kurtis>never to be caught in such a failure again. <v Bill Kurtis>The new American president agreed. <v Bill Kurtis>Ronald Reagan promised a new era, a time when America would reassert <v Bill Kurtis>its world leadership and aggressively fight terrorism and communism. <v Bill Kurtis>[applause] <v Man 3>If you place, your left hand on the Bible and raise your right hand. <v Bill Kurtis>[inaudible speaking] It was a position that came naturally to this veteran of the Cold <v Bill Kurtis>War. During the Red Scare, Reagan was president of the Screen <v Bill Kurtis>Actors Guild in Hollywood. <v Ronald Reagan>?inaudible? small ?inaudible? <v Ronald Reagan>has been referred to, has been discussed as more or less following the tactics that we <v Ronald Reagan>uh associate with the Communist Party. <v Bill Kurtis>Motivated by his concern that communists were infiltrating <v Bill Kurtis>the movie industry, Reagan became a secret informant for the FBI.

<v Bill Kurtis>His code name was T10. <v Bill Kurtis>[inaudible speaking] He also solicited contributions for crusade for freedom, the Radio <v Bill Kurtis>Free Europe and Asia campaign, actually backed by the CIA. <v Ronald Reagan>The spread of communism in the Far East, the Crusade for Freedom is your chance and mine <v Ronald Reagan>to fight communism. <v Ronald Reagan>Joined now by sending your contributions to General Clay, Crusade for Freedom, <v Ronald Reagan>Empire State Building, New York City. Or join in your local community. <v Bill Kurtis>[marching band playing] In 1981, the presidency of the United States provided Reagan with <v Bill Kurtis>a powerful platform for his fervent anti-communism. <v Bill Kurtis>Those activist views were shared by his campaign manager, William Casey, who <v Bill Kurtis>Reagan appointed CIA director with cabinet rank. <v Bill Kurtis>Never before had a president and his CIA director enjoyed such a close <v Bill Kurtis>personal relationship. <v William Casey>Two things are important. It's important that the president have confidence in the the

<v William Casey>intelligence. <v William Casey>And uh it's important that he can they can talk to each other when they need <v William Casey>to. It's uh important that the intelligence, you <v William Casey>know ?inaudible? the president's interest <v William Casey>in the evaluations and uh see that he gets the information <v William Casey>he needs and that he has it properly presented. <v Bob Woodward>Casey wanted to be the secretary of state and uh he was not <v Bob Woodward>gonna get that because he couldn't speak that well, because he was not the kind <v Bob Woodward>of uh articulate spokesman that Ronald and Nancy Reagan thought Alexander <v Bob Woodward>Haig would be. So Casey had to get something, uh <v Bob Woodward>CIA was ideal. <v Bob Woodward>He was the intellectual godfather, if you will, of the idea <v Bob Woodward>of we are not gonna get pushed around in this world <v Bob Woodward>anymore. We're going to get the upper hand. <v Bob Woodward>And he set a tone of there are no limits. <v Bill Kurtis>Casey had learned the trade craft of intelligence in World War Two.

<v Bill Kurtis>As a young O.S.S. officer fighting against Nazi Germany, he brought that same <v Bill Kurtis>sense of mission to the CIA, often willing to rush in where others <v Bill Kurtis>feared to go. <v Tom Polgar>I became a little bit disenchanted because it seemed to me that Casey was living in the <v Tom Polgar>past and that he was trying to <v Tom Polgar>recreate the atmosphere and the <v Tom Polgar>operational tactics which O.S.S. <v Tom Polgar>had been using against the Germans in 1944 and 1945. <v Tom Polgar>And I felt simply that the times were different. <v Tom Polgar>The conditions were different. The requirements were different. <v Tom Polgar>And it didn't seem to me that Casey was facing up to the requirements <v Tom Polgar>of the 80s. <v Bill Kurtis>[music plays] Just days after his swearing in, Casey authorized money and arms to battle <v Bill Kurtis>Libya's Muammar Gaddafi in Chad. <v Bill Kurtis>That was followed by clandestine support of anti-communist guerillas in Cambodia.

<v Bill Kurtis>In Soviet occupied Afghanistan, he increased CIA support for the Mujahideen. <v Bill Kurtis>He also supported the funding of a new spy satellite system that would be able to see <v Bill Kurtis>through clouds and in the dark. <v Bill Kurtis>But Casey's main agenda was dominated by the growing communist movement in Central <v Bill Kurtis>America and terrorist attacks in the Middle East. <v William Casey>We have to show strength and be prepared to act with strength when <v William Casey>it's necessary. <v William Casey>When ?inaudible? when your your reputation and your uh <v William Casey>?actual? security ?required? ?it? protect it is required to protect your citizens <v William Casey>as is perhaps ?inaudible? <v William Casey>against the terrorist threat today. <v Bill Kurtis>Threats would become a nightmare for Casey when Islamic terrorists struck in Lebanon. <v Bill Kurtis>[explosion] This is a picture of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut [music plays] taken <v Bill Kurtis>at the moment of explosion.

<v Bill Kurtis>The truck bomb attack in the fall of 1983 killed 241 <v Bill Kurtis>Marines. <v Bill Kurtis>Not so many Americans had died since the Vietnam War. <v Bill Kurtis>But the carnage, it turns out, could have been avoided. <v Bill Kurtis>Months before, a U.S. military intelligence team was sent into Beirut to <v Bill Kurtis>assess Marine security measures. <v Bill Kurtis>The team found serious flaws. <v Bill Kurtis>Marine sentries without bullets in their rifles, barriers removed for the convenience <v Bill Kurtis>of supply trucks. Far worse, in an investigation launched after the event, <v Bill Kurtis>the team learned that intelligence existed to indicate an impending attack, <v Bill Kurtis>but nothing was done. <v Bill Kurtis>Now retired Lieutenant Colonel William Cowan was a member of that team. <v William Cowan>The intelligence was there to indicate that a bombing was imminent.

<v William Cowan>The U.S. Army Special Forces Group had a mobile training team working directly with <v William Cowan>the Lebanese in East Beirut. <v William Cowan>Uh they had been warned four or five days before the bombing by their Lebanese contacts <v William Cowan>that a bomb had been moved into the city in preparation for a bombing on the Marine <v William Cowan>compound. There's no question in my mind that there was intelligence <v William Cowan>there to support the Marines being ready. <v William Cowan>There's also no question that that word never got to the commander of the marine forces. <v William Cowan>We suffered [music plays] those casualties because intelligence system did not work <v William Cowan>in Beirut. <v Bob Woodward>The bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut was one <v Bob Woodward>of those seminal events uh for Casey, for <v Bob Woodward>the Reagan administration. <v Bob Woodward>Not only was it a an intelligence and military problem and <v Bob Woodward>a diplomatic problem, it was a political problem for Casey because <v Bob Woodward>he had said we're going to turn the intelligence agencies around.

<v Bob Woodward>We are not gonna let anyone be tougher than we are. <v Bob Woodward>And in September 1984, there was a second bombing of the <v Bob Woodward>uh embassy annex in Beirut. Now, that is right before the 84 election. <v Bob Woodward>Uh Casey went bananas. <v Bill Kurtis>So did the Pentagon. After the attack on its U.S. <v Bill Kurtis>Marine barracks, the Pentagon sent its intelligence team back into war torn Beirut. <v Bill Kurtis>Their mission? Develop a plan for U.S. <v Bill Kurtis>retaliation. They ?roamed? <v Bill Kurtis>throughout this dangerous city, gathering intelligence. <v Bill Kurtis>The recommendations were first submitted to the CIA station chief, William <v Bill Kurtis>Buckley. <v William Cowan>He briefed Bill Buckley, the chief of station in Beirut, who was later kidnaped, uh <v William Cowan>brutally tortured and ultimately died. <v William Cowan>We briefed our recommendations to him. <v William Cowan>He was ecstatic, uh he was uh I think Bill was pleased, <v William Cowan>as he told us uh, thank God somebody's finally looking at this thing and thinking about <v William Cowan>what we can do first. We went back to European Command, briefed the

<v William Cowan>recommendations there, very favorable reply. <v William Cowan>Response, excuse me. And then we came back to the Pentagon. <v William Cowan>And as with our previous report, we submitted a report and put it into the <v William Cowan>bureaucracy. And it died. <v Bill Kurtis>[helicopter whirring] Just what type of retaliation Cowan's report recommended is <v Bill Kurtis>classified, but his personal feelings echo back to solutions rejected <v Bill Kurtis>in the past. <v William Cowan>We have a policy in this country of not assassinating people. <v William Cowan>Uh somewhere along the line though, that policy maybe needs to be reviewed, <v William Cowan>not on a blanket basis, certainly for sheer political reasons we wouldn't <v William Cowan>want to do it. But when it comes time to speaking to the deaths of Americans <v William Cowan>who we know are directly attributable to a small number of people, I don't think <v William Cowan>there are too many members of Congress who are gonna yell loud and long about <v William Cowan>the fact that we might selectively want to pay back some

<v William Cowan>people who have a deep hatred for the United States who would kill any one of us sitting <v William Cowan>here if they had the opportunity. And I'm not sure I can justify, nor should we justify <v William Cowan>why we can't uh why we can't take some kind of action against those kinds of people <v William Cowan>on a selective basis [chanting]. <v Bill Kurtis>But who would decide on a <v Bill Kurtis>selective basis and in secret who should live and who should die? <v Bill Kurtis>[music plays] Such troubling questions led to a 1977 presidential <v Bill Kurtis>order banning foreign political assassinations. <v Bill Kurtis>The Soviet Union has no such restriction. <v Bill Kurtis>The KGB's reaction to terrorism in the Middle East has been swift and ruthless, <v Bill Kurtis>as in the 1984 case of 4 Soviet diplomats taken hostage in Beirut <v Bill Kurtis>by the Islamic radical group Hezbollah. <v Bob Woodward>The Soviets decided to speak the language of the radical Hezbollah <v Bob Woodward>uh in Beirut. Uh they took a relative of one of the Hezbollah leaders,

<v Bob Woodward>uh cut off his testicles, put the testicles in his mouth, shot him, <v Bob Woodward>uh sent him back. <v Bob Woodward>Very shortly after that, uh the Soviet diplomats <v Bob Woodward>were released. The significance of this was that Casey <v Bob Woodward>uh realized that the Soviets could be tough, <v Bob Woodward>could deal on exactly the same terms uh that Hezbollah <v Bob Woodward>dealt and they were victorious. <v Bob Woodward>So Casey decided in 1985 when we could not <v Bob Woodward>uh stop the car bombings uh of our embassy facilities <v Bob Woodward>and other facilities in Beirut, Casey decided to speak the language of <v Bob Woodward>Hezbollah and got the Saudi intelligence service to try to assassinate Sheikh <v Bob Woodward>Fadlallah, the leader of Hezbollah, and sent a car bomb <v Bob Woodward>uh to the apartment complex where he lived, hoping to kill him, killed <v Bob Woodward>instead 80 innocent people.

<v Bob Woodward>Uh that was a pretty big shock to Casey. <v Bob Woodward>Uh he did not have the CIA institutionally involved in this. <v Bob Woodward>He did it. He did a deal with the Saudi ambassador here and then the Saudis <v Bob Woodward>funded the operation. <v Bill Kurtis>The CIA adamantly denies any involvement in the 1985 <v Bill Kurtis>bombing of Hezbollah headquarters. <v Bill Kurtis>The repetition of this false allegation the CIA wrote to us perpetuates <v Bill Kurtis>the lie and further endangers American lives at terrorist hands <v Bill Kurtis>overseas. <v Bill Kurtis>[music plays] Besides the bombings in Beirut, there were other setbacks for Casey in <v Bill Kurtis>1985, known as the Year of the Spy. <v Bill Kurtis>Not since the Red Scare of the 50s had so many spies inside America been uncovered. <v Bill Kurtis>This CIA officer, Larry Chin, spied for the Chinese. <v Bill Kurtis>The National Security Agency's Ronald Pelton sold highly

<v Bill Kurtis>sensitive eavesdropping information to the Soviets. <v Bill Kurtis>The Walker family spy ring sold naval secrets to the KGB for years. <v Bill Kurtis>Edward Lee Howard, a former CIA officer, escaped to Moscow even <v Bill Kurtis>while under FBI surveillance. <v Bill Kurtis>Richard Miller, a counterintelligence specialist for the FBI, was not <v Bill Kurtis>so lucky. Hidden cameras and microphones helped lead to his arrest. <v Bill Kurtis>[inaudible reporting] Since the days of J. Edgar Hoover, technology has played a major <v Bill Kurtis>role in the FBI's counterintelligence activities. <v Bill Kurtis>But high tech spying has gone way beyond wiretaps. <v Bill Kurtis>Today, virtually no conversation is safe from eavesdropping. <v Bill Kurtis>Anyone who's ever seen a TV detective show knows did check the lamps for bugs. <v Bill Kurtis>But listening devices have become far more sophisticated than this.

<v Bill Kurtis>On the other side of this wall, a small bug is listening to everything I say <v Bill Kurtis>without penetrating the wall. <v Bill Kurtis>[inaudible echoing] It's a compact microphone that turns this room into a recording <v Bill Kurtis>studio. But even if you find all the listening devices in this room <v Bill Kurtis>or next door, you may not be safe. <v Bill Kurtis>For several hundred feet away in a motel room, someone is still listening using <v Bill Kurtis>a beam of light, a laser. <v Bill Kurtis>They have turned this window into a giant microphone and they can hear everything <v Bill Kurtis>that is said in this room [fuzzy sounds] [echoing]. [muffled] Using devices like this, spies and counter intelligence agents are able to eavesdrop almost at will. [music plays] <v Bill Kurtis>Distance <v Bill Kurtis>and darkness are no longer obstacles to these tools of surveillance. <v Bill Kurtis>Here, an infrared telescope sees in the night, <v Bill Kurtis>but high technology combined with aggressive FBI agents, pose a danger. <v Bill Kurtis>The potential for abuse.

<v James Geer>That's always an area you have to be sensitive to and a balance <v James Geer>you have to strike. An- and our focus is ?on the? <v James Geer>intelligence officer. And I mentioned in general terms the numbers by saying <v James Geer>that a good one third of the Soviet Soviet bloc representatives are gonna be <v James Geer>intelligence officers. That's where our focus is. <v James Geer>We attempt to create a net in which <v James Geer>they have to operate. <v James Geer>That makes it extremely difficult. <v James Geer>We can't we don't have the resources or the inclination <v James Geer>to try to focus on Americans. <v James Geer>We can't be out surveilling uh American citizens or members <v James Geer>of the public. <v James Geer>Uh our focus is on the intelligence officer and that's where it's going to stay. <v Bill Kurtis>But even as the head of the FBI's counterintelligence division was making this statement, <v Bill Kurtis>the bureau was surveilling American citizens. <v Bill Kurtis>The focus of the investigation, which began in 1983, was ?CISPES?.

<v Bill Kurtis>Committee and solidarity with the people of El Salvador, an activist peace <v Bill Kurtis>and human rights group, which the FBI suspected of being controlled <v Bill Kurtis>by communist foreign agents and of planning terrorist acts in the United States. <v Bill Kurtis>This FBI investigation echoed back to abuses of the past when groups opposed <v Bill Kurtis>to another war, Vietnam, were targeted by the bureau. <v Bill Kurtis>[chanting] The protests against the war in Central America have been fewer in number than <v Bill Kurtis>during Vietnam, but the FBI's response was the same. <v Bill Kurtis>Open dissent with White House policy brought secret FBI investigations. <v Hugh Byrne>In this investigation they ca- they used a variety of of <v Hugh Byrne>means to um infiltrate the organization, put informers <v Hugh Byrne>and agents into CISPES. <v Hugh Byrne>They surveilled meetings. <v Hugh Byrne>They photographed demonstrators, um took license plate numbers,

<v Hugh Byrne>made inquiries of banks and other institutions to find out about people, <v Hugh Byrne>had um FBI agents attempt to interview members of the organization. <v Hugh Byrne>And then this al- this investigation expanded to include about 200 <v Hugh Byrne>organizations, ranging from the ?Mary Nole? <v Hugh Byrne>sisters to the United Auto Workers, which it became an investigation <v Hugh Byrne>almost of any- anybody or any organization that was opposed to <v Hugh Byrne>the Reagan administration policy in Central America. <v Bill Kurtis>[music plays] In the end, the FBI investigation produced 17 volumes of reports, <v Bill Kurtis>but not a single indictment. <v Bill Kurtis>This kind of FBI surveillance of Americans exercising their freedom of dissent <v Bill Kurtis>is disturbing to Congressman Don Edwards, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Civil and <v Bill Kurtis>Constitutional Rights and a former FBI agent. <v Don Edwards>I think that the CISPES uh experience,

<v Don Edwards>which is very unfortunate and hurt the FBI and also hurt a lot of innocent people <v Don Edwards>remember, a lot of names got bandied around and CISPES got hurt, damaged <v Don Edwards>severely by things that the FBI did and said and published. <v Don Edwards>Uh I think it was an aberration. And I and I hope it is. <v Don Edwards>We usually find out uh when they go too <v Don Edwards>far. And CISPES is an example of the FBI <v Don Edwards>um not examining what it's doing on a day <v Don Edwards>to day basis and perhaps uh Congress ourselves not <v Don Edwards>uh maintaining a close enough oversight scrutiny on what they're doing on a day to day <v Don Edwards>basis. <v Bill Kurtis>In addition to shedding light on questionable FBI activities, the CISPES investigation <v Bill Kurtis>has added to the ongoing national debate over U.S. <v Bill Kurtis>policies in Central America. <v Bill Kurtis>[gun shots] [shouting] America's secret war against communist Nicaragua began early in

<v Bill Kurtis>the Reagan administration when CIA Director Casey proposed the recruitment <v Bill Kurtis>of 500 exiles to carry out guerrilla operations. <v Bill Kurtis>The ?contras? <v Bill Kurtis>quickly expanded to number in the thousands. <v Bill Kurtis>[shouting] <v Tom Polgar>[people inaudibly speaking] People just couldn't take seriously this sort of threat that <v Tom Polgar>the Nicaraguan ?inaudible? <v Tom Polgar>are someday going to be banging up against the <v Tom Polgar>borders of Texas. <v Tom Polgar>But this was just the point of which we uh didn't agree. <v Tom Polgar>In fact, that one time Casey offered me the position of being chief of Central <v Tom Polgar>American operations. <v Bill Kurtis>And what did you say? <v Tom Polgar>I told him, thank you very much, I have had my Vietnam. <v Bill Kurtis>[music plays] Casey pushed ahead with his secret war, even though Congress had passed <v Bill Kurtis>legislation, known as the Boland amendments, prohibiting CIA activities <v Bill Kurtis>aimed at overthrowing the Nicaraguan government. <v Bill Kurtis>In 1984, CIA teams mined Nicaragua harbors and attacked

<v Bill Kurtis>fuel facilities. <v Bill Kurtis>[burning] This covert action deeply eroded trust between Casey and Capitol Hill, as <v Bill Kurtis>witnessed by former CIA officer Robert Simmons, then a member of the Senate intelligence <v Bill Kurtis>staff. <v Robert Simmons>I think people felt uh that they <v Robert Simmons>uh had been uh <v Robert Simmons>screwed by the administration. <v Robert Simmons>In 1984, the uh committees had not <v Robert Simmons>been notified properly uh with regard to the mining of Nicaraguan <v Robert Simmons>harbors uh and as a res- as a consequence of that uh director <v Robert Simmons>Casey apologized to the committees. <v Robert Simmons>It would seem to me that that uh director Casey and his staff <v Robert Simmons>and people at the White House would have learned from that experience [inaudible <v Robert Simmons>speaking]. <v Bob Woodward>What Casey saw is that Congress provides the money. <v Bob Woodward>Uh all of these people who were unsophisticated neanderthals about intelligence

<v Bob Woodward>and in in this need to spy and uh the <v Bob Woodward>need to conduct operations. <v Bob Woodward>He looked at them and he said uh, they're not in my league. <v Bob Woodward>And so he minimized disclosure, minimized contact. <v Bill Kurtis>[music plays] While Congress struggled to control Casey's CIA, another secret group <v Bill Kurtis>operating out of the basement of the Pentagon escaped congressional scrutiny. <v Bill Kurtis>Known as the Special Operations Division, or SOD, it was created <v Bill Kurtis>as an anti-terrorist unit following the failed rescue mission in Iran. <v Bill Kurtis>Much of what is known about SOD is because of the investigative work of this journalist, <v Bill Kurtis>Steven Emerson, who obtained thousands of pages of SOD secret documents <v Bill Kurtis>through the Freedom of Information Act. <v Steven Emerson>The Special Operations Division became the new center for intelligence <v Steven Emerson>and counterterrorist activities in the Pentagon.

<v Steven Emerson>In effect, it became a mini CIA for the Pentagon, <v Steven Emerson>established in the basement, controlling half a dozen new counterterrorism units. <v Steven Emerson>Names such as Seaspray, Quick Reaction Team, Yellow <v Steven Emerson>Fruit, Intelligence Support Activity. <v Steven Emerson>Heavily classified, to this day the army does not acknowledge their existence, but <v Steven Emerson>all extremely capable, very aggressive in th- in <v Steven Emerson>accomplishing their mission. The mission of fighting terrorism and guerrilla subversion <v Steven Emerson>around the world. <v Bill Kurtis>[music plays] These units were ready to go anywhere and do anything. <v Bill Kurtis>The bugging of Noriega in Panama, KGB cars in West Germany, the <v Bill Kurtis>tracking down of a kidnapped U.S. general held by the Red Brigade in Italy. <v Steven Emerson>They were all over the world and uh they felt they had a mandate to be all over the <v Steven Emerson>world. After all, the CIA was was a shadow of what it used to be. <v Steven Emerson>And the special operations division was literally stepping into a void. <v Bill Kurtis>SOD may have been stepping into a void, but it was doing so with enormous

<v Bill Kurtis>resources. Tom Golden was in charge of financial control for <v Bill Kurtis>a subunit of SOD called Yellow Fruit. <v Tom Golden>The funding was almost unlimited. <v Tom Golden>Uh I don't know of any time that we were in a position where we needed money. <v Tom Golden>Uh the money was offered and we had to find ways to spend it, basically. <v Bill Kurtis>[helicopter whirring] In the fall of 1983, some units of the SOD participated in the U.S. <v Bill Kurtis>invasion of Grenada. <v Bill Kurtis>By then, the secret team's existence was known to National Security Council staffer <v Bill Kurtis>Oliver North. [music plays] It is believed that North, who worked closely with CIA <v Bill Kurtis>director Casey, quickly recognized how useful this super secret group <v Bill Kurtis>could be to the CIA in Central America.

<v Bill Kurtis>The SOD, located in the basement of the Pentagon, could be used to circumvent <v Bill Kurtis>the legislative requirement that all covert operations be reported to Congress. <v Bill Kurtis>Thus, the SOD could become a convenient vehicle to be used by the agency <v Bill Kurtis>to conduct operations which it couldn't get approved. <v Bill Kurtis>Or in funding operations for which it had no money, like support for the Contras <v Bill Kurtis>in Nicaragua. <v Steven Emerson>One of the most severe and scandalous projects ever embarked upon <v Steven Emerson>the U.S. military was a project called Yellow Fruit. <v Steven Emerson>Was a back door CIA effort to aid the Contras in Central America <v Steven Emerson>and to perform other operations that Congress never would have supported. <v Steven Emerson>And the CIA saw Yellow Fruit and the Special Operations Division as <v Steven Emerson>a magical fountain of support with unlimited money [gun shots], unlimited weapons, <v Steven Emerson>black money, black ?cape? transportation capability, basically another <v Steven Emerson>CIA without any of the reporting quote problems that had

<v Steven Emerson>it triggered the problems of the late 1970s. <v Steven Emerson>Some of the units actually participated in strafing Nicaraguan <v Steven Emerson>targets, bombarding airfields and oilfields in an attempt to <v Steven Emerson>disrupt and possibly dislodge the Sandinista regime. <v Bill Kurtis>But Tom Golden blew the whistle on operation Yellow Fruit. <v Tom Golden>Uh normally in intelligence operations, you advanced a certain amount of money to operate <v Tom Golden>with. Uh once you spend that money, uh then <v Tom Golden>you must submit a voucher to to account for it. <v Tom Golden>What I found was very unusual in this unit is people had been advanced as much <v Tom Golden>as uh hundred and fifty thousand dollars and had never submitted a voucher <v Tom Golden>for accountability. <v Tom Golden>I eventually went to my superiors and reported <v Tom Golden>what I believed to be abuse of funds and uh possibly fraud. <v Tom Golden>Uh that eventually was uh was surfaced to the leadership of the Army,

<v Tom Golden>who ordered a massive investigation into the uh special operations community <v Tom Golden>in general. <v Bill Kurtis>[music plays] This is Arlington Hall, Virginia, headquarters for U.S. <v Bill Kurtis>Army intelligence. Here, members of the SOD team were court martialed <v Bill Kurtis>in a sound proof room. <v Bill Kurtis>Two SOD members are now serving prison sentences for financial fraud. <v Bill Kurtis>But what was most important about these trials was not the discovery of another case of <v Bill Kurtis>misuse of government funds, but the revelation that the SOD's Yellow <v Bill Kurtis>Fruit served as the blueprint for what William Casey called the <v Bill Kurtis>Enterprise. <v Steven Emerson>The Special Operations Division and Yellow Fruit had a unique <v Steven Emerson>access to equipment, material, offshore bank accounts, <v Steven Emerson>a secret clandestine uh army slash CIA aviation unit, a <v Steven Emerson>clandestine ship overseas to provide transportation, uh access <v Steven Emerson>to material and weapons, all seeds that would later <v Steven Emerson>basically erupt in the Iran-Contra affair and be known as the enterprise.

<v Steven Emerson>And I believe that Yellow Fruit and the Special Operations Division <v Steven Emerson>were both being groomed by the CIA and the National Security Council to <v Steven Emerson>serve as the cornerstone of the enterprise, to perform operations <v Steven Emerson>in Central America and elsewhere that would never be accounted to Congress. <v Bill Kurtis>The Pentagon shut down its enterprise while still in its embryonic form. <v Bill Kurtis>But William Casey and Lt. Col. <v Bill Kurtis>Oliver North set about creating it again. <v Bill Kurtis>Not only were there contras to support in Central America, there were hostages to be <v Bill Kurtis>freed in the Middle East, including one of the CIA's own, kidnapped <v Bill Kurtis>Beirut station chief, William Buckley. <v Bill Kurtis>Casey, determined to get Buckley back, tried a new approach. <v Bill Kurtis>Bribery. <v Bob Woodward>Casey was in a mode at that point uh in the spring of 1985 <v Bob Woodward>when he said bribery stops terrorism.

<v Bob Woodward>The car bombings were the number one, r- really the the <v Bob Woodward>primary terrorist problem. <v Bob Woodward>The second one was the hostages. <v Bob Woodward>So they decided let's bribe the hostages back. <v Bob Woodward>Who has influence over the people who hold the hostages array? <v Bob Woodward>And what do they want? Money? No. <v Bob Woodward>Food, medicine, scholarships? <v Bob Woodward>No. Arms? Yes. <v Bob Woodward>Thus, the Iranian arms sales. <v Bill Kurtis>First word of the secret Iran arms sales came from a Lebanese publication in November <v Bill Kurtis>1986. Ronald Reagan, in an address to the nation, denied <v Bill Kurtis>the report. <v Ronald Reagan>The charge has been made that the United States has shipped weapons to Iran as ransom <v Ronald Reagan>payment for the release of American hostages in Lebanon. <v Ronald Reagan>That the United States undercut its allies and secretly violated <v Ronald Reagan>American policy against trafficking with terrorists. <v Ronald Reagan>Those charges are utterly false.

<v Bill Kurtis>But less than two weeks later, U.S. <v Bill Kurtis>Attorney General Edwin Meese made a startling announcement. <v Edwin Meese>Certain moneys which were received in the transaction <v Edwin Meese>were uh taken and made available <v Edwin Meese>to the forces in Central America, which are <v Edwin Meese>opposing the Sandinista government there. <v Bill Kurtis>This announcement set off a major congressional investigation. <v Bill Kurtis>What has become known as Iran Contra. <v Man 4>Colonel North. Please rise. [cameras clicking] <v Bill Kurtis>More than any other witness, Marine Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North has come <v Bill Kurtis>to represent America's continuing dilemmas between secrecy and democracy. <v Man 4>-But the truth so help you God. <v Oliver North>I do. <v Bill Kurtis>Through the hearings, it became clear that after Congress had shut off support for the <v Bill Kurtis>Contras, Reagan had turned to his national security staff to find

<v Bill Kurtis>other help. <v Bill Kurtis>That request changed the mission of the NSC from an advisory council into <v Bill Kurtis>an operational group. Not unlike a mini CIA. <v Bill Kurtis>It was a gung ho assignment given to a can do Marine. <v Oliver North>This lieutenant colonel is not gonna challenge a decision of the commander in <v Oliver North>chief for whom I still work, and I am proud to work for that commander <v Oliver North>in chief. And if the commander in chief tells this lieutenant colonel to go stand in the <v Oliver North>corner and sit on his head, I will do so. <v Bill Kurtis>North with a collaboration of national security advisers Robert McFarlane and later <v Bill Kurtis>Admiral John Poindexter, first raised funds from other countries and private individuals <v Bill Kurtis>to support the Contras. <v Joseph Cruz>I told him that I was interested in um uh in seeing what I could do and I asked <v Joseph Cruz>him for his recommendation. <v Man 4>And did North uh subsequent to the meeting, provide you the Swiss bank account name <v Man 4>and number to which your payments should be made?

<v Joseph Cruz>Yes, he did. <v Bill Kurtis>[music plays] With money in hand, this man, retired Air Force General Richard Secord, was <v Bill Kurtis>recruited. <v Bill Kurtis>Together, these three men set about creating Casey's dream of the enterprise. <v Bill Kurtis>A secret organization accountable to no one, capable of carrying out covert <v Bill Kurtis>operations anywhere around the world. <v Oliver North>The director was interested in the ability <v Oliver North>to go to an existing, as he put it, off the shelf, self-sustaining, <v Oliver North>standalone, self-financing entity, independent <v Oliver North>of appropriated moneys and capable of conducting <v Oliver North>uh activities similar to the ones that we had conducted here. <v Oliver North>There were other countries that were suggested that might be the the <v Oliver North>beneficiaries of that kind of support, other activities. <v Man 5>You understood that the CIA is funded by the United States government. <v Man 5>Correct?

<v Oliver North>That is correct. <v Man 5>You understood that the United States government put certain limitations <v Man 5>on what the CIA could do. <v Man 5>Correct? <v Oliver North>That is correct. <v Man 5>And I ask you today to all <v Man 5>you've gone through, are you not shocked that the director <v Man 5>of Central Intelligence is proposing to you the creation <v Man 5>of a organization to do these kinds of things <v Man 5>outside of his own organization? <v Oliver North>Counsel, I can tell you, I am not shocked. <v Oliver North>I don't I don't see that it was necessarily inconsistent with <v Oliver North>the laws, regulations, uh statutes and all that obtain. <v Bill Kurtis>[music plays] Despite a White House policy of making [explosion] no concessions to <v Bill Kurtis>terrorists, the enterprise sold weapons to Iran in the hopes of <v Bill Kurtis>gaining the release of American hostages. <v Bill Kurtis>Weapons, which the Iranians would use in their war with Iraq.

<v Bill Kurtis>The profits from these sales were diverted to fund the contra war against the Sandinistas <v Bill Kurtis>in Nicaragua [gun shots] [shouting]. <v Oliver North>I saw that idea of using the Ayatollah Khomeini's <v Oliver North>money to support the Nicaraguan freedom fighters <v Oliver North>as a good one. <v Oliver North>I still do. I don't think it was wrong. <v Oliver North>I think it was a neat idea, and I came back and I advocated that <v Oliver North>and we did it. <v Bill Kurtis>There is nothing more to fear for a democracy than the scheme Casey called the <v Bill Kurtis>Enterprise. It amassed its own airplanes, pilots, airfields,

<v Bill Kurtis>Navy, communications network and secret bank accounts. <v Bill Kurtis>It was answerable to no one and known but to a handful of men, men who <v Bill Kurtis>had decided they alone knew what was best for America. <v Bill Kurtis>Self-sustaining, lacking restrictions or accountability. <v Bill Kurtis>The enterprise's very existence was a subversion of the Constitution of the United <v Bill Kurtis>States. <v Man 4>It is an elitist vision of government that trust no one, not the <v Man 4>people, not the Congress and not the Cabinet. <v Man 4>It is a vision of a government operated by persons con- convinced <v Man 4>they have a monopoly on truth. <v Bill Kurtis>But the truth was not what Congress had been told months prior when it had suspected <v Bill Kurtis>inappropriate actions on the part of the NSC. <v Oliver North>I participated in the preparation of documents for the Congress that were <v Oliver North>erroneous, misleading, evasive and wrong.

<v Oliver North>I misled the Congress. <v Oliver North>I miss- <v Man 4>At that meeting. <v Oliver North>At that meeting. <v Man 4>Face to face. <v Oliver North>Face to face. <v Man 4>You made false statements to them about your activities in support of the Contras. <v Oliver North>I did. <v Bill Kurtis>To many observers, though, the congressional oversight committees seemed all too willing <v Bill Kurtis>to allow themselves to be deceived. <v Seymour Hersh>I don't think they really take on the intelligence community in any serious sense. <v Seymour Hersh>Give an example. I did a story in July of 86 for The <v Seymour Hersh>New York Times about the fact that the NSA is was working together with the <v Seymour Hersh>British, its British equivalent, the GCHQ. <v Seymour Hersh>Um and they were together working <v Seymour Hersh>uh to collect information on the African National Congress and its travels outside of <v Seymour Hersh>southern Africa. And we relayed relaying that to the South Africans with whom we have a <v Seymour Hersh>liaison. <v Seymour Hersh>[coughs] So in secret, the committee has a hearing in great secrecy. <v Seymour Hersh>They bring in some top people who say, no, there's nothing to it.

<v Seymour Hersh>End of the investigation. <v Seymour Hersh>I mean, I wouldn't report a story that way. <v Seymour Hersh>I just went. You know, I mean, if that's how they do it, and that's the only experience I <v Seymour Hersh>have firsthand, I've heard that that's a normal experience. <v Seymour Hersh>You know, that's not that's not the way to run it. If you're supposed to be oversight, <v Seymour Hersh>you're supposed to develop independent contacts, independent and have an independent <v Seymour Hersh>ability to reach in. And they don't. <v Seymour Hersh>They get in trouble. They have to write a letter to momma and say come in and tell me <v Seymour Hersh>what you got, Momma. And that doesn't make sense. <v Arthur Liman>They can't be afraid to learn what's happening. <v Arthur Liman>They cannot be afraid of knowledge. <v Arthur Liman>And some people are afraid of knowledge, because if you have knowledge, then you have to <v Arthur Liman>act. And so uh it's sometimes more comfortable <v Arthur Liman>to not know. And I think there was a degree of that, <v Arthur Liman>in my view during the Iran Contra affair. <v Arthur Liman>And uh I'm pleased that members of the committee that I represented,

<v Arthur Liman>the Senate committee, were prepared to say quite <v Arthur Liman>bluntly and directly that they felt that Congress did not do <v Arthur Liman>as an effective, as effective a job as it should have. <v Arthur Liman>That doesn't excuse the lying, doesn't condone the shredding of documents. <v Arthur Liman>But Congress has to be more energetic. <v Bill Kurtis>[music plays] There has been much criticism of the Iran Contra hearings themselves for <v Bill Kurtis>being too narrow in focus, too hastily prepared and too quickly <v Bill Kurtis>concluded. What other activities had been undertaken? <v Bill Kurtis>Had drugs been sold to support the Contras? <v Bill Kurtis>What had been the role of Ronald Reagan or his vice president, George Bush? <v Bill Kurtis>The answers to such questions may never be known. <v Bill Kurtis>For much of the evidence of the enterprise was destroyed or shredded. <v Oliver North>Correct. <v Man 6>And you were aware, were you not, sometime during the day on Friday, November <v Man 6>21st that the attorney general's people were gonna come in and look at documents <v Man 6>over the weekend?

<v Oliver North>That is correct. <v Man 6>And you shredded documents before they got there. <v Oliver North>I would prefer to say that I shredded documents that day like I did on all other days, <v Oliver North>but perhaps with increased intensity. <v Oliver North>That is correct. <v Man 6>So that the people you are keeping these documents from, <v Man 6>the ones that you shredded, were representatives of the attorney general of the United <v Man 6>States. <v Oliver North>Well, they worked for him. <v Bill Kurtis>[music plays] William Casey, the architect of the enterprise, was never to testify. <v Bill Kurtis>He died of a brain tumor in 1987 as the hearings were being held. <v Bob Woodward>If there's a tragic part to Casey and I guess there is, it is <v Bob Woodward>that he ultimately didn't realize what this country is about. <v Bob Woodward>That we are different. That, yes, we will have an intelligence agency. <v Bob Woodward>Yes, we will do things in secret. <v Bob Woodward>But those uh nation defining activities <v Bob Woodward>like war can't be done in secret.

<v Bob Woodward>We can't go out and try to get the Saudi intelligence service to kill <v Bob Woodward>people we don't like, because in America we don't do that in <v Bob Woodward>secret because that tells the world who we are. <v Bob Woodward>It tells us who we are. <v Bill Kurtis>[music plays] With the destruction of evidence by North and Poindexter and the death of <v Bill Kurtis>William Casey, all of the facts of Iran-Contra may never be known. <v Bill Kurtis>But this much is clear. In Iran-Contra, administration officials believing <v Bill Kurtis>they alone knew what was best, conducted secret foreign policy <v Bill Kurtis>in violation of congressional laws. <v Bill Kurtis>But Iran-Contra is only the latest episode in a continuing struggle between American <v Bill Kurtis>democracy and the secret intelligence empire it has created. <v Bill Kurtis>A disdain for the law, impatience for results, and the conviction

<v Bill Kurtis>that it can't be wrong if nobody knows. <v Bill Kurtis>These were the mark of the CIA's disaster at the Bay of Pigs, the FBI's <v Bill Kurtis>a long history of illegal surveillance of American dissidents, and the National Security <v Bill Kurtis>Agency's unauthorized monitoring of private communications. <v Bill Kurtis>Who is there to protect us from America's secret warriors? <v Bill Kurtis>Who will watch the watchers? [music plays] <v Narrator 1>Secret Intelligence was made possible by public television stations and

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