1985

America still suffering from a national inferior complex from Vietnam. George Pan Cosmatos directed Rambo First Blood Pt 2, the story of an American soldier “assigned to prove that American POWs are no longer being held by the Vietcong, but instead finds a cage full of his fellow fighters…the sort of MIA/ POW myths likely to convince audiences that the Americans are still at war in south east Asia.” TIMEOUT FILM GUIDE.

Cabinet changes
Richard Perle becomes the Assistant Secretary of Defence
Richard Pipes sat on the National Security Council
Abrams – the Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Assistant Secretary of Hemispheric Affairs.

Iran-contra
January 1985 Walter Raymond, a longtime CIA employee who headed the Office of Public Diplomacy, sent a memo to Robert McFarlane (the National Secretary Advisor) about Leiker and how he might help win the contra fight on the hill. Out of this came the “Gang of Four”, a quartet of Democratic regulars in Washington – Leiken, Penn Kemble, Bernard Aronson, Bruce Cameron.

In February the CIA reported “a terrorist network led by D’Aubuisron (CHECK) & funded by wealthy Salvadoran expatriates residing in Guatemala and the US. The main death squad described by the CIA as “paramilitary organisation” of ARENA led by constitutional assembly security chief and drawing most of its members from the national police and other security forces. Death squad funded directly from Washington – also their training and direction.

Robert Owen, former legislative aide to Indiana Senator Dan Quayle, was now recruited by NSC staffer Oliver North, CIA hand John Hull and contra leader Adolfo Calero for the crucial role of liaison between individuals who were aiding the contras. Once on the contra’s FDN payroll Owen, known as the “courier” took up his new job as North’s “bagman” with zeal. Acting as North’s eyes and ears, he reported on the military and financial needs of the contras and their helpers, and he delivered money, travellers cheques, maps, encryption devices, instructions to them.
Owen’s new company, IDEA, which he operated out of his home, was given a $50,000 state Dept contract to deliver “humanitarian aid” to the contras, with help from Calero and North,. Through Owen’s influence, some of this State Department money was awarded to Airmach, a covert Pentagon operation, and some to Ocean Hunter, a Medellin cocaine cartel operation with ties to the CIA’s John Hull.
The bulk of the contra funding now came via the NSC staff instead of the CIA, and they turned to the NSC for advice and assistance. North was their point of contact. By early 1985 North obtained tactical and other intelligence from the CIA and passed it to contra military commanders.
Secord was probing the international arms markets for the contras and purchasing weapons for them. North also made it known that he was the “man to see” about money for the contras.
When one congressman questioned the propriety of the CIA funding contra leaders who in turn were lobbying congress for increased contra aid, North proposed to Fiers and Deputy Secretary of State Craig Johnstone, that he line up private funding. Fiers rejected the idea as congress would only question the new source of funds.
North arranged for contra solicitor retired army Major General John K Singlaub to meet with South Korean officials in the US. Saudi Arabia doubled its monthly contributions in February.

Iraq
“By March 1985 the United States was issuing Baghdad export permits for high tech equipment for its weapons of mass destruction programs, according to Pollock.” June 9th 2004, “Reagan played a Decisive Role in SH’s Survival in Iran-Iraq War” – Agence France Presse.
 “Most of the sales were legal and often made with the knowledge of governments. In 1985 – 90, the US commerce Dept, eg, licensed $1.5bn in sales to Iraq of American technology with potential military uses. Iraq was then getting Western support for its war against Iran.” – Associated Press 17th Dec 2002.
Robert Novak, 26th Sep 2002: “An 8 year old Senate report confirms that disease-producing and poisonous materials were exposed, under US government license, to Iraq from 1985 to 1988 during the Iran-Iraq war.”
This is the year when the affluent majority in Iraq would begin their long slow descent into poor occupied and virtually statelessness that they experienced from 2003.

Chernenko died on the 10th March. Gorby became leader of the “Evil Empire” the same year Reagan requested three times military budget rise to support SDI.
Gorbachev – USSR renounces its foreign policy commitments and strategies. His basic objective is the reconstruction of the Soviet domestic economy. This led to radical arms control proposals and to a change in Soviet policy towards the third world.
He courts the more dynamic capitalist oriented Third World states in order to develop mutually advantageous economic relations.
Don’t forget Glasnost!

Out of Control
Congress defeated a $14m supplemental aid package in March leaving the contras to rely on North and his associates. Calero found himself surrounded not only with recommended arms brokers like Secord – who by June 85 had arranged several large shipments – but also broker/contribution solicitors like Singlaub. There were also arms merchants like Ron Martin, a Miami based dealer who had been accused of consorting with drug runners. While the NSC staff helped Saudi Arabian and other funds reach the contras. Calero had been deciding how most of the money would be spent. By May 1985, North realized that he and Secord were facing increasing competition for Calero’s attention, and that contra arms purchases were getting out of their control.

In April North began to aid efforts of two private fund raisers. Contra fundraiser Carl “Spitz” Channell, in 1985, with his associate Richard Miller were raising money for the contras from wealthy US conservatives. For this period, they created a network of tax-exempt foundations with innocent-sounding names such as the National Endowment for the Preservation of Liberty (NEPL) and International Business Communications (IBC). Contributions who made a big enough donation would get to meet the president. North aided by arranging for speakers to potential contributors, presenting his own briefings, and ecouraging use of the White House as a staging prop for Channell’s and Miller’s pitch.
North also worked with McFarlane on efforts to use foreign aid as leverage with a number of central American countries particularly Honduras, the site of most of the contra encampments – to get them to support the contras more strongly. In February 1985, the president approved a McFarlane-North plan to assure the Honduran government of economic, military and intelligence support if it is agreed to allow contra bases to remain in Honduras and permit weapons to be shipped to them.

The first hint of Soviet retreat from empire in Russia after Gorby came to power in 1985.– Gorby declared a definitive stop to missile development in Europe during April.

George Bush travelled to Honduras the next month underscoring with Honduran President Roberto Suazo the need for contra support and signalling what the US would be willing to do in return. The Hondurans caught on to the linkage quickly. When Reagan called Suazo in April to implore him to release a shipment of contra ammunition. Suazo reminded Reagan that a high level Honduran delegation shortly would be in Washington to discuss a $15m aid package. DATE?

A Step up of Terror
North and other members of the restricted interagency group on Central America (the RIG) had concluded that the contras had to step up pressure on the Sandinista regime. The RIG’s strategic decision, reached in the summer of 1985, was to open a “southern front” in the Nicaraguan war. Up to then, the bulk of the contra forces, and the focus of American efforts to influence and support them, lay along Nicaragua’s northern border with Honduras. The concentration of these forces made them an easy target for the Sandinistas and tested the tolerance of the Honduran government.
In the summer the RIG decided that it had to get opposition forces out of Costa Rica and into Nicaragua, where they could do some good for the Contra cause.

Sanctions
The US declared an embargo against Nicaragua in May. Soviet trade was only 10%, less than most European states and the same as the USA.

In May Zuazo government of Bolivia approved a decree calling for extensive drug enforcement program – did not impress Washington who thought this was too little too late.
Under Paz Zamora (Estenssora?) (1985 – 1989) relations improved. Aid to support economic reforms increased dramatically. ELECTED?

June 28th North convened a meeting in Miami with the following:
Secord; Thomas Clines, former CIA officer who by then was acting as Secord’s overseas arms buyers; Raphael Quintero, another former CIA officer who had been acting as Secord’s “man on the scene” in Honduras, El Salvador and Costa Rica; Calero; Contra military commander Enrique Bermudez.
North announced he would suspend his cash payments to Calero. Secord would from now on arrange for all weapons purchases and deliveries. North also stressed to Calero and Bermudez that they must work with him and Secord to build a viable Southern front. This was a “watershed” event according to Secord.
North convinced Secord to take control of a covert air-delivery system, one that would mirror earlier CIA efforts to arm the Contras. Secord, now, as well as arms purchaser and supplier, now hired plane crews, acquired/ leased aircraft, arranged for warehouses in central America and gained landing rights in region.

State Department’s Central American officers were reorganised. Elliot Abrams became assistant Secretary for Inter American affairs. William Walker took over as Abram’s deputy. Edwin G Carr and Lewis A Tambs became US Ambassador to El Salvador and Costa Rica. In August Costa Rica approved the effort after promises of covert payments to a project headed by the Costa Rican presidents.

In mid ‘85 there was an abrupt of staff in the White House. James Baker agreed to the Secretary of the Treasury Don Regan’s suggestion that the two men swap jobs. Regan – a self made Wall Street  man.
Meese became Attorney General Deaver left later in 85. Regan extended his own control and ended the give and take in the Oval office that had allowed Reagan to shape the final policy choices during his first term.

Six Americans held hostage by pro-Khomeini groups in mid-85. DATES?

Schevardnadze replaced Gromyko as Minister of Foreign Affaris on 2nd July.

August 1985 – Congress approved $27m in humanitarian aid to the contras with the proviso that the state department administer the aid – ruling out CIA or defense department. So Reagan established Nicaraguan Humanitarian Assistant Office (NHAO) with State Dept to spend the cash. – gearing up NHAO’s logistical and intelligence gathering activities. – gives North the opportunity to insert people into NHAO who had been working covertly with him and Secord on contra re supply.

Accounts appearing ion the media alleging North’s involvement. Rep Michael Barnes – August 16th – questioned McFarlane. Then Rep Lee H Hamilton, chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI).
Barnes Inquiry.
So McFarlane searched the NSC’s records for “problem documents” and found a few written by North. He decided not to bring the documents to Congress’s attention and lied about North’s activities in a series of letters to Barnes and Hamilton – Sep to Oct 1985.
September – North asked Felix Rodriguez, ex CIA operative who had gone to fight communist guerrillas, and asked Rodriguez to help him win approval from Salvadoran Air force to use its air base at llopango for contra-re-supplying activities. He successfully persuaded Salvadoran Air force General Juan Rafael Bustillo to grant North and his people entry to the base – guaranteeing North a strategic position from which to launch air operations to both the North and the South.
In October, North had trouble with Honduras – giving North the chance to infiltrate NHAO and “piggy back the activities of his enterprise onto the fledgling humanitarian program.” October 10th the first air delivery to Central America by NHAO arrived in Honduras carrying a tv news crew. So Honduras banned further US flights which prevented NHAO aid from reaching contra troops.
Director of NHAO – Robert Duemling – embarrassed and gave into North’s insistence that he hire Contra carrier Owen – giving North a key operative within NHAO and providing Owen with a cover for his trips to Central America for North.
November – when it came out, Walsh report named Meese as having “spearheaded a cover-up of the November 1985 arms shipments to Iran, which he “believed were illegal, in order to protect the president.”

Brazil
Military rule in Brazil came to an end. Civilian, Tancredo Neves was elected President. For 21 years Brazilian generals retained the upper hand and, as the economy boomed, the US and other wetsern countries kept silent about persistent reports of human rights abuses.
Tancredo Neves was the first elected president of Brazil in 21 years under the electoral college system set up by the military, but falls ill before he can be inaugurated and dies soon after.
His V-P Jose Sarney becomes president with inflation at 300% / Jose Sanrio former leader of the military backed social Democratic Party (PDS). Sarney’s popularity was short-lived as the country fell into successive economic crises aggravated by soaring inflation.
Despite end of military rule in Brazil, landowners were still getting their way by force. Rising number of killings. UDR’s (União Democratica Ruralista) financial and lobbying power effectively preventing significant land reform.
DATES?

The CIA
DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camerena was kidnapped and murdered in Mexico. DEA, FBI and US Customs Service Investigators accused CIA of stonewalling during their investigation. US authorities claim the CIA was more interested in protecting its assets, including top drug trafficker and kidnapping principal Miguel Angel Felix Gallards.
DATES?

Terror training camps
Oklahoma bombing and revelations of unofficial militia camps training US citizens for attacking their own government. Official terrorist training of Latin American officers at School ot the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia.
DATES?

Iran
November arms shipments to Iran – part of the Iran-Contra scandal.

Ronnie met Gorby for the first time in Russia 21st November.  “Gorby’s perestroika came from a complex of political, economic and ideological, most of them from inside the union, which had been building up for years and to which the elderly pre-Gorby leadership failed to respond.” Gorby understood NATO’s victory in getting approval for deployment of Cruise and Pershing, after only narrow votes and with intense arm-twisting , was pyrrhic. He saw the strength of the Western peace movements, accepted their arguments about the strength of the unwinnability of nuclear war, and appreciated that unilaterlism was not one sided surrender but a way to jump-start a process in which both sides would match each other in reducing their arsenals until they reached “reasonable sufficency”. JONATHAN STEELE, GRAUNIAD, 2ND NOVEMBER 1999.
When Gorby and Reagan met for the first time they issued a statement parroting the peace movements,
“nuclear war cannot be won and should never be fought.”
The Geneva summit – Gorby-Reagan meeting – came to little.

Late December 1985 – Honduras agreed to allow NHAO flights to resume on condition that they do not come directly from the US. Llopango air base came into action.
Congress allowed NHAO to consult with the CIA on setting up as a secure delivery system and had loosened Boland in late 1985 to permit the CIA to provide communications support and training to the contras.

Notes

World Debt
The combined 3rd world debt hit a trillion dollars. Money spent on weapons, but even more pocketed by local elites and diverted to overseas bank accounts. The capital flight from Mexico alone in 1979 to 1983 is estimated at $90bn – more than the entire Mexican debt.

Oil
Oil imports bottomed out as Americans realised they could drive smaller cars without their world ending. Oil imports to the US had dropped to 32% in 1985. However, the initiatives taken to achieve this were from the Carter era. Reagan-Bush policies ensured that from 1985, oil dependency was to increase to the point where regular intervention in the Middle-East and Balkans proved necessary.
From 1985 oil imports went steadily up.

Education
The Carnegie Corporation gave $600,000 to establish the Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy, and later that year negotiated the Soviet American Exchange Agreement for the US government, whereby Soviet educators became involved in planning curricula for some US schools. In 1987/88 Action in Teacher Education “schooling is now seen as primarily as job training, and for this reason quite comparable to schooling in non-democratic societies. Once education is redefined as a personal good and as emphasising preparation for the world of work as its first purpose, our schools can appropriately be compared with those of the USSR.”

Africa
Zaire’s president Mobutu destroyed his country’s economy yet the director’s embrace of free market rhetoric has resulted in unstinting support from the World Bank.

Israel
“A visitor from Mars to the UNHQ in 1985 after listening to Jean Kirkpatrick and Netanyahu would have difficulty deciding who was the US and who Israeli”.
Reagan’s policies seemed to offer Israel time to consolidate its hold on the West Bank and Gaza. Neocons encouraged Washington to view Palestinians as an extension of USSR-induced international terrorism.
Ariel Sharon voted against a withdrawal from southern Lebanon.

And the Brits…
From 1985 British Army officers had been training guerillas in basic battle skills and ‘hit and run’ sabotage tactics at secret bases in Thailand. – Jane’s Defence Weekly.

First International conference on AIDS held in Atlanta.

Soundtrack: Prince, U2, Madonna, crappy generic rock, Springsteen, Beach Boys revivial, Tom Waits, Live Aid,