19.12.2012 Views

George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography - Get a Free Blog

George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography - Get a Free Blog

George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography - Get a Free Blog

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.

more than 65 countries.... [After Vietnam] I did not see [Felix Rodriguez] until the early eighties<br />

where he would drop into Washington sporadically ... we remained friends.... So, some of those<br />

contacts would have been [1979-1982] when I was at the White House at the NSC.<br />

Sen. Sarbanes: And Felix would come to see you there?<br />

Gregg: No, at my home.... [<strong>The</strong>n] he brought me in '83 the plan which I have already discussed<br />

with Senator Cranston.... [At that point] I was working for the Vice President ... [which I began in]<br />

August 1982.<br />

Sen. Sarbanes: In December of 1984 he came to see you with the idea of going to El Salvador.<br />

You ... cleared it with the Vice President?<br />

Gregg: ... I just said, `` My friend Felix, who was a remarkable former agency employee ... wants<br />

to go down and help with El Salvador. And I am going to introduce him to [State Department<br />

personnel] and see if he can sell himself to those men, '' and the Vice President said fine.<br />

Gregg: Felix went down there about the first of March [1985]. Before he went ... I introduced him<br />

to the Vice President ... and the Vice President was struck by his character and wished him well in<br />

El Salvador.<br />

Sen. Sarbanes: So before he went down, you undertook to introduce him to the Vice President....<br />

Why did you do that?<br />

Gregg: Well, the Vice President had always spoken very highly and enthusiastically of his career<br />

[!], or his one-year as DCI [Director of Central Intelligence]. I had gone out with him to the<br />

agency just after I joined him in '82 and I saw the tremendous response he got there and he got<br />

quite choked up about it and as we drove back in the car he said, you know, that is the best job I<br />

have ever had before I became Vice President. So here it was, as I said probably the most<br />

extraordinary CIA comrade I had known, who was going down to help in a country that I knew<br />

that the Vice President was interested in.... <strong>The</strong> Vice President was interested in the progress of the<br />

Contras. <strong>The</strong>re were two occasions on which he asked me, how are they doing and I, on one<br />

occasion went to a CIA officer who was knowledgeable and got a run-down on how they were<br />

doing from that and sent it to the Vice President and he sent it back with no comment. On another<br />

occasion, he asked me again, how are they doing, and I went--I drew a memo up, I think on the<br />

basis of a conversation with North. Again, he returned that with no comment. So he was interested<br />

in the Contras as an instrument of putting pressure on the Sandinistas. But what I said we had<br />

never discussed was the intricacies, or who was supplying what to whom....<br />

Sen. Simon: Let me read another section from Senator Cranston's statement. I believe the record<br />

suggests the following happened: After Boland II was signed in October 1984 [outlawing all U.S.<br />

aid to the Contras], you and certain others in the White House were encouraged to secure military<br />

aid for the Contras through unorthodox channels. Your career training in establishing secrecy and<br />

deniability for covert operations, your decades-old friendship for Felix Rodriguez, apparently led<br />

you to believe you could serve the national interest by sponsoring a freelance covert operation out<br />

of the Vice President's office. What is your response to that statement?<br />

Gregg: Well, I think it is a rather full-blown conspiracy theory. That was not what I was doing.... I<br />

was involved in helping the Vice President's task force on antiterrorist measures write their report.<br />

But normally I had no operational responsibilities....<br />

Sen. Simon: When did you first find out the law was being violated?

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!