The Return: A Book for Frances about Life and Death
             Preface
            Back Cover
      You're in Charge: A Guide to Becoming Your Own Therapist
            Introduction: The Art of Self Observation
             On Dreaming
            Foreign Editions
   Since the New Deal: An Annotated Chronology of the Events That Have Changed the United States
             The C.I.A. (excerpt)
             Origins of the Cold War (excerpt)
             Some Quotations that Demonstrate the Underlying Philosophy Since the New Deal

 
      Afghanistan, "Terrorism," and Blowback   About Anthrax
     Some Thoughts on 9-11-2001

The Central Intelligence Agency

Excerpts from Janette Rainwater's book-in-progress, Since the New Deal: An Annotated Chronology of the Events that Have Changed the United States

 1 2 3 4 5 7 8                                                                 p.6

July 10, 1992

General Manuel Noriega, the longtime dictator of Panama, is sentenced to 40 years in a U. S. prison, essentially a life sentence for a 58-year-old man unlikely to get parole. [He had been found guilty in April on eight counts of racketeering, conspiracy and cocaine-smuggling. Noriega, who did not take the witness stand during the trial, gave a long speech before his sentencing:-- Bush is "guilty of causing the deaths of innocent people" in the 1989 invasion of Panama.....There was never any danger to the canal or to American citizens in Panama. Panama was invaded because I was an obstacle to President Bush, who preferred me dead." He related that he had been an ally of the United States and cooperated with the CIA from the early 1960s until December, 1986 when he refused to send Panamanian troops to fight with the contras in Nicaragua against the Sandinistas. In retaliation, he said, in February, 1988 the Reagan administration brought a grand jury indictment against him on criminal drug charges which a few months later they offered to drop if he would agree to leave Panama.]24

December 24, 1992

President Bush pardons former Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger and five other former government officials involved in the Iran-Contra scandal in a move highly reminiscent of Gerald Ford's pardon of former president Richard Nixon. (A presidential pardon is an absolute one, eliminating all past convictions, present charges and even any future prosecutions for the stated offenses.) [The Iran-Contra independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh immediately denounced the pardons, accusing Bush of "misconduct" and continuing the coverup. He further declared that the president is "the subject now of our investigation" since his discovery on December 11th that Bush had "illegally withheld documents" from the investigations--- Bush's own notes taken during Iran-Contra meetings. There was rapid public condemnation of the pardon amid suspicion that Bush may have acted to prevent being called to testify at Weinberger's trial. The Grand Jury had indicted Weinberger on June 16th on five felony counts of perjury, obstruction of a congressional investigation (for concealing and withholding his relevant notes) and making false statements. The other five were:

--- Elliott Abrams, former assistant secretary of state for Inter-American Affairs, sentenced on November 15, 1991. He had pled guilty to two counts of withholding information from Congress, thus avoiding the multi-count felony count being prepared for the Grand Jury;
--- Duane Clarridge, head of the CIA's Western European division, indicted November 26, 1991 on seven counts of perjury and false statements to congressional investigators and scheduled for trial on March 15th;
--- Alan D. Fiers, former chief of the CIA's Central American Task Force, whose testimony enabled the prosecution to indict Clair George. For his cooperation he was allowed to plead guilty to two counts of withholding information from Congress and sentenced to one hundred hours of community service;
--- Clair E. George, retired chief of the CIA's worldwide covert operations division and the highest ranking CIA official prosecuted by the Independent Counsel, convicted December 9 on two charges of false statements and perjury and faced a possible five-year sentence before the pardon;
--- Robert C. MacFarlane, former national security advisor to Ronald Reagan who pleaded guilty to four counts of withholding information from Congress on March 11, 1988.
Two Iran-Contra participants were not included in the pardons:

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