Word: memos
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...long-standing policy disputes within the Administration: he mediated the decisions to abandon U.S. observance of the unratified SALT II treaty and to retaliate against terrorism by launching the 1986 air strike against Libya. But he showed no interest in explaining policy. The press lambasted him for writing a memo last August urging a campaign of "disinformation" against Libya. Congressmen complained he was excessively secretive in dealing with them too. Said Poindexter: "It's true we need to get out our story better. But considering the things I do best, it doesn't make sense for me to change...
...given, North was adept at expanding on it. One of his techniques: when a presidential finding was issued authorizing a covert operation, North would exploit a bureaucratic mechanism known as a "memorandum of notification" to spell out the meaning of the vaguely worded finding. By drafting these memos, North was able to tailor the ways and means of the operation according to his own designs. If he got a memo approved, as he often did, he would then put together an interagency working group to plan how to carry out the mission...
...Ollie was always on the edge and wound enormously tight all the time," said a former colleague. In June of last year, in a memo to Poindexter about the contras, North actually seemed lost, demoralized. "What we most need is to get the CIA re-engaged in this effort so that it can be better managed than it now is by one slightly confused Marine Lieut. Colonel . . . At this point I'm not sure who on our side knows what. Help." Yet North seemed aware of the consequences of his actions. "He said it often enough and to everybody around...
...memo in which North urged the sinking or pirating of a Nicaraguan ship carrying arms to the Sandinistas became a bland suggestion that its cargo merely be publicized. Removed from another document was a reference to dunning "current donors" for "another $25-30 million" for contra "munitions" at a time when Congress did not know that Saudi Arabia was giving such military support. A paper that urged National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane to brief President Reagan on how the "delivery of lethal supplies" to the contras would continue despite a congressional ban emerged from Hall's racing typewriter with...
Hall acknowledged to committee members that she had done less than a foolproof job. She typed the false memos on new stationery that was not available when the originals were made. The attached documents were removed from one memo, but she failed to delete a listing of the attachments on the memo itself. Then, before she could switch the phony papers with copies of the originals in her own files or get the new "originals" back to the nearby documents room, a more urgent chore arose...