Word: swap
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...fall of 1986 North dreamed up a rather surrealistic Bible-for-Koran swap to demonstrate U.S. good intentions. It eventually backfired when the Iranians displayed the Bible to humiliate the President. In October, North journeyed to Frankfurt, West Germany, to meet with a group of Iranians and presented them with a Bible inscribed by the President with words from St. Paul's letter to the Galatians: "And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, 'All the nations shall be blessed in you.' " As he did so, he told them...
...received from Israeli intelligence. In late 1984, however, French police arrested Abdallah for possessing false passports. But before he could be convicted of that crime, the F.A.R.L. in Lebanon captured a hostage, Gilles Peyroles, director of the French Cultural Center. The French reportedly entered into secret negotiations to swap Abdallah for Peyroles. Then, just a day after Peyroles was released, police found in an apartment Abdallah had rented the pistol that killed Ray and Barsimantov...
LAST NIGHT President Reagan told the American people that his "management-style" failed him when his Administration's overtures to Iran degenerated into an attempt to swap American arms for American hostages. He said that his memory fails him, as well, and he cannot recall authorizing the circumvention of his own foreign policy. But now, he says, everything will be okay...
Meanwhile, a source at the Tower commission said the panel concluded that an arms-for-hostages swap was at the center of U.S. contacts with Iran...
Such remarks were carefully followed, if not always believed, by terrorist groups in Lebanon. At week's end the Islamic Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine issued a statement that seemed to end speculation that the four hostages it holds will be part of any prisoner swap. The issue of their fate will remain "suspended," the group said, because of the U.S. Administration's "failure to respond to our demands." The statement called the four captives "criminals" and vowed to punish them, but stopped short of renewing the previous threat to kill them. In the climate of violence and uncertainty...