Tuesday 21 October 2008, San José, Costa
Rica
McCain Linked To Group
In Iran-Contra Affair
By PETE YOST,
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Republican
Sen. John McCain served
on the advisory board to
the U.S. chapter of an
international group
linked to
ultra-right-wing death
squads in Central
America in the 1980s.
The U.S. Council for
World Freedom also aided
rebels trying to
overthrow the leftist
government of Nicaragua.
That landed the group in
the middle of the
Iran-Contra affair and
in legal trouble with
the Internal Revenue
Service, which revoked
the charitable
organization's tax
exemption.
The council created by
retired Army Maj. Gen.
John Singlaub was the
U.S. chapter of the
World Anti-Communist
League, an international
organization linked to
former Nazi
collaborators and
ultra-right-wing death
squads in Central
America. After setting
up the U.S. council,
Singlaub served as the
international league's
chairman.
McCain's tie to
Singlaub's council is
undergoing renewed
scrutiny after his
presidential campaign
criticized Barack Obama
for his link to William
Ayers, a former radical
who engaged in violent
acts 40 years ago. Over
the weekend, Democratic
operative Paul Begala
said on ABC's "This
Week" that this "guilt
by association" tactic
could backfire on the
McCain campaign by
renewing discussion of
McCain's service on the
board of the U.S.
Council for World
Freedom, "an
ultraconservative
right-wing group."
In two interviews with
The Associated Press in
August and September,
Singlaub said McCain
became associated with
the organization in the
early 1980s as McCain
launched his political
career. McCain was
elected to the House in
1982.
Singlaub said McCain was
a supporter but not an
active member.
"McCain was a new guy on
the block learning the
ropes," Singlaub said.
"I think I met him in
the Washington area when
he was just a new
congressman. We had
McCain on the board to
make him feel like he
wasn't left out. It
looks good to have names
on a letterhead who are
well-known and
appreciated.
"I don't recall talking
to McCain at all on the
work of the group,"
Singlaub said.
McCain has said he
resigned from the
council in 1984 and
asked in 1986 to have
his name removed from
the group's letterhead.
"I didn't know whether
(the group's activity)
was legal or illegal,
but I didn't think I
wanted to be associated
with them," McCain said
in a 1986 newspaper
interview.
Singlaub does not recall
any McCain resignation
in 1984 or May 1986. Nor
does Joyce Downey, who
oversaw the group's
day-to-day activities.
"That's a surprise to
me," Singlaub said.
"This is the first time
I've ever heard that.
There may have been
someone in his office
communicating with our
office."
"I don't ever remember
hearing about his
resigning, but I really
wasn't worried about
that part of our
activities, a
housekeeping thing,"
said Singlaub. "If he
didn't want to be on the
board that's OK. It
wasn't as if he had been
active participant and
we were going to miss
his help. He had no
active interest. He
certainly supported us."
A news article and two
documents tie McCain to
the council in 1985, a
year after he says he
resigned. The group's
Internal Revenue Service
filing in 1985, covering
the previous year, lists
McCain as a member of
the council's advisory
board. In October 1985,
a States News Service
report placed McCain,
Rep. Tom Loeffler,
R-Texas, and an Arizona
congressman at a
Washington awards
ceremony staged by the
council.
On Tuesday, the McCain
campaign addressed the
resignation by saying
the candidate
disassociated himself
from "one Arizona-based
group when questions
were raised about its
activities."
Taking an opportunity to
attack the Obama-Biden
ticket, the McCain
campaign added that as a
House member and later
as a senator, McCain
fought against communist
influence in Central
America while Sen. Joe
Biden tried to cut off
money for anti-communist
forces in El Salvador
and Nicaragua.
The renewed attention
over McCain's
association with
Singlaub's group comes
as his campaign steps up
criticism of Obama's
dealings with Ayers, now
a college professor who
co-founded the Weather
Underground in the 1960s
and years later worked
with Obama on the board
of an education reform
group in Chicago. Ayers
held a
meet-the-candidate event
at his home when Obama
first ran for public
office in the mid-1990s.
In McCain's case, he was
a House member and a
board member of
Singlaub's council when,
as a new congressman, he
voted for military
assistance to the
Nicaraguan Contras, a
CIA-organized guerrilla
force. In 1984, Congress
cut off military
assistance to the
rebels.
Months before the
cutoff, top Reagan
administration officials
ramped up a secret White
House-directed supply
network run by national
security advisers Robert
McFarlane and John
Poindexter. The
operation's day-to-day
activities were handled
by National Security
Council aide Oliver
North, who relied on
retired Air Force Maj.
Gen. Richard Secord to
carry out the operation.
The goal was to keep the
Contras operating until
Congress could be
persuaded to resume CIA
funding.
Singlaub's private group
became the public front
for the secret White
House activity.
"It was noted that they
were trying to act as
suppliers. It was pretty
good cover for us,"
Secord, the field
operations chief for the
secret effort, said
Tuesday in an interview.
The White House-directed
network's covert arms
shipments, financed in
part by the Reagan
administration's secret
arms sales to Iran,
exploded into the
Iran-Contra affair in
November 1986. The
scandal proved to be the
undoing of Singlaub's
council.
In 1987, the IRS
withdrew tax-exempt
status from Singlaub's
group because of its
activities on behalf of
the Contras.
Peter Kornbluh,
co-author of "The
Iran-Contra Scandal: A
Declassified History,"
said the Council on
World Freedom was
crucial to diverting
public attention from
the Reagan White House's
fundraising for the
Contras.
Singlaub and the council
publicly urged private
support for the Contras,
providing what Singlaub
later called "a
lightning rod" to
explain how the rebels
sustained themselves
despite Congress'
cutoff.
In October 1986, the
secrecy of North's
network unraveled after
one of its planes was
shot down over
Nicaragua. One American
crewman, Eugene Hasenfus,
was captured by the
Nicaraguan government.
At first, Reagan
administration officials
lied by saying that the
plane had no connection
to the U.S. government
and was part of
Singlaub's operation.
"I resented it that
reporters thought it was
my plane. I don't run a
sloppy operation,"
Singlaub told The AP.
In an interview last
month, Downey, the
full-time employee of
Singlaub's council, said
she has a clear memory
of McCain resigning in
1986, but not earlier.
"It was during the time
when the U.S. Council
had been wrongly accused
of being owners of the
Hasenfus plane downed in
Nicaragua," said Downey.
"A couple of days after
that, I was in
Washington and called
home to get messages
from my mother. I
returned that call and a
staff person wanted to
ask for the resignation
of Congressman McCain."
When Hasenfus was shot
down, McCain was in the
final month of his first
campaign for the Senate
seat he still holds.
McCain's office
responded quickly.
McCain said he had
resigned from the
council in 1984.
Further, McCain said
that in May 1986 he
asked the group to
remove his name from the
letterhead. McCain's
office produced two
letters from 1984 and
1986 to back his
account.
The dates on the
resignation letters in
1984 and May 1986
coincided with McCain
election campaigns and
increasingly critical
public scrutiny of the
World Anti-Communist
League, the umbrella
group Singlaub chaired.
In 1983 and 1984 for
example, columnist Jack
Anderson linked the
league's Latin American
affiliate to death squad
political
assassinations.
The Latin American
affiliate was kicked out
of the league. At the
time, Singlaub told the
columnist the Latin
American affiliate had
"knowingly promoted
pro-Nazi groups" and was
"virulently
anti-Semitic."
"That was putting it
mildly," Anderson wrote
in a Sept. 11, 1984,
column on alleged death
squad murders, an
article that appeared
two months before the
U.S. election day.
Two weeks after
Anderson's column, a
letter from McCain
addressed to Singlaub
asks that the
congressman's name be
taken off the board
because he didn't have
time for the council.
Singlaub told AP that
"certainly by 1984," he
had purged the World
Anti-Communist League of
extremists. Singlaub
complains that American
news media wrote that
the league hadn't gotten
rid of extremist
elements and tried to
tarnish the league's
credibility, "making
something evil out of
fighting communism."
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