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Fraggin'

By Bill Shunas

Sp 5 Willy (Ret.)
A.K.A Bill Shunas

Now don't get me wrong. I'm perfectly objective in my thoughts about the likes of Ollie North. I even went to the barber to get an Ollie cut. The barber couldn't do it. Said I'd have to go to a hair stylist. "Where?" I asked. He said he didn't know exactly, but I'd have to go to a place where they got plenty of plants growing in the windows. After a search I found a place. Unfortunately they couldn't give me an Ollie cut. Said I didn't have enough hair on top. Made me feel un-American.

But I did get an Ollie T-shirt. Yessir. I wore it proudly. Unfortunately, I spilled some catsup on my Ollie T-shirt. So I threw it in the washing machine. Alas and alack! The damnedest thing happened. It came out of the wash shredded. Oh well, Ollie, I tried.

Seriously now, everyone wants to know what really happened with the Iran Contra affair. North. Poindexter. Schultz. Meese. Weinberger. Which of them is lying. All of them? Some of them? And how much are they lying? Well, I shall reveal the truth on these pages.

How do I know? I've never revealed this before, but I've got a pipeline into the White House. For obvious reasons I cannot reveal my contact, so we've given him/her/it an alias. We call him/her/it, "Sore Throat."

The key evidence is a tape Sore Throat made of a high level meeting between Reagan, Ed Meese and White House Chief of Staff Howard Baker. This occurred just after Ollie North made his appearance before the Joint Committee. This was at the crucial point of the whole affair and where the coverup was finalized. The important part of the tape started out with the President fuming and fussing.

Reagan: "It's a disaster. Everything's coming apart."

Meese: "It's not so bad Ronnie. Ollie didn't reveal your involvement in the thing. He said he didn't know. He just assumed you gave the order. You're still safe. They can't prove anything from his testimony. "

Reagan: "No, no, it's not that. That's not the problem. That's the least of it. I'm proud that this all happened under my administration. We bought freedom for some hostages and got some money for the Contras."

Baker: "If you're worried about the Contras, Mr President, let your mind rest. They let Ollie talk all he wanted about the Contras being "freedom fighters" running drugs or killing babies and pregnant women."

Reagan: "I like the sound of that."

Meese: "That's right. The Contras came off looking good."

Reagan: "No, I mean like the sound of Howard calling me 'Mr President.' My own Chief of Staff. It has a nice ring to it. But, nevertheless, I'm still upset."

Baker: "It's my pleasure, Mr President. But I don't understand why you're upset. We're winning the propaganda battle."

Reagan: "It's that damn Ollie North. He's become a hero. He's getting all the publicity that should be mine. And he's only a second lieutenant colonel who works in the basement. I'm the commander in chief. I should play the lead role. I mean I don't wish any bad luck on Ollie. I wouldn't mind if he won an Oscar for best supporting role, but he's stealing the script. Listening to Ollie, you'd think that he was responsible for the Contra terrorists. . . "

Meese (interrupting): "Freedom Fighters, Ronnie. We call them "freedom fighters." The rebels in El Salvador are the terrorists."

Reagan: "Sorry, Ed. It gets so confusing at times, which is which. Of course, they're "freedom fighters" and Ollie speaks so well of them. He's taken my lines, and I'm the one responsible for the. . .uh. . .uh. . . whadiyacalits. . . "freedom fighters" or whatever. He makes them sound so good. It's an Oscar performance. He seems to forget who's the leading man in this here script." And all the the reporters and fans are going along, glorifying him."

Meese: "That's true."

Baker: "I suppose it's understandable. Any man that can sit at attention and look misty eyed for four days of answering questions deserves an Oscar."

Meese: "Well, I think we'll do some image-making of our own. We need some scapegoats. I got together with some of the boys and we came up with a plan."

Reagan: "Oh, good; let's hear it."

Baker: "That's the spirit, Mr President. Be decisive."

Meese: "At first we were thinking about some outright character assassination on Ollie."

Reagan: "That would be good. We assassinate his character and no one would vote for him. Just make up a few lies."

Baker: "No need for that, Mr President."

Meese: "Right, Ronnie. All we'd have to do is release some of Ollie's past secrets to the press. It can all be verified. Like the time he went nuts and was running naked through the streets carrying a .45 and yelling "I'm no good, I'm no good."

Reagan: "Sounds like a scene form 'Naked in the Streets.'"

Baker: "But we decided we couldn't do that. Not after he did such a good job of painting the Contras as heroes. We don't want to destroy his intellectual credibility. We had to come up with a more sophisticated plan."

Reagan: "That sounds good."

Meese: "Okay. Here's the plan. Poindexter testifies next. Right?"

Baker: "Right?"

Meese: "The man has a photographic memory."

Reagan: "Oh no. We're doomed. I need a drink. Send out for some drinks."

Baker: "Easy, Mr President. Remember the last time you had a drink. You got potted and the press started calling you senile."

Reagan: "Damn press."

Meese: "That's right, Ronnie. We'll get through this all right. Just listen up. The admiral with his photographic memory gets up there and does his 'I don't remember' routine. Then he takes responsibility for the whole thing. Makes him look stupid and guilty at the same time. He tells them, 'The buck stops here.'"

Reagan: "I remember that line. Who said it? Spencer Tracy in 'The Last Hurrah?' No! No! James Whitmore playing Harry Truman in 'Give 'Em Hell Harry.' That was it great line. I love it."

Meese: "No, Ronnie. Harry Truman the President said it. He was serious."

Meese: "Have a drink, Ronnie. Let me continue. So the Admiral takes credit for everything. Him and North and Casey are responsible for everything in the eyes of the American public. Casey's dead so he can't connect you. North says he reported only to Poindexter and Poindexter says he acted on his own. Beautiful."

Baker: "And that leaves only one problem. Ollie North's Errol Flynn image. People relate to that. They think we're out of control and they need these heroes."

Reagan: "Yeah, Errol Flynn. The boy deserves an Oscar."

Meese: "We'll have George take care of that."

Reagan: "George who?"

Baker: "George Schultz. Secretary of State."

Reagan: "Oh Yeah. Where's George been lately?"

Meese: "He's been laying low, trying not to get tainted by this whole damn affair. We'll have him testify about how Casey and Poindexter and North had run amok. Then he'll emphasize the good points of your foreign policy. We can talk about Grenada."

Baker: "You think we should tell everyone about how North ran the Grenada operation and got it all botched up? Got some of our boys killed because o it?"

Meese: "No, we'll just say that we struck a blow for freedom. And he'll talk about Libya."

Reagan: "Yeah, and Lebanon."

Meese: "No Ronnie, People might remember all the Marines we lost there. No. George will talk about the great job you didi in Grenada and Libya."

Reagan: "So you think George is the one to get us out of this? He acts too much like a stuffed shirt."

Baker: "Well it's either him or Cap, and we're afraid Cap will start talking about using nukes for Armageddon again. That's not too cool for the Secretary of Defense."

Meese: "It goes over big with the Fundamentalists, but that's only one fifth of the country."

Reagan: "So it's George that will bail us out of the wilderness."

Baker: "George will lead us out of the wilderness, Mr President. Easy on that drink. And after George testifies, then we go about trying to build up your image again."

Meese: "Yeah, so put away that drink. We don't need a potted President at this time. WE have to plant the image of a sober leader, ready to steer this nation for two more years."

Baker: "Potted. . . Plant duck, helpless because of this scandal.. You're not a potted plant on these shelf. You're a leader."

Reagan: "I like that line. Potted plant. I can say that real well. Send it to the speechwriter."

According to Sore Throat that was the meaty part of the tape, the part relating to the coverup of the scandal. The rest of the conversation deteriorated into fifteen minutes of reminiscences of Reagan's days in Hollywood. As far as what this tape says and what happened at the hearings, well, as they say in the movies, "The rest is history."

Note: I am eternally indebted to Sore Throat for passing this information to me at great risk to him/her/itself. Should he/she/it have been caught, there is no telling what they would have done to him/her/it. Maybe a month's rehabilitation with Jerry Falwell at the PTL playground. And by the way, to any reporter from The New York Times, The Washington Post, or the National Enquirer, forget it. Don't even call. I won't reveal the identity of Sore Throat. No way!