Lt. Col. Robert Earl: Staff member
Terry Arnold: Principal consultant
Charles E. Allen, CIA officer: Senior Review Group
Robert Oakley, Director, State Dept. Counter Terrorism Office: Senior Review Group
Noel Koch, Deputy to Asst. Secretary of Defense Richard Armitage: Senior Review Group
Lt. Gen. John Moellering, Joint Chiefs of Staff: Senior Review Group
Oliver `` Buck '' Revell, FBI executive: Senior Review Group
This was the first known official contact of the Israeli Nir with the U.S. government in the Iran-
Contra affair. In the future, Nir would serve as the main Israeli agent in the covert arms-for-
hostages negotiations with Iran, alongside such other well-known U.S. participants as Oliver Northand Robert McFarlane. The Terrorism Task Force organization, as we shall see, was a permanent
affair.@s2@s7
August 8, 1985:
George Bush met with the National Security Planning Group in the residence section of the White
House. Spurring on their deliberations on the terrorism problem, a car bomb had blown up that dayat a U.S. air base in Germany, with 22 American casualties.
The officials discussed shipment of U.S.-made arms to Iran through Israel--to replenish Israeli
stocks of TOW missiles and to permit Israel to sell arms to Iran.
According to testimony by Robert McFarlane, the transfer was supported by George Bush, Casey
and Donald Regan, and opposed by Shultz and Weinberger.@s2@s8
August 18, 1985:
Luis Posada Carriles escaped from prison in Venezuela, where he was being held for the terrorist
murder of 73 peRamon Medina, '' Posada flew to Central America. Within a few weeks, Felix Rodriguez assignedrsons. Using forged documents falsely identifying him as a Venezuelan named (^) him to supervise the Bush office's Contra resupply operations being run from the El Salvador air base. Posada personally ran the safe-houses used for the CIA flight crews. Rodriguez explained the arrangement in his book: Because of my relationship with [El Salvador Air Force] Gen. Bustillo,
I was able to pave the way for [the operations attributed to Oliver] North to use the facilities atIlopango [El Salvador air force base].... I found someone to manage the Salvadorian-based resupply (^)
operation on a day-to-day basis. They knew that person as Ramon Medina. I knew him by his real
name: Luis Posada Carriles.... I first [sic!] met Posada in 1963 at Fort Benning, Georgia, where we
went through basic training together ... as U.S. Army second lieutenants.... '' Rodriguez neglects to
explain that agent Posada Carilles was originally recruited and trained by the same CIA murderoperation, JM/WAVE '' in Miami, as was Rodriguez himself. Felix continues: In the sixties, he (^)
reportedly went to work for DISIP, the Venezuelan intelligence service, and rose to considerable
power within its ranks. It was rumored that he held one of the top half- dozen jobs in the
organization.... After the midair bombing of a Cubana airliner on October 6, 1976, in which
seventy-three people were killed, Posada was charged with planning the attack and was thrown inprison.... Posada was confined in prison for more than nine years.... ''@s2@s9
September 10, 1985:
George Bush's national security adviser, Donald Gregg, met at 4:30 P.M. with Oliver North and
Col. James Steele, the U.S. military official in El Salvador who oversaw flights of cargo going to
the Contras from various points in Central America. They discussed information given to one or