security adviser. But the Senate refused to confirm Tower. Tower then wrote a book and began to
talk about the injustice done to him. He died April 5, 1991 iMarch 8, 1987: n a plane crash.
In light of the Iran-Contra scandal, President Reagan called on George Bush to reconvene his
Terrorism Task Force to evaluate the current program!
June 2, 1987:
Bush summarized his findings in a press release: `` [O]ur current policy as articulated in the TaskForce report is sound, effective, and fully in accord with our democratic principles, and national
ideals of freedom. ''@s8@s7
November 13, 1987:
The designated congressional committees filed their joint report on the Iran-Contra affair. Wyoming
Representative Richard Cheney, the senior Republican member of the House Select Committee toInvestigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran, helped steer the joint committees to an impotent
result. George Bush was totally exonerated, and was hardly mentioned.
George Bush, when President, rewarded Dick Cheney by appointing him U.S. Secretary of Defense,
after the Senate refused to confirm John Tower.
The Mortification of the U.S. Congress
January 20, 1989:
George Bush was inaugurated President of the United States.
May 12, 1989:President Bush's nomination of Donald Gregg to be U.S. ambassador to Korea was considered in
hearings by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Gregg was now famous in Washington as Bush's day-to-day controller of the criminal gun-running
into Central America. Before the Gregg hearings began, both Republican and Democratic Senatorson the committee tried to get President Bush to withdraw the Gregg nomination. This was to save
them the embarrassment of confirming Gregg, knowing they were too intimidated to stop him.
What follows are excerpts from the typed transcript of the Gregg hearings. The transcript has never
been reproduced, it has not been printed, and it will not be published by the Senate ForeignRelations Committee, which is evidently embarrassed by its contents.@s8@s8
Gregg: [As] his national security adviser [for] six and a half years ... I worked closely with the Vice
President keeping him informed as best I could on matters of foreign policy, defense, and
intelligence.... Travelling with the Vice President as I did ... [in] a great variety of missions to more
than 65 countries.... [After Vietnam] I did not see [Felix Rodriguez] until the early eighties wherehe would drop into Washington sporadically ... we remained friends.... So, some of those contacts (^)
would have been [1979-1982] when I was at the White House at the NSC.
Sen. Sarbanes: And Felix would come to see you there?
Gregg: No, at my home.... [Then] he brought me in '83 the plan which I have already discussed with
Senator Cranston.... [At that point] I was working for the Vice President ... [which I began in]
August 1982.
Sen. Sarbanes: In December of 1984 he... cleared it with the Vice President? came to see you with the idea of going to El Salvador. You
Gregg: ... I just said, `` My friend Felix, who was a remarkable former agency employee ... wants to
go down and help with El Salvador. And I am going to introduce him to [State Department
personnel] and see if he can sell himself to those men, '' and the Vice President said fine.