The Tower Panel: Laying Out the Brutal Facts

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Did the NSC staff illegally help the contras? In October 1984 Congress passed the Boland Amendment, which made it unlawful for the CIA or any agency of the U.S. Government that is "involved in intelligence activities" to "directly or indirectly" support military operations in Nicaragua. Defying the intent of this law, North proceeded to oversee the creation of a vast resupply network involving secret Swiss bank accounts, dummy corporations, nonprofit tax-exempt foundations and covert solicitation of funds from foreign governments. He called the operation "Project Democracy." Charged the Tower commission: "By fall 1985, North was actively engaged in private efforts to resupply the Contras with lethal equipment."

The board describes in damning detail how North directed at least nine drops of supplies in Nicaragua, and it discovered 36 messages between him and contra supply coordinators. Not even military operations in the field were beyond North's personal involvement. He met in Washington with Contra Chieftain Adolfo Calero just one month after the ban against U.S. military aid became effective. According to the report, they reviewed a contra plan to destroy some Soviet helicopters acquired by the Sandinistas. In February 1985 a North computer memo asked McFarlane to help Calero get information on a Nicaraguan merchant ship delivering arms from North Korea, with the objective of "seizing or sinking the ship." Poindexter agreed in a note on the memo: "We need to take action to make sure ship does not arrive in Nicaragua." The plan was abandoned only when an unnamed "friendly country" rejected an NSC request to help with the operation.

North also kept close watch on the fund-raising efforts of retired Air Force Major General John Singlaub, who successfully solicited money for contra military supplies from two Asian countries unidentified in the report but known to be South Korea and Taiwan. McFarlane told the board that an unnamed "foreign official" (reportedly King Fahd of Saudi Arabia) had donated $25 million to the contras in 1985, putting the money into accounts suggested by North.

About the time that McFarlane had assured a congressional committee that "there is no official or unofficial relation with any member of the NSC staff regarding fund raising for the Nicaraguan Democratic opposition," North wrote a computer memo to Poindexter reporting that a plane controlled by retired Air Force General Richard Secord had to be diverted from carrying arms to the contras so that it could deliver U.S.-made weapons to Iran. "Too bad," said the memo, "this was to be our first direct flight to the resistance field at ((deleted)) inside Nicaragua. The ammo was already palletized w/parachutes attached. Maybe we can do it on Weds or Thurs."