Lawrence Walsh

Lawrence Edward Walsh (January 8, 1912 to March 19, 2014) was a New York prosecutor, federal judge and Wall Street lawyer who served as Iran-Contra Affair Independent Counsel from December 1986. His final report was issued in 1993 and 1994 and released complete on January 18, 1994.¹²³ He was born in Port Maitland, Nova Scotia, grew up in Queens, and died at his home in Oklahoma City, where he had lived since leaving New York practice.⁴

Early Career

Walsh worked as a merchant seaman during summers to pay for his undergraduate and law degrees at Columbia University, receiving an A.B. in 1932 and an LL.B. in 1935.¹² From 1936 to 1938 he was special assistant attorney general on the Drukman investigation. From 1938 to 1941 he was deputy assistant district attorney in New York County, where he worked under District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey.¹²

Walsh followed Dewey to the governor's office as assistant counsel from 1943 to 1949 and as counsel from 1950 to 1951. He then served as counsel to the New York State Public Service Commission from 1951 to 1953 and as general counsel and executive director of the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor from 1953 to 1954.¹

Walsh was a lifelong Republican and an early supporter of Ronald Reagan. Judge George E. MacKinnon, one of the three judges of the Special Division who chose Walsh as Independent Counsel, said to National Public Radio in 1995: "The reason Republicans are against him is because he convicted Republicans."⁵

Judicial Service and Justice Department

President Dwight D. Eisenhower nominated Walsh on April 6, 1954, to a new seat on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. The Senate confirmed him on April 27, and his commission was issued the following day. He resigned on December 29, 1957.¹

From 1957 to 1960 he was Deputy Attorney General in the United States Department of Justice. The American Law Institute's memorial profile states that he was charged with overseeing the continued desegregation of public schools and that he was a principal draftsman of the Civil Rights Act of 1960, which provided for the appointment of referees to help African Americans register to vote.²

Private Practice and Paris

Walsh joined Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York as a senior partner in 1961.² The Federal Judicial Center directory lists his New York private practice as ending in 1981, while the American Law Institute memorial gives 1982 as the year he retired from the firm.¹²

In 1969 Nixon appointed Walsh to the U.S. delegation to the Paris Peace Talks on Vietnam. He served as deputy head of the delegation, with the rank of ambassador.²⁶ The Federal Judicial Center directory lists the post as "Ambassador, U.S. delegation, Paris Peace Talks, 1969."¹ On November 21, 1969, President Richard Nixon wrote to Walsh that "It is with special regret that I accept your resignation as Deputy Head of our Delegation to the Paris Meetings on Vietnam." The resignation letter is dated November 20, 1969.⁷

Walsh was president of the American Bar Association in 1975 and 1976 and of the New York State Bar Association in 1966 and 1967.² From 1968 to 1972 he chaired the ABA Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary, which during that period found President Nixon's Supreme Court nominees Clement Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell to be qualified. The Senate rejected both nominees, and Walsh later expressed regret over the ABA endorsement of Carswell.⁶ The New York Times obituary of Walsh reported that he was criticized for endorsing the two nominees, in 1969 and 1970. Nina Totenberg wrote that Walsh concluded from the Carswell experience that the ABA had wrongly given its approval, and that he persuaded Nixon, for a short time, to let the ABA vet potential nominees before their names were announced.⁵⁸

As deputy attorney general under William P. Rogers, Walsh oversaw the selection of federal judges, including the recommendation of Potter Stewart for the Supreme Court, and the desegregation of the Little Rock public schools. After the 1960 election he returned to Davis Polk, where he represented General Mills, AT&T and ITT, and he served as a director of Richardson-Merrell, the manufacturer of the morning-sickness drug Bendectin; plaintiffs' lawyers criticized his tactics in the Bendectin litigation.⁵

After retiring from New York practice, Walsh moved to Oklahoma City, where he was of counsel to Crowe & Dunlevy.²⁶

Appointment

On December 19, 1986, the Special Division of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit appointed Walsh Independent Counsel under the Independent Counsel statute. Edwin Meese III had requested the appointment on December 4, 1986, nine days after the White House disclosed the contra diversion on November 25. The Justice Department gave Walsh a parallel appointment on March 5, 1987.⁹¹⁰ The Special Division charged him with five areas: the sale of arms, materiel or funds to Iran and its intermediaries since about 1984; the financing of those sales; the diversion of proceeds to any person, organization, foreign government or insurgent faction, including in Nicaragua; and the provision or coordination of support for insurgents in armed conflict with the Nicaraguan government since 1984.⁹

The executive summary of the Final Report records that the Justice Department under Reagan took the position after November 1986 that the 1985 shipments of U.S. weapons to Iran did not violate the law, and it states that this position "does not correspond with the contemporaneous advice given the President."⁹

Prosecutions

The Final Report's summary of prosecutions counts fourteen persons charged, eleven convicted, two convictions overturned on appeal, two persons pardoned before trial, and one case dismissed when the Bush administration declined to declassify information needed for trial.¹¹ The fourteen included two private fundraisers, Carl R. Channell and Richard R. Miller, who pleaded guilty in 1987 to conspiracy to defraud the United States through the illegal use of a tax-exempt foundation to raise money for the contras.¹¹¹²

Oliver North was indicted on March 16, 1988, on sixteen felony counts and tried on twelve. On May 4, 1989, the jury convicted him on three counts: accepting an illegal gratuity, aiding and abetting the obstruction of a congressional inquiry, and destruction of documents. Judge Gerhard Gesell sentenced him on July 5, 1989, to a three-year suspended prison term, two years of probation, $150,000 in fines and 1,200 hours of community service.¹¹ On July 20, 1990, the D.C. Circuit vacated North's convictions on all three counts and remanded them for a Kastigar hearing to determine whether the Independent Counsel had made use of his immunized congressional testimony. The panel also reversed the conviction on Count 9.¹³ Gesell dismissed the case on September 16, 1991, on the motion of the Independent Counsel.¹¹

John Poindexter was indicted on March 16, 1988, on seven felony counts. After a trial on five, a jury found him guilty on April 7, 1990, on all of them: conspiracy (obstruction of inquiries and proceedings, false statements, and falsification, destruction and removal of documents), two counts of obstructing Congress and two counts of false statements. Judge Harold H. Greene sentenced him on June 11, 1990, to six months in prison on each count, to be served concurrently.¹¹ On November 15, 1991, the D.C. Circuit reversed the convictions on all counts because Poindexter's immunized testimony may have influenced the trial testimony of witnesses.¹¹¹⁴ The Supreme Court declined review on December 7, 1992, and the indictment was dismissed in 1993 on the motion of the Independent Counsel.¹¹

Richard Secord was indicted on March 16, 1988, on six felony counts. A second indictment of May 11, 1989, charged nine counts of impeding and obstructing the Select Iran/Contra Committees. He pleaded guilty on November 8, 1989, to one felony count of false statements to Congress, admitting that he had falsely denied that North personally benefited from the Enterprise. Judge Aubrey E. Robinson, Jr., sentenced him on January 24, 1990, to two years' probation.¹¹¹⁵

Albert Hakim pleaded guilty on November 21, 1989, to a misdemeanor of supplementing North's salary. Lake Resources Inc., in which Hakim was the principal shareholder, pleaded guilty to a corporate felony of theft of government property in diverting arms sale proceeds to the contras and other activities. Judge Gesell sentenced Hakim on February 1, 1990, to two years' probation and a $5,000 fine, and the company was ordered dissolved.¹¹¹⁶

Tom Clines was indicted on February 22, 1990, on four felony counts of underreporting his income to the Internal Revenue Service for 1985 and 1986 and of falsely stating on his returns that he had no foreign financial accounts. He was found guilty of all charges on September 18, 1990. Judge Norman P. Ramsey sentenced him on December 13, 1990, to sixteen months in prison and $40,000 in fines, and the Fourth Circuit upheld the convictions on February 27, 1992.¹¹¹⁷

Joseph Fernandez, a CIA officer whose work in Costa Rica was central to the charges, was indicted in the District of Columbia on June 20, 1988. That case was dismissed there for venue reasons on the Independent Counsel's motion. A four-count indictment followed in the Eastern District of Virginia on April 24, 1989. Judge Claude M. Hilton dismissed it on November 24, 1989, after Attorney General Richard Thornburgh blocked the disclosure of classified information the court had found relevant to the defense. The Fourth Circuit upheld Hilton's rulings on September 6, 1990, and on October 12, 1990, the Attorney General filed a final declaration that he would not disclose the information.¹¹¹⁸

Clair George, the CIA deputy director for operations, was indicted on September 6, 1991, on ten counts. His first trial ended in a mistrial on August 26, 1992. He was convicted on December 9, 1992, of two felony counts of false statements and perjury before Congress, and was pardoned on December 24, 1992, before sentencing.¹¹¹⁹

Dewey Clarridge, chief of the CIA European Division, was indicted on November 26, 1991, on seven counts of perjury and false statements about the secret shipment of U.S. HAWK missiles to Iran. Judge Harold H. Greene had set a trial date of March 15, 1993. He was pardoned on December 24, 1992.¹¹²⁰²¹

Alan Fiers, chief of the CIA Central American Task Force, pleaded guilty on July 9, 1991, to two misdemeanor counts of withholding information from Congress. He was sentenced on January 31, 1992, to one year's probation and 100 hours of community service, and was pardoned on December 24, 1992.¹¹²²

Elliott Abrams, assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs, pleaded guilty on October 7, 1991, to two misdemeanor counts of withholding information from Congress about government efforts to support the contras during the aid prohibition, including his solicitation of $10 million to aid the contras from the Sultan of Brunei.²³ He was sentenced on November 15, 1991, to two years' probation and 100 hours of community service, and was pardoned on December 24, 1992.¹¹

Robert McFarlane pleaded guilty on March 11, 1988, to four misdemeanor counts of withholding information from Congress. He was sentenced on March 3, 1989, to two years' probation, $20,000 in fines and 200 hours of community service, and was pardoned on December 24, 1992.¹¹

Caspar Weinberger was indicted on June 16, 1992, on five counts of obstruction, perjury and false statements in connection with the congressional and Independent Counsel investigations. The obstruction count was dismissed on September 29, 1992. A second indictment of October 30 charged one false statement count, and it was dismissed on December 11, leaving four counts. Judge Thomas F. Hogan had set a trial date of January 5, 1993.¹¹

The executive summary states that Weinberger's handwritten notes, which he had deliberately withheld from Congress and from the Independent Counsel until they were discovered in late 1991, showed that his early testimony, that he had only vague and generalized information about the Iran arms sales in 1985, was false. The notes also showed that Gen. Colin Powell, Weinberger's senior military aide, and Richard Armitage, assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, had detailed knowledge of the 1985 shipments from Israeli stocks. The Independent Counsel declined to prosecute Armitage because the office's limited resources were focused on the Weinberger case and the evidence, while substantial, did not reach the threshold of proof beyond a reasonable doubt; the report states that there was little evidence that Powell's early testimony was willfully false.⁹

In describing the Enterprise, the report's overview of the private operatives states that the principals, with North's backing, assembled a private air force of small planes, pilots and crews to supply the contras, built a secret airstrip in Costa Rica, and "worked practically unfettered on a Salvadoran military airbase."²⁴ The report states that in July 1986 the Enterprise paid Defex (Portugal) $2.6 million and $500,000 to another dealer, Monzer Al-Kassar, for contra weapons, and that Al Kassar was not available to testify at trial.²⁵

Bush and Reagan

The executive summary concludes that the Independent Counsel did not develop evidence proving that Vice President George H.W. Bush violated a criminal statute. It also states that, "Contrary to his public pronouncements, however, he was fully aware of the Iran arms sales." The White House informed the Independent Counsel on December 11, 1992, that Bush had kept diaries relevant to Iran-Contra that had never been produced to investigators, despite requests made in 1987 and again in early 1992.¹⁰ Bush refused to be interviewed for a final time, and the summary states that his pardon of Weinberger "pre-empted a trial in which defense counsel indicated that they intended to call Bush as a witness."⁹

The chapter on Bush records the report's view that the Weinberger pardon was the first time a president had pardoned someone in whose trial he might have been called as a witness, because the president knew the underlying facts.²⁶

On Ronald Reagan, the report found no credible evidence that he violated any criminal statute. It concluded that he "created the conditions which made possible the crimes committed by others by his secret deviations from announced national policy as to Iran and hostages."²⁷ The chapter on William Casey, the CIA director, states that "There is evidence that Casey played a role as a Cabinet-level advocate" both in setting up the covert network to resupply the contras during the Boland funding cut-off and in promoting the secret arms sales to Iran in 1985 and 1986.²⁸

The report's account of the Iran arms sales also covers the Israeli role. It states that Michael Ledeen denied profiting from the sales and that the Independent Counsel found no evidence that he did. It further states that "Israel never gave OIC access to financial accounts or records," in the context of the Al Schwimmer arrangements.²⁹

Bush Pardons

On December 24, 1992, seven weeks after losing the November 1992 presidential election, President George H.W. Bush issued Proclamation 6518, granting executive clemency to Weinberger, Abrams, McFarlane, George, Fiers and Clarridge for offenses charged or prosecuted by Walsh's office.³⁰ The proclamation called the prosecutions "the criminalization of policy differences." It said that the common denominator of the men's motivation was patriotism, that they did not profit, and that each has a record of long and distinguished service to the country.³⁰

Walsh responded the same day. A statement quoted by Brown University's Iran-Contra archive said that the pardon of Weinberger and the other defendants "undermines the principle that no man is above the law," and that "Weinberger, who faced four felony charges, deserved to be tried by a jury of citizens." It concluded: "The Iran-contra cover-up, which has continued for more than six years, has now been completed with the pardon of Caspar Weinberger."³¹ United Press International reported that Walsh delivered that sentence at a hastily called news conference. At the same news conference Walsh said he had learned thirteen days earlier that Bush had not turned over requested notes from his years as vice president, and that "The production of these notes is still ongoing and will lead to appropriate action." He said that Weinberger's early and deliberate decision to conceal and withhold extensive contemporaneous notes had radically altered the official investigations and possibly forestalled timely impeachment proceedings against Reagan and other officials, and that he would soon make a "full report" to Congress and the public "describing the details and extent of this cover-up." Asked whether the pardons sent a message that those in government are above the law, he said, "That depends on the president you work for." Asked whether he might pursue Bush, he said, "I don't want to speculate on that." President-elect Bill Clinton said that day, "I am concerned by any action which sends a signal that if you work for the government you are above the law."³² On the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour that evening, Walsh accused Weinberger of lying and said that he had deliberately hidden his notes, according to a 1994 essay in The New York Review of Books.³³ The Independent Counsel issued a Fourth Interim Report to Congress on the Weinberger case and the pardons on February 8, 1993.¹⁰

The pardon of Weinberger came twelve days before his trial was due to begin.²⁶ The Final Report describes the criminal investigation of Bush as regrettably incomplete. It states that after the pardons Bush refused to be interviewed unless the interview was limited to his non-production of the diary and personal notes.²⁶

Final Report

The Final Report was issued in three volumes. Volume I, Investigations and Prosecutions, is dated August 4, 1993 and runs 572 pages. Volume II, Indictments, Plea Agreements, Interim Reports to the Congress and Administrative Matters, is dated the same day and runs 785 pages. Volume III, Comments and Materials Submitted by Individuals and Their Attorneys Responding to Volume I of the Final Report, is dated December 3, 1993 and runs 1,150 pages.³⁴ The letter of transmittal that accompanies Volume I lists Volume III as Classified Materials, and states that materials not contained in the three volumes were deposited with the National Archives, with some held under seal in federal district and appellate courts.³⁵

The complete report was released on Tuesday, January 18, 1994, and The New York Times reported on it on January 19. The Christian Science Monitor described three volumes totaling 2,507 pages, priced at $60, and an investigation that cost $37.6 million.³³³ The Times obituary of Walsh put the cost at about $37 million and the length of the investigation at more than six years.⁵

The executive summary's overall conclusion was that "high-ranking Administration officials violated laws and executive orders in the Iran/contra matter," and that the sales of arms to Iran "contravened United States Government policy and may have violated the Arms Export Control Act."⁹

Firewall and Later Life

Walsh's memoir, Firewall: The Iran-Contra Conspiracy and Cover-up, was published by W. W. Norton in New York in 1997.¹ In it he concluded that Reagan must have known of the basic details of the operation and that the president's advisers had tried to shield him by concealing records and personal notes. He wrote: "What set Iran-contra apart from previous political scandals was that a cover-up engineered in the White House of one president and completed by his successor prevented the rule of law being applied to perpetrators of criminal activity of constitutional dimension."⁵ He also wrote an autobiography, The Gift of Insecurity: A Lawyer's Life.²⁶

Walsh died on March 19, 2014, at his home in Oklahoma City following a brief illness, at the age of 102.²⁴⁵