"coverup" Exposed

"Coverup" Exposed

Ann Arbor Film Cooperative presents "Coverup: Behind the Iran Contra Affair," a 1988 film directed by Barbara Trent (Sat, April 4, 8 pm, Aud. 4, MLB).

While previewing "Coverup," I was struck with the fantasy of somehow getting this film slipped into a major network's primetime broadcast. What would happen if millions of unsuspecting Americans, who thought they were just sitting down to get comfortable with "Wheel of Fortune" or "MacNeil-Lehrer" as usual, suddenly found themselves instead listening to a description of Oliver North's emergency plan for stopping American political dissent by suspending the Constitution of the United States? Or to evidence of the CIA's history of involvement in drug running in Southeast Asia and Central America? Or to former White House policy assistant under Ronald Reagan and member of his 1980 presidential campaign staff, Barbara Honegger, describe in crystal-clear terms that "Reagan cut a deal with Iran before the 1980 election to send arms to Iran in exchange for Iran's agreeing to delay the release of our 52 hostages"?

What would the viewing and voting public think if television news were to replace its current style of election coverage and the obsessional preponderance of political somnambulism-inducing poll results that calculate and recalculate for us which conservative Republican or Democrat we are going to elect president this fall? What if they instead presented some politically useful insights into U.S. government operations along the lines that this film does? Voters in the '92 election might be interested to know, for instance, that Reagan 's running mate, George Bush, was identified as present at a 1980 Paris meeting to arrange the arms for hostages deal. Of course imagining that the major media would be willing to provide critical and in-depth political coverage is just a fantasy in the extreme. All of the major networks, including PBS, have refused to air "Coverup."

For sheer entertainment value, "Coverup" resembles an exciting drama of international intrigue, full of dangerous deals, high-powered criminal characters, secret armies and vast sums of money. But this fast-paced exposé of the hostage deal and of the CIA's "shadow government," involving more connections and more (see "COVERUP," page 11)

"Coverup" (from page one)

operations and operatives than you can easily keep track of for 72 minutes, isn't fiction. This film doesn't provide iron-clad evidence that is going to put anyone in prison or remove anyone from office. Much of that evidence, of course, has been shredded. But the first-hand and second-hand accounts presented here make a remarkably compelling case for reopening investigations into the Iran-contra connection and the October surprise. (And unlike the real-life characters involved in the thick plot of JFK's assassination, almost everyone involved in these scandals, including, for a little while at least, Reagan, is still alive!)

One of "Coverup's" more subtle but most profoundly revealing moments is a scène from the Congressional Iran-contra hearings, in which the chairman of the hearings. Sen. Inouye of Hawaii, quite firmly puts a stop to Rep. Jack Brooks of Texas' line of questioning with Ollie North on the National Security Council's contingency plan to suspend the U.S. Constitution. The discomfort in the room created by Brooks' questions is palpable, and it powerfully signifies how the Lawrence Walsh investigation - which only went back to '84 - and the Congressional hearings, never really intended to reveal to the public anything beyond a certain layer of truth. Any forays into the areas of drugs or CIA operations during the public hearings were, in fact, quickly stanched. Public knowledge of the rest of the events and players, including any Republican campaign committee, CIA or Reagan/Bush White House involvement, was and is to remain covered up in "executive session," for reasons, of course, of national security.