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| Transcripts of oral history interviews of the Ronald W. Reagan Presidency, 1995-1996 | |||||||||||||
| Oral history interviews conducted by Gerald S. and Deborah H. Strober for their book entitled Reagan: The Man and His Presidency. | |||||||||||||
| BOX-FOLDER 5/1 | Oral history interview with James Abrahamson, 1996-10-05 | ||||||||||||
| Interview conducted by Deborah Hart Strober and Gerald S. Strober on October 5, 1996, by telephone. | |||||||||||||
| Born in 1933, Abrahamson was a lieutenant general in the US Air Force; associate administrator, NASA; and director of the Organization for the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) in the Office of the Secretary of Defense under President Ronald Reagan. Abrahamson left the SDI program in 1989 and thereafter worked in the private sector. | |||||||||||||
| Abrahamson recalls the 1983 speech in which President Ronald Reagan suggested the idea that led to the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). He then discusses various reactions to the speech, the search for a civilian director for the new program, the origin of the "Star Wars" label, the decision to place Abrahamson in charge of SDI, the policy basis for SDI, opposition to the program, and the program's effect on "the demise of adversarial Communism in Russia." | |||||||||||||
| BOX-FOLDER 5/2 | Oral history interview with Elliott Abrams, 1995-08-16 | ||||||||||||
| Interview conducted by Deborah Hart Strober and Gerald S. Strober on August 16, 1995 ; recorded at Washington, D.C. | |||||||||||||
| Abrams was U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations, 1981; Assistant Secretary for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, 1981-1985; and Assistant Secretary for Inter-American Affairs, 1985-1989. | |||||||||||||
| Abrams discusses human rights policy and the role of neoconservatives within the President Ronald Reagan administration; political pressure placed on the Soviet Union to improve conditions for Jews in that country; Reagan's controversial visit to a cemetery in Bitburg, Germany, where multiple Waffen-SS troops were buried; diplomatic relations with Commander of the Panamian Defense Forces and U.S. Central Intelligence agent Manuel Antonio Noriega; the Iran-Conta Affair, including the question of the knowledge or involvement of Vice President George Bush, the investigation by Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh, and Reagan's decision to not grant pardons to Iran-Contra defendants; and the legacy of the Reagan administration. | |||||||||||||
| BOX-FOLDER 5/3 | Oral history interview with David Abshire, 1996-06-06 | ||||||||||||
| Interview conducted by Deborah Hart Strober and Gerald S. Strober on June 6, 1996 ; recorded at Washington D.C. | |||||||||||||
| Abshire was a member of the the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, 1981-1982, U.S. Ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 1983-1987, and Special Counselor to President Ronald Reagan with Cabinet rank, 1987, to deal investigate the Iran-Contra affair. | |||||||||||||
| Abshire discusses the development of a the Strategic Defense Initiative program as an alternative to the deterrence doctrine of the early Cold War; his role as Independent Counsel to assist with the investigation of the Iran-Contra affair ; andthe believability of Reagan's denial that he was unaware of the transfer of funds in the Iran-Conta deals. | |||||||||||||
| BOX-FOLDER 5/4 | Oral history interview with Martin Anderson, 1995-09-26 | ||||||||||||
| Interview conducted by Deborah Hart Strober and Gerald S. Strober on September 26, 1995 ; recorded at Palo Alto, California. | |||||||||||||
| Anderson was a senior advisor to Ronald Reagan's 1976 and 1980 Presidential campaigns; Assistant to the President for policy development, 1981-1982; member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, 1982-1985; and member of the President's Economic Policy Advisory Board, 1982-1989. | |||||||||||||
| Anderson discusses Ronald Reagan's 1980 Presidential campaign; the possibility of selecting former President Gerald Ford as Reagan's Vice-Presidential running mate, and the actual selection of George Bush for that role; the post-election transition from the Jimmy Carter to the Reagan Presidential administration; key staffing decisions, including James Baker for White House Chief of Staff, Alexander Haig for Secretary of State, and William Casey for Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director; the Iran-Contra affair; Reagan's quest for a defense system against nuclear missiles, the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) to replace the Cold War deterrence strategy of mutually assured destruction; and Reagan's chracter and personality, especially his optimistic nature. | |||||||||||||
| BOX-FOLDER 5/5 | Oral history interview with Hudson Austin, 1995-09-02 | ||||||||||||
| Interview conducted by Deborah Hart Strober and Gerald S. Strober on September 2, 1995 ; recorded at Richmond Hill Prison, Saint George's, Grenada. | |||||||||||||
| Austin was a general and commander of the People's Revolutionary Army of Grenada from the establishment of the People's Revolutionary Government in 1979 to the overthrow of that government following the invasion by the United States Army in October 1983; Austin also served as Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of Grenada from October 19 to October 25, 1983, following the coup that ousted Grenadian Prime Minister Maurice Bishop. | |||||||||||||
| Austin discusses the opposition of the President Ronald Reagan administration to the revolutionary government of Grenada; the coup that overthrew Grenadian Prime Minister Maurice Bishop in October 1983, and Bishop's assassination by members of the People's Revolutionary Army of Grenada. Austin denies the justifications claimed by the United States for the invasion of Grenada, including charges that American medical students in Grenada were endangered by the coup or the subsequent curfew; that Dominican Prime Minister Eugenia Charles appealed to the United States for intervention; or that Grenada was being turned into a base and arms cache for exporting Communism in the Caribbean. Austin offers opinions about the objections of other countries to the United States' invasion plans; and about the strategic and political reasons behind Reagan administration plans to invade. Austin further discusses the events of the United States' invasion of Grenada, including the accidental bombing of a mental hospital by the U.S.; support within Grenada for the invasion; and the subsequent arrest and trials of Grenadian officials, including Austin. | |||||||||||||
| BOX-FOLDER 5/6 | Oral history interview with James Baker, 1996-01-30 | ||||||||||||
| Interview conducted by Deborah Hart Strober and Gerald S. Strober on January 30, 1996 ; recorded at Washington, D.C. | |||||||||||||
| Baker was White House Chief of Staff, 1981-1985, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, 1985-1988, and campaign manager for George H.W. Bush in the 1980 and 1988 Presidential elections. | |||||||||||||
| Baker discusses the proposal to have former President Gerald Ford serve as Vice President and White House Chief of Staff within the administration of President Ronald Reagan, and the subsequent decision to choose Republican Presidential candidate George H. W. Bush as Reagan's Vice Presidential running mate in the 1980 general election; supply-side economics; Baker's appointment as White House Chief of Staff in Reagan's administration, and his relationship with Presidential counselor Edwin Meese; First Lady Nancy Reagan; working in the White House, and dysfunction within the national security apparatus under Reagan; Reagan's injury from an assassination attempt, the decision to not invoke the 25th Amendment during his incapacity, and the subsequent resignation of Secretary of State Alexander Haig; Baker's job switch with Secretary of the Treasury Donald T. Regan, and Regan as White House Chief of Staff; the Iran-Contra Affair; and efforts to fight global Communism. | |||||||||||||
| BOX-FOLDER 5/7 | Oral history interview with Ze'ev Begin, 1996-08-01 | ||||||||||||
| Interview conducted by Deborah Hart Strober and Gerald S. Strober on August 1, 1996 ; recorded at Jerusalem, Israel. | |||||||||||||
| Begin is the son of Menachem Begin, Prime Minister of Israel from 1977-1983. Ze'ev Begin worked for the Geological Survey of Israel before beginning his own political career, being first elected to the Knesset in 1988. | |||||||||||||
| Begin discusses the reaction of U.S. President Ronald Reagan's administration to Israel's bombing of an Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981; the sale by the United States of Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) planes to Saudi Arabia; U.S. Secretaries of State Alexander Meigs Haig and George Pratt Shultz; the war between Israel and Lebanon that began in 1982, and reaction of the Reagan administration to Israeli actions. | |||||||||||||
| BOX-FOLDER 5/8 | Interview with George Bush, 1996-07-18 | ||||||||||||
| Interview conducted via fax machine on July 18, 1996. | |||||||||||||
| BOX-FOLDER 5/9 | Oral history interview with Adolfo Calero, 1995-09-05 | ||||||||||||
| Interview conducted by Deborah Hart Strober and Gerald S. Strober on September 5, 1995 ; recorded at Managua, Nicaragua. | |||||||||||||
| Calero Portocarrero was president from 1983 of the political directorate of the Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN), the largest of the contra rebel groups opposing the government of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), which controlled Nicaragua from 1979-1990. | |||||||||||||
| Calero discusses his dealings with U.S. National Security Council staff member Lt. Colonel Oliver North; the anti-Communist Contra movement in Nicaragua in the 1980s and its opposition within Nicaragua and the United States; charges that the Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN) was involved in drug trafficking; and Panamanian President Manuel Noriega's role in supporting anti-Communist groups in Nicaragua and adjacent countries. | |||||||||||||
| BOX-FOLDER 5/10 | Oral history interview with Frank Carlucci, 1996-06-05 | ||||||||||||
| Interview conducted by Deborah Hart Strober and Gerald S. Strober on June 5, 1996 ; recorded at Washington, D.C. | |||||||||||||
| Carlucci was Deputy Director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 1978-1981, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, 1981-1983, U.S. National Security Advisor, 1986-1987, and U.S. Secretary of Defense, 1987-1989. | |||||||||||||
| Carlucci discusses working as Deputy to U.S. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger; Carlucci's role as U.S. National Security Advisor acting as mediator between Weinberger and U.S. Secretary of State George Schultz; U.S. President Ronald Reagan's unofficial policy advisors, including former President Richard M. Nixon; Reagan's defense and human rights policy for the Soviet Union; and White House Chief of Staff Ronald Regan. | |||||||||||||
| BOX-FOLDER 5/11 | Oral history interview with Sophia Casey and Bernadette Casey Smith, 1995-08-22 | ||||||||||||
| Interview conducted by Deborah Hart Strober and Gerald S. Strober on August 22, 1995 ; recorded at Roslyn Harbor, Long Island, New York. | |||||||||||||
| Sophia Casey and Bernadette Casey Smith are the wife and daughter respectively of the late William Casey, campaign director for Ronald W. Reagan's 1980 Presidential campaign, and U.S. Director of Central Intelligence, 1981-1987. | |||||||||||||
| Casey discusses U.S. Director of Central Intelligence William Casey's conflicting working relationship with White House Chief of Staff James Baker; William Casey's insecurity about publishing his memoirs; and charges made by Washington Post assistant managing editor Bob Woodward and U.S. President Ronald Reagan's domestic policy coordinator Martin Anderson that William Casey was an instrumental figure in the Iran-Contra Affair. Casey Smith discusses William Casey's running of Reagan's 1980 Presidential campaign; his subsequent job as Director of Central Intelligence; and the Cold War strategy of continuing pressure on the Soviet Union in global conflict zones to force that country to overspend its budget. Casey Smith refutes allegations made that William Casey was the central planner of the diversion of funds in the Iran-Contra Affair, especially the claim made by Woodward that William Casey confessed while hospitalized in 1987 for brain tumor treatment, but affirms William Casey's support for the Contra rebels in Nicaragua. | |||||||||||||
| BOX-FOLDER 5/12 | Oral history interview with Eugenia Charles, 1996-07-16 | ||||||||||||
| Interview conducted by Deborah Hart Strober and Gerald S. Strober on July 16, 1996 ; recorded at Washington, D.C. | |||||||||||||
| Charles was Prime Minister of Dominica, 1985-1990, and simultaneously Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs and Minister of Foreign Affairs. Charles was a cofounder of the Organization of Eatern Caribbean States (OECS), and served as its chair from 1983 forward. | |||||||||||||
| Charles discusses meeting with Grenadian Prime Minister Maurice Bishop at a conference of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS); efforts by the Soviet Union and Cuba to spread Communism in the Caribbean; the arrest and assassination of Bishop in a coup in 1983; the subsequent request by the OECS for U.S. intervention in the Grenadian revolution; and her belief that those convicted of crimes in the Grenadian coup should have been executed as punishment. | |||||||||||||
| BOX-FOLDER 5/13 | Oral history interview with William P. Clark, 1996-07-15 | ||||||||||||
| Interview conducted by Deborah Hart Strober and Gerald S. Strober on July 15, 1996 ; recorded via telephone. | |||||||||||||
| Clark was U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, 1981-1982, U.S. National Security Advisor, 1982-1983, U.S. Secretary of the Interior, 1983-1985, chair of the President's Task Force on Nuclear Weapons Program Management, 1985, member of the President's Task Force on Defense Management, 1985-1986, and Presidential emmissary to the chairmen of the Navajo and Hopi Indian Tribes. | |||||||||||||
| Clark discusses U.S. President Ronald Reagan's administrative style; Clark's working relationship with Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig while serving as the latter's deputy; Clark's role as liaison between the State Department and the White House, and his switch to National Security Advisor to improve coordination; and Reagan's Cold War strategy against the Soviet Union, including the initiation of the Stragic Defense Initiative (SDI). | |||||||||||||
| BOX-FOLDER 5/14 | Oral history interview with Duane R. Clarridge, 1996-07-01 | ||||||||||||
| Interview conducted by Deborah Hart Strober and Gerald S. Strober on July 1, 1996 ; recorded at Escondido, California. | |||||||||||||
| Clarridge was chief of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)'s Latin American division, 1981-1984, chief of the CIA's European division, 1984-1986, and founding director of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center in 1986 before leaving the CIA in 1988. In November 1991, Clarridge was indicted on seven counts of perjury related to his testimony on the Iran-Contra Affair, and pardoned in December 1992 by President George H. W. Bush before the completion of his trial. | |||||||||||||
| Clarridge discusses U.S. Director of Central Intelligence William Casey; Clarridge's appointment as head of the Latin American division of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA); CIA operations in Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua; the growth and development of the Contra resistance movement against the Sandinista government of Nicaragua; the Achille Lauro hijacking incident; the 1986 bombing of Libya by the United States; the affair where U.S. government employee Jonathan Jay Pollard was discovered to be spying for the state of Israel; Nicaraguan Contra leaders including Adolfo Calero Portocarrero, Arturo J. Cruz, Alfonso Robelo Callejas, and Miguel d'Escoto; the United States war with Grenada in 1983, and U.S. Marine Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North's role in it; the 1983 bombing of the Marine Barracks in Beirut, Lebanon; Panamanian President Manuel Antonio Noriega; the Restricted Inter-Agency Group (RIG), its structure, and Oliver North's role in it; planning the naval mining of Nicaragua's harbors; American hostages in the Middle East; and the development of the arms for hostages policy that led to the Iran-Contra Affair. | |||||||||||||
| BOX-FOLDER 5/15 | Oral history interview with William J. Crowe, 1996-03-19 | ||||||||||||
| Interview conducted by Deborah Hart Strober and Gerald S. Strober on March 19, 1996 ; recorded at London, England. | |||||||||||||
| Crowe was and Admiral in the U.S. Navy who held successive appointments as Commander-in-Chief, Allied Forced Southern Europe, 1980-1983; Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Pacific Command, 1983-1985; and Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1985-1989. | |||||||||||||
| Crowe discusses briefing U.S. President Ronald Reagan prior to the latter's first visit to China; Crowe's role as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under new legislation making him advisor to the President and the National Security Council; the conflict between Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger; former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and the military; the legacy of the Vietnam War in U.S. military planning; the Soviet Union's Chief of the General Staff Sergey Akhromeyev; the Reykjavik summit between Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev of the Soviet Union, and the disagreement of the Joint Chiefs of Staff with the discussed plans for arms limitations; the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) program; and Marine Lieutenant Colonel and National Security Council staff member Oliver North, and North's role in the Iran-Contra Affair. | |||||||||||||
| BOX-FOLDER 5/16 | Oral history interview with Arturo Cruz, Sr., 1995-09-06 | ||||||||||||
| Interview conducted by Deborah Hart Strober and Gerald S. Strober on September 6, 1995 ; recorded at Managua, Nicaragua. | |||||||||||||
| Cruz was president of the Central Bank of Nicaragua, 1979-1980, moderate member of the Junta of National Reconstruction, 1980-1981, Nicaraguan Ambassador to the United States, 1981. Cruz then resigned from participation in the Sandinista government and returned to private life. In 1984, he was Presidential candidate for the opposition group Coordinadora, and in 1985 cofounded the United Nicaraguan Opposition, a union of major Contra rebel groups, from which he resigned in 1987. | |||||||||||||
| Cruz discusses the Sandinista revolution of 1979 in Nicaragua; the early support for the Sandinistas as overthrowers of the Somoza government, and the erosion of that support over time; the Sandinistas' reliance on the Soviet Union for support and their regime's collapse with the end of the Cold War. Cruz offers his opinions as to the futility of the Contra war against the Sandinista government, and its unfortunate side effects. Cruz further discusses the 1984 Nicaraguan elections, and the support he received from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to be a candidate for the Presidency; U.S. Marines Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, and his work providing funding to the Contra rebels; and the downfall of the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. | |||||||||||||
| BOX-FOLDER 5/17 | Oral history interview with Nicholas Daniloff, 1995-11-16 | ||||||||||||
| Interview conducted by Deborah Hart Strober and Gerald S. Strober on November 16, 1995 ; recorded at Boston, Massachusetts. | |||||||||||||
| Daniloff was a correspondent for U.S. News and World Report in Moscow; arrested for espionage by the Soviet Union's KGB in 1986. | |||||||||||||
| Daniloff discusses relations between the United States and the Soviet Union during the 1980's; the Soviet response to the United States' Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) program and U.S. President Ronald Reagan's speech characterizing the Soviet Union as an 'evil empire'; Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs Eduard Shevardnadze; human rights issues in the Soviet Union; the circumstances surrounding Daniloff's 1986 arrest for espionage in Moscow; Daniloff's jailing and interrogation in Lefortovo Prison; an earlier incident in which Daniloff had received a letter from a Soviet dissident which he passed on to the American embassy; Daniloff's release from prison as part of an exchange for Soviet spy Gennadi Zakharov; the role of Occidental Petroleum executive Armand Hammer in Daniloff's release. He concludes with an assessment of Ronald Reagan as President. | |||||||||||||
| BOX-FOLDER 5/18 | Oral history interview with Michael Deaver, 1996-02-05 | ||||||||||||
| Interview conducted by Deborah Hart Strober and Gerald S. Strober on February 5, 1996 ; recorded at Washington, D.C. | |||||||||||||
| Deaver was White House Deputy Chief of Staff, 1981-1985. | |||||||||||||
| Deaver discusses U.S. President Ronald Reagan's leadership and administrative style; the attempt to draft former President and rival Presidential candidate Gerald Ford as Reagan's Vice Presidential running mate in the 1980 general election; key Reagan administration officials such as White House Chief of Staff James Baker, Counselor to the President Edwin Meese, National Security Advisor William Clark, Secretaries of State Alexander Haig and George Shultz, Director of Central Intelligence William Casey, and Attorney General William French Smith; the influence of First Lady Nancy Reagan and her astrologer Joan Quigley; Reagan's cotroversial trip to Bitburg, Germany; the assassination attempt on Reagan by John W. Hinckley, Jr.; the job switch where Baker and Secretary of the Treasury Donald Regan exchanged positions; Marine Lieutenant Colonel and National Security Council staff member Oliver North; an attempt to force senior White staff members to submit to polygraph tests about communication leaks; and Ronald Reagan's legacy as President. | |||||||||||||
| BOX-FOLDER 5/19 | Oral history interview with Miguel d'Escoto, 1995-09-05 | ||||||||||||
| Interview conducted by Deborah Hart Strober and Gerald S. Strober on September 5, 1995 ; recorded at Managua, Nicaragua. | |||||||||||||
| D'Escoto was a Roman Catholic priest for the Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America who served as Foreign Minister for the Nicaraguan government under the Sandinistas, 1979-1990. | |||||||||||||
| D'Escoto discusses the matter of U.S. President Ronald Reagan's political integrity; the history of United States influence in Nicaragua; Reagan's interest in the overthrow of the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua; d'Escoto's own time spent in the United States before the 1979 revolution; the Sandinista movement, including charges of Communist influence, and d'Escoto's own appointment as Foriegn Minister in the new government; the Contra rebels, including leader Adolfo Calero; Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega; the Boland Amendment which limited the support that the United States was permitted to provide to Contra rebel groups; U.S. policy and strategy for opposing the Sandinista government; the U.S. invasion of Grenada; and the Iran-Contra Affair. D'Escoto offers opinions on the level of knowledge key U.S. officials had of the diversion of funds in the Iran-Contra Affair, including Secretary of State George Shultz, Reagan, and Vice-President George Bush. He concludes with a discussion of the legacy of the civil war on Nicaragua today. | |||||||||||||
| BOX-FOLDER 5/20 | Oral history interview with Rafi Eitan, 1996-09-15 | ||||||||||||
| Interview conducted by Deborah Hart Strober and Gerald S. Strober on September 15, 1996 ; recorded via telephone. | |||||||||||||
| Eitan was advisor on terrorism to Israeli Prime Ministers Menachem Begin and Shimon Peres, 1978-1984, and head of the Israeli Defense Ministry's Lekem, or Bureau of Scientific Relations, 1981-1986, when that agency was disbanded in the aftermath of the Jonathan Pollard affair. He was then appointed by the Israeli Ministry of Industry and Trade to be chairman of the board of the government-owned Israel Chemicals Ltd. | |||||||||||||
| Eitan discusses the beginnings of the Israeli war with Lebanon in 1982, and the results of that war in Arab-Israeli politics; the massacre of Muslim civilians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps by the Lebanese Kataeb Party militia during the war; the clandestine supply of arms to Iranian representatives by Israel; the incarceration of Jonathan Jay Pollard, accused of being an Israeli spy; and the diversion of funds from the sale of arms to Iran to the support of Contra rebels in Nicaragua. | |||||||||||||
| BOX-FOLDER 5/21 | Oral history interview with Jerry Falwell, 1995-11-27 | ||||||||||||
| Interview conducted by Deborah Hart Strober and Gerald S. Strober on November 27, 1995 ; recorded at Lynchburg, Virginia. | |||||||||||||
| Falwell was senior pastor from 1956 of Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia, and president of Moral Majority Inc. from 1979. | |||||||||||||
| Falwell discusses U.S. President Ronald Reagan's religious and moral philosophy; the nomination of Vice President George H. W. Bush; White House staff members James Baker, Edwin Meese and Michael Deaver; Falwell's efforts on building political support for Reagan's activities, such as the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) and the appointment of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor; Falwell's founding of Moral Majority in 1979, and the organization's support for Reagan's 1980 Presidential campaign; First Lady Nancy Reagan; and foreign relations of the Reagan administration, such as with Israel and the Soviet Union. | |||||||||||||
| BOX-FOLDER 5/22 | Oral history interview with Gerald Ford, 1996-04-23 | ||||||||||||
| Interview conducted by Deborah Hart Strober and Gerald S. Strober on April 23, 1996 ; recorded at New York City, New York. | |||||||||||||
| Ford was a former President of the United States and was briefly considered as a possible Vice Presidential running mate to Ronald Reagan in the 1980 Presidential election. | |||||||||||||
| Ford discusses running against Ronald Reagan for the 1976 Republican candidacy for the U.S. Presidency, and why Reagan wasn't approached as a Vice Presidential running mate in that race; Ford's decision not to contest Reagan's 1980 Republican primary campaign; negotiations with the Reagan campaign over the possibility of Ford running as Reagan's running mate; Reagan campaign manager and Director of Central Intelligence William Casey; the Iran-Contra Affair; criticisms of the Reagan administration's handling of the budget and the Strategic Defense Intiative (SDI); Secretaries of State Alexander Haig and George Shultz; and the legacy of Reagan's presidency, including a refutation of the assertion that Reagan holds single or principle responsibility for the ending of the Cold War. | |||||||||||||
| BOX-FOLDER 5/23 | Oral history interview with Craig Fuller, 1996-06-04 | ||||||||||||
| Interview conducted by Deborah Hart Strober and Gerald S. Strober on June 4, 1996 ; recorded at Washington, D.C. | |||||||||||||
| Fuller was assistant to President Ronald Reagan for cabinet affairs, 1981-1985, and chief of staff for Vice President George H. W. Bush, 1985-1989. | |||||||||||||
| Fuller discusses first meeting California Governor Ronald Reagan while Fuller was a student at UCLA; Fuller's recruitment as assistant to President Reagan for Cabinet affairs for the latter's first term; the functioning of the Cabinet in the Reagan administration; the appointment of White House Chief of Staff James Baker; Fuller's taking over the job of Chief of Staff for Vice President George H. W. Bush in Reagan's second term; tensions and turnover in the Reagan White House; Reagan's second Chief of Staff Don Regan; Bush's meeting with Amiram Nir, the advisor on counterterrorism for the Israeli Prime Minister; Marine Lieutenant Colonel and National Security Council staff member Oliver North, and the Iran-Contra Affair. Fuller offers his opinions on who may have participated in or had knowledge of the Iran-Contra Affair. Fuller further discusses the relationship between Reagan and Bush, contrasts the two leaders, and talks about Bush's involvement with various initiatives of the Reagan administration. | |||||||||||||
| BOX-FOLDER 5/24 | Oral history interview with Roy Furmark, 1996-11-01 | ||||||||||||
| Interview conducted by Deborah Hart Strober and Gerald S. Strober on November 1, 1996 ; recorded at New York City, New York. | |||||||||||||
| Furmark was an American businessman and associate of Adnan Khashoggi, a Saudi businessman who acted as middleman in the arms-for-hostages negotations of the Iran-Contra Affair. | |||||||||||||
| Furmark discusses Jonathan Jay Pollard, convicted of spying for Israel against the United States; Amiram Nir, counterterrorism advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres and Israeli liaison to the arms-for-hostages component of the Iran-Contra Affair; Manucher Ghorbanifar, Iranian arms dealer who acted as broker for the sale of arms to Iran; details of the arms-for-hostages negotiations, including Saudi businessman Adnan Khashoggi's funding of the arms transfers; the marking up of the arms sold to Iran, resulting in the profits that were diverted to funding Contra rebels in Nicaragua; the Enterprise fund that was set up to control the flow of money in the Iran-Contra Affair; Furmark's subpeona to present testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee about the Iran-Contra dealings; and U.S. Director of Central Intelligence William Casey. | |||||||||||||
| BOX-FOLDER 5/25 | Oral history interview with Hans-Dietrich Genscher, circa 1995 or 1996 | ||||||||||||
| No tape; refused to be recorded. | |||||||||||||
| BOX-FOLDER 5/26 | Oral history interview with Gennadii Gerasimov, 1995-05-30 | ||||||||||||
| Interview conducted by Deborah Hart Strober and Gerald S. Strober on May 30, 1995 ; recorded at Allentown, Pennsylvania. | |||||||||||||
| Gerasimov was editor-in-chief of the Moscow News; chief of the Department of Information in the Soviet Union's Foreign Ministry; and spokesman for Communist Party General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. | |||||||||||||
| Gerasimov discusses; Soviet reaction to the U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI); American demands for the Soviet Union to address internal human rights issues; the Washington, D.C. summit of December 1987 between U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Communist Party of the Soviet Union General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev; the Freedom Sunday for Soviet Jewry rally that took place during the summit; the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War; and the arrest of reporter Nicholas Daniloff as a spy by Soviet authorities. | |||||||||||||
| BOX-FOLDER 5/27 | Oral history interview with Ronald Godwin, 1995-10-10 | ||||||||||||
| Interview conducted by Deborah Hart Strober and Gerald S. Strober on October 10, 1995 ; recorded at Washington, D.C. | |||||||||||||
| Godwin was Executive Vice President of Moral Majority, Inc.. | |||||||||||||
| Godwin discusses the founding of Moral Majority, Inc. by Baptist minister Jerry Falwell; Moral Majority's backing of 1980 Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan, and the organization's relationship with Reagan after his successful election; Falwell's relationship with the Jewish community; the conservative Christian movement in the 1980's; U.S. President Jimmy Carter; and U.S. Marines Lieutenant Colonel and National Security Council staff member Oliver North. | |||||||||||||
| BOX-FOLDER 5/28 | Oral history interview with Donald Gregg, 1996-10-30 | ||||||||||||
| Interview conducted by Deborah Hart Strober and Gerald S. Strober on October 30, 1996 ; recorded at New York City, New York. | |||||||||||||
| Gregg was U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent working as a staff member for the National Security Council (NSC) with responsibility for intelligence and for Asia, and as national security advisor to Vice President George H. W. Bush. | |||||||||||||
| Gregg discusses accusations that representatives of the Ronald Reagan Presidential campaign had negotiated with Iranian hostage takers to postpone the release of American hostages until after the 1980 U.S. general election; Director of Central Intelligence William Casey; working in the Reagan White House; the 1983 U.S. invasion of Grenada; and the Iran-Contra Affair. | |||||||||||||
| BOX-FOLDER 5/29 | Oral history interview with Eitan Haber, 1996-03-25 | ||||||||||||
| Interview conducted by Deborah Hart Strober and Gerald S. Strober on March 25, 1996 ; recorded at the Misrad ha-bitahon, HaKirya, Tel Aviv, Israel. | |||||||||||||
| Haber was military correspondent for the Israeli daily newspaper Yedi'ot aharonot, and special media advisor to Israeli Minister of Defense Yitzhak Rabin, 1985-1990. | |||||||||||||
| Haber discusses the meeting between U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin after the outbreak of the first Intifada against Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories; the involvement of Rabin and other Israeli government officials in the arms-for-hostages negotiations with Iran; and accused Israeli spy Jonathan Jay Pollard. | |||||||||||||
| BOX-FOLDER 5/30 | Oral history interview with Alexander Haig, 1996-01-24 | ||||||||||||
| Interview conducted by Deborah Hart Strober and Gerald S. Strober on January 24, 1996 ; recorded at Washington, D.C. | |||||||||||||
| Haig was U.S. Secretary of State, 1981-1982. | |||||||||||||
| Haig discusses working with California Governor Ronald Reagan while Haig served as White House Chief of Staff in the Nixon administration; Haig's appointment as U.S. Secretary of State in Reagan's Presidential administration; First Lady Nancy Reagan and her relationship to astrologer Joan Quigley; the assassination attempt on President Reagan, and Haig's controversial press statement in which he was accused of asserting that he was in charge of government affairs; the influence of the Soviet Union in world affairs; the key White House staff officials of James Baker, Edwin Meese, and Michael Deaver, known as the triumvirate; the Iran-Contra Affair and Director of Central Intelligence William Casey; conflicts within the Reagan administration over Arab-Israeli policy; Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin; and the legacy of the Reagan administration. | |||||||||||||
| BOX-FOLDER 5/31 | Oral history interview with Albert Hakim, 1996-07-04 | ||||||||||||
| Interview conducted by Deborah Hart Strober and Gerald S. Strober on July 4, 1996 ; recorded at Los Gatos, California. | |||||||||||||
| Hakim was an Iranian businessman who set up and operated the Enterprise fund which was used to divert money derived from the sale of arms to Iran into support for Contra rebels in Nicaragua, known as the Iran-Contra Affair. | |||||||||||||
| Hakim discusses his involvement in setting up the tripartite arms-for-hostages negotiations between representatives of the United States, Israel, and Iran that composed part of the Iran-Contra Affair; profiteering amongst private businessmen involved in the arms sales; the request by Iran that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein be neutralized as part of the negotiations; Hakim's lawsuits against the principals in the Iran-Contra affair; the diversion of profits from the arms sales to provide funding to Contra rebels in Nicaragua, and the role of U.S. leaders in planning the operation, including Director of Central Intelligence William Casey and National Security Council (NSC) staff member Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North; and the difficulty of negotiating with different factions in Iran. | |||||||||||||
| BOX-FOLDER 5/32 | Oral history interview with Fawn Hall, 1996-06-30 | ||||||||||||
| Interview conducted by Deborah Hart Strober and Gerald S. Strober on June 30, 1996 ; recorded at Beverly Hills, California. | |||||||||||||
| Hall was secretary to U.S. Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel and National Security Council (NSC) staff member Oliver North, 1983-1986. | |||||||||||||
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