North was member of private group once based in BR 

Powerful conservative organization formed to influence Congress, impact foreign policy

8 January 1987
The Baton Rouge State Times


Several major figures in the Iran-arms-Contra affair _ including Lt. Col. Oliver L. North and a former special assistant to President Reagan _ were part of a secretive, national organization that brought together wealthy conservatives and Nicaraguan rebel leaders.

The Council for National Policy, once based in Baton Rouge and headed for nearly four years by State Rep. Louis E. "Woody" Jenkins, served as a forum for political conservatives to meet behind the scenes with North, Nicaraguan rebel leaders and Afghan freedom fighters.

As one member described it, the Council was a vehicle for people who needed resources to meet others who could provide those resources. Among those who came in need was Contra leader Adolfo Calero.

Launched in 1981, the Council for National Policy brought together a "who's who" of the nation's conservatives, ranging from Texas tycoon Nelson Bunker Hunt to television evangelist Pat Robertson.

The State-Times obtained a "confidential" roster for the organization showing it had a 401-member governing board as of mid-1985. The roster gives unlisted phone numbers, addresses, business or organization affiliations, and in some cases contact personnel.

Members included North, the National Security Council aide who was fired by Reagan for his role in the Iran-arms-Contra affair, and fellow NSC staff member John Lenczowksi.

Faith Ryan Whittlesey, former special assistant to Reagan and now ambassador to Switzerland, was another active Council member. She directed a White House program in 1983 to drum up support for the Contras, according to published reports.

The Los Angeles Times quoted a highranking source on the House Foreign Affairs international operations subcommittee as saying there was "a very strong relationship" between Whittlesey and North.

Whittlesey last month denied a Zurich newspaper report that she was suspected of involvement in the transfer of funds from Iran to the Contras. The arms sale deal involved secret Swiss bank accounts said to be controlled by North.

Whittlesey said the first she knew of the Iran-Contra incident was when she read of it in the newspapers. She issued a statement declaring, "I was never asked to be a part of it. I had no involvement in it."

Jenkins, a charter member of the Council for National Policy, also said in late November that he knows nothing of the Iran-arms-Contra business although he knows North and regards him as a friend.

North formerly was the NSC's deputy director for politico-military affairs, an office that is being disbanded in the wake of the Iran-Contra arms sale scandal. The NSC itself is undergoing a major reorganization.

The private Council for National Policy has drawn little national attention or public scrutiny to date. However, it served as a key forum for gatherings of conservatives to hear from such people as North and Calero.

It is clear that the Council for National Policy has close ties with the Reagan administration and with many of Reagan's strongest conservative backers. Prospective Council members are screened by a committee and memership in the organization is by invitation only, according to a former Council staff member.

The Council's membership roster includes several past and present Reagan administration officials; conservative U.S. senators and representatives; a half-dozen retired U.S. Army generals and leaders of a wide variety of conservative organizations.

The Council's individual members, who hold diverse views on conservative policy issues, joined together through the Council for National Policy to focus on foreign affairs.

North has addressed the Council on more than one occassion.

Council for National Policy documents show North spoke on "national security issues" at a Feb. 22-23, 1985, Council meeting at Rancho Las Palmas in Rancho Mirage, Calif. A former brigadier general of the Imperial Afghan Army, Rahmatullah Safi, also spoke then on "Our Struggle for Freedom in Afghanistan."

Former Council staff member Ron Aker said Stedman Fagoth, who once led Miskito Indian factions fighting the Sandinistas along the Honduran border, spoke at another Council meeting at The Camelback Inn in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Aker is Jenkins' brother-in-law and was his administrative assistant when Jenkins was the Council's executive director. Aker also was involved with Jenkins through another organization, Friends of the Americas. It provides tools, seeds, clothing, medical services and other such aid to Nicaraguan refugees in the Honduran border area, Jenkins has said.

Aker left Jenkins in a dispute and has been critical of Jenkins and of Friends of the Americas. Jenkins is chairman of the organization and his wife, Diane, who is Aker's sister, is its executive director.

In addition to Calero and Fagoth, those who have appeared before the Council include Roberto D'Aubisson, an unsuccessful Salvadoran presidential candidate allegedly linked to that country's right-wing death squads. He was brought in to speak at The Homestead in Hot Springs, Va. aboard a Council member's private jet, Aker said.

Top Reagan administration officials _ such as Secretary of the Navy John Lehman and Secretary of Education William Bennett _ also have given keynote addresses at Council sessions, the group's records show.

The Council usually meets three or four times each year at posh, five-star resorts, such as The Breakers in Palm Beach, Fla. The group carefully avoids press coverage and has a formal policy of not discussing who attends its meetings or what is said there.

At one meeting at The Galleria in Dallas, Texas, Aker said, 200 dinner guests filed through the kitchen to get to another room in order to avoid a New York Times reporter who had shown up trying to cover an address to the group by Congressman Jack Kemp, R-NY.

Kemp, who has indicated he may run for president, is among the dozen U.S. senators and representatives who are members of the Council. Aker said both North and Calero also spoke at that meeting in August 1984.

"North passed out handouts on a Russian-designed airfield the Nicaraguans were building," Aker said.

Jenkins, a conservative Louisiana Democrat and Reagan supporter, was the Council's executive director from its formation in 1981 until early 1985. He predicted when he stepped down that it would someday become so influential that "no President, regardless of party or philosophy, will be able to ignore us."

The Council for National Policy offered fertile territory for North as private aid efforts were organized to help the Contras.

North did not directly solicit funds from Council members, Aker said, but made the group aware of Contra leaders' problems in trying to overthrow the Sandinista government.

Aker said North spoke to the Council in 1984 on "what the Contras need to defeat the Sandinistas, what the problems are."

As recently as May 30, 1986, North spoke to a Council meeting in Nashville on the subject of terrorism and on his views on Central America. A Council for National Policy publication also shows North received a special achievement award "for national defense" from the group in 1984.

Council member Morton Blackwell, a Baton Rouge native who was Reagan's special assistant for public liasion during his first three years in office, said the Council was a vehicle to bring together people "committed to a conservative policy agenda."

Asked if its gatherings helped the private Contra aid efforts, Blackwell responded, "It is a way, no doubt, for people with resources to meet people who need resources."

Blackwell and Council executive committee member Paul Weyrich, a conservative activist who heads the Free Congress Foundation, declined to talk about North's appearances at Council meetings.

"The policy is we don't discuss who attends the meetings or what is said," Blackwell said. Weyrich also had no comment on North's involvement with the Council for National Policy.

Private efforts to help the Nicaraguan rebels were organized after the Congress proved reluctant to authorize aid for the Contras. The Reagan Administration supported these private efforts, and in 1985 the president commended Jenkins and his wife, Diane, for their refugee aid work at an April banquet, saying, "people like you are America at its best."

Diane Jenkins received the first annual Ronald Reagan Humanitarian Award at the 1985 banquet, a $10,500 bronze sculpture of the president.

The Jenkinses said in an interview last May that they collect some $5 million annually in donations of cash and goods through Friends of the Americas, which are then distributed in Honduras and other Latin American countries.

The materials frequently leave the country free of charge aboard military aircraft, thanks to an amendment sponsored by conservative U.S. Sen. Jermiah Denton, R.-Ala., who is a Council member. The amendment allows private groups to ship humanitarian goods intended for refugees on military planes on a space available basis.

Jenkins has said Friends of the Americas supplies only humanitarian assistance to refugees and that it does not knowingly help combatants, either directly or indirectly with its operations near the border between Honduras and Nicaragua.

However, Jenkins has told conservative backers that helping the refugees has strategic importance "because soldiers will not fight if their families are dying of disease or starvation."

Jenkins refused last May to provide information showing how much cash Friends of the Americas collects or how it is used. Patience Sparks, spokesperson for the New York City-based National Charities Information Bureau, says it is unusual for a non-profit, charitable organization to decline to provide such information.

While the Jenkinses were actively raising money for their refugee work, other Council members _ such as retired Maj. General John K. Singlaub _ raised funds for the Nicaraguan rebels through organizations of their own.

"I think we have a moral obligation to help the Nicaragauan resistance overthrow the Sandinista government in Nicaragua," Singlaub said in one interview last fall.

Singlaub has helped raise millions of dollars from private sources to fight communism, part of which has gone to purchase supplies _ both military and non-military _ for the Contras.

Singlaub told the Boston Globe last fall that many of his arms purchases are from suppliers in Soviet bloc countries. He said he strictly conforms to U.S. arms exportation laws by making sure than none of the shipments travel through the United States.

Another Council for National Policy member linked to Contra aid efforts was the former U.S. ambassador to Costa Rica, Lewis Tambs, whose wife, the former Phyllis Greer, is a Baton Rouge native. Tambs resigned effective in January for personal reasons, administration officials said.

The New York Times reported in late December that Tambs was involved in a Contra supply network set up by North. The ambassador helped secure Costa Rica's permission to build a secret airstrip for the Contras and was deeply involved in overseeing its use, the Times reported.

A number of other Reagan administration officials, in addition to North, Tambs and Whittlesey, are members of the Council for National Policy, according to the roster of its board of governors.

They include Assistant Attorney General William Bradford Reynolds and former ambassador H. Eugene Douglas, who was then the State Department's U.S. coordinator for refugee affairs.

Jenkins has long had high aspirations for the Council for National Policy, which he has said was modeled after the liberal Council on Foreign Relations.

Jenkins talked about the Council's achievements and its future in a February/March 1985 CNP publication. The comments were made as Jenkins was stepping down as executive director.

"In four short years, the Council has become the greatest network of American leaders dedicated to individual liberty and limited government since the Committees of Correspondence during the Revolutionary War," he said.

Jenkins said the group represents all the elements of the conservative movement in the United States and described it as "a network and coalition with a sense of unity based on shared values and personal friendships."

He continued, "It is no secret that the Council for National Policy was modeled after the Council on Foreign Relations. Despite its wrong-headed philosophy, the CFR is the most influential single private organization in America today. Our greatest challege is to have an even larger influence on public policy than has the CFR.

"To do this, our members must do two things: First they must have an enormous amount of economic, political and intellectual power. Second, we must learn to wield that power effectively.

"I predict that one day before the end of this century, the Council will be so influential that no President, regardless of party or philosophy, will be able to ignore us or our concerns or shut us out of the highest levels of government."

Through the Council, Jenkins already has gained a degree of familiarity with the "highest levels of government."

For example, Jenkins said in the May interview and again in November that he considers North _ the administration's point man on Contra aid matters _ a personal friend. A source close to Jenkins' organization said the Baton Rouge legislator was in almost daily contact with North for a time.

Jenkins praised North after the National Security Council aide became embroiled in public controversy over his role in the secret sale of arms to Iran, the profits from which were diverted to the Contras.

Jenkins said in late November that he considered North "one of the most able and courageous leaders in America today ... I have no knowledge of the Iranian affair but I am certain that his motives were the best."

Council for National Policy members helped build Friends' financial base in its early stages. Television evangelist Pat Robertson, through his Christian Broadcasting Network, gave Friends $10,000 in 1985 for relief efforts, a CBN spokesman said. And, James Dobson's "Focus on the Family" radio broadcasts also have provided a forum for Friends of the Americas fundraising efforts.

Friends of the Americas rents office space at Great Oaks, the antebellum-style mansion at North Foster Drive near North Street where the Jenkins family lives. The Council for National Policy rented office space there when Jenkins headed it as executive director.

Weyrich said Jenkins tried to get the Council to buy Great Oaks but its directors declined.

"He had attempted to get the Council for National Policy to buy it but (we) were not inclined to buy it," Weyrich said.

Weyrich said some members felt Washington, D.C., or Dallas would be a more appropriate headquarters for the Council since Baton Rouge was "off the beaten path."

Weyrich said Jenkins' efforts to get the Council to buy Great Oaks "may have accelerated" the Council's decision to move to Washington in early 1985 since buying Great Oaks would have meant making Baton Rouge the group's permanent headquarters.

Jenkins said in May that he stepped down as executive director of the Council because he did not want to move his family from Baton Rouge to Washington.