Scandal would make a great ‘soap’

Press, 26 February 1987, Page 6

Scandal would make a great ‘soap’

By

TOM BRIDGMAN

NZPA correspondent in Washington

The near-certain impending departure of President Ronald Reagan’s embattled Chlef-of-Staff, Donald Regan, is being played out in Washington like a political soap opera worthy of prime-time television.

The plot involves the ageing Mr Reagan, who recently turned 76, helplessly caught in a savage cross-fire between his steely, protective wife, Nancy, and the dogged former marine.

Telephones have been slammed down, abuse hurled between Mr Regan and the President’s “flesty” daughter, Maureen (as the popular press puts It), and dark hints ladled out daily through unnamed sources to; the press questioning why Mr Regan won’t do the honourable thing and just go. The main protagonists, Mr Regan and Mrs Reagan, don’t even talk to each other any more.

Through it all strides an apparently enfeebled President Reagan, unable, as commentators have noted, to even settle a spat between his wife and Chlef-of-Staff.

The saga is just a “Dallas” sub-plot of the

wider action involving the twisting ramifications of the Iran-contra arms affair that reaches a scene-stealing high point today jwith the release of the; Tower Commission findings into what was going on in the basement of the White House. [ The scandal itself is worthy of the pages of a pulp novel: a never-end-ing revelation of fact, fiction and character. It has included multimillionaire arms dealers, shifty Middle Eastern middlemen, ultra-secret diplomacy, innocent hostages held by terrorists, attempted suicide under pressure by a high official, secret computer banks, hidden Swiss bank accounts, shady little Danish tramp steamers being used to cart Soviet made weapons to anticommunist • “freedomfighters,” and missing millions of dollars.

To cap it all there is evidence of secret shredding of incriminating documents in the dead of night as investigators closed in, and indications Of a doctoring of the whole arms sale evidence to cover up and protect Mr Reagan and other officials.

Through the mire strides LieutenantColonel “Ollie” North,

the man-of-action winging his way from one international hot-spot to another as he sought to carry out what he perceived as the President’s desire.

Now, as the tension mounts in the final days before the Tower Report, he is joined by the other crucial “soap” component, the glamorous blonde. Colonel North’s former secretary, Fawn Hall, has been described in the tabloids as “a gorgeous dreamboat who modelled part-time while working in the White House.” “Iranscam beauty’s secret diary” screamed the headline in the "New York Post” as it reported that Ms Hall, who helped her boss shred incriminating documents, had produced a diary recording all of Colonel North’s activities.

“People used to drop by to see Ollie just to sit outside his office and drool over Fawn,” according to one official quoted in the paper. In a final, inspired plot twist, it has also come to light that the 27-year-old secretary had been having an affair with Arturo Cruz jun., son of one of the leaders of the Nicaraguan contras who Colonel North had been so assiduously helping.