Bretton Sciaroni, influential American in Cambodia, dead at 69
Bretton Sciaroni, an American lawyer who became a powerful business broker and an adviser to the government in Cambodia after being fired as a White House official when he became embroiled in the Iran-Contra scandal, died March 12 at his home in Phnom Penh, the nation’s capital. He was 69.
He had been ill for some time, friends said, but no autopsy was performed to determine the cause of death. Two fancy pens were placed in his pocket when he was buried, an honor generally reserved for senior officials.
In more than three decades in Cambodia, Sciaroni became a well-connected figure in legal and business circles as he offered legal opinions to the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen. One served to justify the prime minister’s seizure of full power in a violent 1997 coup.
That analysis and the controversy that followed it harked back to a legal opinion Sciaroni had drawn up as a 35-year-old lawyer in Washington, D.C., justifying a behind-the-scenes deal in which profits from arms sales to Iran were to be used to fund the Nicaraguan rebels known as the Contras, despite a law severely limiting such assistance.
That deal was orchestrated by Lt. Col. Oliver North, a staff member of the National Security Council, who told Congress he thought the two-step transaction, which became known as Iran-Contra, was “a neat idea.”
Sciaroni analyzed the deal in his capacity as counsel to the Reagan administration’s Intelligence Oversight Board and found no wrongdoing.
His opinion, which he admitted to Congress was based only on brief conversations with North and another official, argued that the National Security Council was not required to comply with Congress’ ban on aid to the Contras.
During his testimony, Sciaroni said he had failed the bar exam four times but had been hired by the White House on the assurance that he would take the exam for a fifth time — and he passed it.
In firing him, the White House said it had not been aware, when hiring him, that he had failed the bar exam.
“I feel victimized,” Sciaroni said during the scandal that followed. “It’s so blatantly unfair.”
“I wasn’t a transactional person involved in this,” he said. “Congress writes a bad law. I write an opinion which is correct. I get roasted on national television. I’m sort of getting it from both ends.”
His reputation as a fast-rising star in the Republican establishment was ruined. At the suggestion of a congressional ally, he moved to Cambodia in 1993 to help that nation establish a democratic government following decades of genocide and civil war.