Robert ‘Bud’ Mcfarlane
Reagan’s National Security Adviser who honourably owned up to his role in the Iran-contra affair
ROBERT ‘BUD’ MCFARLANE, who has died aged 84, was National Security Adviser to President Ronald Reagan, 1983-85, and uniquely among those involved he took the blame for his role in the arms-for-hostages part of the Iran-contra scandal; such was the shame and stress he felt over it that he tried to take his own life days before the opening of an inquiry into the affair.
A much-decorated Marine Corps officer, patriotic and decent, Bud Mcfarlane was also a proponent of the anti-missile Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI) known as “Star Wars”. While the system was never built, the ramping-up of defence spending spooked Moscow into doing the same, helping to precipitate the collapse of the Soviet Union.
But Mcfarlane’s name will forever be associated with the Iran-contra affair, in which arms were secretly sold to the Khomeini regime in the hope of winning the release of US hostages, and the proceeds diverted to fund anti-sandinista rebels in Nicaragua. Both ends of the arrangement were illegal.
Following the crash of a plane carrying US weapons to the Contra rebels in Nicaragua in 1986, the secret was out and a major political scandal ensued. During the fall-out, questions were raised over how much the aging president had been aware of the deals, or in control of his foreign policy agenda.
Mcfarlane’s contrition and co-operation with investigators contrasted starkly with the dissembling of many others, notably Col Oliver North; and the independent prosecutor Lawrence E Walsh ultimately charged Mcfarlane with only four misdemeanour counts. In 1992 he was pardoned by President George HW Bush.
He had been an unlikely choice to become Reagan’s national security adviser in 1983, as a functionary, if a gifted one, and an altogether different character to the scholars and ideologues who had proceeded him, including his mentor Henry Kissinger.
The distress that led to his suicide attempt arose from his belief that he should have done more to persuade Reagan to drop the Iran arms shipments.
One night while his wife, an English teacher, was marking schoolwork, he took an overdose of sleeping tablets before climbing into bed beside her. Found unconscious the next morning, he was resuscitated in hospital, then underwent intensive psychiatric treatment.
In the hard-edged world of 1980s Washington, the idea that this rather buttoned-up military man would commit an act of self-destruction caused almost as much of a stir as the scandal itself.
Reagan telephoned Mcfarlane in hospital, but the episode was not mentioned by embarrassed staffers at the White House morning meeting. Mcfarlane later described his action as “the honourable thing to do”, comparing it to Japanese hara-kiri, on the grounds that he had “so let down the country”.
Robert Carl Mcfarlane was born in Washington on July 12 1937 to William Mcfarlane, a Democratic Congressman from Texas, and his wife Alma, née Carl.
Young Bud attended Bethesda-chevy Chase High School, where he met his future wife Jonda Riley – she would later teach at the school – before following his uncle and brother into the Naval Academy in Annapolis.
Graduating in 1959 near the top of his class, he joined the Marines, and as a captain in 1965 led the first landing of US combat forces in Vietnam, a debacle which saw his troops flounder in deep mud. It was the first of two tours, and he later said that Vietnam should have taught him the futility of foreign policy adventures which lacked the support of the American people.
Between tours, he took a Master’s in strategic studies from the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva.
While still in the Marines, he began the first steps on the political path, serving as military assistant to Kissinger at the National Security Council. He was Special Assistant for National Security Affairs under President Gerald Ford, and on retiring from the services in 1979 took up a role at the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Ahead of the 1980 election he wrote much of Reagan’s foreign policy offering, which led to a role at the State Department and, in the president’s second term, to the post of National Security Adviser.
While much of his attention was taken up by driving the SDI, Mcfarlane admitted advocating the scheme to secretly ship arms to Iran in an effort to build ties with moderates and weaken Soviet influence.
By the end of 1985, however, alarmed by events in Nicaragua, he was arguing for an end to the arrangement, before leaving the White House over what he said was Reagan’s refusal or inability to heed his warnings.
During the inquiries which followed, his clear distress contrasted sharply with the attitude of North, who appeared to relish the attention, becoming a darling of the Right.
Mcfarlane won numerous combat medals including the Bronze Star. He published a political memoir, Special Trust, in 1995, and in later life served on the boards of various think tanks and foreign policy institutions.
He married, in 1959, Jonda Riley, his high school sweetheart, who survives him with their three children.