He was 84 years old.
McFarlane died Thursday after an exacerbation of a previous lung condition, his son, Scott McFarlane, told the newspaper. McFarlane lived in Washington. He was hospitalized while visiting family in Michigan.
McFarlane first worked in the White House under Richard Nixon, as a military aide to foreign policy chief Henry Kissinger, after serving twice in Vietnam as a Marine officer.
Calm and straight-faced, McFarlane rose to power in the Reagan White House “under a blanket of gloom,” wrote journalist Robert Timberg. Reagan appointed him national security adviser in 1983 primarily because he was the least controversial choice.
Four years later, the Congressional television hearings that revealed McFarlane was a key player in the scandal known as Iran-Contra thrilled millions of Americans.
McFarlane conducted arms sales to those he believed to be Thran moderates in the hope that they could free seven American hostages held by Iran-linked Hezbollah in Lebanon. The failed attempts to free them circumvented a US arms embargo on Iran and came just years after Iranian militants held 52 hostages at the US embassy in Thran for more than a year.
During the hearings, McFarlane told lawmakers he did not know that profits from arms sales were diverted to fund Contra rebels in Nicaragua who were fighting the Sandinista socialist government – until his protege and fellow Marine, Oliver North, tell him.
But years before, McFarlane had arranged ways to fund the Contras, which were fighting the democratically elected Nicaraguan government, unbeknownst to Congress. Ultimately, the scandal underscored the ability of White House officials to conduct foreign policy on their own and circumvent the Constitution’s system of checks and balances designed to keep such policies from spiraling out of control.
Although McFarlane had worked on nuclear arms control and many other difficult issues in the Reagan White House, he feared he would eventually be remembered for Iran-Contra. He regrets having resigned from the White House in the middle, but becomes even more involved in the scandal after his departure.
FROM VIETNAM THE WHITE HOUSE
Robert Carl McFarlane, son of a Democratic member of Congress from Texas, was born July 12, 1937, grew up in Washington and graduated from the US Naval Academy. Between two tours in Vietnam, he obtained a master’s degree in strategic studies in Geneva.
After returning to Washington and holding several government jobs, he landed a job at the White House. As Kissinger’s aide, McFarlane witnessed America’s crushing defeat in Vietnam. He handled White House communications with the US Ambassador to South Vietnam while leading the evacuation of US diplomats by helicopter from the roof of the Saigon Embassy in 1975.
Previously, Kissinger had helped open relations with China after secret talks, which sparked McFarlane’s interest in shaping relations with the muted powers.
As a White House aide to Reagan, McFarlane helped launch a study that became known as the “Reagan Doctrine”, a commitment to rolling back Latin American Soviet communist influence in the Middle East. Reagan soon appointed him National Security Advisor. McFarlane takes the doctrine to heart.
In Nicaragua, the socialist Sandinista government, according to McFarlane, formed a “beachhead on our own continent … working from there to spread Communism practically throughout our backyard.”
Reagan’s CIA tried to help the Contras by bombing an airport and mining ports. But news reports revealed these attacks, prompting Congress to pass the Boland Amendment banning US intelligence agencies from helping the Contras.
Nevertheless, Reagan, who saw the Contras as the moral equivalent of the Founding Fathers, asked McFarlane to bring him solutions, not problems. Reasoning that the Boland Amendment had no hold on White House officials, McFarlane secretly snatched up funds in other ways.
He visited the Saudi ambassador at his mansion overlooking the Potomac River and suggested that if the Contras failed, Reagan could lose his re-election. Soon the Saudis were paying $1 million a month into a bank account in the Camans.
Farther from home, McFarlane feared Moscow was courting neighboring Iran and making inroads into the Middle East. An Israeli contact broached the idea of selling American weapons, through Israel, to moderates in Iran, locked in the war with Iraq. Beyond the possibility of freeing the hostages, McFarlane believed that building ties with the moderates could lead to the eventual overthrow of Ayatollah Khomeini and a reset in Iranian-American relations that could go down in history.
He brought up the idea of freeing the hostages Reagan who was recovering from cancer surgery. For Reagan, who had become obsessed with the fate of the hostages, including a CIA station chief, a deal could free them.
HE WAS ASKED TO PLAY GOD
The Iranians asked McFarlane to choose which hostage they would release. “I was asked to play God,” McFarlane said. His choice was easy: William Buckley, the station manager. Washington has approved Israel’s missile deliveries. But Buckley was already dead. As one hostage was released, others were kidnapped.
Feeling he had failed Reagan, McFarlane resigned in late 1985.
Before leaving, however, McFarlane took up communication links with the White House National Security Council.
In May 1986, McFarlane and Oliver North flew on a Thran mission to meet those they thought were moderates. Besides a palette of missile parts, they brought gifts: pistols and a chocolate cake topped with a key, supposed to symbolize a diplomatic opening.
They were greeted not by moderates, but by the Ayatollah’s elite military force, the Revolutionary Guards. The days pass. No hostages were freed, the Americans returned home in vain.
On the way home, North revealed that he had diverted some of the sales profits to the Contras. “At least we’re using some of the Ayatollah’s money in Central America,” says North McFarlane.
Another surprise is brewing: an article in a Lebanese magazine reveals the disaster to the whole world. This leads to an American investigation that damages Reagan’s reputation and throws McFarlane into depression.
In February 1987, the day before McFarlane was scheduled to appear for the second time on Capitol Hill before an Iran-Contra inquiry, he swallowed 30 Valium tablets with a glass of wine and went to bed.
The suicide attempt failed.
After pleading guilty to lying to Congress about soliciting funds for paramilitary activities in Nicaragua, McFarlane was sentenced in 1988 to probation, a $20,000 fine and community service.
Unlike other figures in the scandal, McFarlane did not exercise his constitutional right to evade the questions.
In 1992, President George HW Bush pardoned McFarlane on the advice of then-Attorney General Bill Barr, who later served in the same position under Donald Trump.
STAR WARS As national security adviser, managing the nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union was an integral part of McFarlane’s duties. Reagan, who feared nuclear war, wanted to develop Strategic Defense Initiative, or “Star Wars” lasers capable of detonating nuclear missiles in the sky. Many scientists were skeptical, and some Pentagon officials believed it would worsen the arms race.
Reagan asked McFarlane to convince British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to support the SDI. McFarlane told him that Reagan thought the system could win $300 million in contracts for British companies. “Thatcher sat up and cleared up a bit,” McFarlane wrote. “Finally, she looked at me and said, ‘You know, there might be something in everything after all!'”.
McFarlane was proud to have helped secure the first nuclear non-proliferation agreement with Moscow, but feared that Iran-Contra would overshadow him.
He also regretted stepping down in the middle of the crisis. “I shouldn’t have done it,” he told the Fiasco podcast in 2020 of his resignation. “The only person who could have stopped (Iran-Contra) was me”.
After leaving politics, McFarlane co-founded a company to develop nuclear power plants overseas using American technology.
Once again, Russia occupies an important place in his thinking. McFarlane believed that if the United States did not offer the engine technology countries like Saudi Arabia, Russia or China would. He has met with Trump administration officials about possibilities of bringing the technology to the kingdom, a move that critics say could spark a Middle East arms race.
McFarlane and his wife, Jonda, had three children.