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The U.S. has sometimes protested the Israeli sales, sometimes grudgingly winked at them. In the latest round, it did much more than wink: some of the arms and parts were bought by private Israeli businessmen and then forwarded to Iran, which wound up paying the bill. The delivery of such items had been blocked by the Carter Administration, however, after the Khomeini-led revolution toppled the Shah and acquiesced in the seizure of the U.S. embassy by Iranian militants in 1979. The Reagan Administration, in line with its outspoken neutrality in the gulf war, has a long-standing and strongly advocated policy against arms sales to Iran.
Some details about how the transfers were arranged came last week from a seemingly unlikely source: the Union of Seamen in Denmark. It said that Danish ships, which have acquired a reputation for being able to deliver quietly any questionable cargo anywhere, had carried at least five loads of arms and ammunition from Israel to Iran. Said Union Deputy Chairman Henrik Berlau: "It appears that the shipments this year have been carried out on the orders of the U.S. to win the release of hostages in Lebanon."
The union related the story of an October voyage as told by a sailor who asked not to be identified. He said that around Oct. 17 the coaster Morso picked up 26 containers full of ammunition in the Israeli port of Eilat and delivered them to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas. "We all knew there was ammunition on board," said the sailor, but Israeli authorities in Eilat took care to let no one else know. "The Israeli harbor authorities," the sailor added, "told us to take off all markings that could show we had been in Israel, including the markings on the food we had taken aboard and on the weapons containers. We even had to remove the JAFFA markings on the oranges." Further, said the seaman, uniformed Israelis had already demanded that the name Morso be removed from the ship before its arrival in Eilat and replaced temporarily by Solar; the name was changed back to Morso as the vessel approached the Persian Gulf, reaching Iran around Oct. 21.
In the U.S., the arms-shipping operations and some of the negotiations with Iran about hostages were arranged by a tiny group of NSC staffers led by Oliver North and known as the "cowboys." Says a Government source who was ) clued in on their operations very late: "This thing was run out of the West Wing (of the White House). It was a vest-pocket, high-risk business." Whether the motive for the arms-shipments policy was to gain U.S. influence in Iran's power struggles or to win freedom for hostages in Lebanon, officials could hope for success. Last month Mehdi Hashemi, a hard-line Iranian official, was arrested in Tehran and charged by the Iranian government with treason, allegedly because he had masterminded the kidnaping of a Syrian diplomat, who was then promptly set free. Khomeini personally approved an investigation into Hashemi's activities. Hashemi's pending downfall is good news for the U.S. because he is among the most extreme of Khomeini's followers in urging Islamic revolution outside Iran. He is thought to have suggested to Lebanese extremists that they kidnap and hold American hostages.