WASHINGTON — Former White House national security adviser Robert C. McFarlane, a high aide to President Ronald Reagan who pleaded responsible to costs for his position in an unlawful arms-for-hostages deal generally known as the Iran-Contra affair, has died. He was 84.
McFarlane, who lived in Washington, died Thursday from problems of a earlier sickness at a hospital in Michigan, the place he was visiting household, in line with a household assertion.
“As his family we wish to share our deep sadness at the loss of our beloved husband, father and grandfather, and note his profound impact on our lives,” the household mentioned in the assertion. “Though recognized as a strategic political thinker, we remember him for his warmth, his wisdom, his deep belief in God, and his commitment to serving others.”
McFarlane, a former Marine lieutenant colonel and Vietnam fight veteran, resigned his White House put up in December 1985. He was later pressed into service by the administration as a part of secret — and unlawful — plan to promote arms to Iran in change for the liberty of Western hostages in the Middle East and move alongside the proceeds to the contra rebels in Nicaragua for his or her combat towards the Marxist Sandinista authorities.
He performed a significant position in the affair, main the key delegation to Tehran, then as now a U.S. adversary, to open contact with so-called average Iranians who had been thought to carry affect with kidnappers of American hostages. He introduced with him a cake and a Bible signed by Reagan.
The scheme started to unfold after a cargo aircraft carrying a CIA-arranged cargo of arms was shot down in October 1986 by the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, setting off what finally turned one of many greatest fashionable political scandals.
McFarlane was rushed to a Washington-area hospital in February 1987 after taking an overdose of Valium the day earlier than he was scheduled to testify earlier than a presidential fee investigating the affair.
He pleaded responsible in March 1988 to 4 misdemeanor counts of withholding information from Congress. His lawyer mentioned he was being unfairly singled out as a result of he, not like different key figures in the affair, testified willingly earlier than investigative panels. He additionally admitted his position.
″I did certainly withhold information from the Congress,” he advised reporters at the time. “I believe strongly that, throughout, my actions were motivated by what I believed to be in the foreign policy interest of the United States.″
He was pardoned by President George H.W. Bush, along with five other figures from the scandal.
McFarlane, a career Marine known as “Bud” to his buddies, had risen to lieutenant colonel and to positions in the Nixon and Ford administrations. He served as national security particular assistant to Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford throughout their presidencies.
During the Carter administration, he was on the Republican workers of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He returned to the manager department with Reagan’s election, serving as a State Department counselor till shifting to the White House as national security adviser William Clark’s deputy in January 1982. He was appointed to the highest national security put up in 1983.
McFarlane, a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, was the son of a former Democratic congressman from Texas, William Doddridge McFarlane, who served from 1932 to 1938. He is survived by his spouse of 63 years, two daughters and a son.