No Love Lost Between Middlemen
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WASHINGTON — “Why does Ghorbanifar hate Hakim--and vice versa?”
Arthur L. Liman, chief counsel of the Senate special committee investigating the Iran- contra scandal, was packing his briefcase after the hearings Friday when this question was shouted at him.
“I don’t usually answer those questions,” Liman said. “But this one, I will.”
The animosity between two of the major figures in the Iran-contra scandal, Manucher Ghorbanifar and Albert A. Hakim, is attributable to competitiveness, Liman suggested.
“You have to look at Hakim and Ghorbanifar as competitors in the real sense,” he said. “When Ghorbanifar is eliminated as a middleman (in arms sales), then the only middleman left is Hakim.”
Hakim, for his part, made it clear that he holds no affection for Ghorbanifar. Moments before the hearings concluded, he requested that the committee chairman, Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii), “separate me from Ghorbanifar” in a statement Inouye had made about U.S. secrets having been available to Hakim and Ghorbanifar.
Inouye said: “It is so noted, sir.”
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