WEBVTT - Iran Contra: Episode 1 - Get Me Kevin Kattke 0:00:16.271 --> 0:00:22.791 Pushkin quick housekeeping notice. Before we get to the episode, 0:00:23.151 --> 0:00:24.751 I want to let you know that you can binge 0:00:24.831 --> 0:00:28.751 the entire season of Fiasco Iran Contra right now ad 0:00:28.791 --> 0:00:32.431 free by becoming a Pushkin Plus subscriber. Sign up for 0:00:32.431 --> 0:00:35.911 Pushkin Plus on the Fiasco Apple podcast show page or 0:00:36.071 --> 0:00:40.271 visit Pushkin dot fm slash Plus Now onto the show. 0:00:47.830 --> 0:00:51.551 On October thirteenth, nineteen eighty three, a Long Island dad 0:00:51.631 --> 0:00:55.111 named Kevin Katke spent his day at work dealing with bullshit. 0:00:56.311 --> 0:00:59.351 Katki was a maintenance engineer at a Macy's department store 0:00:59.351 --> 0:01:02.270 in Bayshore, a down on its luck hamlet, about an 0:01:02.271 --> 0:01:05.591 hour and a half east of New York City. Kaki 0:01:05.631 --> 0:01:09.551 came home exhausted from a series of disasters at the store. First, 0:01:09.591 --> 0:01:12.751 the escal had broken down, Then someone poured a vat 0:01:12.791 --> 0:01:15.071 of grease down a drain, which caused the pipes to 0:01:15.111 --> 0:01:18.791 back up all over the building. Then the elevator stopped working. 0:01:19.271 --> 0:01:21.271 He was really tired, in a terrible mood when he 0:01:21.311 --> 0:01:23.311 got home and his wife was making a racket in 0:01:23.311 --> 0:01:23.831 the kitchen. 0:01:24.191 --> 0:01:26.911 This is Nita Renfrew, a former journalist who got to 0:01:26.951 --> 0:01:29.991 know Kevin Katke while reporting on the Iran Contra scandal. 0:01:30.431 --> 0:01:32.231 He said it was the worst day he'd ever had 0:01:32.271 --> 0:01:32.951 at Macy's. 0:01:33.431 --> 0:01:36.231 As Renfrew later wrote in a story for New York Magazine, 0:01:36.791 --> 0:01:38.951 Kaki walked into his house that night to find his 0:01:39.031 --> 0:01:41.311 wife mad at him for being late for dinner and 0:01:41.351 --> 0:01:43.311 his ten year old daughter doing her homework in front 0:01:43.311 --> 0:01:47.071 of the TV. Then a little after seven point thirty, 0:01:47.551 --> 0:01:53.111 the phone rang. On the line was Katkei's other life. 0:01:52.151 --> 0:01:54.071 And all of a sudden he got this phone call 0:01:54.151 --> 0:01:55.591 from the White House. 0:01:56.111 --> 0:01:58.511 The person calling from the White House was a career 0:01:58.671 --> 0:02:01.911 CIA officer who had recently joined the staff of Ronald 0:02:01.951 --> 0:02:03.751 Reagan's National Security Council. 0:02:04.511 --> 0:02:06.591 And he says to Kevin, I'm turning you over to 0:02:06.671 --> 0:02:09.911 Colonel North, and he gives him North's number, and he 0:02:10.071 --> 0:02:12.111 says call him in the morning. He's waiting to hear 0:02:12.111 --> 0:02:12.431 from you. 0:02:15.191 --> 0:02:19.351 Colonel North was waiting to hear from him. Now, if 0:02:19.351 --> 0:02:22.271 you know anything about Iran Contra, it's probably the name 0:02:22.431 --> 0:02:26.111 Oliver North. But back in October of nineteen eighty three, 0:02:26.751 --> 0:02:30.150 North was not yet the star witness in an international scandal. 0:02:30.951 --> 0:02:34.710 He was not yet a poster child for unencumbered American patriotism. 0:02:35.671 --> 0:02:38.550 He was just an obscure figure in the White House bureaucracy. 0:02:39.391 --> 0:02:43.951 Neither Kevin Katkey nor anyone else had ever heard of him. Still, 0:02:44.271 --> 0:02:47.231 Katkey was excited at the prospect of making himself useful 0:02:47.271 --> 0:02:50.511 to someone so high up in the government. He had 0:02:50.551 --> 0:02:53.351 been trying to make himself useful in this way for years. 0:02:54.031 --> 0:02:56.871 As documented in Nita Renfrew's New York Magazine story, as 0:02:56.911 --> 0:03:00.270 well as pieces in Newsday and Mother Jones, Katkey was 0:03:00.311 --> 0:03:03.551 the leader of a kind of homegrown anti communist club. 0:03:04.271 --> 0:03:07.871 It was him and three friends, a stockbroker, a building inspector, 0:03:07.911 --> 0:03:10.311 and a carpenter, all from the same part art of 0:03:10.311 --> 0:03:14.911 Long Island. They weren't vigilantes exactly, and they weren't quite spies. 0:03:15.551 --> 0:03:20.271 They were more like intelligence gathering volunteers. They traveled abroad, 0:03:20.471 --> 0:03:23.231 they made contacts with people who gave them information about 0:03:23.231 --> 0:03:26.391 foreign governments, and they tried to get important people in 0:03:26.511 --> 0:03:28.631 Washington to listen to their findings. 0:03:29.111 --> 0:03:31.871 They were like a troop of boy scouts, you know, 0:03:31.951 --> 0:03:34.591 they were out there. They wanted to have an adventure 0:03:34.751 --> 0:03:37.271 and do positive things while they were doing it. You know, 0:03:37.311 --> 0:03:38.351 that's what boy scouts do. 0:03:38.951 --> 0:03:42.471 Oliver North would later tell Iran Kantra investigators that Kevin 0:03:42.551 --> 0:03:45.551 Katki was a right wing ideologue and compared him to 0:03:45.631 --> 0:03:49.231 a rogue CIA agent. I doubt Kaki would have taken 0:03:49.271 --> 0:03:52.511 it as an insult. He was a self professed patriot, 0:03:52.951 --> 0:03:56.791 an enthusiastic foot soldier America's Cold War with the Soviet Union. 0:03:57.751 --> 0:04:00.751 When Nita Renfrew interviewed him, Kaki told her that if 0:04:00.791 --> 0:04:02.791 there was ever anything he could do to set the 0:04:02.791 --> 0:04:05.831 Soviets Backupeg, he would do it no matter what. 0:04:06.591 --> 0:04:09.591 He believed that Communism needed to be defeated in the world, 0:04:10.351 --> 0:04:13.151 and that we had pulled out of Vietnam and when 0:04:13.151 --> 0:04:15.551 we should have won the war. He felt that the 0:04:15.591 --> 0:04:19.791 government needed a lot of help, that we as citizens 0:04:19.791 --> 0:04:21.751 of the country needed to help the government. 0:04:22.351 --> 0:04:25.351 Kevin Khaki and Oliver North, his new contact at the 0:04:25.431 --> 0:04:28.431 National Security Council, had a lot of that in common. 0:04:29.351 --> 0:04:32.271 North had been an unwavering believer in the Vietnam War 0:04:32.391 --> 0:04:34.671 since his days at the US Naval Academy in the 0:04:34.711 --> 0:04:35.911 late nineteen sixties. 0:04:36.391 --> 0:04:39.671 Each man who wears the Academy ring embarks upon a splendid, 0:04:39.871 --> 0:04:44.630 worthwhile career in the highest traditions of the United States Navy. 0:04:46.551 --> 0:04:49.031 He had looked forward to deployment, and when he was 0:04:49.071 --> 0:04:51.911 injured in a car accident during his first year, he 0:04:52.031 --> 0:04:54.511 worried that it would delay his graduation and cause him 0:04:54.551 --> 0:04:58.751 to miss the war entirely. During his recovery, North was 0:04:58.791 --> 0:05:01.510 so focused on getting better in time that, according to 0:05:01.551 --> 0:05:03.510 a neighbor, he took to jumping off the roof of 0:05:03.511 --> 0:05:06.231 a garage over and over again in an effort to 0:05:06.271 --> 0:05:07.271 strengthen his legs. 0:05:07.631 --> 0:05:10.471 In the war, today, American B fifty two bombers dropped 0:05:10.471 --> 0:05:13.431 tons of expose he was on dense jungles near at Cambodia. 0:05:13.951 --> 0:05:16.311 North ended up fighting in Vietnam for about a year. 0:05:17.311 --> 0:05:20.711 While overseas, he wrote letters home to his parents expressing 0:05:20.711 --> 0:05:23.871 his frustration with Washington lawmakers who were unwilling to fully 0:05:23.951 --> 0:05:27.390 get behind the war. Most of all, he wrote, I 0:05:27.431 --> 0:05:30.471 wish the politicians would get off their fat, soft posteriors 0:05:30.671 --> 0:05:32.591 and come through with something one way or the other 0:05:32.871 --> 0:05:34.071 to clear this mess up. 0:05:34.791 --> 0:05:40.471 I think that reflects a frustration comment among military guys 0:05:40.751 --> 0:05:47.070 with Congress or the administration for tying their hands in battle. 0:05:47.631 --> 0:05:51.271 That's journalist Ben Bradley Jr. He's the author of Guts 0:05:51.351 --> 0:05:54.591 and Glory, The Rise and Fall of Oliver North, which 0:05:54.631 --> 0:05:57.631 was published in nineteen eighty eight, two years after North 0:05:57.671 --> 0:05:59.991 became a household name as a result of the Iran 0:06:00.071 --> 0:06:00.911 Contra scandal. 0:06:01.831 --> 0:06:05.391 And you know, these guys would typically feel, you know, shit, 0:06:05.431 --> 0:06:08.551 if they could just unleash us, we'd have this thing 0:06:08.911 --> 0:06:10.751 wrapped up sooner rather than later. 0:06:11.351 --> 0:06:16.311 The Vietnam War dragged on for years after North returned home. Finally, 0:06:16.551 --> 0:06:20.510 after losing nearly sixty thousand men, the United States pulled 0:06:20.511 --> 0:06:22.591 out its troops in nineteen seventy three. 0:06:22.831 --> 0:06:23.591 In Saigon. 0:06:23.671 --> 0:06:26.591 Today, the last of the American troops got on airplanes 0:06:26.591 --> 0:06:29.831 and flew out of Vietnam and in the longest military 0:06:29.871 --> 0:06:31.471 involvement in the country's history. 0:06:32.231 --> 0:06:35.311 As far as North was concerned, the politicians who had 0:06:35.391 --> 0:06:37.951 ordered an end to the war had committed a grave sin, 0:06:38.951 --> 0:06:41.951 both against American forces, who had been prevented from fulfilling 0:06:41.991 --> 0:06:45.271 their mission, and against the soldiers in South Vietnam who 0:06:45.271 --> 0:06:48.591 had been counting on the US and their struggle against communism. 0:06:48.951 --> 0:06:51.991 The politicians had caved to pressure from an uninformed public. 0:06:55.111 --> 0:06:58.151 They raised their voices, their placards, and they march against 0:06:58.151 --> 0:06:58.711 the government. 0:06:59.471 --> 0:07:03.071 As North later put it, America lost the war in Washington, 0:07:03.351 --> 0:07:09.031 not in Vietnam. When North went to work for President 0:07:09.151 --> 0:07:12.231 Ronald Reagan teen eighty one, he carried with him a 0:07:12.231 --> 0:07:15.231 single minded resolve to never let his country abandon its 0:07:15.271 --> 0:07:18.591 values again. And though he was part of the government now, 0:07:19.191 --> 0:07:21.551 he was not going to be precious about accepting help 0:07:21.591 --> 0:07:25.351 from like minded outsiders. It was that openness to collaboration, 0:07:26.071 --> 0:07:30.231 not just with department store engineers, but with arms dealers, mercenaries, 0:07:30.431 --> 0:07:33.871 and shady international fixers that would later drive North and 0:07:33.911 --> 0:07:37.271 the rest of the Reagan White House headlong into Iran Contra. 0:07:38.511 --> 0:07:42.671 But first North needed to talk to Kevin katke He 0:07:42.711 --> 0:07:49.391 wanted his help overthrowing a communist regime. I'm Leon Nafak 0:07:49.871 --> 0:07:55.191 from prologued Projects and Pushkin Industries. This is fiasco Iran Contra, 0:07:56.311 --> 0:07:59.831 the story of a secret war, a secret deal, and 0:07:59.871 --> 0:08:04.431 a scandal that threatened to destroy Ronald Reagan's presidency until 0:08:04.471 --> 0:08:04.911 it didn't. 0:08:06.631 --> 0:08:09.391 Washington's Still in Shock Bill, the secret diversion of funds 0:08:09.431 --> 0:08:10.271 to the country. 0:08:10.151 --> 0:08:12.751 To shuffer about secret sales of missiles to. 0:08:12.751 --> 0:08:15.791 Iran, questions of illegality and cover up. I do not 0:08:15.991 --> 0:08:18.071 use the word cover up I would use the word protect. 0:08:18.151 --> 0:08:20.031 They were lying to the press, they were lying to 0:08:20.111 --> 0:08:23.031 the public. They lied incessantly to each other. 0:08:23.231 --> 0:08:26.631 They did it out of loyalty and anti communism. 0:08:26.831 --> 0:08:28.911 That's why the government of the United States gave me 0:08:28.951 --> 0:08:29.391 a shredder. 0:08:29.511 --> 0:08:31.391 How could the president have no. 0:08:33.951 --> 0:08:34.631 Episode one? 0:08:35.310 --> 0:08:35.590 Get me? 0:08:35.751 --> 0:08:39.831 Kevin Katki, the first tremor of the Iran contra affair, 0:08:40.790 --> 0:08:43.790 in which Oliver North and a gang of amateur spies 0:08:44.070 --> 0:08:50.511 helped the Reagan administration turn the page on Vietnam. We'll 0:08:50.511 --> 0:08:59.271 be right back. Kevin Katke's wandering path into Oliver North's 0:08:59.391 --> 0:09:03.030 orbit began in the early nineteen seventies when an eccentric 0:09:03.070 --> 0:09:06.310 neighbor clocked him as a fellow anti communist and started 0:09:06.310 --> 0:09:09.670 bending his year about the political situation in Jamaica, which 0:09:09.710 --> 0:09:12.310 at the time was governed by a socialist prime minister. 0:09:13.070 --> 0:09:15.991 Katke's neighbor said he knew some right wing dissidents who 0:09:15.991 --> 0:09:19.950 were trying to overthrow the left wing government. Maybe Katki 0:09:20.030 --> 0:09:23.151 wanted to help. Here again, is Nita Renfrew. 0:09:23.830 --> 0:09:27.511 Kevin was very charismatic, so he could get people to 0:09:27.590 --> 0:09:29.830 do things that nobody else could get them to do. 0:09:30.030 --> 0:09:33.231 You know, It's like he could walk into places and 0:09:33.910 --> 0:09:35.751 you know, it's like he just had an air about 0:09:35.830 --> 0:09:37.071 him that he was in charge. 0:09:37.670 --> 0:09:41.631 Katkei was intrigued by the Jamaica opportunity. He started taking 0:09:41.670 --> 0:09:43.831 time off from work so that he could make regular 0:09:43.871 --> 0:09:46.710 trips to the island with his neighbor. They hung out 0:09:46.710 --> 0:09:52.150 on the beach, developed relationships with dissidents, and gathered intel. Eventually, 0:09:52.430 --> 0:09:55.871 Jamaica elected a right wing prime minister and no longer 0:09:55.910 --> 0:09:59.710 needed Katkei's help, but spending time on the island had 0:09:59.751 --> 0:10:03.430 activated him politically. When Iran was taken over in nineteen 0:10:03.471 --> 0:10:06.830 seventy nine by religious extremists who professed to hate America, 0:10:07.471 --> 0:10:09.951 Katki went to Wall Street and sold t shirts that 0:10:10.151 --> 0:10:14.190 said Iran Sucks. He spent the money organizing an anti 0:10:14.231 --> 0:10:18.471 Iran rally on Long Island. Then, in nineteen eighty one, 0:10:19.190 --> 0:10:23.351 Katki turned his attention to the tiny Caribbean nation of Grenada. 0:10:23.871 --> 0:10:28.351 Grenada, Carriacoup and Patimmartinique make up a small country in 0:10:28.391 --> 0:10:29.351 the Caribbean Sea. 0:10:29.910 --> 0:10:32.711 Grenada had a population of about one hundred thousand people. 0:10:33.310 --> 0:10:36.030 Since nineteen seventy nine, it had been run by a 0:10:36.030 --> 0:10:38.790 political party of young Marxist revolutionaries. 0:10:38.991 --> 0:10:42.591 They took control of their lives and their future through 0:10:42.590 --> 0:10:46.350 a revolution on March thirteenth, nineteen seventy nine, for the 0:10:46.471 --> 0:10:49.511 first revolution in the English speaking Caribbean. 0:10:50.391 --> 0:10:53.871 Despite its small size, Grenada was a top concern for 0:10:53.950 --> 0:10:57.511 the Reagan administration. They were aware that the Marxists who 0:10:57.590 --> 0:10:59.991 ruled the island had sought the help of Fidel Castro, 0:11:00.430 --> 0:11:04.231 the communist leader of Cuba. Together, they were building an 0:11:04.271 --> 0:11:08.030 ambitious new airport in Grenada. The theory in the White 0:11:08.070 --> 0:11:10.470 House was that this airport would be used as base 0:11:10.511 --> 0:11:14.991 for Soviet reconnaissance plans. To Reagan, Grenada was part of 0:11:15.030 --> 0:11:18.070 a Red triangle that included Cuba to the north and 0:11:18.151 --> 0:11:21.631 Nicaragua to the west. In March of nineteen eighty three, 0:11:22.310 --> 0:11:25.430 Reagan gave a televised address from the White House advocating 0:11:25.471 --> 0:11:28.670 for an expansion of the defense budget. In making his case, 0:11:29.070 --> 0:11:32.430 he emphasized the emerging communist threat in the Western Hemisphere. 0:11:33.070 --> 0:11:36.511 On the small island of Grenada, at the southern end 0:11:36.550 --> 0:11:40.511 of the Caribbean Shine, the Cubans, with Soviet financing and backing, 0:11:40.871 --> 0:11:43.191 are in the process of building an airfield with a 0:11:43.271 --> 0:11:47.391 ten thousand foot runway. Grenada doesn't even have an air force. 0:11:48.111 --> 0:11:49.391 Who is it intended for. 0:11:50.151 --> 0:11:52.750 By the time Reagan gave that speech, Kevin Kaki was 0:11:52.790 --> 0:11:56.030 already in contact with several Grenadian dissidents who had emigrated 0:11:56.030 --> 0:11:58.831 to New York. Among them was a lawyer who'd worked 0:11:58.830 --> 0:12:01.511 for the Grenadian government before the revolution in seventy nine. 0:12:02.471 --> 0:12:04.430 The lawyer told Kaki that he wanted to get the 0:12:04.471 --> 0:12:08.030 Marxist and Grenada out of power, and Katki, along with 0:12:08.030 --> 0:12:10.951 his neighbor and two of their friends from town, decided 0:12:10.950 --> 0:12:14.071 to help him in his quest. Together, they created a 0:12:14.111 --> 0:12:17.871 think tank style organization that they christened the Grenadian Movement 0:12:17.950 --> 0:12:21.430 for Freedom and Democracy. Kaki also let the lawyer live 0:12:21.430 --> 0:12:23.190 in a boat docked behind his house. 0:12:24.511 --> 0:12:27.471 And they went and they bought clothes at strift shops 0:12:27.471 --> 0:12:30.391 for him so he'd have some nice suits and ties 0:12:30.430 --> 0:12:32.790 and so on, and then they would drive him and 0:12:33.070 --> 0:12:35.631 other people down to Washington to talk to the Congress 0:12:35.670 --> 0:12:36.070 and so on. 0:12:36.550 --> 0:12:38.910 It was during one of these trips to Washington that 0:12:39.070 --> 0:12:41.391 Kaki met the man who would later call him at 0:12:41.391 --> 0:12:44.271 home at the end it was very bad day at Macy's, 0:12:44.430 --> 0:12:47.790 and put him in touch with Oliver North. His name 0:12:47.910 --> 0:12:48.631 was Constantine. 0:12:48.670 --> 0:12:49.151 Mengus. 0:12:49.670 --> 0:12:52.271 He was an ideal audience for a group of guys 0:12:52.430 --> 0:12:55.711 advocating for the overthrow of the left wing government in Grenada. 0:12:56.271 --> 0:12:59.990 Constantine Mengus was he was an idealist, very much like 0:13:00.070 --> 0:13:03.271 Kevin was, you know, like Kevin. I mean, he believed 0:13:03.271 --> 0:13:05.991 the communism was taking over and that they had to 0:13:06.910 --> 0:13:09.391 combat this for the good of those people. 0:13:10.751 --> 0:13:13.310 The night Mangus called kat Key and connected him with 0:13:13.391 --> 0:13:16.991 Oliver North. The White House was keeping an especially watchful 0:13:17.030 --> 0:13:18.151 eye on Grenada. 0:13:18.231 --> 0:13:20.231 There's a real power struggle going on tonight in the 0:13:20.231 --> 0:13:22.790 tiny island country of Grenada and the Caribbean. 0:13:23.111 --> 0:13:25.670 It appeared that a radical faction of the Grenadian government 0:13:25.710 --> 0:13:28.310 had staged a military coup in the capital city of 0:13:28.391 --> 0:13:32.351 Saint George. These radicals seemed to be closely aligned with 0:13:32.391 --> 0:13:35.631 the Soviet Union, and they had placed Grenada's Prime minister, 0:13:35.790 --> 0:13:38.350 who was comparatively moderate, under house arrest. 0:13:38.631 --> 0:13:41.670 Diplomatic sources warned that the situation in Grenada is still 0:13:41.710 --> 0:13:44.950 confused and uncertain. They say it's still not clear exactly 0:13:44.991 --> 0:13:47.790 who will emerge as the new prime minister of Grenada. 0:13:48.190 --> 0:13:50.831 The coup in Grenada touched off a series of meetings 0:13:50.871 --> 0:13:54.151 within the National Security Council. You've almost certainly heard of 0:13:54.231 --> 0:13:56.790 the NSC, but it's worth stopping to provide a bit 0:13:56.830 --> 0:13:59.231 of background on it because it ended up becoming the 0:13:59.271 --> 0:14:03.831 central staging ground for the Irankantra affair. Basically, the NSC 0:14:03.991 --> 0:14:06.511 was created after World War II as an arm of 0:14:06.550 --> 0:14:09.471 the Executive Branch that advised the president on foreign policy. 0:14:10.271 --> 0:14:13.110 Its members included the head of the CIA, the Secretary 0:14:13.111 --> 0:14:16.230 of State, and the Secretary of Defense. It also included 0:14:16.271 --> 0:14:19.751 the National Security Advisor, who oversaw a staff that worked 0:14:19.751 --> 0:14:23.271 specifically for the National Security Council. For the most fervent 0:14:23.311 --> 0:14:26.991 anti communists on the NSC staff, like Constantine, Mengus and 0:14:27.031 --> 0:14:31.590 Oliver North, the coup and Grenada required immediate attention. If 0:14:31.590 --> 0:14:33.911 the radical leftists who had started the coup were allowed 0:14:33.911 --> 0:14:35.991 to take over, it would only be a matter of 0:14:36.031 --> 0:14:38.991 time before Moscow started using Grenada as a base for 0:14:39.031 --> 0:14:43.191 its planes and nuclear submarines. But first there was a 0:14:43.231 --> 0:14:46.911 more immediate problem to deal with. Grenada was home to 0:14:46.951 --> 0:14:50.591 about a thousand American citizens, the majority of whom were 0:14:50.631 --> 0:14:54.351 students enrolled at the Saint George's University School of Medicine. 0:14:54.471 --> 0:14:57.591 There is concern for some one thousand Americans already there. 0:14:57.791 --> 0:15:01.111 It seemed possible that amid the chaos, the Communists would 0:15:01.151 --> 0:15:02.631 take the medical student's hostage. 0:15:02.871 --> 0:15:05.830 Medical students like Jonathan Beck, whose mother has not been 0:15:05.871 --> 0:15:07.870 able to reach him by telephone, I have. 0:15:08.071 --> 0:15:11.311 Known now as exactly of what it going on, and 0:15:11.351 --> 0:15:12.551 I'm quite apprehensive. 0:15:12.830 --> 0:15:15.511 Jeff Geller, who had enrolled at Saint George's after getting 0:15:15.551 --> 0:15:18.711 waitlisted at med schools in the US, remembers the first 0:15:18.710 --> 0:15:21.191 indication that a military coup was underway. 0:15:21.830 --> 0:15:24.711 One day, we're anatomy class, in fact, we're having an 0:15:24.710 --> 0:15:28.071 anatomy exam, and the exam finishes, and we're all ready 0:15:28.071 --> 0:15:30.111 to go back to the dorms and the bus doesn't come. 0:15:31.151 --> 0:15:33.071 To wait a while, and they announced it's going to 0:15:33.071 --> 0:15:35.071 be a little late. They don't tell us what's going on. 0:15:35.830 --> 0:15:38.351 Finally the bus does come and we're head back to the 0:15:38.391 --> 0:15:42.511 dorms and the tank comes by us, and another tank 0:15:42.551 --> 0:15:45.031 and another tank and another tank, and we're all going 0:15:45.071 --> 0:15:46.471 towards Saint George's, the capital. 0:15:48.631 --> 0:15:51.710 The tanks cut through the lush tropical paradise where Geller 0:15:51.791 --> 0:15:53.990 had just started school a few weeks earlier. 0:15:54.311 --> 0:15:57.951 We were ordinary college students and so you know, seeing 0:15:57.951 --> 0:16:01.711 a tank up close, you know, not in the parade 0:16:01.751 --> 0:16:04.511 and not you know, as a museum exhibit was very 0:16:04.511 --> 0:16:07.311 different for us. You know, we could barely fit the 0:16:07.351 --> 0:16:09.271 bus and the tank on the road. These are very 0:16:09.511 --> 0:16:12.231 small country roads there, just earthed. 0:16:14.751 --> 0:16:17.391 It was against this backdrop that Kevin Katke got the 0:16:17.431 --> 0:16:21.710 phone call from NSC staffer Constantine Mengus. Mengus had been 0:16:21.710 --> 0:16:24.351 working with Oliver North on a plan to intervene in 0:16:24.391 --> 0:16:27.591 Grenada ever since the Prime Minister's ouster a few days earlier. 0:16:28.431 --> 0:16:31.991 Mengus and North had two goals. One get the medical 0:16:31.991 --> 0:16:36.151 students home, and two turned the crisis into an opportunity 0:16:36.311 --> 0:16:40.710 by restoring democracy in Grenada. Mengus thought Katke and his 0:16:40.791 --> 0:16:43.911 contacts within the Grenadian exile community could be of some use, 0:16:44.511 --> 0:16:47.071 and he wanted Katke to call North the following morning 0:16:47.311 --> 0:16:51.191 in order to receive his marching orders. Nita Renfrew describes 0:16:51.231 --> 0:16:53.191 this as the moment Katki had been waiting for. 0:16:54.151 --> 0:16:56.951 Well. He was elated that he was being taken seriously, 0:16:57.710 --> 0:17:01.311 that he could really help the government now because he 0:17:01.351 --> 0:17:03.991 had all the Grenadian contacts, the White House didn't have them. 0:17:04.511 --> 0:17:06.951 He felt, you know that what he had been doing, 0:17:07.071 --> 0:17:11.951 was was bearing fruit. You know that somebody had listened 0:17:11.991 --> 0:17:15.551 to him, you know, after they'd been working so hard. 0:17:16.711 --> 0:17:19.910 After the conversation with Mengus, Katki called his friends and 0:17:19.951 --> 0:17:22.711 told him to come over the following morning. He wanted 0:17:22.751 --> 0:17:24.311 them to be there when he spoke to North so 0:17:24.311 --> 0:17:26.230 they wouldn't think he'd gone crazy when he told him 0:17:26.271 --> 0:17:29.710 the White House wanted their help. I get why he 0:17:29.791 --> 0:17:33.071 was concerned. When I first read Nita Renfrew's story about 0:17:33.110 --> 0:17:36.471 Katki in New York Magazine, my first question was, why 0:17:36.511 --> 0:17:38.511 on earth did anyone in the government give this random 0:17:38.551 --> 0:17:41.551 guy the time of day. It was something Katki himself 0:17:41.551 --> 0:17:44.471 wondered about in one of his interviews with Renfrew. He said, 0:17:45.110 --> 0:17:47.110 you know, there's something wrong if the government has to 0:17:47.231 --> 0:17:52.150 use us. Even so, Kaki seemed to make a consistently 0:17:52.191 --> 0:17:54.791 good impression on the government officials he came into contact with. 0:17:55.630 --> 0:17:58.271 In an article published in Newsday after the Iran Kantra 0:17:58.311 --> 0:18:02.430 affair became public, an unnamed intelligence staffer described Kaki as 0:18:02.471 --> 0:18:06.350 an idiot savant on foreign affairs. The staffer said that 0:18:06.431 --> 0:18:10.390 even though Katki had no background and no training, distantly 0:18:10.390 --> 0:18:12.791 stumbled onto interesting things. 0:18:13.350 --> 0:18:17.071 Unlike lots of other people who drifted across the stage 0:18:17.150 --> 0:18:22.150 in these investigations, everything Kevin said more or less checked out. 0:18:22.630 --> 0:18:25.350 This is Jack Blum, a lawyer who worked for the 0:18:25.431 --> 0:18:28.470 Senate Foreign Relations Committee before getting hired by then Senator 0:18:28.551 --> 0:18:32.751 John Kerry to investigate Iran contra. Blum got to know 0:18:32.911 --> 0:18:35.991 Kaki in the course of that investigation and came to 0:18:36.071 --> 0:18:37.231 rather like him. 0:18:37.511 --> 0:18:40.110 There are people who get involved in things like this 0:18:40.271 --> 0:18:44.110 who are evil. There are people who get involved in 0:18:44.191 --> 0:18:46.311 things like this where you have a sense that the 0:18:46.350 --> 0:18:52.710 motivation is ugly. None of that applies to Kevin. What 0:18:52.870 --> 0:18:56.311 you get is what you see, and that's that. 0:18:57.511 --> 0:18:59.991 Blum told me, I shouldn't be so surprised that Kaki 0:19:00.031 --> 0:19:02.150 could be useful to someone in Washington on the subject 0:19:02.231 --> 0:19:05.071 of Grenada. If you were looking for intelligence in the 0:19:05.071 --> 0:19:07.670 Caribbean in nineteen eighty three, he said, you could do 0:19:07.711 --> 0:19:09.511 a lot worse than spending time in New York. 0:19:10.191 --> 0:19:14.830 Brooklyn has any number of these expat communities from places 0:19:14.911 --> 0:19:18.110 all over the world, and frequently, if you want to 0:19:18.150 --> 0:19:21.191 know what's going on in one of these places, the 0:19:21.231 --> 0:19:25.791 best place to go is a saloon in Brooklyn where 0:19:26.071 --> 0:19:29.590 there are expats who are talking to the family back home, 0:19:29.751 --> 0:19:33.071 or we're communicating and who know, you know, this is 0:19:33.150 --> 0:19:33.911 what's happening. 0:19:34.390 --> 0:19:37.471 Blum said there was another even more important reason why 0:19:37.511 --> 0:19:40.551 foreign policy officials in the Reagan administration might have found 0:19:40.630 --> 0:19:44.991 Katki to be an appealing collaborator. His very anonymity and 0:19:45.071 --> 0:19:47.830 the fast distance separating him from the corridors of power 0:19:48.311 --> 0:19:50.191 were exactly what made him valuable. 0:19:50.671 --> 0:19:54.071 So when you have people like Katki in company, they're 0:19:54.150 --> 0:19:57.390 kind of perfect people to put to work on the 0:19:57.471 --> 0:20:02.471 project because they're motivated, they go in, they think they're 0:20:02.471 --> 0:20:06.991 doing the right thing. Yet they're not government employees, you know, 0:20:07.031 --> 0:20:10.671 they're strictly volunteers, and that makes it that was perfect 0:20:11.390 --> 0:20:17.751 because there's no attribution, no fingerprints left on whatever they do. 0:20:20.150 --> 0:20:23.311 Later, when Khaki's adventures in foreign affairs came to light 0:20:23.350 --> 0:20:26.671 amid the Iran Contra scandal, they were written about both 0:20:26.671 --> 0:20:29.311 as a comic diversion and as a tragic sign of 0:20:29.311 --> 0:20:32.870 the times. On one hand, Kaki and his crew were 0:20:32.951 --> 0:20:37.031 quote oddball operatives and a bunch of nutcases. On the 0:20:37.071 --> 0:20:40.071 other hand, they were a symptom of the Reagan administration's 0:20:40.150 --> 0:20:47.751 privatization of foreign policy. On the morning of Friday, October fourteenth, 0:20:47.951 --> 0:20:50.630 Khaki and his friends crowded around a phone and listened 0:20:50.630 --> 0:20:52.991 as Oliver North told them what he wanted them to do. 0:20:54.110 --> 0:20:57.031 It turned out the Medical School in Grenada was headquartered 0:20:57.071 --> 0:21:00.830 on Long Island. In fact, its offices were in Bayshore, 0:21:01.271 --> 0:21:05.031 the same town as the Macy's whe Kaki worked. North 0:21:05.110 --> 0:21:07.630 wanted Kaki to go over to the medical school office 0:21:07.711 --> 0:21:11.031 and ask the administrators to formally call back their students 0:21:11.031 --> 0:21:14.110 from Grenada, essentially to put it on the record that 0:21:14.191 --> 0:21:18.791 an evacuation was needed. Kaki wasted no time before showing 0:21:18.830 --> 0:21:20.671 up with one of his friends at the Saint George's 0:21:20.671 --> 0:21:24.511 office and requesting a meeting with the school's chancellor, Charles Modica. 0:21:25.150 --> 0:21:26.590 Here is how Modica remembers it. 0:21:27.311 --> 0:21:32.110 Two visitors came into the US headquarters of the school 0:21:32.830 --> 0:21:36.910 and ended up speaking with our attorney and professed to 0:21:36.991 --> 0:21:41.631 be involved with the United States government. But it never 0:21:41.671 --> 0:21:43.671 got to the level where I even wanted to meet them. 0:21:43.711 --> 0:21:47.231 We thought there was something fishy about the whole thing, frankly. 0:21:47.150 --> 0:21:50.311 And so Kaki and his friend were turned away. They 0:21:50.311 --> 0:21:53.031 had failed to complete their first mission for Oliver North, 0:21:54.150 --> 0:21:56.670 but that did not stop North from coming back to 0:21:56.711 --> 0:21:59.471 them with another task. When the situation in Grenada took 0:21:59.471 --> 0:22:00.390 a turn for the worse. 0:22:01.911 --> 0:22:04.911 This is NBC Mikey News, reported by Tom. 0:22:04.711 --> 0:22:09.551 Brokaw Good Evening. There's been a brutal and body coup 0:22:09.590 --> 0:22:11.711 on the time any Caribbean island of Grenada. 0:22:11.830 --> 0:22:15.311 On October nineteenth, six days after the Grenadian Prime minister 0:22:15.431 --> 0:22:18.150 was put under house arrest, he was executed by a 0:22:18.150 --> 0:22:22.150 firing squad along with several members of his cabinet. Then 0:22:22.390 --> 0:22:25.311 the leader of the coup announced the twenty four hour curfew, 0:22:25.830 --> 0:22:28.430 warning that anyone who was caught violating it would be 0:22:28.471 --> 0:22:29.390