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105-619: IBM originally intended to deliver the Workplace Shell as part of the OfficeVision/2 LAN product, but in 1991 announced plans to release it as part of OS/2 2.0 instead. Although mostly written in C , under the covers the Workplace Shell is implemented as an object-oriented class library, basing on the System Object Model (SOM). The WPS classes are glued together with an interface definition language (IDL). SOM and its IDL

210-802: A "moderate" faction in the Islamic Republic, as the Americans liked to pretend to themselves, but rather with all the factions in the Iranian government—including those who were very much involved in terrorism. Despite this, the talks were not broken off. After a leak by Mehdi Hashemi , a senior official in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Lebanese magazine Ash-Shiraa exposed the arrangement on 3 November 1986. According to Seymour Hersh , an unnamed former military officer told him that

315-483: A State Sponsor of Terrorism since January 1984, Iran was in the midst of the Iran–Iraq War and could find few Western nations willing to supply it with weapons. The idea behind the plan was for Israel to ship weapons through an intermediary (identified as Manucher Ghorbanifar ) to the Islamic Republic as a way of aiding a supposedly moderate, politically influential faction within the regime of Ayatollah Khomeini who

420-582: A centralised virtual machine ( mailman master machine or distribution virtual machine ) to manage mail transfer between individuals, instead of relying on direct communication between the personal virtual machines of individual users. By 1981, IBM's Poughkeepsie site had over 500 PROFS users. In 1983, IBM introduced release 2 of PROFS, along with auxiliary software to enable document interchange between PROFS, DISOSS, Displaywriter , IBM 8100 and IBM 5520 systems. PROFS and its e-mail component, known colloquially as PROFS Notes , featured prominently in

525-489: A chance to free hostages'." Now retired National Security Advisor McFarlane flew to London to meet with Israelis and Ghorbanifar in an attempt to persuade the Iranian to use his influence to release the hostages before any arms transactions occurred; this plan was rejected by Ghorbanifar. On the day of McFarlane's resignation, Oliver North , a military aide to the US National Security Council (NSC), proposed

630-576: A common name. In general an OfficeVision system (which ever the platform) provided e-mail , shared calendars, and shared document storage and management, and it provided the ability to integrate word processing applications such as Displaywrite/370 and/or the Document Composition Facility (DCF/SCRIPT). IBM introduced the OfficeVision name in their May 1989 announcement, followed by several other key releases later. OfficeVision/VM for

735-701: A converter between ODA and Document Content Architecture (DCA) document formats. There were several versions of Office Vision. OfficeVision/VM ran on IBM's VM operating system and its user interface CMS . OfficeVison/MVS (OV/MVS) ran on the IBM MVS Operating System on the System/370 and System/390 IBM mainframe computers . OfficeVision/400 (OV/400) ran on the IBM AS/400 midrange (mini) system. As said earlier, all this versions were derived from different systems sharing no common code, only shared

840-541: A deal with the Iranian Government of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in the fall of 1980" led to "limited investigations". However "limited", those investigations established that "Soon after taking office in 1981, the Reagan Administration secretly and abruptly changed United States policy." Secret Israeli arms sales and shipments to Iran began in that year, even as, in public, "the Reagan Administration" presented

945-569: A different face, and "aggressively promoted a public campaign [...] to stop worldwide transfers of military goods to Iran". The New York Times explains: "Iran at that time was in dire need of arms and spare parts for its American-made arsenal to defend itself against Iraq, which had attacked it in September 1980", while "Israel [a US ally] was interested in keeping the war between Iran and Iraq going to ensure that these two potential enemies remained preoccupied with each other". Major General Avraham Tamir,

1050-532: A government shredder to jam it. Hall also testified that she smuggled classified documents out of the Old Executive Office Building by concealing them in her boots and dress. North's explanation for destroying some documents was to protect the lives of individuals involved in Iran and Contra operations. It was not until 1993, years after the trial, that North's notebooks were made public, and only after

1155-664: A guided tour at midnight of the White House. North frequently met with Bahramani in the summer and autumn of 1986 in West Germany, discussing arms sales to Iran, the freeing of hostages held by Hezbollah and how best to overthrow President Saddam Hussein of Iraq and the establishment of "a non-hostile regime in Baghdad". In September and October 1986, three more Americans—Frank Reed, Joseph Cicippio, and Edward Tracy—were abducted in Lebanon by

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1260-456: A handwritten inscription by Ronald Reagan and, according to George W. Cave , a cake baked in the shape of a key. Howard Teicher described the cake as a joke between North and Ghorbanifar. McFarlane met directly with Iranian officials associated with Rafsanjani, who sought to establish US–Iranian relations in an attempt to free the four remaining hostages. The US delegation comprised McFarlane, North, Cave (a retired CIA officer who served as

1365-516: A high-ranking Israeli Defense Ministry official in 1981, said there was an "oral agreement" to allow the sale of "spare parts" to Iran. This was based on an "understanding" with Secretary Alexander Haig (which a Haig adviser denied). This account was confirmed by a former senior US diplomat with a few modifications. The diplomat claimed that "[Ariel] Sharon violated it, and Haig backed away". A former "high-level" Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) official who saw reports of arms sales to Iran by Israel in

1470-474: A meeting". This does not come as a surprise considering the possible short and long-term effects of anesthesia on patients above the age of 60, in addition to his already weakened physical and mental state. According to Reagan, these Iranians sought to establish a quiet relationship with the US, before establishing formal relationships upon the death of the aging Ayatollah. In Reagan's account, McFarlane told Reagan that

1575-568: A new plan for selling arms to Iran, which included two major adjustments: instead of selling arms through Israel, the sale was to be direct at a markup; and a portion of the proceeds would go to the Contras , Nicaraguan paramilitary fighters waging guerrilla warfare against the Sandinista government , claiming power after an election full of irregularities. The dealings with the Iranians were conducted via

1680-477: A new plan was introduced. This called for a slight change in the arms transactions: instead of the weapons going to the "moderate" Iranian group, they would go to "moderate" Iranian army leaders. As each weapons delivery was made from Israel by air, hostages held by Hezbollah would be released. Israel would continue to be reimbursed by the US for the weapons. Though staunchly opposed by Secretary of State George Shultz and Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger ,

1785-518: A product for the VM operating system named PROFS (for PRofessional OFfice System) and was initially made available in 1981. Before that it was just a PRPQ (Programming Request for Price Quotation ), an IBM administrative term for non-standard software offerings with unique features, support and pricing. The first release of PROFS was developed by IBM in Endicott, NY in conjunction with Amoco Research , from

1890-617: A prototype named OFS developed earlier in Poughkeepsie, NY by Paul Gardner and others. Subsequent development took place in Dallas . The programmable editor XEDIT was the basis of the word processing function in PROFS, as well as in the PROFS document management functions. PROFS itself had descended from OFS (Office System) developed also on the same laboratory and first installed in October 1974. This

1995-607: A rapprochement with the US or was just deceiving Reagan administration officials who were willing to believe that he was a moderate who would effect a rapprochement. Rafsanjani, whose nickname is "the Shark", was described by the UK journalist Patrick Brogan as a man of great charm and formidable intelligence known for his subtlety and ruthlessness whose motives in the Iran–Contra affair remain completely mysterious. The Israeli government required that

2100-660: A retired U.S. Air Force officer turned arms dealer Richard Secord that supplied arms to the Contras. It was ostensibly a private sector operation, but in fact was controlled by the NSC. To fund "the Enterprise", the Reagan administration was constantly on the look-out for funds that came from outside the U.S. government in order not to explicitly violate the letter of the Boland Amendment, though

2205-485: A retroactive inheritance . This allows for many useful third-party desktop utilities that add or modify functionality to or of existing objects without access to IBM's source code. Where the IDL and class headers also of derived classes are published, these classes can as well be extended in turn in the same way. IBM OfficeVision OfficeVision was an IBM proprietary office support application. OfficeVision started as

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2310-618: A separate terrorist group, who referred to them simply as "G.I. Joe", after the popular US toy. The reasons for their abduction are unknown, although it is speculated that they were kidnapped to replace the freed Americans. One more original hostage, David Jacobsen, was later released. The captors promised to release the remaining two, but the release never happened. During a secret meeting in Frankfurt in October 1986, North told Bahramani that: "Saddam Hussein must go". North also claimed that Reagan had told him to tell Bahramani that: "Saddam Hussein

2415-547: A strategic opening to Iran deteriorated, in its implementation, into trading arms for hostages." The affair was investigated by Congress and by the three-person, Reagan-appointed Tower Commission . Neither investigation found evidence that President Reagan himself knew of the extent of the multiple programs. Additionally, U.S. Deputy Attorney General Lawrence Walsh was appointed independent counsel in December 1986 to investigate possible criminal actions by officials involved in

2520-408: A way of expressing gratitude. Casey also justified this request by stating that the contact in the Iranian government might otherwise lose face or be executed, and hostages might be killed. Reagan authorized the shipment to ensure that those potential events would not occur. North used this release to persuade Reagan to switch over to a "sequential" policy of freeing the hostages one by one, instead of

2625-610: A working relationship with the "moderate" faction associated with Rafsanjani to facilitate the reestablishment of the US–Iranian alliance after the soon to be expected death of Khomeini, to end the Iran–Iraq War and end Iranian support for Islamic terrorism while downplaying the importance of freeing the hostages in Lebanon as a secondary issue. By contrast, when testifying before the Tower Commission, Reagan declared that hostage issue

2730-518: Is an asshole." Behramani during a secret meeting in Mainz informed North that Rafsanjani "for his own politics [...] decided to get all the groups involved and give them a role to play". Thus, all the factions in the Iranian government would be jointly responsible for the talks with the Americans and "there would not be an internal war". This demand of Behramani caused much dismay on the US side as it made clear to them that they would not be dealing solely with

2835-547: Is being lifted from OfficeVision/2 LAN to be included in OS/2 2.0... The shell offers the capability to trigger processes by dragging and dropping icons on the desktop, such as dropping a file into an electronic wastebasket. Porting that feature to the operating system will let any application take advantage of the interface. With the advent of Lotus Notes and Lotus cc:Mail as an OfficeVision/2 replacement, IBM began to resell it. Ultimately, IBM solved its OfficeVision problems through

2940-459: Is created, it can be acted on by the user or other programs as every other Workplace Shell object. A part of the WPS design allows for the developer of a class Y which extends or modifies a class X to execute an additional API on installation which will let the WPS 'replace' class X by class Y. This will make even all existing instances of class X behave as instances of the modified class Y; i.e., almost

3045-408: The 25th Amendment prior to the surgery was a risky and unprecedented decision that smoothly flew under the radar for the duration of the complex situation. While it only lasted slightly longer than the length of the procedure (approximately seven hours and 54 minutes), this temporary transfer of power was never formally recognized by the White House. It was later revealed that this decision was made on

3150-618: The Boland Amendment . Administration officials argued that, regardless of Congress restricting funds for the Contras, or any affair, the President (or in this case the administration) could carry on by seeking alternative means of funding such as private entities and foreign governments. Funding from one foreign country, Brunei , was botched when North's secretary, Fawn Hall , transposed the numbers of North's Swiss bank account number. A Swiss businessperson, suddenly $ 10 million richer, alerted

3255-507: The Golan Heights , which the US rejected. More importantly, McFarlane refused to ship spare parts for the Hawk missiles until the Iranians had Hezbollah release the US hostages, whereas the Iranians wanted to reverse that sequence with the spare parts being shipped first before the hostages were freed. The differing negotiating positions led to McFarlane's mission going home after four days. After

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3360-907: The Iranian Revolution , the U.S. was the largest seller of arms to Iran under Mohammad Reza Pahlavi , and the vast majority of the weapons that the Islamic Republic of Iran inherited in January 1979 were U.S.-made. To maintain this arsenal, Iran required a steady supply of spare parts to replace those broken and worn out. In November 1979, after Iranian students stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took 52 Americans hostage , U.S. President Jimmy Carter imposed an arms embargo on Iran. In September 1980, Iraq invaded Iran and Iran desperately needed weapons and spare parts for its current weapons. After Ronald Reagan took office as president on 20 January 1981 and

3465-648: The Iran–Contra scandal , the Iran Initiative , or simply Iran–Contra , was a political scandal in the United States that centered around the revelation that senior officials in the Ronald Reagan administration secretly facilitated the sale of arms to Iran from 1981 to 1986. As Iran was subject to an arms embargo at the time of the scandal, the sale of arms was deemed illegal . The administration hoped to use

3570-596: The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps . The idea to exchange arms for hostages was proposed by Manucher Ghorbanifar , an expatriate Iranian arms dealer. Some within the Reagan administration hoped the sales would influence Iran to get Hezbollah to release the hostages. After the Lebanese magazine Ash-Shiraa reported on the weapon dealings in November 1986, it broke international news, causing Reagan to appear on national television. He claimed that while

3675-450: The Majlis who was seen as a leading potential successor to Khomeini and who was alleged to want a rapprochement with the US. The Americans believed that Rafsanjani had the power to order Hezbollah to free the US hostages and establishing a relationship with him by selling Iran arms would ultimately place Iran back within the US sphere of influence. It remains unclear if Rafsanjani really wanted

3780-628: The National Security Archive and Public Citizen sued the Office of the Independent Counsel under the Freedom of Information Act . What is involved is that in the course of the arms transfers, which involved the United States providing the arms to Israel and Israel in turn transferring the arms -- in effect, selling the arms to representatives of Iran. Certain monies which were received in

3885-535: The Oval Office on 13 November, stating: My purpose was [...] to send a signal that the United States was prepared to replace the animosity between [the US and Iran] with a new relationship [...]. At the same time we undertook this initiative, we made clear that Iran must oppose all forms of international terrorism as a condition of progress in our relationship. The most significant step which Iran could take, we indicated, would be to use its influence in Lebanon to secure

3990-638: The hostile takeover of Lotus Software for its Lotus Notes product, one of the two most popular products for business e-mail and calendaring. Users of IBM OfficeVision included the New York State Legislature and the European Patent Office . IBM discontinued support of OfficeVision/VM as of October 6, 2003. IBM recommended that its OfficeVision/VM customers migrate to Lotus Notes and Lotus Domino environments, and IBM offered migration tools and services to assist. Guy Dehond, one of

4095-494: The "all or nothing" policy that the Americans had pursued until then. By this point, the Americans had grown tired of Ghorbanifar who had proven himself a dishonest intermediary who played off both sides to his own commercial advantage. In August 1986, the Americans had established a new contact in the Iranian government, Ali Hashemi Bahramani, the nephew of Rafsanjani and an officer in the Revolutionary Guard. The fact that

4200-457: The "national security state", the law was an obstacle to be surmounted rather than something to uphold and that the Iran–Contra affair was just "business as usual", something he asserted that the media missed by focusing on the NSC having "gone operational." In Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA 1981–1987 , journalist Bob Woodward chronicled the role of the CIA in facilitating the transfer of funds from

4305-593: The Boland Amendment, senior officials of the Reagan administration continued to secretly arm and train the Contras and provide arms to Iran, an operation they called "the Enterprise". Given the Contras' heavy dependence on U.S. military and financial support, the second Boland Amendment threatened to break the Contra movement and led to President Reagan ordering in 1984 that the NSC "keep the Contras together 'body and soul ' ", no matter what Congress voted for. A major legal debate at

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4410-477: The Boland Amendments. By contrast, Congressional leaders argued that the constitution had assigned Congress control of the budget, and Congress had every right to use that power not to fund projects they disapproved of, such as attempting to overthrow the government of Nicaragua. As part of the effort to circumvent the Boland Amendment, the NSC established "the Enterprise", an arms-smuggling network headed by

4515-449: The Contras. Direct U.S. funding of the Contras insurgency was made illegal through the Boland Amendment , the name given to three U.S. legislative amendments between 1982 and 1984 aimed at limiting U.S. government assistance to Contra militants. By 1984, funding for the Contras had run out; and, in October of that year, a total ban came into effect. The second Boland Amendment, in effect from 3 October 1984 to 3 December 1985, stated: During

4620-577: The Far Eastern languages of Japanese, Korean and Chinese, had a different evolution. It originated from IBM Office and Document Control System (ODPS), a DBCS -enabled porting from PROFS, plus document edit, store and search functions, similar to Displaywrite/370. It was an integrated office system for the Asian languages, that ran on IBM's mainframe computers under VM , offering such functions as email , calendar , and document processing and storing. IBM ODPS

4725-572: The Iran arms sales to the Nicaraguan Contras spearheaded by Oliver North. According to Woodward, then-Director of the CIA William J. Casey admitted to him in February 1987 that he was aware of the diversion of funds to the Contras. The controversial admission occurred while Casey was hospitalized for a stroke , and, according to his wife, was unable to communicate. On 6 May 1987, William Casey died

4830-405: The Iranian government, so, with the hope of the release of the hostages, Reagan approved this plan as well. Throughout February 1986, weapons were shipped directly to Iran by the US (as part of Oliver North's plan), but none of the hostages were released. Retired National Security Advisor McFarlane conducted another international voyage, this one to Tehran —bringing with him a gift of a Bible with

4935-456: The Iranians refused to buy the arms at the inflated price because of the excessive markup imposed by North and Ghorbanifar. They eventually relented, and, in February 1986, 1,000 TOW missiles were shipped to the country. From May to November 1986, there were additional shipments of miscellaneous weapons and parts. Both the sale of weapons to Iran and the funding of the Contras attempted to circumvent not only stated administration policy, but also

5040-559: The Iranians, to demonstrate their seriousness, offered to persuade the Hezbollah militants to release the seven US hostages. McFarlane met with the Israeli intermediaries; Reagan claimed that he allowed this because he believed that establishing relations with a strategically located country, and preventing the Soviet Union from doing the same, was a beneficial move. Although Reagan claims that

5145-515: The Middle East and overthrowing the governments of Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the other states around the Persian Gulf , which led to the Americans perceiving Khomeini as a major threat to the U.S. In the spring of 1983, the U.S. launched Operation Staunch , a wide-ranging diplomatic effort to persuade other nations all over the world not to sell arms or spare parts for weapons to Iran. This

5250-438: The NSC with Admiral Poindexter and his deputy Colonel North, with the US historians Malcolm Byrne and Peter Kornbluh writing that Poindexter granted much power to North "who made the most of the situation, often deciding important matters on his own, striking outlandish deals with the Iranians, and acting in the name of the president on issues that were far beyond his competence. All of these activities continued to take place within

5355-481: The NSC, gave it the vague right to perform "such other functions and duties related to the intelligence as the National Security Council may from time to time direct." However, the NSC had usually, although not always, acted as an advisory agency until the Reagan administration when the NSC had "gone operational", a situation that was condemned by both the Tower Commission and by Congress as a departure from

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5460-488: The Revolutionary Guard was deeply involved in international terrorism seemed only to attract the Americans more to Bahramani, who was seen as someone with the influence to change Iran's policies. Richard Secord , a US arms dealer, who was being used as a contact with Iran, wrote to North: "My judgment is that we have opened up a new and probably better channel into Iran". North was so impressed with Bahramani that he arranged for him to secretly visit Washington DC and gave him

5565-580: The arms sales were to a "moderate" faction of Iranians, the Walsh Iran–Contra Report states that the arms sales were "to Iran" itself, which was under the control of the Ayatollah. Following the Israeli–US meeting, Israel requested permission from the US to sell a small number of BGM-71 TOW antitank missiles to Iran, claiming that this would aid the "moderate" Iranian faction, by demonstrating that

5670-465: The authorities of the mistake. The money was eventually returned to the Sultan of Brunei , with interest. On 7 January 1986, John Poindexter proposed to Reagan a modification of the approved plan: instead of negotiating with the "moderate" Iranian political group, the US would negotiate with "moderate" members of the Iranian government. Poindexter told Reagan that Ghorbanifar had important connections within

5775-502: The beta-testers of the AS/400 , developed the first migration tool. However, OfficeVision/MVS remained available for sale until March 2014, and was still supported until May 2015, and thus for a time was another migration option for OfficeVision/VM users. OfficeVision/MVS runs on IBM's z/OS operating system. Iran-Contra The Iran–Contra affair ( Persian : ماجرای ایران-کنترا ; Spanish : Caso Irán-Contra ), also referred to as

5880-450: The center of the Iran–Contra affair concerned the question of whether the NSC was one of the "any other agency or entity of the United States involved in intelligence activities" covered by the Boland Amendment. The Reagan administration argued it was not, and many in Congress argued that it was. The majority of constitutional scholars have asserted the NSC did indeed fall within the purview of

5985-457: The day after Congress began public hearings on Iran–Contra. Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh later wrote: "Independent Counsel obtained no documentary evidence showing Casey knew about or approved the diversion. The only direct testimony linking Casey to early knowledge of the diversion came from [Oliver] North." Gust Avrakodos, who was responsible for the arms supplies to the Afghans at this time,

6090-611: The deal. Noriega was apparently one of these intermediaries but backed out on the deal as the ship and weapons were seized at a Panamanian port. The Pia Vesta led to a small controversy, as the Panama and Peru governments in 1986 accused the U.S. and each other of being involved in the East Germany-originated shipment. As reported in The New York Times in 1991, "continuing allegations that Reagan campaign officials made

6195-420: The delivery from Israel of 100 TOW missiles [...]. The plan was discussed with President Reagan on 18 July 1985 and again on 6 August 1985. Shultz at the latter meeting warned Reagan that "we were just falling into the arms-for-hostages business and we shouldn't do it". The Americans believed that there was a moderate faction in the Islamic Republic headed by Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani , the powerful speaker of

6300-429: The early 1980s estimated that the total was about $ 2 billion a year—but also said, "The degree to which it was sanctioned I don't know." On 17 June 1985, National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane wrote a National Security Decision Directive which called for the US to begin a rapprochement with the Islamic Republic of Iran. The paper read: Dynamic political evolution is taking place inside Iran. Instability caused by

6405-473: The efforts to find alternative funding for the Contras violated the spirit of the Boland Amendment. Ironically, military aid to the Contras was reinstated with Congressional consent in October 1986, a month before the scandal broke. In his 1995 memoir My American Journey , General Colin Powell , the U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor , wrote that the weapons sales to Iran were used "for purposes prohibited by

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6510-409: The elected representatives of the American people [...] in a way that avoided accountability to the President and Congress. It was wrong." In 1985, Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega offered to help the U.S. by allowing Panama as a staging ground for operations against the FSLN and offering to train Contras in Panama, but this would later be overshadowed by the Iran–Contra affair itself. At around

6615-423: The failure of the secret visit to Tehran, McFarlane advised Reagan not to talk to the Iranians anymore, advice that was disregarded. On 26 July 1986, Hezbollah freed the US hostage Father Lawrence Jenco , former head of Catholic Relief Services in Lebanon. Following this, William J. Casey , head of the CIA, requested that the US authorize sending a shipment of small missile parts to Iranian military forces as

6720-431: The fiscal year 1985 no funds available to the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense or any other agency or entity of the United States involved in intelligence activities may be obligated or expended for the purpose of or which may have the effect of supporting directly or indirectly military or paramilitary operations in Nicaragua by any nation, organization, group, movement, or individual. In violation of

6825-532: The framework of the president's broad authorization. Until the press reported on the existence of the operation, nobody in the administration questioned the authority of Poindexter's and North's team to implement the president's decisions". North proposed a $ 15 million markup, while contracted arms broker Ghorbanifar added a 41-percent markup of his own. Other members of the NSC were in favor of North's plan; with large support, Poindexter authorized it without notifying President Reagan, and it went into effect. At first,

6930-402: The grounds that "Mr. Reagan and his advisors did not want his actions to establish a definition of incapacitation that would bind future presidents." Reagan expressed this transfer of power in two identical letters that were sent to the speaker of the House of Representatives, Representative Tip O'Neill , and the president pro tempore of the senate, Senator Strom Thurmond . While the President

7035-484: The group actually had high-level connections to the US government. Reagan initially rejected the plan, until Israel sent information to the US showing that the "moderate" Iranians were opposed to terrorism and had fought against it. Now having a reason to trust the "moderates", Reagan approved the transaction, which was meant to be between Israel and the "moderates" in Iran, with the US reimbursing Israel. In his 1990 autobiography An American Life , Reagan claimed that he

7140-540: The group's translator), Teicher, Israeli diplomat Amiram Nir , and a CIA communicator. They arrived in Tehran in an Israeli plane carrying forged Irish passports on 25 May 1986. This meeting also failed. Much to McFarlane's disgust, he did not meet ministers, and instead met in his words "third and fourth level officials". At one point, an angry McFarlane shouted: "As I am a Minister, I expect to meet with decision-makers. Otherwise, you can work with my staff." The Iranians requested concessions such as Israel's withdrawal from

7245-438: The historian Michael Ledeen , a consultant of National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane, requested assistance from Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres for help in the sale of arms to Iran. Having talked to an Israeli diplomat David Kimche and Ledeen, McFarlane learned that the Iranians were prepared to have Hezbollah release US hostages in Lebanon in exchange for Israelis shipping Iran US weapons. Having been designated

7350-425: The hostages were released, he vowed to continue Carter's policy of blocking arms sales to Iran on the grounds that Iran supported terrorism. However, a group of senior Reagan administration officials in the Senior Interdepartmental Group conducted a secret study on 21 July 1981 and concluded that the arms embargo was ineffective because Iran could always buy arms and spare parts for its U.S. weapons elsewhere, while, at

7455-526: The investigation of the Iran-Contra scandal. Oliver North believed he had deleted his correspondence, but the system archived it anyway. Congress subsequently examined the e-mail archives. Two wholly different systems also shared the OfficeVision name: OfficeVision/MVS originated from IBM DISOSS , and OfficeVision/400 from IBM Office/36 . IBM's European Networking Center (ENC) in Heidelberg, Germany, developed prototype extensions to OfficeVision/VM to support Open Document Architecture (ODA), in particular

7560-460: The leak may have been orchestrated by a covert team led by Arthur S. Moreau Jr. , assistant to the chair of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, due to fears the scheme had grown out of control. This was the first public report of the weapons-for-hostages deal. The operation was discovered only after an airlift of guns ( Corporate Air Services HPF821 ) was downed over Nicaragua. Eugene Hasenfus , who

7665-501: The norm. The American historian John Canham-Clyne asserted that the Iran–Contra affair and the NSC "going operational" were not departures from the norm, but were the logical and natural consequence of the existence of the "national security state", the plethora of shadowy government agencies with multi-million dollar budgets operating with little oversight from Congress, the courts or the media, and for whom upholding national security justified almost everything. Canham-Clyne argued that for

7770-518: The only signed copy of a presidential covert-action finding that sought to authorize CIA participation in the November 1985 Hawk missile shipment to Iran. U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese admitted on 25 November that profits from weapons sales to Iran were made available to assist the Contra rebels in Nicaragua. On the same day, John Poindexter resigned, and President Reagan fired Oliver North. Poindexter

7875-499: The pardons, Bush appeared to have been preempting being implicated himself by evidence that came to light during the Weinberger trial and noted that there was a pattern of "deception and obstruction" by Bush, Weinberger, and other senior Reagan administration officials. Walsh submitted his final report on 4 August 1993 and later wrote an account of his experiences as counsel, Firewall: The Iran-Contra Conspiracy and Cover-Up . Prior to

7980-479: The parent class need to be overwritten by the developer. All other functionality of the parent class can safely remain unchanged, ensuring the seamless integration of the added or modified functionality and with that the consistency of the remaining user interface. The resulting object class is shipped in DLL form. Once the new object class implemented by it is registered with the Workplace Shell and an instance of this class

8085-666: The plan was authorized by Reagan, who stated that, "We were not trading arms for hostages, nor were we negotiating with terrorists". In his notes of a meeting held in the White House on 7 December 1985, Weinberger wrote he told Reagan that this plan was illegal, writing: I argued strongly that we have an embargo that makes arms sales to Iran illegal and President couldn't violate it and that 'washing' transactions through Israel wouldn't make it legal. Shultz, Don Regan agreed. Weinberger's notes have Reagan saying he "could answer charges of illegality but he couldn't answer charge [ sic ] that 'big strong President Reagan passed up

8190-592: The pressures of the Iraq-Iran war, economic deterioration and regime in-fighting create the potential for major changes inside Iran. The Soviet Union is better positioned than the U.S. to exploit and benefit from any power struggle that results in changes from the Iranian regime [...]. The U.S. should encourage Western allies and friends to help Iran meet its import requirements so as to reduce the attractiveness of Soviet assistance [...]. This includes provision of selected military equipment. Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger

8295-664: The proceeds of the arms sale to fund the Contras , an anti- Sandinista rebel group in Nicaragua . Under the Boland Amendment , further funding of the Contras by legislative appropriations was prohibited by Congress , but the Reagan administration figured out a loophole by secretively using non-appropriated funds instead. The administration's justification for the arms shipments was that they were part of an operation to free seven U.S. hostages being held in Lebanon by Hezbollah , an Islamist paramilitary group with Iranian ties connected to

8400-425: The release of all hostages held there. The scandal was compounded when Oliver North destroyed or hid pertinent documents between 21 November and 25 November 1986. During North's trial in 1989, his secretary, Fawn Hall , testified extensively about helping North alter and shred official US National Security Council (NSC) documents from the White House. According to The New York Times , enough documents were put into

8505-506: The sale of arms meet high-level approval from the US government, and, when McFarlane convinced them that the US government approved the sale, Israel obliged by agreeing to sell the arms. In 1985, President Reagan entered Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for colon cancer surgery. Reagan's recovery was nothing short of miserable, as the 74-year-old President admitted having little sleep for days in addition to his immense physical discomfort. While doctors seemed to be confident that

8610-532: The same time, the Soviet Bloc also engaged in arms deals with ideologically opponent buyers, possibly involving some of the same players as the Iran–Contra affair. In 1986, a complex operation involving East Germany 's Stasi and the Danish-registered ship Pia Vesta ultimately aimed to sell Soviet arms and military vehicles to South Africa's Armscor , using various intermediaries to distance themselves from

8715-505: The same time, the arms embargo opened the door for Iran to fall into the Soviet sphere of influence as the Kremlin could sell Iran weapons if the U.S. would not. The conclusion was that the U.S. should start selling Iran arms as soon as it was politically possible. This was made more difficult politically due to Ayatollah Khomeini 's openly declared goal of exporting his Islamic revolution all over

8820-467: The scheme. In the end, several dozen administration officials were indicted, including Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and Lieutenant colonel Oliver North . Eleven convictions resulted, some of which were vacated on appeal. The rest of those indicted or convicted were all pardoned in the final days of the presidency of George H. W. Bush , who had been vice president at the time of the affair. Former Independent Counsel Walsh noted that, in issuing

8925-454: The second Boland Amendment, though the amendment did not mention the NSC by name. The broader constitutional question at stake was the power of Congress versus the power of the presidency. The Reagan administration argued that, because the constitution assigned the right to conduct foreign policy to the executive, its efforts to overthrow the government of Nicaragua were a presidential prerogative that Congress had no right to try to halt via

9030-520: The second delivery, Reverend Benjamin Weir was released by his captors, the Islamic Jihad Organization . On 24 November 1985, 18 Hawk antiaircraft missiles were delivered. Robert McFarlane resigned on 4 December 1985, stating that he wanted to spend more time with his family, and was replaced by Admiral John Poindexter . Two days later, Reagan met with his advisors at the White House, where

9135-435: The surgery was successful, the discovery of his localized cancer was a daunting realization for Reagan. From seeing the recovery process of other patients, as well as medical “experts” on television predicting his death to be soon, Reagan's typical optimistic outlook was dampened. These factors were bound to contribute to psychological distress in the midst of an already distressing situation. Additionally, Reagan's invocation of

9240-479: The surgery. The meeting took place five days after the surgery and only three days after doctors gave the news that his polyp had been malignant. The three participants of this meeting had very different recollections of what was discussed during its 23-minute duration. Months later, Reagan even stated that he "had no recollection of a meeting in the hospital in July with McFarlane and that he had no notes which would show such

9345-399: The time he took office in 1981, a major goal of the Reagan administration was the overthrow of the left-wing Sandinista government in Nicaragua and to support the Contra rebels. The Reagan administration's policy toward Nicaragua produced a major clash between the executive and legislative branches as Congress sought to limit, if not curb altogether, the ability of the White House to support

9450-523: The transaction between representatives of Israel and representatives of Iran were taken and made available to the forces in Central America, which are opposing the Sandinista government there. – U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese , White House news conference on November 25, 1986 During the trial, North testified that on 21, 22 or 24 November, he witnessed Poindexter destroy what may have been

9555-408: The weapons transfers had indeed occurred, the U.S. did not trade arms for hostages. The investigation was impeded when large volumes of documents relating to the affair were destroyed or withheld from investigators by Reagan administration officials. In March 1987, Reagan made a further nationally televised address, saying he was taking full responsibility for the affair and stating that "what began as

9660-585: Was OfficeVision/2, which was released alon side its new generation of computers including PS/2, AS/400 and ES/390, which was a server-requestor system designed to be the strategic implementation of IBM's Systems Application Architecture . The server, as said could run on the OS/2 , VM, MVS (XA or ESA), or OS/400 operating systems, while the requester required OS/2 Extended Edition running on IBM PS/2 personal computers, or DOS. IBM also developed OfficeVision/2 LAN for workgroups, which failed to find market acceptance and

9765-466: Was a primitive solution for office automation created between 1970 and 1972, which was replacement for an in-house manual system for tracking inter-office communications. Compared to Poughkeepsie's original in-house system, the distinctive new features added by OFS were a centralised database virtual machine ( data base manager or DBM ) for shared permanent storage of documents, instead of storing all documents in user's personal virtual machines; and

9870-514: Was at least part of the reason the Iran–Contra affair proved so humiliating for the U.S. when the story first broke in November 1986 that the U.S. itself was selling arms to Iran. At the same time that the U.S. government was considering its options on selling arms to Iran, Contra militants based in Honduras were waging a guerrilla war to topple the FSLN revolutionary government of Nicaragua . Almost from

9975-428: Was believed to be seeking a rapprochement with the US; after the transaction, the US would reimburse Israel with the same weapons, while receiving monetary benefits. McFarlane in a memo to Shultz and Weinberger wrote: The short term dimension concerns the seven hostages; the long term dimension involves the establishment of a private dialogue with Iranian officials on the broader relations [...]. They sought specifically

10080-522: Was captured by Nicaraguan authorities after surviving the plane crash, initially alleged in a press conference on Nicaraguan soil that two of his coworkers, Max Gomez and Ramon Medina, worked for the CIA . He later said he did not know whether they did or not. The Iranian government confirmed the Ash-Shiraa story, and, 10 days after the story was first published, President Reagan appeared on national television from

10185-414: Was deeply committed to securing the release of the hostages; it was this compassion that supposedly motivated his support for the arms initiatives. The president requested that the "moderate" Iranians do everything in their capability to free the hostages held by Hezbollah. Reagan always publicly insisted after the scandal broke in late 1986 that the purpose behind the arms-for-hostages trade was to establish

10290-407: Was developed by IBM in their Austin, Texas lab. The classes can easily be manipulated by sending simple settings strings (like "KEYWORD=VALUE;") to them both via a C and a Rexx API . When implementing a new WPS class, it is derived from an existing class from within the WPS class hierarchy. For modifying, extending or removing certain functionality of the parent class, often only a few methods of

10395-598: Was developed, and other programming centers. It first became available in 1986 for Japanese , and then was translated into Korean by IBM Korea and into Traditional Chinese by IBM Taiwan. It was not translated into Simplified Chinese for mainland China. IBM ODPS consisted of four software components: With the advent of the personal computer and the client–server paradigm changed the way organizations looked at office automation. In particular, office users wanted graphical user interfaces . Thus e-mail applications with PC clients became more popular. IBM's initial answer

10500-525: Was highly negative, writing on his copy of McFarlane's paper: "This is almost too absurd to comment on [...] like asking Qaddafi to Washington for a cozy chat." Secretary of State George Shultz was also opposed, stating that having designated Iran a State Sponsor of Terrorism in January 1984, how could the US possibly sell arms to Iran? Only the Director of the CIA William J. Casey supported McFarlane's plan to start selling arms to Iran. In early July 1985,

10605-662: Was later renamed as IBM OfficeVision/VM and its MVS version (using DISOSS) was not offered. After IBM's buyout of Lotus Development in 1995, the ODPS users were recommended to migrate to Lotus Notes . IBM ODPS was developed in IBM Tokyo Programming Center, located in Kawasaki, Japan , later absorbed into IBM Yamato Development Laboratory , in conjunction with IBM Dallas Programming Center in Westlake, Texas , U.S., where PROFS

10710-523: Was recovering in the hospital, McFarlane met with him and told him that representatives from Israel had contacted the National Security Agency to pass on confidential information from what Reagan later described as the "moderate" Iranian faction headed by Rafsanjani opposed to the Ayatollah's hardline anti-US policies. The visit from McFarlane in Reagan's hospital room was the first visit from an administration official outside of Donald Regan since

10815-402: Was replaced by Frank Carlucci on 2 December 1986. When the story broke, many legal and constitutional scholars expressed dismay that the NSC, which was supposed to be just an advisory body to assist the President with formulating foreign policy, had "gone operational" by becoming an executive body covertly executing foreign policy on its own. The National Security Act of 1947 , which created

10920-427: Was the main reason for selling arms to Iran. The following arms were supplied to Iran: The first arms sales to Iran began in 1981, though the official paper trail has them beginning in 1985 (see above). On 20 August 1985, Israel sent 96 US-made TOW missiles to Iran through an arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar . Subsequently, on 14 September 1985, 408 more TOW missiles were delivered. On 15 September 1985, following

11025-595: Was withdrawn in 1992. IBM originally intended to deliver the Workplace Shell as part of the OfficeVision/2 LAN product, but in 1991 announced plans to release it as part of OS/2 2.0 instead: IBM last week said some features originally scheduled to ship in OfficeVision/2 LAN will be bundled into the current release of the product, while others will be either integrated into OS/2 or delayed indefinitely... IBM's Workplace Shell, an enhanced graphical user interface,

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