Mr. Bill believes that we have radically mishandled our policy towards Iraq and
Iran ever since the Carter Administration. He is not a sparkling speaker, but the
information he has to impart has enough intrinsic interest to be well worth listening to.
Two samples: "In the international realm, [the Shah] was very shrewd, both in terms of
oil politics, as you are talking about, but also in terms of understanding America and
understanding Americans. He surrounded himself with individuals that ... could talk
baseball with our ambassadors, could talk sailing. He was very, very shrewd.
Unfortunately, however, he was not as shrewd with his own people." ... "The sad story
of Iraq really began in the early 1980s, whereby the United States began to throw
substantial support in the direction of Saddam. In 1972 we took him and his country off
our terrorist list. In 1983 we began to share sensitive intelligence information with him.
He was involved, of course, in the war with Iran at that time." WFB: "That was a
mistake?" JB: "I think it proved to be a great mistake, because we created a
Frankenstein. We created our own Frankenstein, who turned on us."
- Hoover ID: Program S1148
- Print item record
- Download item record
- Download low resolution copy
- Order high resolution copy Add to My Collections





