311. Editorial Note
On July 3, 1980, the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs Zbigniew Brzezinski, Secretary of Defense Harold Brown, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General David Jones, Director of Central Intelligence Stansfield Turner, and Brzezinski’s Military Assistant and Crisis Coordinator William Odom met to discuss special operations contingencies for Iran. According to the account of the meeting Odom prepared for Brzezinski, the participants made four decisions: “the Aaron Special Intelligence Group will prepare a short paper” on U.S. “intelligence policy toward Iran;” the CIA would “prepare proposals for accelerated development of general purpose intelligence resources as well as resources for the hostage” contingency; CIA and the Department of Defense “will make an intensified effort to overcome the intelligence gaps for ‘special contingency planning’ now in progress in Defense,” and these two agencies would proceed “with a trucking endeavor.” Odom recounted that Brzezinski asked for the first two actions “when you discovered that CIA has no accelerated programs [Page 846] designed to put us in a competitive position for the political and civil war likely to develop in Iran. Turner’s plans seem designed to replicate a traditional in-country capability, not a multi-tiered effort ranging from key access at the top to low-level cadre penetration into mass organizations and other social, political, and military institutions.” As a last development, Brzezinski asked Odom to “join the Aaron group and to follow the preparation of the CIA plan for general purpose resource development.” (Memorandum from Odom to Brzezinski, July 3; Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Staff Material, Office Files, Box 87, For President or Brzezinski Only File, Iran Sensitive 5/80–10/80) No other account of this meeting has been found.
As a result and at Brzezinski’s request, the Aaron group planned to meet on July 11. In preparation for the meeting, Gary Sick of the National Security Council Staff wrote the President’s Deputy Assistant for National Security Affairs David Aaron that “the purpose of the meeting is to look ahead at our plans and prospects for developing covert action and other intelligence capabilities and resources in Iran. From Odom’s memo, the objective of the meeting is to explore how we can broaden and deepen our penetration of Iran in preparation for an anticipated collapse into political and civil war.” Sick suggested that Aaron structure the meeting “as a review of CIA planning to date and pressing for development of a paper which identifies the targets we wish to go after and how we can create and manage the resources necessary.” (Memorandum from Sick to Aaron, July 11; ibid.)
Both Odom and Carlucci wrote about the July 11 meeting. See Documents 314 and 315.