Barbara Walters’ Interview Coup

Barbara Walters had just finished her third and last day as temporary co-host of ABC’s “Good Morning America” Wednesday when the phone rang. At the other end: Adnan Khashoggi, the Saudi billionaire arms merchant.

“ ‘I am going to Europe. Perhaps you would like to do the interview,’ ” she recalled his saying.

That call led to a transatlantic trip at 4 a.m. Thursday that yielded exclusive interviews with two key middlemen--Khashoggi and Manucher Ghorbanifar--in the secret U.S.-Iran arms deal now being probed by Congress, the Justice Department and a special review board.

Hurriedly transmitted back here by satellite from Monaco and aired Thursday night on ABC News’ “20/20” program, Walters’ double interview was as unique in circumstance as it was in content.

Among other things, the two men said they paid $30 million to $35 million for U.S. arms shipments to Iran into accounts they believed were controlled by Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North, the former National Security Council officer whom the White House fired last month for his role in diverting the sales profits to Nicaraguan contra rebels.

The two also insisted that they made no profits, and said that as businessmen their interest was in far greater profits down the line should there be peace some day between Iran and Iraq. That war now is in its sixth year.

The call that started Walters’ long trip was unexpected, she said Friday by phone from Monaco, where she had interviewed Ghorbanifar and Khashoggi after a flight there and a separate interview with Khashoggi aboard his private DC-8 jetliner.

She had met the billionaire last year, she said, and asked to interview him in the future. He declined the offer, although he said that if he ever did another interview, he would do it with her, she said.

There the matter rested until Wednesday and his call: “He said he was ready to do the interview. He said would you also like it if I arranged for you to meet the Iranian--these are my words, not his--who was responsible for opening the doors for the United States to Iran.”

She referred to Ghorbanifar, who although described in some accounts as an Iranian businessman living in Europe, was described by “20/20”--which quoted “informed sources”-- as “the head of intelligence in Europe for the prime minister of Iran.”

When Walters said she indeed would like to interview him, she recalled, Khashoggi replied, “ ‘I am flying to Monaco’ ” before dawn the next morning. The only way to get the interview in time for broadcast Thursday night was to fly with him.

So, she said, she and a nine-member ABC crew showed up at Kennedy International Airport early Thursday, boarded the billionaire’s luxurious converted passenger jet, and flew with him to Nice, interviewing him en route.

At Nice, they flew by helicopter to Monaco, where Khashoggi keeps an apartment. Joined by an ABC crew that had flown in from Paris, Walters then interviewed Ghorbanifar and Khashoggi in the latter’s apartment.

After the interviews, Walters had to stay up for a “Nightline” discussion of the interviews. She did that ABC program at 5 a.m., Monaco time, before finally getting to bed.

Why did Khashoggi and Ghorbanifar agree to Walters’ solo meet-the-press session?

Each felt, she said, that recent news reports about their roles in the U.S-Iran arms deal had included half-truths, errors and, in Ghorbanifar’s words, “a great many lies.”

“Both of them felt--each for his own reasons--that it was time to put the matter straight,” Walters said. “But neither one of them was dying to do interviews, and I don’t think they’ll do any others.”

According to ABC sources, when her “20/20” interview aired Thursday, ABC News President Roone Arledge was attending a dinner party at the home of a feisty rival--Don Hewitt, executive producer of CBS News’ high-rated “60 Minutes.”

Walters confirmed that Arledge was there, had later called from home with his compliments and said that he had seen her interviews while at the house of Hewitt.

“I think that was rather ironic,” she said, solemnly adding: “It must’ve been a nice party.”