Iran Claims New Approach by U.S. to ‘Contact Reagan’
Iran’s Parliament Speaker claimed today that an intermediary for the United States approached Iranian leaders “a few days ago” and urged them to contact President Reagan.
Tehran radio said Parliament Speaker Hashemi Rafsanjani “referred to the problem of (former U.S. National Security adviser Robert C.) McFarlane” in a speech today.
The radio report said: “Referring to the disgraceful U.S. adventure and the problem of McFarlane, the Speaker said all these things stem from the power of Islam and only a few days ago these people, once again, through a person who fully revealed his identity, contacted us and gave us a telephone number, saying that with that telephone number ‘you could speak to Mr. Reagan.’ ”
The report did not say whether Rafsanjani was the person contacted by the unidentified intermediary. The state-run radio gave no indication of Iran’s response.
Rafsanjani was the first Iranian official to disclose details of a secret trip to Tehran last year by McFarlane and the subsequent U.S. arms sales to Iran.
McFarlane has been hospitalized since Monday, when he took a drug overdose a few hours before he was to appear before a presidential commission investigating the role of the National Security Council in the sale of arms to Iran.
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