No Women at Iran Hearings, Abzug Laments

Women are conspicuously missing from the Iran- contra hearings, aside from secretary Fawn Hall, “who shredded and regretted and finally told,” former Rep. Bella Abzug said today.

“There isn’t even one woman from Congress or the Senate sitting in on this hearing--and this is 1987,” Abzug, a New York Democrat, lamented.

While excluding women from making foreign policy is discriminatory, “perhaps we should be grateful for that because it leaves us free to hoot from and criticize from the sidelines,” she told a news conference.

But, she added, if women were given the option, “I believe we would be ready and willing to take the risks involved with active participation in determining foreign policy.”

‘Didn’t Have to Lift Finger’

A leader of the modern feminist movement, Abzug made her remarks as she announced publication of the “Women’s Foreign Policy Council Directory,” a reference work that includes biographies of 275 women with foreign policy experience.

“Recent events, including the hearings on the Hill, might make those who believe in the conspiratorial theory of history suspect that a feminist plot was hatched to expose the macho wing of the male sex’s greedy adventurers, gullible incompetents, ignorant zealots and arrogant lawbreakers,” Abzug said.

“But we didn’t have to lift a finger to demonstrate that. They did it all by themselves.”

Nevertheless, she said, “there are no women players in the Contragate scandal, aside from Oliver North’s secretary, who shredded and regretted and finally told, putting the public interest ahead of her boss.”