Lawrence E. Walsh, a New York corporate lawyer with impeccable Republican credentials who as independent counsel prosecuted several key players in the Reagan-era Iran-contra scandal only to see the convictions overturned on appeal and many other officials pardoned, died March 19 at his home in Nichols Hills, Okla. He was 102. His death was confirmed by Kevin Gordon, president of the Crowe & Dunlevy law firm, with which Mr. Walsh had been associated. The cause was not immediately available.
I always had respect for him; he stood up to the Reagan gang. But, with all due respect, at age 102, the cause of death might well have been age.
Mr. Walsh began his career as a Depression-era racket buster under New York District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey in the late 1930s and later served as a federal district judge in New York and deputy attorney general of the United States. He also was a president of the American Bar Association. He spent most of his career as a partner at Davis Polk & Wardwell, one of the most powerful law firms in the country, where he did civil litigation for such corporate clients as AT&T, R.J. Reynolds and General Motors. In 1969, he served briefly as deputy to chief negotiator Henry Cabot Lodge during peace talks with North Vietnamese communists. In retirement, Mr. Walsh gained his greatest public profile. On Dec. 19, 1986, then-Attorney General Edwin Meese III appointed him special prosecutor to launch an inquiry into what at the time was considered the worst government scandal since Watergate. Mr. Walsh spent nearly seven years and $39 million as the special prosecutor in the Iran-contra scandal.
The investigation would conclude that the administration of President Ronald Reagan had illegally sold arms to Iran to win the release of U.S. hostages in the Middle East and had given the proceeds, in defiance of Congress, to a rebel group known as the “contras,” who were fighting to overthrow the Marxist government of Nicaragua. Congress also created a joint investigative committee, which many thought would lead to Reagan’s impeachment.
The Iran-contra affair led to the dismissal of the president’s national security adviser, Navy Adm. John M. Poindexter, and Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North, the National Security Council staff aide accused of masterminding the scheme.
Poindexter and North were among 14 officials who faced criminal charges. They also were among the 11 convicted, although their convictions were set aside by appellate court decisions. Five — including former State Department official Elliott Abrams and former defense secretary Caspar W. Weinberger — were pardoned by President George H.W. Bush on Christmas Eve 1992.
Mr. Walsh concluded that there was “no credible evidence” that Reagan broke the law but that the president set the stage for the illegal activities of others.
Even though no one went to jail in the long-running inquiry, Mr. Walsh told The Washington Post in 1991 that the probe of what he called a “national security crime” was important in the long term. “Jail sanctions are important, and they would have been justified in several of the cases we brought, but the deterrent effect is there from the conviction itself,” he said.
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