“…secretly, the White House was…preparing to send weapons to Iran in an arms-for-hostages deal. On June 11, 1985, just two days after Thomas Sutherland, a dean at American University in Beirut [Lebanon], was kidnapped, the National Security Council drafted a presidential directive advocating that the United States help Iran obtain selected weapons. The opposing faction in the [Reagan] administration–principally Secretary of State George Shultz and Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger—was irate. ‘This is almost too absurd to comment on,’ Weinberger wrote in a memo. ‘It’s like asking [Libyan leader Muammar] Qadaffi to Washington for a cozy chat.’ ”
– Craig Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud, Page 72