Episodes 76 & 77. The Iran Contra Scandal

AKA: Iran Contra Affair, “Contragate,” Iran Initiative, or simply Iran-Contra

Idea: Between 1981-1986, The Reagan administration along with some top advisors inside that administration tried to broker an arms deal with Iran (who was generally accepted as an enemy of the United States at the time), to generate funds to help support the political militant group called the Contras in Nicaragua. The Contras were a pro democracy group who wanted to take power in Central America and push out the communist run Sandinistas. However, due to some recently passed laws, America couldn’t just give money to the Contras, so Reagan was hoping that a clandestine arms sale with Iran would be enough to overthrow the Sandinistas.

Issues: The scandal highlighted presidential power and what degree does it have to answer to an oversight committee. It also showed how much influence the news media had. It also shed light on to what extent does the president need to take responsibility for his actions and admits that he messed up. This isn’t even calling into question if articles of impeachment can be written up or not given the situation

Setting: From 1947 and going up to 1991, the fallout from WWII resulted in torn governments and one country pointing fingers at the other country for one reason or another. Even during the final months of WWII, the world superpowers couldn’t help but accuse everyone that the other country was working towards world domination with their model of government as the selling force. By 1947, most of the Allies had banded together to fight what would become known as the communist scare or the Red Scare. Long story short, America along with Britain and France agreed that the Soviet Union was on a mission to spread its communist ideals to the rest of the world and democracy be damned! The Soviet Union had already imprinted itself in eastern Europe shortly after WWII and by the time the 50s and 60s, the “Red Menace” was moving into southeast Asia such as Korea and Vietnam… and China. Leaders like Winston Churchill and a long series of presidents like Truman, Eisenhower, JFK and so on all agreed that it was up to the free world to stop that spread of communism at all costs… even if the target country really didn’t want western philosophy embedded in their lives… By the time the 70s and 80s came about, the concept of a Cold War was heavily ingrained in the American zeitgeist and everyone was waiting for the inevitable cold war to turn into a hot war, the main difference between the two was the deployment of thousands of nuclear weapons and the subsequent end of the human race. 

Today’s story doesn’t have anything to do directly with a nuclear war, but instead the spread of communism in Central America, which was really close to home for any president in office regardless of political party.  Kennedy had the Cuban Missile Crisis (future episode in its own right) and presidents Lyndon B. Johnson (D), Richard Nixon ®, and Gerald Ford ® all had the Vietnam War to deal with. So yeah, who cares about political parties when it comes to the cold war! 

However, in 1981, a newly elected Ronald Reagan saw democracy get booted out so communism could reign in Nicaragua. It didn’t take long for Reagan and his administration to conclude that if something didn’t happen soon, then Reagan could have his own Cuban Missile Crisis to contend with. The decisions and actions from 1981 to 1986 would become known as the Iran Contra Affair and it was an absolute flaming dumpster fire!

Part 1. Nicaragua Who?

1. By 1980, the idea of the cold war between America and the Soviet Union was getting so drawn out that nearly 40 years of proxy wars, political assassinations, spy vs. spy, and a space race went by and Americans (and I suspect the Russians were starting to think the same way) were actively looking for anyone who could get us out of this perpetual conflict. 

   1. The cold war was not like WWII, no major battles to justify sending troops all over the world.

   2. The “red scare” really wasn’t that much of a threat. Being a communist wasn’t a mental illness or a contractable disease.

   3. Many Americans didn’t feel the same way about the Korean and Vietnam Conflicts as the previous generation thought of WWII. There was no Hitler or Third Reich or an “Evil Japanese Empire” to rally against. 

   4. The cold war was nothing more than a bunch of vague threats of retaliation if one side imposed a political theory on a country that was for the most part indifferent to the pros and cons of democracy and communism. 

2. I think by the time of the 80s small, poor countries did one of two things.

   1. If things are hard and your government is a corrupt democracy, then you overthrow it and give communism a whirl.

   2. If things are hard and your government is communist and corrupt, then you overthrow it and give democracy a whirl. 

3. You can probably guess who America and the Soviets allied themselves too during the cold war and it was absolutely ridiculous. 

   1. If you look at who America supported in the cold war so that they could attack the soviets in any way possible, you’d notice that a lot of those folks who gladly took American weaponry and money later became enemies of America… 

      1. Iran

      2. Afghanistan

      3. Iraq

      4. Cuba

      5. Syria

4. But I digress… in 1978 Nicaragua was controlled by President Anastasio Somoza, who ran the country with an iron grip and committed all sorts of human rights violations. 

   1. However, a new movement called the Sandinistas gained a lot of momentum in the mid to late 1970s and actively started a civil war against the Somoza regime and by 1979 Somoza and his supporters were chased out of the country. 

   2. Immediately the Sandinistas looked at the dispersion of wealth in the country and started to redistribute it among the people. They took land and dormant stacks of cash so to speak and handed it out to everyone. They also implemented a number of other reforms to help the lower class citizens, all to the chagrin of the upper class and allies of Somoza. 

5. The Carter administration had to actively despise the Sandinistas because in order for them to take over in Nicaragua, they needed help from the Soviet Union and Cuba, which made them hardcore communists in the eyes of American politicians. 

   1. Carter wasn’t a fan of Somoza because of his brutal tactics used to keep himself in power, but that was better than crazy communist Sandinistas who literally had like one guy give a lecture years before espousing some of the benefits of Marxism and the benefits that can come about if used in moderation. 

   2. Receiving help from the Soviet Union and Cuba pretty much locked in Carter’s opinions of the Sandinistas. 

6. However, it wasn’t long before the Sandinistas started to harass, torture, kill, and do all sorts of other nasty things to people who spoke out against the Sandinista regime. 

   1. The Carter administration ran with the recent turn of events in Nicaragua to support another group of minority political thinkers called the Contras which sought to remove the Sandinistas and potentially reinstate democracy… sometime in the future. 

7. By 1981, Ronald Reagan was sworn into office and he inherited Jimmy Carter’s communist kerfuffle in Central America. 

8. Nicaragua was the new battlefront on the war against communism that the American population had seen time and time again over the decades and it was starting to get a little old

9. Regardless of political parties, Reagan had to keep up the tradition of fighting the war against communism no matter where in the world the fight would go, so Reagan vowed to support the Contras in bringing down the Sandinistas and sticking it to the Soviets yet again. 

10. Much like a lot of the other conflicts America got involved with in the past, people had to look at a map of central America to figure out where Nicaragua was. 

11. The American people, and their subsequent politicians, wanted to make sure that this newest conflict to end communism didn’t turn into another Korean or Vietnam War.

12. For 2 years, the Reagan Administration vowed to support the Contras and their noble fight until word got out that the CIA had been laying underwater mines in the harbours around Nicaragua. 

    1. I am not sure why the CIA was doing this, maybe it was a move to dissuade the Soviets from sending missiles and weapons to the Sandinistas like they did with Cuba and Fidel Castro. 

    2. But congress had enough of this American involvement with what was clearly Nicaragua’s own fight to deal with and no one else’s for that matter. 

       1. All it would take is a soviet commercial vessel to accidentally get blown up, or some other communist leaning country’s watercraft to strike a mine and suddenly America is now embroiled in what could easily balloon into world war III.

       2. On top of the prospects of accidentally causing an international holy hubbub with the use of underwater mines sinking ships, word got out that the Contras were also committing war atrocities just like the Sandinistas… 

       3. This was such a polarizing discovery because Reagan was quoted saying that the Contras were akin to the American version of the founding fathers. In other words, the whole fiasco in Central America was only getting worse and worse and there was no clear winner there. Which ultra corrupt war crime committing atrocity-inducing military hoard should be in charge of Nicaragua? More importantly, who cares about Nicaragua? Pretty sure America had more important things going trying to stop the spread of communism. 

    3. In 1983, congress passed the Boland Amendment which stated that the Reagan Administration cannot directly give money, armaments, or boots on the ground support for the Contras inside Nicaragua. 

    4. Given what was going on in Nicaragua with both sides of their civil war not really demonstrating themselves as having the moral high ground, Reagan signed off on the Boland Amendment on December 21, 1983. 

       1. Reagan really didn’t want to sign the amendment but the democrat controlled congress attached the amendment to the defense funding bill and line item veto wasn’t in Reagan’s tool box at the time, he had to sign off on it. 

    5. According to Britannica the Boland Amendment “...prohibited the CIA, the Department of Defense, and other government agencies or entities that were involved in intelligence from using any funds whatsoever ‘for the purpose of overthrowing the government of Nicaragua or providing a military exchange between Nicaragua and Honduras.’” 

13. So yeah, the Boland Amendment hamstrung Reagan and his administration from getting involved with the overthrowing of Nicaragua’s government regardless of whatever despot was in charge of it. 

14. However, the Boland Amendment had two loopholes that Reagan and his team could jump through to continue the struggle to put the Contras in charge, but first…

Part 2. Meanwhile in the Middle East 

1. If the mess in Central America wasn’t enough to keep an administration busy full time, the Middle East made it so that everyone had to work overtime to figure things out. 

2. If you think the situation in the Middle East is complicated, well back in 1979, it was just as complicated if not more so than today.

3. America had always had a strained relationship with Iran and this Iran Contra scandal did nothing to ease those tensions. The strained relationship dates back to the end of WWII, but for the purposes of this episode, we’re going to pick up after an event that took place in 1979 in Iran. 

   1. Long story short, before 1979, Iran was governed by a monarchy. Due to the cold war, the Iranian Monarchy found itself accepting weaponry and other forms of aid from America to hold off an ever growing threat of the Soviet Union and the spread of communism. In other words, America supported the monarchy in Iran as long as it promised to hold off the Soviet Union. 

   2. Well all that changed in 1979 when a revolution took place that ousted the Iranian Monarchy and essentially instated a government we know today, the Islamic Republic

      1. The Republic thought the monarchy was corrupt and was taking money and resources from America to further monetary endeavors etc… The Islamic Republic wanted a more pure relationship between the people, Islam, and the government. 

      2. Apparently in March of 1979, The Referendum was conducted which showed that 98.2% Iranians preferred the new government and by December of 1979, a constitution was written establishing a theocratic democracy where Islam and the government would share the same set of laws. 

         1. This isn’t an idea that sits well with western cultures. Separation of church and state go back to the 1700 and 1800s so when a Supreme Leader of Iran by the name of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini announced that Islam and the Iranian government were going to be the same thing, Western countries paused for a moment and reconsidered their relationship with Iran. 

         2. Iran did the same thing and reconsidered its relationship with the west. 

      3. One of the first agreements to be reconsidered on both sides was a cessation of supplying arms and supplies to Iran for the purposes of holding back the Soviets. I am not sure who initiated the decision because the Carter administration wasn’t too fond of the ultra conservative Islamic Republic and the Islamic Republic really didn’t want the west meddling with their country. 

      4. To put things in perspective a bit, The Iranian Republic had the policy of neither America nor the Soviet Union. America was deemed “the Great Satan” and the Soviets were “the Lesser Satan”

4. The one country that did capitalize on Iran and America no longer working together was Iraq and they wasted no time attacking the western regions of Iran on September 22, 1980 in what would turn into a 9 year long war. I’m not sure why the two countries hated each other or what the beef was all about, but it’s safe to say that Iraq saw an opportunity and they took it. 

   1. By the mid 1980s when the whole Iran Contra affair was taking place, Iran was in pretty bad shape and could really use some support from the US. But only if they had something that the US wanted so they could broker a deal?

5. Now let’s move over to Lebanon, July of 1982, an Islamic extremist group called Hezbollah (backed by the Iranians) took over 100 hostages, 25 of them were American and suddenly Iran had their bargaining chips. 

   1. The truth of the matter is that Middle Eastern countries had already a strained and complicated relationship with America dating back to the Jimmy Carter days and organizations like Hezbollah liked taking hostages because they could be used to make demands or prevent American retaliatory responses when American and Israeli buildings like embassies were bombed. 

      1. It was well known that Americans don’t like seeing innocent Americans get injured or killed overseas needlessly so if they see one of their own taken hostage, they will look critically to their leaders to get that person or persons out of the situation. Iran knew exactly how to strike America and how to play the hostage game.

   2. In 1982, Iran had their bargaining chips in place to strike deals with the United States, but there was a slight catch… 

Part 3. Reagan’s Promises

1. If there is one thing I can blame and not blame a president for is what he says during the campaign trail to get him in the office. 

2. The American population puts so much stock in the president that if ANYTHING goes wrong then it’s because of him rather than 100 senators and 435 representatives, or the hundreds of thousands of other government officials 

   1. I think it’s just easier for the human mind to blame one person for everything rather than blaming everyone on one thing.

   2. Therefore the president will need to make some insane promises to win over the people and he probably knows full and well that most if not all of those promises aren’t possible. 

   3. I think a lot of this ties into the fact that presidential candidates don’t have the security clearance the sitting president does and the promises he’s making are strictly speculation or a bold face of hope and prayer. 

   4.  Once they get into office and get that security update, many presidents change their tone because they can see first hand the difference between what they want to accomplish and what they can accomplish. 

3. Ronald Reagan was getting pretty good at this process by 1980. He had already run for president twice before and lost. In 1980 he won the primary and he did so by sticking to his guns on a few key ideas and over-promising A LOT. 

   1. He probably figured that he would say what was necessary to get into the White House and then steer the population in the direction he wants later on. 

4. In the 1980 campaign, Reagan planted his flag on two main political stances that he saw plagueing the previous administrations, especially Jimmy Carter’s democratic administration. 

   1. Ronald Reagan was from the era of WWII and as a result, his generation really hated commies after WWII and Reagan was no different. He was around for the inception and escalation of the Cold War and he personally felt that the Soviet Union was the greatest threat on Earth at the time and must be stopped at all costs. 

   2. During his campaign he spent a lot of time and energy on propaganda to stop the spread of communism (primarily to lock in his generation’s vote) and when word got out that Communism has spread to Nicaragua in 1979 and 1980, that was a little too close for comfort for the “Better Dead Than Red” candidate. 

   3. Reagan was so adamant that communism needed to be stopped at all costs, congress began worrying that Reagan was going to get Americans embroiled in another Vietnam War. A war that was fresh on many minds in both political parties. 

   4. When Reagan won the election, so did the Democrats in the House of Representatives. The Democrats were bent on stymieing the Reagan administration from starting another Vietnam War in Nicaragua, a bill was passed called the Boland Amendment that forbade the President from giving any support to the Contras who were trying to fight off the communists in Nicaragua. 

5. The reason why I brought this up is because it coincides with Reagan’s other promise to the American people and it involved the middle east, and the collection of hostages that seemed to be growing in number.

   1. During the campaign, Raegan was very critical of Carter’s handling of the original hostage taking scene in 1979 and stated that Carter didn’t take a strong enough stance on the matter. However, when the new batch were kidnapped in 1984, the public, including the families of some of the hostages, were getting very vocal about Reagan not doing much to get their loved ones back. 

   2. Reagan was always known as the great communicator and regardless of what side of the aisle you were on, Reagan had a way of diffusing tense situations and if he couldn’t then he appealed to people’s emotions and tried to rectify things that way. 

   3. So when family members were starting to get a lot of traction with the public and a reelection was around the corner, Reagan vowed that he would get those hostages out of there and back to America.

6. There was a problem though, Reagan told the American people and the world that, “America will NOT negotiate with terrorists under any circumstances”

   1. In other words, America couldn’t talk to Hezbollah and work out a solution and Hezbollah was going to use Reagan’s stance to their advantage.

7. By the time 1984 rolled around Reagan and his administration was stuck between a rock and well another rock harder than a hard place. 

   1. On one hand Reagan had to stop the spread of communism in Nicaragua without offering any support to the Contras and on the other hand, he had to negotiate a release of the hostages from Hezbollah without actually negotiating with them… 

8. How in the world is Reagan going to get himself out of this pickle? Well the answer is pretty simple, just play dumb…

Part 4. Killing Two Birds with Hundreds of Rockets and Lots and Lots of Lies

1. You can say what you want about Ronald Reagan and his politics or even his political party the same way you can say what you want about Jimmy Carter and his party. But one thing I will say about Raegan was that the dude was smart.

   1. You can’t be an idiot and be the president. I know it’s crazy to say something like that given recent events, but the job of President is so nuanced and complicated that your IQ can’t be too low or you won’t get in. Remember, a high IQ doesn’t mean you’re going to do the right thing. Hitler was a pretty smart guy and look how he turned out. 

2. Ronald Reagan was a brilliant communicator and an experienced Hollywood actor. When we see Raegan on TV or in public, we’re seeing the persona he wants us to see and he can change that persona at the drop of a hat. 

3. This is what Reagan did to handle the Iran and Contra situation. The only problem is that it was a flaming dumpster fire!

4. The first thing Reagan did was to pawn these two problems off to his administration and then give them near complete freedom to do what they needed to do to accomplish the goal. 

   1. Raegan was smart enough to surround himself with people who weren’t necessarily the top person for the job. Instead he surrounded himself with people who wanted to do a good job and achieve the president’s goals. On top of that Reagan gave his team a lot of autonomy to do what they needed to do. Sounds like a good boss all things considered. 

5. One of the guys Raegan relied heavily on was his National Security Advisor Robert “Bud” McFarlane. He was selected by Raegan for the position in 1983 after he had a long career in the military and serving two tours in Vietnam as an artillery officer. He further worked for the Federal Govt. After he left the military he was appointed National Security Advisor where he was assigned to the Middle East for Israeli-Arab negotiations. 

   1. In 1984, Reagan asked McFarlane to figure out a way to get the hostages out of Lebanon by any means necessary when Reagan was essentially blindsided by the families of the loved ones still held captive there. 

   2. While racking his brain to figure out what he was going to do to get the hostages out, Israeli intermediaries proposed the idea of America selling weapons to specific factions of Iran to gain favor and help rescue the hostages. 

   3. McFarlane, like Reagan, was worried about the perpetual spread of communism across the world and an idea began forming in his head about negotiating with Iran to not just get the hostages released, but to maybe build a partnership with Iran. 

      1. The idea was this, the Soviets were looking at the war between Iraq and Iran with a great deal of interest. If Iran was desperate enough for weaponry, then the Soviets could come in with all sorts of goodies and curry favor and ultimately ally with Iran. McFarlane had a loftier dream of not only getting the hostages released, but creating an environment in the Middle East where the Soviets would be discouraged to get involved anymore in the region. Not a half bad idea, but MacFarlane was definitely getting ahead of himself. 

   4. In the short term though, getting the hostages released from captivity in Beirut would be a huge win not only for McFarlane himself but for the president. Afterall McFarlane’s goal was to take care of the president. 

   5. In mid July of 1985 Reagan had cancer surgery and while recovering, most if not all of Reagan’s cabinet was in the room with him doing cabinet things and McFarlane was trying to get his plan across to Reagan for days. 

      1. Eventually McFarlane got his wish (much to his frustrations because at this point he didn’t feel as though anyone was taking him seriously including the President) and was able to talk to Reagan. 

      2. MacFarlane could only explain the beginning of his plan when Reagan cut him off and told him to do whatever he felt necessary to get those hostages freed. It was as though Reagan gave MacFarlane a hall pass to do whatever he wanted. 

   6. That was all McFarlane needed, he arranged to communicate with an unscrupulous arms dealer by the name of Manucher Ghorbanifar who claimed that he had the ear of Iran’s high ranking leadership and brokered a deal. 

      1. Ghorbanifar would work on releasing some hostages in return the U.S. provides 100 anti-tank missiles. 

   7. McFarlane passed that along to the president and Reagan thought that the arrangement would be a good deal. 

6. Now enter the second person in this fiasco. Lt. Colonel Oliver North who had a long military career himself, but had loftier ideas of success and what it could mean for Reagan. Moreover, North was the guy you call in to actually make the agreement take place. In other words, he was the dude that worked out the logistics and physical details and actually talked to the lower-level folks on all sides to get weapons from one side to the other side. 

   1. North also took the idea of “success at all costs” a little too far. By August 15, 1985, North hit a snag trying to get the missiles into Iran by international authorities. Essentially they told North that he can’t just send 100 missiles into Iran without any form of confirmation from people higher up. 

   2. North was undeterred and called up some friends in the CIA who were a little upset that one of the hostages was William Buckly who was the CIA chief and had passed away in June due to the torturing of the Hezbollah terrorists. The CIA was able to secure a plane signed off by the CIA and no international authority was going to interfere with the American CIA. 

      1. The only problem is that the CIA was now involved. Keep in mind: The administration could not negotiate with terrorists or assist them in anyway to get the hostages out of captivity and America was literally doing all of that!

   3. But North hit a snag. Ghorbanifar changed the terms of the agreement at the last second: instead of 100 missiles, Iran now wanted 500! Instead of releasing all the hostages, only 1 was going to get released. 

   4. North didn’t communicate any of this to McFarlane, because he saw an opportunity regardless of the change of terms. North agreed to Ghorbanifar’s demands! Oh and North delivered the goods before any of the hostages were released which was 100% against McFarlane’s directions. Don’t give up anything without first getting some hostages returned… yeah that didn’t happen. 

   5. When McFarlane found out about this he was super pissed off and he blamed himself for not handling things better. 

   6. North did have some good news though. Out of the whole arrangement, North was able to get $800,000 from the Iran government for the extra 400 missiles. North took the cash and used it for his ulterior motive…

      1. North was sending that money to the Contra’s in Nicaragua to fight the evil Sandanistas. See, North was in the same camp as Reagan in that the spread of communism in central America was a bad deal and this arrangement with Iran made it so money could be generated to give to the Contras to keep fighting. 

7. There was one problem: THE REAGAN ADMINISTRATION WAS COMPLETELY BLOCKED BY CONGRESS TO PROVIDE ANY AID, WHETHER FINANCIAL, PERSONNEL, AND WEAPONRY!!!!

8. So now Reagan’s cabinet, and the CIA are super involved with negotiating with terrorists to broker a deal to free the hostages and any money that was derived from those trade deals would go to the Contras in Nicaragua to help support their efforts against the Sandinistas when America wasn’t allowed to help them in any way. 

   1. The administration was having to lie blatantly to pretty much anyone outside the cabinet about what was going on. 

   2. If this arrangement ever broke loose, it would be a scandal worse than Watergate. 

9. By Thanksgiving of 1985, Robert McFarlane was so riddled with guilt about how this whole operation was going down as it was violating pretty much everything. McFarlane handed his resignation to Reagan and just like that McFarlane was out and Admiral John Poindexter replaced McFarlane as National Security Advisor and Oliver North was second in command. 

10. In a meeting with Reagan, concerns about how the administration was violating all sorts of laws left and right came up. Reagan offered a different idea: We’re not trading weapons with terrorists to free the hostages. Instead we are working with “moderate Iranian officials” to gain favor with the Iranian Government and build a stronger relationship. If Iran was able to put pressure on Hezbollah to release the hostages then that’s a nice little cherry on top. Poindexter and North also added that they were going to keep selling weapons to “moderate Iranian military leaders” at over inflated prices. The proceeds would go to helping the Contras in Nicaragua. 

    1. Somehow this made everything kosher in the administration’s view of the law and Reagan kept telling his crew to keep doing whatever was necessary to free the hostages. 

11. Between August of 1985 and November of 1986 a total of 8 weapons trades took place with over 2,770 missiles and spare parts being handed over to the Iranian government, in return the US received $30 million to help support the Contras… and on 3 hostages were ever returned, but Hezbollah acquired 3 more replacements. 

Part 5. What are you going to do now Rambo?

1. October 15, 1986, Marine Eugene Hasenfus was flying in a Fairchild C-123 cargo plane and was shot down by Sandinista military in Nicaragua in the middle of the night.  

2. Hasenfus was the only person on the plane with a parachute because the other members of the crew weren’t necessarily American and they knew what would happen to them if they were captured by the Sandinistas. 

3. Hasenfus jumped out of the burning plane just in time to engage his parachute and land in the jungle. Trying to avoid capture and not get eaten by woodland creatures. Hasenfus used his parachute as a form of hammock in the trees and tried to sleep.

4. When he woke up, a Sandinista militant had a rifle barrel pointed at his head. Hasenfus soon discovered that he was surrounded by similar looking men with rifles pointed at him. The one who appeared to be in charge simply asked, “what are you going to do now Rambo?”

5. Hasenfus was taken prisoner by the Sandinistas and interrogated heavily to answer a rather specific question. 

   1. Why was an American crew flying an American cargo plane over Nicaragua in the middle of the night with a cargo hold of tens of thousands of AK-47 rounds, and cases of spare parts for AK-47s as well as other weapons, and was heading to a known Contra hold out in the countryside?

6. All Hasenfus could do is tell the Sandinista’s that the plane and cargo was owned by the CIA and he was returning from dropping supplies off to CIA operatives in southeast Asia when it was shot down and the CIA had approved the flight path. 

7. The Sandinistas weren’t buying the story at all. They had Hasenfus give a press conference in Nicaragua for the sole benefit of the American people. And boy did the American news agencies start asking questions similar to those of the Sandinistas. 

8. By November of 1986, the Reagan administration was neck deep in a quagmire of journalists and investigators who quickly, and accurately, pieced together why that cargo plane was flying over Nicaragua. It also didn’t take long for the American public to connect the dots to Reagan’s administration involvement with Iran and brokering deals with terrorists to free hostages. 

   1. Reagan’s administration didn’t receive any sort of relief when Lebanese News Paper Ash-Shiraa published a story about a massive intelligence leak that involved unnamed American figures working with the Iranian government to sell them weaponry in return for money and the promise to free American hostages. 

9. The cat was out of the bag now, and America was in complete disarray. 

   1. Most Americans aren’t that surprised that hypocrisy is a part of Federal day to day dealings. 

   2. However, most Americans were shocked that Ronald Reagan was at the heart of two egregious acts of political inauthenticity. Reagan won the election by marketing his honesty and integrity to the public. He wasn’t a career politician that Washington D.C. was used to seeing. He was an outsider who promised to reintroduce integrity back into the White House. 

   3. And now Americans were discovering that Reagan’s administration was actively negotiating with terrorists to try and free hostages and using the money gained illegally from Iran (don’t forget, Iran was viewed as an enemy to the U.S. and any economic dealings with Iran was illegal as per congress) to actively support the Contra movement in Nicaragua which was strictly forbidden by congress and even signed by Reagan himself… 

10. The scope of this sort of scandal makes the Watergate incident look like an unpaid parking ticket at a grocery store in comparison. 

    1. The degree upon which Poindexter, North, and McFarlane were involved would put them in federal prison for years and it could ultimately end up with Ronald Reagan being impeached!

11. For the most part Poindexter, North, and McFarlane’s careers were pretty much destroyed when the full extent of the craziness unfolded in mid November.

    1. The dumpster fire was very real and I am having a tough time finding the words that best describe the POO-SHOW that the Reagan administration was in, so hopefully you get the idea. 

12. Damage control had to be implemented and it had to be implemented articulately and effectively. There is only one person who could take on such a dumpster fire and try and put it out.

    1. On November 13th, Ronald Reagan delivered a live address from the White House stating:

“My purpose was [...] to send a signal that the United States was prepared to replace the animosity between [the US and Iran] with a new relationship [...]. At the same time we undertook this initiative, we made clear that Iran must oppose all forms of international terrorism as a condition of progress in our relationship. The most significant step which Iran could take, we indicated, would be to use its influence in Lebanon to secure the release of all hostages held there.”

13. A few days later, North was visited by congressional investigators at his office. He was told to not go anywhere or do anything until they got there, but North had already been in action. In 1989, North’s secretary testified that from November 21st-25th, she and North were in the office shredding document after document trying to get rid of as much evidence as possible. 

    1. The cat was out of the bag in terms of Iran and negotiating with terrorists. However, North was trying to cover up the connection of Iran and the $30 million that was earmarked for the Contras. In spite of North’s efforts, investigators were still able to find evidence confirming that $12 million of the $30 million generated by the sales made its way to the Contras. At this point North was screwed and he knew it. 

14. Cover up over cover up only got Poindexter, North, and McFarlane in more and more trouble. 

15. Ultimately, by the end of the 1980s here is what happened all three men:

    1. Poindexter: in April 1990, Poindexter was tried and convicted of five felony counts, including conspiracy to obstruct official inquiries, obstructing Congress, and making false statements. He was sentenced to six months in prison.

    2. North: In May 1989, a jury found North guilty of three felony counts: aiding and abetting the obstruction of Congress, altering/destroying official National Security Council documents, and accepting an illegal gratuity (a home security system). He was sentenced to a suspended prison term, three years of probation, a $150,000 fine, and 1,200 hours of community service.

    3. McFarlane: Unlike Poindexter and North, McFarlane chose to cooperate with the independent counsel's investigation early on. In March 1988, he pleaded guilty to four misdemeanor counts of withholding information from Congress regarding the administration's secret efforts to support the Contras.

16. However, it is important to note that none of the men served any time or had to pay anything. When George Bush Sr. lost his reelection attempt and when he was in his lame duck state he provided sweeping pardons for everyone involved in the Iran Contra affair. Both Poindexter and North were set loose as well because the judge and prosecution didn’t explain the accusation clearly enough to the jury, thus violating the 5th Amendment and nullifying their crimes. McFarlane was simply pardoned. 

    1. Why Bush Sr? Well during Reagan’s time in office, Bush Sr. was his Vice President and closely connected with everything. 

Part 6. How did Reagan get away with it?

1. As mentioned above, Ronald Reagan wasn’t stupid. Anyone is welcome to agree or disagree with his policies or stances on a great deal of things, but he does deserve some credit for knowing how to play the politics game. 

2. I think a major part in how Reagan navigated this mess was that he knew it was going to happen. There is no way that an administration that had two different but related violations of congressional ethics  / laws could keep it a secret for too long. The lid was going to fly off sooner than later and it will happen at important times like right around election times for example. 

3. I also have a feeling that when was making those promises during the campaign that he knew that achieving those objectives was going to be hard. I think it was further solidified when he actually got elected and sat in on those security meetings where he got the true scope of how complicated things were. 

4. To help with his cause, Reagan surrounded himself with folks that had one thing in common and that was a burning desire to NOT let the president down. 

   1. Whenever you take a person with that level of commitment and give them complete autonomy to do what they need to do, you’re going to create a situation where anything can be possible. 

5. The kicker is what happens when those subordinates overstep or take instructions from the boss a little too far?

   1. That is what happened here. Reagan didn’t let McFarlane flesh out his ideas before giving him the go ahead. All Reagan did was tell McFarlane what the ultimate goal was, which was to get the hostages freed by any means possible. Reagan was pretty clear on that, because who would argue that freeing the hostages wasn’t a worthwhile goal? So McFarlane was given both the approval to proceed with his plans (before he could get them fully laid out) and filled him with the moral high ground to do what is right by most people. 

   2. To take it a step further, Reagan also did the same thing with North and Poindexter. Both guys wanted to achieve what they felt was the ethical thing to do… even if it meant breaking the law.

6. But what about accountability for their actions? Well this is where experience paves the way. All Reagan had to do was not let his subordinates tell him enough of their plans so that he could simply claim that he had no idea of what exactly was going on and since he probably didn’t know 100% what their dealings were, Reagan, to a very small degree, was telling the truth. Between you and me though, he knew exactly what was going on, but this is part of playing the game. 

7. To prove that this is what was going on, Reagan actually approved a bi-partisan investigation into the whole Iran-Contra Affair. He didn’t want to indicate that he was trying to hide anything (this was Reagan’s way of playing up the honesty card in the eyes of the public).

   1. When the investigation was complete in the late 80s, by the way it was called the Tower Report, the investigation concluded that there was no way Reagan could know exactly what was happening because McFarlane, North, and Poindexter went “rogue” so to speak. These men were supposed to be advisors not practitioners. In other words, these men should have never been in the position of wheeling and dealing with terrorists to free hostages and generate money to pay for the Contras in Nicaragua. And that is what the report showed: the three men stepped way out of their respective lines and did things they weren’t supposed to be doing. 

   2. Ultimately the Tower Report showed that Reagan had no way of knowing what these men were doing, but he should have taken more of a responsibility and oversight into their actions which is just a small slap on the wrist… not an impeachable offense. All Reagan had to do at the time was accept McFarlane’s resignation when handed to him at the end of November 1985 and fire Poindexter and North a year later. 

   3. Lastly, the three men sank their own boats when they admitted to congress and the hearings that they didn’t want to let the president down. North especially was adamant that he would have done everything all over again, knowing where he would end up. These men were instilled with such commitment to achieving their boss’s goals, that they accidentally nailed themselves to a cross as a result. 

8. If I were one of these guys, I would be super pissed at Reagan, because he essentially threw them under the bus. But in a way they were taken care of. Ultimately, they were pardoned or exonerated for their actions and because of that they got to keep their government benefits on top of working other jobs.

   1. McFarlane became an advisor for John McCain’s presidential campaign and North became a Fox News correspondent and Poindexter resigned from the government and Navy and worked in the private tech sector and in 2002 worked at DARPA. 

9. In the end, Reagan left his two terms as one of the most renowned presidents of the modern era. Sure, during the height of the Iran Contra Affair his approval rating plummeted from the 60’s to the 40’s, but Reagan’s second term focused on ending the Cold War and bringing down the Soviet Union. 

   1. Reagan knew that the American people were fickle and would forget about bad stuff after a relatively short period of time, and he knew to overshadow tarnish actions of the past with far shinier and appealing policies down the road. 

   2. I am not saying I agree with Reagan or his party’s policies and what not, but I have to admit, he was a pretty clever guy and he knew exactly what he was doing. 

10. As for the remaining hostages? Eventually they were released and when attention turned to Saddam Houssein in the early 90s, the events of the Iran Contra Affair faded away. And the fight in Nicaragua ended with a vote that pushed out the Sandinistas for a time period, but when nothing improved, the Sandinistas were brought back. Sooooo…. The goals of the Iran Contra affair were for the most part never fulfilled and didn’t serve any purpose. 

Sources: 

https://www.britannica.com/event/Cold-War

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/reagan-iran/

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Sandinista

https://americanarchive.org/exhibits/newshour-cold-war/nicaragua

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/america-armed-its-allies-then-they-turned-against-the-us-betrayal/vi-AA240uM9

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Boland-Amendment

https://adst.org/2015/04/the-iran-contra-scandal/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=9559144754&gbraid=0AAAAAC2MlO7wfkQGBqbKOjpHXNXKO0rl0&gclid=CjwKCAjwrNrQBhBjEiwAoR4VOwW0-JPxeXQm_dBsM2z-ISFIdWYkZWdv-MiH3_Av_auqvvHlohjupRoCGjwQAvD_BwE

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/target/etc/cron.html

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/october-5/iran-contra-scandal-unravels