Iran‐Contra Affair

Iran‐Contra Affair. The Iran‐Contra affair surfaced in 1986–1987 when evidence became public that President Ronald Reagan's National Security Council (NSC) staff had secretly sold arms to Iran, used the profits to provide aid to the Contra forces opposing Nicaragua's leftist government—aid expressly prohibited by Congress in 1984—and had then concealed the truth by lying to Congress and destroying evidence.

The affair began in 1985 when, at Israel's urging, Reagan secretly approved selling TOW antitank (and later anti‐aircraft) missiles to Iran for use in its war against Iraq, which was viewed by Israel as its most dangerous enemy. Although Reagan had publicly vowed never to negotiate with hostage‐takers, he hoped that the aid would encourage Tehran to facilitate the release of nine American hostages held in Beirut, including agents of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Some hostages were indeed released, but others were taken. As Reagan continued to approve arms shipments to Iran in 1986, Secretary of State George Schultz and Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger objected, arguing that the shipments contradicted administration policy and violated a U.S. embargo imposed on Iran in 1979 because of its anti‐American policies.

In November 1986, a Lebanese journal embarrassed the administration by revealing the arms shipments. At the same time, Attorney General Edwin Meese informed Reagan that NSC staff, led by Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, had illegally diverted the arms‐sale profits to buy military supplies for the Contras. North, an embittered Vietnam War veteran, hated communism and was determined to defeat Nicaragua's revolutionary government at any price. The diversion, however, was probably initiated by CIA Director William Casey, who died of a brain tumor just as the illegalities surfaced. Reagan appointed a review board led by the former senator John Tower of Texas. Its March 1987 report chastised the president for not controlling his administration and sharply criticized White House Chief of Staff Donald Regan, who resigned.

Later that spring, a joint House‐Senate investigative committee uncovered crimes, including lying to Congress and destroying evidence, by North and his superiors, National Security Advisers Robert McFarlane and John Poindexter. The committee's televised hearing, especially the riveting testimony by Oliver North in full‐dress Marine uniform, captured the nation's attention. The committee's report concluded that the actions had been concealed not for security reasons, as the administration claimed, but to circumvent the law to the detriment of America's democratic institutions. President Reagan was again judged an incompetent administrator, but he was found to have been unaware of the diversion of the arms' profits to the Contras. Meanwhile, Independent Prosecutor Lawrence Walsh, appointed by Attorney General Meese, charged fourteen persons with crimes. Eleven pleaded guilty or were convicted. An appeals court overturned North's and Poindexter's convictions on technicalities. In 1992, President George Bush pardoned six others.

The Iran‐Contra affair, the nadir of the Reagan presidency, formed a chapter in the long struggle between Congress and the executive branch over control of foreign policy. It also exemplified how officials could come to justify criminal activity in fighting what they considered to be righteous battles, even if a majority in Congress and the American public disagreed.
See also Anticommunism; Foreign Relations: U.S. Relations with Latin America; Foreign Relations: U.S. Relations with the Middle East.

Bibliography

Theodore Draper , A Very Thin Line: The Iran‐Contra Affair, 1991.
Lawrence Walsh , Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters, 1993.

Walter LaFeber