Iran‐Contra Affair

Iran‐Contra Affair (1986)represented the confluence of two politically controversial and arguably illegal foreign policies conducted by the Reagan administration: the arming of Nicaraguan counterrevolutionaries (the Contras) after Congress had banned such aid, and the selling of weapons to the government of Iran in order to secure the release of U.S. citizens held hostage in Lebanon. Both policies became publicly linked following press reports on the Iranian operation in November 1986, when a Justice Department review turned up evidence that millions of dollars in profits from the sale of arms to Iran had been diverted to fund the Contra rebels.

The revelations mushroomed into the greatest U.S. political scandal since Watergate, raising constitutional, legal, and ethical issues concerning the congressional role in foreign policy and the conduct of administration officials. Investigations by a presidentially appointed panel and a joint committee of Congress focused on whether or not President Ronald Reagan knew about or had authorized the diversion—an act that could have constituted an impeachable offense—and whether Congress's constitutional foreign policy and budget prerogatives as well as U.S. laws had been violated. An independent counsel investigated the legality of third‐country fund‐raising for projects banned by Congress, as well as the obstruction of justice by administration officials. Congress ultimately found that the common ingredients of the Iran and Contra policies were “secrecy, deception, and disdain for the law.” And while blaming President Reagan for allowing a “cabal of the zealots” to take charge of foreign policy, it backed away from accusing him directly of illegal acts. The parallel investigation by Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh secured criminal convictions of nearly a dozen senior administration officials and private citizens for acts such as perjury, conspiracy, fraud, and the destruction of evidence. Walsh's efforts were compromised by congressional grants of immunity to key U.S. officials during several months of televised hearings. All convicted U.S. officials and those awaiting trial, including Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, were pardoned by President George Bush on 24 December 1992 following his defeat for reelection.

The roots of the scandal involving the Contras lay in the Reagan administration's decision in 1981 to conduct covert political and paramilitary operations aimed at “the Cuban presence and Cuban‐Sandinista support structure in Nicaragua and elsewhere in Central America.” Following a series of controversies, including that over the participation of the Central Intelligence Agency in the mining of Nicaragua's harbors in 1983 and 1984, Congress enacted 1984 legislation known as the Boland amendment, which banned any U.S. agency involved in intelligence activities from supporting military and paramilitary operations in Nicaragua.

Notwithstanding the law, President Reagan instructed subordinates to keep the Contras together “body and soul.” Operational control of the Contra program shifted from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to the National Security Council. Both prior to and after the passage of the Boland amendment, senior U.S. officials, including the president himself, solicited Contra military aid from private individuals and third countries, including South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, and Brunei. National Security Council aide Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North coordinated the resupply operation, which had its own pilots, planes, secure communications, and secret Swiss bank accounts. With the support of his superiors, national security advisers Robert McFarlane and John Poindexter, and, apparently, CIA director William Casey, North directed a network of former military and intelligence officials and businesspeople, code‐named “the Enterprise,” in effect creating a private covert operations capability outside normal channels of oversight and accountability. All the while, the administration insisted publicly that the Contras were in desperate straits due to the congressional cutoff; it also spent federal funds for prohibited propaganda operations aimed at influencing future congressional votes.

U.S. policy toward Iran was developed independently of Nicaragua, but shared many of the same operatives as well as covert practice. After the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Teheran by Islamic militants in November 1979, the Carter administration had embargoed trade and financial transactions, including arms shipments, to the Iranian regime. The Reagan administration sought to tighten the embargo by enlisting the cooperation of European and other governments, designating Iran as a sponsor of international terrorism.

Despite the public policy of isolation, when U.S. hostages were seized in Lebanon by militants with apparent ties to Iran, the administration undertook covert “arms‐for‐hostage” sales of weapons to the Iranian government in 1985–86. President Reagan did not issue the legally required intelligence “findings” before initiating the covert sales of antitank and antiaircraft missiles, and Congress was not notified of them. The sales also appeared to have violated U.S. arms export laws. The secret arms sales occurred against a backdrop of public statements by President Reagan that the United States would make no deals with terrorists. Although three hostages were released as a result of U.S. efforts, three new ones were taken during the same period.

In the wake of the Iran‐Contra Affair, Congress and President Bush skirmished over reforms to the Intelligence Oversight Act. Bush refused to sign the bill in 1990, although a compromise was enacted in 1991.
[See also Civil‐Military Relations; Iran, U.S. Military Involvement in; Nicaragua, U.S. Military Involvement in.]

Bibliography

House Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran and Senate Select Committee on Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaraguan Opposition , Iran‐Contra Affair, 13 November 1987, 100th Cong., 1st Sess., 1987.
Oliver L. North , Taking the Stand: The Testimony of Lieutenant Colonel Oliver L. North, 1987. Tower Commission Report: The Full Text of the President's Special Review Board, 1987.
Theodore Draper , A Very Thin Line: The Iran‐Contra Affairs, 1991.
Cynthia J. Arnson , Crossroads: Congress, the President, and Central America, 1976–1993, 1993.
Lawrence E. Walsh , Firewall: The Iran‐Contra Conspiracy and Cover‐up, 1997.

Cynthia J. Arnson