IRAN-CONTRA AFFAIR

The Iran-Contra Affair involved a secret foreign policy operation directed by White House officials in the national security council (NSC) under President ronald reagan. The operation had two goals: first, to sell arms to Iran in the hope of winning the release of U.S. hostages in Lebanon, and second, to illegally divert profits from these sales to the Contra rebels fighting to overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. Discovery of the secret operation, in 1986, triggered a legal and political uproar that rocked the Reagan administration. The numerous related investigations and indictments did not end until 1993 and even then questions remained about the roles of senior White House officials in this arms-for-hostages deal.

The affair came to public attention on November 3, 1986, when a Lebanese publication, Al-Shiraa, first reported that the United States had sold arms to Iran. The news was shocking because the Reagan administration had previously denounced Iran as a supporter of international terrorism. Shortly after the Al-Shiraa report Nicaraguan forces downed a U.S. plane and captured its pilot. The pilot's confession led to a second startling revelation: a private U.S. enterprise was supplying arms to Contra rebels.

The enterprise seemed designed to circumvent the will of Congress. In the early 1980s, after bitter debate, Congress had passed legislation barring the use of federal monies to overthrow the Nicaraguan government. Through a series of amendments to appropriations bills enacted between 1982 and 1986, known as the Boland amendments, this legislation blocked the Reagan administration's wish to go on supporting the Contras. Now it was revealed that private citizens and private monies were being used to this end. Moreover, the operation was being directed from within the White House by the NSC—the president's advisory cabinet on security affairs and covert operations. Directing the Iran-Contra enterprise were Vice Admiral John Poindexter, national security assistant, and his subordinate, Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, deputy director for political-military affairs.

Each branch of government quickly began a separate investigation into the affair. In December 1986, President Reagan issued an executive order creating the Tower Commission, named after its chair, John Tower. The purpose of this three-member review board was to recommend changes in executive policy regarding the future roles and procedures of the NSC staff. Reagan's creation of the commission was a tacit disavowal of presidential knowledge or responsibility for the actions of Iran-Contra participants. Although admitting that his administration had negotiated secretly with Iran in order to free the hostages in Lebanon, he publicly denied knowing about the arms-supplying enterprise directed by his own NSC staff.

Simultaneously, the Senate and the House of Representatives each created a select Iran-Contra committee. These committees were charged with holding hearings to uncover facts and to recommend legislative action to prevent future illegal foreign policy operations. In their zeal to fully expose the affair, the committees granted limited forms of immunity to several key witnesses. This decision proved to be a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it provided Congress and the U.S. public with a wider understanding of the affair through televised hearings (which also made a public figure out of Lieutenant Colonel North). But it ultimately proved harmful to efforts to prosecute North and Vice Admiral Poindexter.

The attorney general requested that an independent counsel be appointed to investigate wrongdoing. An independent counsel is a special appointee who is given the authority to bring indictments and pursue convictions. For this important role, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Independent Counsel Division, selected Lawrence E. Walsh, a former american bar association president and former federal judge. Legal authority for Walsh's appointment existed in provisions of the Ethics in Government Act (Pub. L. No. 95-521 [Oct. 26, 1978], 92 Stat. 1824 [28 U.S.C.A. § 592(c) (1) (1982)]).

The various Iran-Contra investigations soon uncovered a plethora of legal violations. The covert arms sales to Iran violated numerous statutes that restricted the transfer of arms to nations that support international terrorism, principally the Arms Export Control Act of 1976 (Pub. L. No. 90-629, 89 Stat. 1320 [22 U.S.C.A. §§ 2751–2796c (1989 Supp.)]). By failing to report the Iranian sales to Congress, the Reagan administration had ignored reporting provisions in the 1980 Intelligence Oversight Act (Pub. L. No. 96-450, tit. IV, 407(b) (1), 94 Stat. 1981 [50 U.S.C.A. § 413 (1982)]). That law required the president to notify Congress in a timely fashion of any "significant anticipated intelligence activity, and to make a formal written "finding" (declaration) that each covert operation was important to national security. Three findings were at issue in the Iran-Contra affair: (1) Not only had President Reagan failed to report the first arms sales, but he had also authorized them through Israeli intermediaries by "oral" findings that were not authorized by intelligence oversight statutes. (2) The central intelligence agency (CIA) justified a second shipment of arms to the Iranians through a "retroactive" finding issued by the CIA's general counsel; Poindexter admitted destroying this finding. (3) President Reagan admitted signing a third written finding, in January 1986, but later claimed he had never read it.

The investigations took two turns. Congress and the Tower Commission completed their hearings and issued reports and independent counsel Walsh pursued wide-ranging indictments against several individuals, including Reagan administration officials. In 1987, Congress issued the 690-page Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair (S. Rep. No. 216, H.R. Rep. No. 433, 100th Cong., 1st Sess. 423). The report charged the president with failing to execute his constitutional duty to uphold the law. However, its conclusion did not support changes in legislation to prevent a future breakdown of legality in foreign policy affairs. Iran-Contra, the report said, reflected a failure of people rather than of laws. This assertion pointed to a central political disagreement about the affair: although Democrats were harsh in their condemnation, Republican members of Congress tended to view the investigation itself as an effort by Democrats to interfere with a Republican president's foreign policy. In like fashion, the 1987 Tower Commission

report downplayed any need for legislation to revise national security decision making. Instead, it criticized Reagan's lax management style.

After the reports, attention shifted to the independent counsel's investigation. In March 1988, grand jury indictments were brought against North, Poindexter, Richard V. Secord, and Albert Hakim. The indictments included four distinct charges: conspiring to obstruct the U.S. government; diverting public funds from arms sales to Iran to aid the Contras in Nicaragua; stealing public funds for private ends; and lying to Congress and other government officials. With the exception of the routine criminal charge of theft, the most serious points in the indictments essentially accused the defendants of conducting a private foreign policy in violation of constitutional norms.

Before independent counsel Walsh could begin his prosecutions, several pretrial delays took place. First, the law providing for an independent counsel was challenged. The Reagan administration, joining a number of its former officials who were subject to other independent counsel investigations, argued that the law unconstitutionally denied the president important executive power. In June 1988, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected this argument and upheld the law's constitutionality in Morrison v. Olson, 487 U.S. 654, 108 S. Ct. 2597, 101 L. Ed. 2d 569. Next, the first four Iran-Contra defendants—Poindexter, North, Secord, and Hakim—moved for dismissal of the charges brought by Walsh. They argued that their compelled testimony before the joint congressional committees had violated their fifth amendment rights against self-incrimination. In United States v. Poindexter, 698 F. Supp. 300 (D.D.C. 1988), U.S. district judge Gerhard Gesell denied the motion, clearing the way for the trials to begin.

Soon, a more serious obstacle hampered Walsh's prosecution: the justice department and the White House refused to release classified information crucial to the case on the grounds that it was vital to national security. Without this information, much of Walsh's case collapsed. He was forced to dismiss the broader charges of conspiracy and diversion—the crux of the Iran-Contra Affair's illegality—and to pursue instead the less serious charges remaining in the indictments.

Walsh won a conviction against Lieutenant Colonel North on May 4, 1989, for obstructing Congress, destroying documents, and accepting an illegal gratuity (United States v. North, 713 F. Supp. 1448 [D.D.C.]). The trial disclosed evidence that suggested that both Presidents Ronald Reagan and george h. w. bush had greater roles in the Iran-Contra Affair than either the Tower Commission or the congressional committees had concluded. During the trial, North's attorneys failed in an attempt to subpoena Reagan, whom North would later squarely blame for complete knowledge of the affair, in his memoir Under Fire: An American Story. Subsequent to the conviction, Judge Gesell denied two motions for an acquittal and a mistrial. Gesell sentenced North to two years' probation, 1,200 hours of community service, and a $150,000 fine.

North appealed. On July 20, 1990, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, in U.S. v. North, 910 F.2d. 843 ((D.C. Cir. 1990), suspended all three of North's felony convictions and completely overturned his conviction for destroying classified documents. At issue was North's earlier testimony before Congress. The appellate ruling was based on the same reasoning as the contention made by North, Poindexter, Secord, and Hakim before their trials: Congress's decision to grant immunity to North had clashed with the Fifth Amendment protection of witnesses against self-incrimination. The appeals court directed the trial court to reexamine North's earlier testimony. Some critics argued that the appellate ruling, written by Judge Laurence Silberman, smacked of partisanship; Silberman had been, in 1980, cochair of the Reagan-Bush foreign policy advisory group. Walsh pressed on, but on September 16, 1991, Judge Gesell dropped all charges against North (North, 920 F. 2d 940 [D.C. Cir. 1990], cert. denied, 500 U.S. 941, 111 S. Ct. 2235, 114 L. Ed. 2d 477 [1991]).

Vice Admiral Poindexter's trial was similar to North's. After failing to win release of classified subpoenaed materials, Walsh narrowed his case to charges that Poindexter had provided false information and made false statements to Congress. Unlike North's attorneys, however, Poindexter's successfully subpoenaed former president Reagan, who became the first former president ordered to testify in a criminal trial regarding the conduct of affairs during his administration. Reagan provided an eight-hour videotaped deposition. However, Poindexter failed to win access to the former president's diaries, which his attorneys argued were crucial to Poindexter's defense.

Walsh's prosecution of Poindexter succeeded through a preponderance of evidence. In testimony for the prosecution, Lieutenant Colonel North said that he had seen Poindexter destroy a high-level secret document, signed by the president, which described the Iran arms sales as an exchange-for-hostages deal. North also claimed that he lied to members of Congress at Poindexter's direction. Other testimony revealed that Poindexter had erased some five thousand computer files after the Iran-Contra story broke in the media in November 1986.

On April 7, 1990, jurors convicted Poindexter on all five of the counts in the indictment. Sentenced on June 11, 1990, to six months in prison, he became the first Iran-Contra defendant to receive a prison term, but remained free pending his appeal. Here, as in North, the conviction was overturned. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that Poindexter's testimony before Congress had been unfairly used against him in his trial (Poindexter, 951 F. 2d 369 [D.C. Cir. 1991]).

If the reversal of convictions against Poindexter and North represented a defeat to Walsh, so did several plea bargains that his office secured in the late 1980s. Critics had expected more serious convictions to result from his intense investigation. In March 1988, former national security adviser Robert McFarlane pleaded guilty to four misdemeanor counts of withholding information from Congress and was fined a modest amount. Two private fundraisers, Carl Channell and Richard Miller, pleaded guilty to using a tax-exempt organization to raise money to purchase arms for the Contras. Channell was sentenced to probation only; Miller was ordered to do minimal public service. In November 1989, Secord, Hakim, and a corporation owned by Hakim all pleaded guilty to relatively minor counts. As Walsh's office persevered, it could show little in terms of prosecutions, and Republicans in Congress derided the multimillion-dollar investigation as a vindictive exercise in partisan politics.

Then, in 1992, Walsh brought an indictment against the highest-ranking Reagan administration official to be charged in the Iran-Contra Affair: Caspar W. Weinberger, former defense secretary. Weinberger was indicted on June 16, 1992, on five felony counts: one count of obstructing the congressional committees'

investigations; two counts of making false statements to investigators working for Walsh and Congress; and two counts of perjury related to his congressional testimony. Penalties for each count were a maximum of five years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines.

Walsh based the case on evidence gathered from notes that Weinberger had written while serving for six years in the Reagan administration. These nearly illegible notes, scrawled on 1,700 small scraps of paper, formed a personal diary. Weinberger had given them to the library of congress, with the requirement that no one could read them without his personal consent. Throughout Iran-Contra investigations, Weinberger had repeatedly testified to Congress and the Tower Commission that he had argued against the arms-for-hostages scheme when it was discussed by White House officials. Walsh did not make Weinberger's involvement an issue in the 1992 indictment. Instead, he zeroed in on Weinberger's testimony under oath that he had not kept notes or a personal diary during the arms sale period. The discovery of the notes in the Library of Congress suggested that Weinberger had presented false testimony.

On June 19, 1992, Weinberger pleaded not guilty to all five felony charges. Judge Thomas F. Hogan set a tentative trial date of November 2, 1992, one day before the presidential election. This timing raised the question of whether Weinberger's trial would cause political embarrassment for President George H. W. Bush, who was campaigning against bill clinton. Four days before the election, Walsh announced a new indictment against Weinberger. It centered on a note that had been written by Weinberger about a 1986 White House meeting and that seemed to contradict Bush's claim that as vice president he had not been involved in the armsfor-hostages decision making. Senate Republicans, angered by the indictment, asked the Justice Department to name an independent counsel to investigate whether the Clinton campaign had been behind the indictment. Attorney General william p. barr denied the request.

The case progressed no further. In a surprise reprieve on Christmas Eve, 1992, President Bush pardoned Weinberger and five others implicated in the Iran-Contra Affair. The pardon cited Weinberger's record of public and military service, his recent ill health, and a desire to put Iran-Contra to rest. Bush also pardoned former assistant secretary of state Elliot Abrams; former CIA officials Clair George, Duane Clarridge, and Alan Fiers; and former national security adviser McFarlane. Bush deemed all six men patriots and said their prosecution represented not law enforcement but the "criminalization of policy differences," essentially repeating his long-standing argument that Iran-Contra was really a case where Democrats had pursued a political witch-hunt to punish Republican officials over disagreements on foreign policy (Grant of Exec. Clemency, Proclamation No. 6518, 57 Fed. Reg. 62,145).

Reaction to the pardons divided along party lines, with Republicans hailing Bush and Democrats criticizing him. Walsh accused Bush of furthering a cover-up and thwarting judicial process. He had long maintained that top Reagan administration officials had engaged in a cover-up to protect their president. Now, he promised, Bush would become the subject of his remaining investigation.

Bush's only testimony had taken place in a January 1988 videotaped deposition. An unsettled question was why Bush's personal diaries were withheld from prosecutors for six years; their existence was only disclosed to the independent counsel's office following the 1992 presidential election. Throughout 1993, Walsh sought to interview the former president but was blocked by Bush's attorneys. Bush consistently insisted on placing limits on any interview. Walsh refused those limits, complained that Bush was stalling the investigation, and ultimately abandoned the attempt to question Bush.

Walsh also chose, in 1993, not to indict another high-ranking Reagan administration official, former attorney general edwin meese iii. In 1986, Meese said that Reagan did not know about the arms sales to Iran. Walsh contended that the statement was false, but admitted that building a criminal case against Meese would have been difficult: too much time had passed and could therefore have bolstered memory loss as a defense.

On August 6, 1992, after six-and-a-half years and $35.7 million, Walsh concluded the Iran-Contra investigation and submitted his final report to the special court that had appointed him. By 1993, the Iran-Contra Affair seemed over, in one sense. The statute of limitations on crimes that may have been committed during it had expired, and no further prosecution would be forthcoming. However, additional revelations followed as historians sifted through emerging evidence, notably in the memoirs of key participants. The lessons of the affair continued to be debated. Some said that Iran-Contra exposed a pattern of zealous disregard, by the executive branch, of legislative constraint on foreign policy, that dated back to the vietnam war. Others took the view held by the Reagan and Bush administrations: namely, that nothing terrible had happened.

further readings

Walsh, Lawrence E. 1997. Firewall: The Iran-Contra Conspiracy and Cover-Up. New York: W. W. Norton.

——. 1993. Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.

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

IRAN-CONTRA AFFAIR

IRAN-CONTRA AFFAIR. On 8 July 1985, President Ronald Reagan addressed the American Bar Association and described Iran as part of a "confederation of terrorist states … a new, international version of Murder, Inc." Ironically, that same month, members of the Reagan administration were initiating a clandestine policy through which the federal government helped supply arms to Iran in its war with Iraq, the nation supported by the United States. Millions of dollars in profits from the secret arms sales were laundered through Israel and then routed to Central America in support of rebel forces known as the contras, whose professed aim was to overthrow the duly elected government in Nicaragua. Both Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger opposed the policy but lost the debate to members of the National Security Council. The Iran-Contra Affair, arguably the crisis that did most to erode public confidence in the Reagan presidency, occupied the nation's attention through much of the next two years.

Reagan's staunch opposition to communism and his commitment to the safety of U.S. citizens throughout the world fostered the crisis. In 1979, a communist Sandinista government assumed power in Nicaragua. Soon after Reagan assumed office in 1981, his administration began

to back the contra rebel forces with overt assistance. Congress terminated funding for the contras when evidence of illegal covert actions surfaced and public opinion turned against administration policy. At the same time, the public shared the president's disillusion with events in the Middle East because of the October 1983 bombing of a U.S. marines barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, that killed 241 Americans, and the contemporaneous abduction in Lebanon of several U.S. citizens as hostages. Events in both hemispheres came together in the late summer of 1985. From then until 1986, the United States provided Iran with TOW antitank missiles and parts for ground-launched Hawk antiaircraft missiles. The actions violated both the government's embargo on weapons sales to Iran and its avowed policy of not arming terrorists, because the Iranian government apparently was sponsoring Lebanese terrorism. The administration's rationale for its actions was the benefits promised for the contras. Private arms dealers, acting with the knowledge and approval of Reagan's National Security Council staff, overcharged Iran for the weapons and channeled the money to the rebels.

During a White House ceremony early in November 1986, reporters asked the president to comment on rumors that the United States had exchanged arms for hostages. He repudiated the stories, then appeared on national television one week later to explain the administration's case, a case grounded in denial of any wrongdoing. "We did not," he declared in his conclusion, "repeat—did not trade weapons or anything else for hostages, nor will we." Just six days later, however, on 19 November, Reagan opened a press conference by announcing that he had based his earlier claims on a false chronology constructed by the National Security Council and the White House staff. He announced formation of the President's Special Review Board, known as the Tower Commission. Headed by former Senator John Tower, the board included former Secretary of State Edmund Muskie and former national

security adviser Brent Scowcroft. In late February 1987, the board concluded that the president was guilty of no crime but found that Reagan's lax management allowed subordinates the freedom to shape policy.

Concurrent executive branch and congressional investigations of Iran-Contra proceeded into 1987. As independent counsel, a position created by the Ethics in Government Act of 1978, former federal Judge Lawrence E. Walsh explored allegations of wrongdoing. In May 1987, a joint Senate and House committee hastily convened for what became four months of televised hearings that included 250 hours of open testimony by thirty-two public officials. In its report on 17 November, the committee held President Reagan accountable for his administration's actions because his inattention to detail created an environment in which his subordinates exceeded their authority. In the spring of 1988, former national security adviser Robert C. McFarlane pleaded guilty to withholding information from Congress and later attempted suicide. Criminal indictments were returned against Rear Adm. John M. Poindexter, the president's national security adviser; arms dealers Richard V. Secord and Albert A. Hakim; and Lt. Col. Oliver L. North of the National Security Council staff. The convictions of North and Poindexter were ultimately dismissed because evidence against them was compromised by their congressional testimony. In December 1992, just before leaving office, President George H. W. Bush pardoned six others indicted or convicted in the Iran-Contra Affair, including Weinberger, whose diaries allegedly would have shown that both Reagan and Bush knew of the arms-for-hostages deal. "Ollie" North, viewed by some as an unfairly censured patriot, went on to win the Republican Party's nomination in the 1994 Virginia senatorial election. Although he lost to the Democratic incumbent Chuck Robb, he remained in the public eye as a conservative pundit, columnist, and radio personality.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Busby, Robert. Reagan and the Iran-Contra Affair: The Politics of Presidential Recovery. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999.

Cannon, Lou. President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime. New York: Public Affairs, 2000.

Cohen, William S., and George M. Mitchell. Men of Zeal: A Candid Inside Story of the Iran-Contra Hearings. New York: Viking, 1988.

Fried, Amy. Muffled Echoes: Oliver North and the Politics of Public Opinion. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.

Lynch, Michael. The Spectacle of History: Speech, Text, and Memory at the Iran-Contra Hearings. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1996.

President's Special Review Board. The Tower Commission Report: The Full Text of the President's Special Review Board. New York: Bantam Books, 1987.

Thelen, David P. Becoming Citizens in the Age of Television: How Americans Challenged the Media and Seized Political Initiative during the Iran-Contra Debate. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.

Walsh, Lawrence E. Iran-Contra: The Final Report. New York: Times Books, 1994.

———. Firewall: The Iran-Contra Conspiracy and Cover-Up. New York: Norton, 1997.

DavidHenry/a. r.

See alsoCorruption, Political ; Hostage Crises ; Iran, Relations with ; Nicaragua, Relations with ; Scandals ; Special Prosecutors ; andvol. 9:Report on the Iran-Contra Affair .

Iran-contra affair in U.S. history, secret arrangement in the 1980s to provide funds to the Nicaraguan contra rebels from profits gained by selling arms to Iran. The Iran-contra affair was the product of two separate initiatives during the administration of President Ronald Reagan . The first was a commitment to aid the contras who were conducting a guerrilla war against the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. The second was to placate "moderates" within the Iranian government in order to secure the release of American hostages held by pro-Iranian groups in Lebanon and to influence Iranian foreign policy in a pro-Western direction.

Despite the strong opposition of the Reagan administration, the Democratic-controlled Congress enacted legislation, known as the Boland amendments, that prohibited the Defense Dept., the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), or any other government agency from providing military aid to the contras from Dec., 1983, to Sept., 1985. The Reagan administration circumvented these limitations by using the National Security Council (NSC), which was not explicitly covered by the law, to supervise covert military aid to the contras. Under Robert McFarlane (1983–85) and John Poindexter (1985–86) the NSC raised private and foreign funds for the contras. This operation was directed by NSC staffer Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North . McFarlane and North were also the central figures in the plan to secretly ship arms to Iran despite a U.S. trade and arms embargo.

In early Nov., 1986, the scandal broke when reports in Lebanese newspapers forced the Reagan administration to disclose the arms deals. Poindexter resigned before the end of the month; North was fired. Select congressional committees held joint hearings, and in Dec., 1986, Lawrence E. Walsh was named as special prosecutor to investigate the affair. Higher administration officials, particularly Reagan, Vice President Bush , and William J. Casey (former director of the CIA, who died in May, 1987), were implicated in some testimony, but the extent of their involvement remained unclear. North said he believed Reagan was largely aware of the secret arrangement, and the independent prosecutor's report (1994) said that Reagan and Bush had some knowledge of the affair or its coverup. Reagan and Bush both claimed to have been uninformed about the details of the affair, and no evidence was found to link them to any crime. A presidential commission was critical of the NSC, while congressional hearings uncovered a web of official deception, mismanagement, and illegality.

A number of criminal convictions resulted, including those of McFarlane, North, and Poindexter, but North's and Poindexter's were vacated on appeal because of immunity agreements with the Senate concerning their testimony. Former State Dept. and CIA officials pleaded guilty in 1991 to withholding information about the contra aid from Congress, and Caspar Weinberger, defense secretary under Reagan, was charged (1992) with the same offense. In 1992 then-president Bush pardoned Weinberger and other officials who had been indicted or convicted for withholding information on or obstructing investigation of the affair. The Iran-contra affair raised serious questions about the nature and scope of congressional oversight of foreign affairs and the limits of the executive branch.

Bibliography: See B. Woodward, Veil (1987); T. Draper, A Very Thin Line (1991).

Iran-Contra Affair an American political scandal of 1985–86, in which high-ranking members in the administration of President Ronald Reagan arranged for the covert sale of arms to Iran and diverted the profits to fund the anti-Communist contras in Nicaragua. The weapons were sold to the Iranian government in order to obtain the release of American hostages held in Lebanon by pro-Iranian terrorists. The actions of the administration first became publicly known in November 1986. Investigations by a presidentially appointed panel and a joint committee of Congress focused on whether or not Reagan knew about or had authorized the diversion, 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 there had been “secrecy, deception, and disdain for the law,” but that President Reagan had not broken the law. Nearly a dozen senior administration officials and private citizens were convicted of crimes, but all convicted U.S. officials and those awaiting trial were pardoned in December 1992 by President George H. Bush.