"We do many things at the federal level that would be considered
dishonest and illegal if done in the private sector."
Donald T. Regan, New York Times, August 25,
1988
Background
On October 5, 1986, a US cargo plane was shot down over southern
Nicaragua. Two of the crew members died in the crash, but the third, Eugene
Hasenfus, parachuted to safety and was captured by the Sandinista army. Led
out of the jungle at gunpoint, Hasenfus’s very existence set in motion
an incredible chain of coverups and lies that would mushroom into one of
the biggest scandals in American political history. (How quickly people
forget...) Loosely known as the Iran-Contra affair, a bizarre network of
arms sales to Iran designed to win release of US hostages being held in Lebanon
and raise money to fund the Nicaraguan Contras, the botched enterprise took
years to unravel, threatening both the Reagan and Bush presidencies in the
process.
The highlight of the Iran-Contra affair came on May 5, 1987, when
Congress began televised hearings into the matter that kept Americans riveted
to their TV sets for weeks. The hearings made household names of bureaucrats
such as Oliver North, Richard Secord, John Poindexter, Robert McFarlane,
and Elliott Abrams, and flushed out colorful bit players such as Washington
secretary Fawn Hall, Iranian businessman Albert Hakim, and Saudi billionaire
Adnan Khashoggi. But if the truth proved hard to ascertain -- thanks in large
part to the illegal shredding of key documents by North and his staff --
the hearings did expose huge tracts of the US government as weak and
unprincipled, contributing to the nation’s growing distrust in the political
process by the early 1990s.
Convictions were rare in the Iran-Contra affair (North’s and
Poindexter’s were overturned on appeal), and the few verdicts that were
handed down in court amounted to little more than slaps on the wrist. On
December 24, 1992, outgoing president George Bush pardoned former secretary
of defense Caspar Weinberger and five other defendants, asserting that it
was "time for the country to move on." But independent counsel Lawrence Walsh,
who spent more than seven years and $40 million unraveling the scandal and
issued his own report on it in January 1994, saw it differently. "The Iran-Contra
coverup," he said, "... has now been completed."
The Iran-Contra affair was the direct result of two major dilemmas
facing the Reagan administration in the early 1980s: (1) how to fund, train,
and arm an army of Nicaraguan exiles (known as Contras) to overthrow the
socialist Sandinista government, especially after the US Congress made it
illegal to do so in 1982, and (2) how to win release of American hostages
being held by Islamic radicals in Beirut.
Although the CIA was originally authorized to oversee the Contras’
efforts in 1981, and CIA director William Casey embraced the mission
wholeheartedly, Congress passed legislation two years later ordering the
CIA to pull out. The so-called Boland Amendment made it illegal for the CIA
either to aid the Contras or to provoke a war between Nicaragua and Honduras,
and was toughened to include ALL sectors of the US government with the passage
of the Boland Amendment II in 1984. But by that time, responsibility for
supporting the Contras’ campaign had been shifted from the CIA to the
National Security Council (NSC), where it wound up on the desk of Oliver
North, the deputy-director for political-military affairs. A decorated Vietnam
veteran with little or no regard for the law, North quickly established a
vast and secret military supply system that employed retired CIA and Defense
Department personnel, mercenaries, terrorists, and foreign saboteurs. Yet
North never acted alone. In addition to revealing the mentorlike guidance
of William Casey, declassified documents make it clear that knowledge, and
in some cases direct approval, of the Contra-support effort existed in virtually
every wing of the Reagan White House, including the Oval Office
itself.
As the Nicaraguan civil war raged on, the Reagan administration
became increasingly preoccupied with the growing number of Americans kidnapped
in Lebanon. When Iran -- a nation that held 52 Americans hostage from 1979-1981
-- offered to use its influence to negotiate the release of the hostages
in Beirut in exchange for the opportunity to buy US weapons, Reagan’s
men agreed. The fact that Israel, a country reviled by most militant Muslims,
agreed to serve as the go-between in the arms sales only adds to the strange
nature of the deal.
Unfortunately, North, who assumed command of the arms sales in late
August or early September 1985, and McFarlane, who helped him, turned out
to be naive bumblers who were no match for the wily Iranian negotiators.
Every time a US hostage was released, another was taken. Meanwhile, North
cross-pollinated the Contra and Iran initiatives. By artificially inflating
the prices of the arms, North was able to reap profits that could be diverted
to funding the Contras. The arms shipments lasted from August 20, 1985 to
October 28, 1988, and a total of more than 2,000 missiles and spare parts
were shipped to Iran. But of the $16.1 million in profits raised, only $3.8
million ever went to the Contras. The rest was used to purchase equipment,
such as a cargo freighter, that could be used in future unspecified
operations.
But when the plane carrying Hasenfus was shot down -- and Hasenfus
told his captors he believed he was working on a CIA-sanctioned operation,
identifying two other operatives by their code names in the process -- the
entire Iran-Contra scheme quickly collapsed. Vice President George Bush’s
office was informed that a plane was missing just hours after Hasenfus was
taken prisoner, and a CIA station chief in Costa Rica quickly followed with
a coded message that warned the "situation requires we do necessary damage
control."
In the case of North and other officials at the NSC, that meant
shredding incriminating notes and documents and falsifying others to provide
cover -- but not before President Ronald Reagan and Attorney General Edwin
Meese went on national television, at noon on November 25, 1986, to report
the "discovery" of these interrelated Iran and Contra operations and attempt
to pin as much of the blame on North as possible. One hour later North was
fired and his boss, NSC adviser John Poindexter, was allowed to
resign.
A "blue-ribbon" panel headed by former US senator John Tower was
appointed to investigate the Iran-Contra affair; it issued its final report
on February 26, 1987. But while generally scolding President Reagan for his
"hands-off management style," the report proved cursory and unwilling to
tackle the scandal head-on. The televised congressional hearings that followed
the Tower Commission made a temporary national hero (?!?) of North and revealed
the entire investigation as flawed. In order to obtain the testimony of key
players such as North and Poindexter, Congress granted them immunity, undermining
the ability of Lawrence Walsh, the independent counsel, to successfully prosecute
them afterward.
Key Witnesses and Testimony
Although most Americans struggled to comprehend the complex network
of arms sales and Contra resupply that North and his associates had created,
the joint House and Senate Iran-Contra hearings were nonetheless entertaining.
Beginning May 5, 1987, and lasting until August 6, 1987, they featured more
than 250 hours of testimony from 32 witnesses. If no bombshells were dropped
by either the witnesses or the lawmakers -- and no "smoking gun" was ever
uncovered linking Ronald Reagan directly to the whole affair -- American
still found itself with a while new set of villains.
There was Fawn Hall, North’s secretary, who testified that
she shredded some classified documents and smuggled others out of the NSC
building by stuffing them down her boots and in the back of her blouse. There
were Reagan staffers and Cabinet secretaries such as Donald Regan, Edwin
Meese, Robert McFarlane, Elliott Abrams, and George Schulz, who provided
details of a White House overrun with private-sector intermediaries. And
there was a seemingly endless parade of low-level bureaucrats and shady arms
dealers caught up in the web.
Coincidentally, the one witness who had the most to tell, CIA director
William Casey, was discovered to have a brain tumor and died the day after
the hearings began. Casey reportedly admitted his involvement in a deathbed
interview with Washington Post reported Bob Woodward, although
Casey’s widow denies Woodward ever got near her husband’s
room.
North’s testimony proved to be the most colorful. Networks
preempted their daytime soap operas to stay on the air for his testimony.
Wearing his green US Marines uniform for the first time in years -- North
normally wore a coat and tie at the NSC -- he bullied the congressional panel
with equal parts pathos and patriotism, getting teary-eyed at will and wrapping
himself in the American flag. Although North brazenly admitted lying before
Congress, destroying evidence, operating US initiatives in violation of US
law, and participating in a coverup, he said he did so in defense of America
and added that President Reagan had called him a national hero.
When it was disclosed that North had accepted a $13,800 fence and
security system as a gift from businessmen who were profiting on the arms
sales, North testified that the fence was necessary to protect his family
from terrorists. In order to distract public attention from this obvious
and extremely unpatriotic case of bribery, North’s lawyers displayed
a huge photograph of noted terrorist Abu Nidal. "I want you to know," said
North, "that I’d be more than willing -- and if anybody else is watching
overseas, and I’m glad they are -- I’ll be glad to meet Abu Nidal
on equal terms anywhere in the world. OK?"
Congressional investigators simply could not bear the prospect of
impeachment hearings, especially with the Reagan administration poised to
reopen nuclear disarmament talks with the Soviet Union. Tired of the whole
Iran-Contra affair, the joint congressional panel promptly closed up shop
following Poindexter’s testimony in August, and issued its final report
on November 17, 1987. Not surprisingly, that report conferred "ultimate
responsibility" on the Reagan White House but allowed as how a "cabal of
zealots" therein had "undermined the powers of Congress as a co-equal branch
and subverted the Constitution." A minority report, however, signed by eight
of the Republicans on the 26-member committee, found only errors of judgment,
"no constitutional crisis, no systematic disrespect for the ‘rule of
law,’ no grand conspiracy and no administration-wide dishonesty or
coverup."
Outcome and Aftermath
Although Walsh, a staunch Republican, doggedly compiled cases against
the Iran-Contra conspirators, even as he turned eight years of age in 1992,
it was all for naught. Eleven defendants were convicted of crimes. The original
charges ranged from perjury to defrauding the US Treasury, but these were
plea-bargained down to minor felony and misdemeanor charges. McFarlane, who
pleaded guilty to four counts of "withholding information" received the harshest
penalty (two years’ probation, a $20,000 fine, and 200 hours of community
service), but he was one of those pardoned by George Bush. The convictions
of North (three counts of obstruction of justice, misleading Congress, and
accepting an illegal gratuity) and Poindexter (five counts of conspiracy,
obstruction of Congress, and false statements) were overturned on appeal
because they had been granted immunity. Former CIA operative Thomas Clines
was the only defendant to receive a prison sentence -- for falsifying tax
records.
In his final report on the Iran-Contra affair, which was published
January 18, 1994, Walsh concluded that both Reagan and Bush knew of the
burgeoning scandal and participated "or at least acquiesced" in the coverup,
but could find no evidence that either broke the law. Aftershocks from the
Iran-Contra affair had dogged Reagan throughout his second term and may have
contributed to Bush’s failed reelection bid in 1992. But it’s hard
to know for sure. Distracted by events such as the 1991 Gulf War, the nation
gradually lost interest in Iran-Contra, and it is doubtful that many Americans
ever fully understood the scandal and its implications. In the end, all anybody
knew was that a lot of politicians were breaking laws and lying to the country
again, and this manifested itself in the deep cynicism many Americans began
to harbor toward the political process.
While most of the players retired to lives of lucrative consulting
or private business, only North stayed in the spotlight. Portraying himself
as an antiestablishment politician and drawing support from conservative
groups, North actually won the Republican nomination for the US Senate in
Virginia in 1994. He spent $17.5 million on his campaign -- often battling
denunciations from prominent Republicans -- but narrowly lost to the incumbent,
Charles Robb.
From: "The 20th Century" by David
Wallechinsky
More Reading
Firewall:
The Iran-Contra
Conspiracy and Coverup
by Lawrence E. Walsh
The
Iran-Contra Scandal:
The Declassified History
by Peter Kombluh (editor)
