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The Iran–Contra affair ( Persian: ماجرای ایران-کنترا; Spanish: Caso Irán-Contra ), often referred to as the Iran–Contra scandal, was a political scandal in the United States that occurred during the second term of the Reagan administration.
- McFarlane affair (in Iran), Iran–Contra scandal, Iran–Contra
- 20 August 1985 – 4 March 1987
- Overview
- Background
- Arms for hostages and the Enterprise
- The Tower Commission
- Iran-Contra hearings
- Prosecutions and legacy
The Iran-Contra Affair was a U.S. political scandal in which the National Security Council (NSC) became involved in secret weapons transactions and other activities that were either prohibited by the U.S. Congress or violated the stated public policy of the government.
Whom did the U.S. government support in Nicaragua?
The U.S. government provided military aid and financial support for the warring Nicaraguan opponents of the Sandinista regime, the contras, whom President Ronald Reagan referred to as “the moral equal” of the Founding Fathers of the United States.
Under whose presidency did the Iran-Contra affair take place?
The Iran-Contra Affair was a U.S. political scandal that took place during the presidency of Ronald Reagan.
Iran-Contra Affair, 1980s U.S. political scandal in which the National Security Council (NSC) became involved in secret weapons transactions and other activities that either were prohibited by the U.S. Congress or violated the stated public policy of the government.
The scandal related to U.S. policy toward two countries that had undergone revolutionary regime change in 1979, Iran and Nicaragua. In Iran, Islamic fundamentalists led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had adopted a militantly anti-U.S. posture after toppling the pro-Western government of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. In Nicaragua, the leftist Sandinis...
In early 1985 the head of the NSC, Robert C. McFarlane, undertook the sale of antitank and antiaircraft missiles to Iran in the mistaken belief that such a sale would secure the release of the American hostages. This and several subsequent weapons sales to Iran in 1986 directly contradicted the U.S. government’s publicly stated policy of refusing e...
The NSC’s illegal activities came to light in November 1986 after a plane conveying supplies to the contras was shot down and its pilot taken prisoner by the Sandinistas. An immediate public uproar ensued. On November 26 Reagan created a Special Review Board to investigate the affair. It was made up of a pair of well-respected former senators, Edmu...
Congress responded to the affair in January 1987 by forming the Senate Select Committee on Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaraguan Opposition (chaired by Democratic Sen. Daniel Inouye, with Republican Sen. Warren Rudman as the vice-chairman) and the House Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran (chaired by Democratic Rep. Lee Hamilton, with Republican Rep. Dick Cheney as the vice-chairman). From early May to early August 1987 the committees held televised joint hearings that became known as the Iran-Contra hearings. Reagan waived executive privilege and ordered all relevant government agencies to provide documents and witnesses. In addition to North and Poindexter (who had received partial immunity, compelling their testimony), the more than 500 witnesses who testified or were interviewed included McFarlane, Secretary of State George Shultz, Attorney General Edwin Meese, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, former presidential chief of staff Donald Regan, and Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Elliott Abrams. Former CIA director William Casey, who would have been a key witness, did not testify. Afflicted with a brain tumour, he had resigned on January 29, 1987, and died on May 6. Significantly, relevant documents had been shredded by NSC staff members.
The Iran-Contra committees’ majority report was signed by all of the committees’ Democrats and three Republican senators. It found that the NSC had covertly raised money for the contras, established an organization for supplying them with arms, attempted to ransom hostages, transferred arms to Iran, and diverted to the contras money from the sales of those arms—all without presidential authorization. The report also emphasized that these actions had violated the fundamental constitutional requirement that government actions be funded by monies subject to congressional oversight. Moreover, it found that senior officials within the Reagan administration had knowingly misled Congress.
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The minority report, signed by the committees’ remaining Republicans, credited Reagan for “acknowledging his mistakes and reacting precisely to correct what went wrong” and concluded:
The bottom line, however, is that the mistakes of the Iran-Contra Affair were just that—mistakes in judgment, and nothing more. There was no constitutional crisis, no systematic disrespect for “the rule of law,” no grand conspiracy, and no Administration-wide dishonesty or cover-up. In fact, the evidence will not support any of the more hysterical conclusions the Committees’ Report tries to reach.
In the wake of the report issued in August 1993 by Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh, who had been appointed to investigate the Iran-Contra Affair, Poindexter and North were prosecuted. Poindexter was convicted of making false statements to Congress, conspiring to obstruct official inquiries and proceedings, obstruction of Congress, and destructio...
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
10. Aug. 2017 · The Iran-Contra Affair was a secret U.S. arms deal that traded missiles and other arms to free some Americans held hostage by terrorists in Lebanon, but also used funds from the arms deal to ...
On May 5, 1987, the world tuned in to watch the joint hearings of House Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran and the Senate Select Committee on Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaraguan Opposition—soon to be known as the “Iran-Contra hearings.”
“Understanding the Iran-Contra Affairs” provides information about the rise of the contra rebels in Nicaragua and about the Iranian Revolution, as well as the U.S. responses to both. Moreover, the website details the media's discovery and later press coverage of the Affairs, and the subsequent televised congressional hearings. This website ...
12. Juli 2017 · The Iran-Contra Affair. The Reagan administration’s covert arms-for-hostages deal sparked an independent counsel probe. July 12, 2017 By Bryan Craig. Photo: Shutterstock. There was no smoking gun. There were no Oval Office tapes. There was no presidential downfall.
9. Juni 2022 · 7 min. Thirty-five years before Thursday’s upcoming start of televised House hearings on the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, the United States turned its eyes to congressional...
