Transcripts For CSPAN3 Iran-Contra Affair 20170708

The nico rob what nica raguan government. The topic at todays class is the iran contra scandal, sometimes called the irancontra affair. There are various names people attach to it, but it is most commonly known as the irancontra scandal or affair. I give the dates of 1984 to 1987 because the events that the scandal comprised really took off in 1984, even though you can see their roots earlier than the Reagan Administrations Foreign Policy, even earlier than 1984 in Ronald Reagans first term as president. I will explain the developments shortly, but they really took off in 1984. I will explain. They go through until mid 1987. This is a photograph from ingressional hearings about 1987. Anybody know who that colorless . Oliver north. Oliver north. A uniform because he was on active duty in the marine corps, even though many people noted at the time he did go tofore this time work wearing his uniform. He wore a business suit and a type of the most part because even though he was on active duty in the marine corps, he was deputized to the National Security council. A white hat staff job, his work yet been working for several years before he was fired in late 1986. He was the star witness in the congressional hearing in 1987. It was late spring to midsummer, 1987, and you can tell from this photo the kind of spectacle these hearings became. They were televised. People all over the country watch them. A tremendous proportion of tv sets were switched to the hearings when oliver north, specifically, testified. I will get to that later in the story. Gain someneed to sense of what the overall structure of the scandal was. Why did it become a scandal . Part, thehe iran contra part, as to what they are related are, and what made it a scandal . There are several basic things to understand, first, the contra part was a crisis in the Reagan Administration policy towar nicaragua. Congress was growing discontented in the 1980s with the ronald Reagan Administration, which was to arm, fund, equip, and train a rebel army. They were a counterrevolutionary arce and tended to disrupt socialist government that had come to power in late 1970s, which was the United States under Ronald Reagan, and he wanted to destabilize that regime. He was able through the cia to farm and fund the contra with the approval of the united in the earlyss 1980s. As you know from previous discussions, in 1982 and 1983, and it intensified in 1984, congress and the house of inresentatives, ridiculously the house, members of congress were growing increasingly troubled by reports that they were getting of wars in Central America, in iran, nicaragua h. Is. Chair of the House Intelligence Committee said the cia can still fund the contras, but not for the purpose of overthrowing the government. This was with a wink and a nod, do not go too far, yet it did not stop the Reagan Administration from sending arms and money to the contras. So it did not change the First Amendment in 1982. It did not change the u. S. Government policy toward Central America. Nonetheless, periodically in congress, ronald Reagan Administration was worried about tightening the noose around funding to the contras, which is what happened. That was the contra side. In the pursuit of this Foreign Policy, the crisis in relation to Ronald Reagans presidency and the congress over control of Foreign Policy. The Eastern Front on this struggle was in the middle east, a hostage crisis, and we all the about our go argo, movie just winning the best picture oscar, dealing with the crisisd tehran hostage in 1989. They were clear echoes in the minds of many people, echoes of crisishran hostage were there were terrible civil wars in berut and they were westerners, including americans and europeans that were taken hostage for various military factions and beirut. In the early 1980s, this is not a great concern to the Reagan Administration, but it became a more urgent concern. The determination of president reagan personally to do something to get these hostages in beirut breed became the Eastern Front freed became the Eastern Front of this crisis, which became the irancontra scandal. What does it have to do it iran . There was an idea in the minds of many people in the Reagan Administration that iran had influence in beirut. The Reagan Administration could prove relations with iran, this could top get hostages in beirut sprung. You have a hostage crisis in the middle east, but what ties them together . National security. Essential to understand if you want to understand how the iran contra crisis unfolded and what it consisted of. The ncs is what link the contra affair and the hostage affair, which turned into selling arms to iran. . Hat about the nsc it was created in 1947 by the National Security act, and a house,side the white consisted of white house staff members, they did not get appointed in the confirmations, it is supposed to be a staff office in the white house the president ial decisionmaking on National Security matters. Togetherposed to bring information from and leaders of different National Security agencies, department of state, defense, cia, military command, bring them together, facilitate coordinated decision that the president. That is what the nsc was supposed to do. It was not supposed to run its own Foreign Policy or its own foreign operation, and that is what it did. That is what it did. That is why this became scandalous that regarding contra, aid and selling arms in iran to get hostages released in beirut, the nsc was running operation on both of these , southern and eastern france. This was contrary to the law in the 1947 legislation. It was not supposed to be doing this. Why . Why do we had these agencies that can legitimately called National Security operations abroad and why would you have the nsc do it . Because you are trying to get around laws that congress has passed after a big the cia and state department and the Defense Department to do the things that you, as president want to do. Reagan used the nsc to go around congressional oversight and run a shadow Foreign Policy, separate from state nca defense. The other reason to use the nsc was internal to the Reagan Administration and not a runaround congress. It was also a runaround with reagans own defense apartment because the secretaries of state to defense were very cool all of these ideas, particularly iran arms sales, and they had qualms about what was going on in nicaragua. Reagan wanted to circumvent them and use the nsc to do it. The other thing essential to understand is how central Ronald Reagan was. There were a lot of people eventually took refuge in the idea reagan had been asleep at the switch and had some berkmans who run amok had subordinates who ran a buck and he did not know a lot of the operational details going on. The documents that have been declassified make it clear reagan was deeply involved in each of the two pieces of irancontra. Questionthe lingering about whether he was aware of the links between those two and that became a point of controversy. Reagan was deeply involved in each piece of it. After it became known to the public, and this happened in fall of 1986, after irancontra blew open and came into public view, then highest levels of the Reagan Administration became focused on protecting reagan. There was a council appointed to investigate the matter. Lawrence walsh eventually wrote a book and gave the book a about this matter the title firewall, which refer to the political firewall around the president , that his top subordinates tilt in late 1986 after irancontra became public protect the president. To make it clear the president did not know the worst of what was going on, even if that was not true. To make sure he was insulated. Some people say the coverup is worse than the crime. The coverup started early on, while it was going on in 1985, when various members of the nsc staff lied to congress, but starting in late 1986, when it became essential for the president s top man to protect the president is when it started. Story that the lets did not know take these one at that time. First, this map of nicaragua here, you can see in costa rica in this out, to the north, a longer border with ponderous, and most of what honduras, and up here in the upper left of this map, you can see that theres no land border between nicaragua and el main landbut the border in the contra war was the border between honduras and nicaragua and it gives you some sense of nicaraguas relation to the United States. Early as 1983, according to some accounts, it started earlier than this, but members of the Reagan Administration were looking for ways to get money to the contras that did not come from the United States. Saying tord countries them, can do send arms or money . Honduras ors from others which allowed this to be used as the base camp. There was a lot of oil money, pledged 10 million, there were other countries, as well, but it is interesting to note the Reagan Administration was looking for their country support before congress cut off u. S. Funding to the contras. In 1983, the cia was sending money and arms to the contra with congresss blessing. Why were they searching for their country support it congress was letting the cia fund the country . It is because they were planning for future contingencies. There were concerned Congress Might cut off funding and they were already laying the groundwork to that eventuality. Ran the contra aid operation and had the blessing of congress that was legitimate under the ball. Reagan casey at the nsc went to the National Security council and talk to robert mcfarland, who was National Security adviser, and said, i think that your staff needs to get more involved in the contra aid operation, so they did. People at the nsc got more involved in the operational side of things in Central America. Then nsc staffers more than nsc staffers usually did. Permeablevery boundaries between the nsc and the cia. There was a lot of communication. Manager, headign of the cia, talked to robert mcfarland, the security adviser at this time, and said, we want to get you people involved in this operation. Both of them said, why . This is the usually came to work in a is this suit. Why north . A lot of people thought it was impossible someone of his rank would have been given so much responsibility in foreign affairs, running operations, but the set back is that north had risen rapidly within the nsc structure. He was energetic, smart, creative, an early adapter of technology, very adept user email, nt got things done. And he got things done and was given more responsibility. He became the nscs point person for the contra supply operation. The person who kept tabs on what was going on and who could help get unsnarled if they came up in the contra supply operation. Looked tond mcfarland north and they had regular contact with him. In 1984, happened is Congress Passed what became known as the Second Amendment second boland amendment that cut out u. S. Funding to the contras. Funds to the Central Intelligence agency, the department or defense come or any other agency or entity of the United States involved in intelligence activities in the obligated or expended for the purpose or which would have the effect of supporting, directly or indirectly, military or paramilitary operations in nicaragua by any nation, group, organization, movement, or individual. You see how carefully worded and lawyerly this is. Loopholesno outs, here. Theres no way for the Reagan Administration to say, we are giving money to people but we cannot control what they do with it, which is what they had said on many occasions up to this point. Which would have the effect of supporting directly or indirectly military or paramilitary operations by any group or individual. Days is airtight. This is airtight, a true cut off of funding for the war against the corrupt what. This came in 1980 four after revelations that cia contracted employees had mind the harbors and nicaragua to make it seem like ask of war. Casey, the farland and Ronald Reagan had feared. This came to pass. Lets go back to march 1984. I told you as early as 1983 the Reagan Administration at the highest levels, specifically mcfarland werend working on getting thirdparty funding for congress and they were right to think about that. In march 1984, casey and reagan get the ball going on this. Casey, antias this and he does this with reagans tossing, he sends macfarlane send the saudi ambassador to the United States and to ask for some money. Goes, dr. Macfarlane, who to talk to the prince, a dashing figure in washington, decided tea had been recently appointed and macfarlane goes to the prince and says, president reagan really cares about the contra. He has concerned they do not have enough money. He really cares about them and will be grateful to anybody who will help them. That is what he says. The prince says, what do you want me to do . Says we are he going to deposit 1 million in a bank account in switzerland for the contras. They can use it. We do not want to know how, but we will put 1 million every money, in this bank account. Macfarlane says, that is great. What does he do . He tells reagan quickly about it. He writes a note about it and gives it to reagan in his Daily Briefing papers. Reagan scribbles a note on mark farr lanes the filings macfarlanes notes. Reagan knows about this right away. Now, we removed the clock forward. June, 1980 four, there is a key meeting in the white house. This is a meeting of the National Security council but it is of such an elite group that it gets its own name, called the National Security Planning Group, and these are the top planning officials, the people who had the different National Security meetings. Who is there . The secretary of state, the Vice President , caspar weinberger, robert mcfarlane, the head of the cia, william casey, they are all there. Team meeting. What goes on at this meeting . George schultz, in the midst of a general discussion about supporting the contras, the second boland amendment has not happened yet, but they see the horizon in terms of how the congress is viewing contra aid, so they are talking about getting thirdparty funding. I do not know if i will have time to show you but i will tell you. This document is declassified and you can see it online. They say, i think there is a problem with Third Party Funding for the contras. To james baker. Anybody remember who he is . Chief of staff in the white house, who manages to be absent for this meeting. I do not know why, but jim baker was a smart lawyer and maybe it was part of his skill set to know when to be absent. [laughter] he is not there. People respect baker and know he lawyer. Rt he says he spoke with him and it is he is spewed that soliciting third country support for the contras could be an and teachable an Impeachable Offense. This is like dropping a bomb. Be ans this could Impeachable Offense and this is a meeting for the record. Casey says, george, you are wrong. He does not call him a liar but he uses the equivalent, which he says, you are totally wrong about what james baker said. You are misrepresenting what he said. There is a backandforth about what baker really said. Casey says this is not an Impeachable Offense. Persists andz says, i think it is a serious problem because bakersfield as he explained it is congress will only allow money it has appropriated to go to the contra, and their view will be if we try to get the word countries to arm get third countries to arm the contras, that would be like us trying to indirectly fund the contras outside of appropriation. The congress will not allow that to be spent ourselves. Say, no. People i do not think so. The meeting wraps up with no clear resolution. Clearly, with no determination that it would be a bad idea to solicit thirdparty funding. The thing is, the reagan affair and the mcfarlane affair, and neither of them says a word that the 1d already secured million per month from the saudis. They do not say anything else about it. The meeting ends with interesting comments. Vice president bush was silent. He pipes up at the end and says, and he had been the head of the cia, and he says, the only way i think it will be a problem to solicit third country funding to the contras would be if we promised those other governments something in return. What would you call that . Turn ld be a lad in latin turn . It means quid pro quo. That he says would be a problem legally. Know, eventually, when oliver north went to trial, the u. S. Government under president a list of quick quote pros with other governments. It would get those governments in contra aid. What bush says is the one thing that could make this a problem is what reagan does extensively. Reagan closes the meeting by not telling anybody he has done this but by saying, i hope this discussion never comes to public weht because if it does, will be hanging by our throats outside the white house. Reagan knew this was a problem. George schultz is saying, please, do not do it. Casey is saying, absolutely we should. Bush is saying, i am not too worried a messy problems worried the messy, something to other people. The enterprise, not the starship, i am talking about the intermediaries, the gobetweens were they are called cutouts, middlemen. Int happens is starting 1983, but even more after the congressional cut off in october 1984, kc goes to north. Casey goes to north. He tells them, you have got to set up a duplicate of what we have been doing with cia personnel to supply the contra. Do it through the nfc with nongovernment personnel. Withant nsc nongovernmental personnel. Use contractors. Kudos he use quest who does he use . Retired military and cia officials. They know what they are doing. Secord, as, richard highranking air force general has been stationed as the Senior Air Force official for the United States and does military litigation in iran when iran was toed by the shock and he had leave under a cloud i will not get to reasons but he was working as a private arms dealer. North turned to him and felix job was to go to el salvador, set up shop and be on the receiving end for arms that were delivered for use by the contras and they would take them on el salvador territory. Butonly was he retired cia, at any opportunity, Felix Rodriguez would go all over washington telling people how close he was to Vice President bush. He knew bush, and he would meet with him periodically in washington while this was going on. Bush later said we never talked about the contras, it was a social called. Rodriguez was the key person and donald, anduy named he was the National Security adviser to Vice President bush and another former cia personnel. Cia shadow cia or miniature conducted by private entities to middlemen, which they basically had gone underground now, off the government books, this was known generally as the enterprise. Which came to light in 1986, 1987. When north testified about it, he said it was self financing. That meant if you wanted to do something, you did not have to fund it from scratch, start with wasank slate every time, it ready to go. It was a going entity. It was self financing. How would it be self financing . Well, a lot of people started to talk with reason because there was reporting that people involved in the enterprise were involved with drug running. That some of the same transport planes used to ferry arms for the contras as part of the cia contra supply operation were also being used to go to bolivia, pick up drugs, and bring cocaine into the United States towards north america, which made its way to the United States. They were explosive allegations about the involvement of the contras and the alleged involvement of the contras in cocaine smuggling to the United States in the 1990s, and some of the allegations made were not proven but some had a lot of evidence to support that. The evidence was pretty strong from oliver norths handwritten notes at this time, which became to the attention which came to the attention of prosecutors. They were aware that the contras and people in the enterprise were involved in drug running at the same time that they were being supplied by the nscs operation. 1985, stories started appearing in the press in this isntry, saying that there this guy named oliver north, he was named a newspaper stories, an employee who seemed to be spending a lot of time with the contras, their leadership, and we do not understand because , soress cut off funding what is going on . Caught windngress of this. Everybody was reading these stories and they called it Robert Macfarlane and said, we need you to testify. We are going to need you to testify. Oliver north prepared memos for him, to get him ready for testimony. Macfarlane gave the for Congress Just almost completely a tissue of lies. Macfarlane lied to his teeth. North lied through his teeth about what they were doing. They said we were not involved and we are not involved in getting third countries, other governments to support the contras. Exactly what they said they were not doing is a very good description and summary of what they were doing. They felt they they couldnt say, oh, yeah, you forbid us from doing it, weve been doing it. Nsc has been running operations, the nsc is not supposed to do that. They felt they had to lie, but once some of us know this from personal experience. Once you get committed to a path of lying, you may feel you have to keep on doing it, and this is what set them on this path. All right. So, thats the contra crisis. The hostage crisis. Small map of the middle east here. You can see i can show you that beirut is in lebanon. Its around here, along the mediterranean coast. Iran, pretty far away, actually. Lot of countries in between, a lot of sand in between. Nonetheless, there were many people who thought that the iranian government, the revolutionary government in iran, the islamic republic, had influence with shia groups in beirut, as elsewhere in the middle east. Iran is the major shia muslim power in the region, really in the world, and in this fractious and bloody civil war in lebanon, there were shia factions, as well as sunni muslim and nonmuslim christian factions. The most important of the militant shia factions in lebanon was hezbollah. And there were a lot of people that thought iran specifically had influence with hezbollah. Im not going to go into detail about all of the terrible strife that occurred in beirut and lebanon in the early and mid1980s, as well as all of the other intrigue, the violence, the terrorism, the counterterrorism, that played out across the middle east in this time. Its a large discussion. I can only touch on it here. Suffice it to say that, as part of this bloody drama unfolding throughout the region, there was chaos in lebanon, and people were taken hostage because clearly those who took them hostage thought they were valuable to have, they could be ransomed, perhaps. Or perhaps there were other reasons for taking them hostage. Among the people taken hostage in the 1980s was a man named william buckley, and he was the cia station chief in beirut, so this was not just another hostage. A lot of people were taken hostage for priests people who , taught at the American University in beirut. This was different. Cia station chief taken hostage. He eventually died in captivity after being tortured. Nobody knows exactly where he was taken or exactly what information he may have divulged, but he was effectively killed by his captors. Of course, this was not known until some time after he died, and if people in the u. S. Government had been only somewhat concerned, before that time, about the hostages being taken in beirut, you can imagine they were very concerned about the cia station chief being taken hostage in beirut. This really put the issue definitely right smack in the middle of the radar screen for people in the white house concerned with National Security. Not just cia, but, of course, at the cia. Reagan became personally very concerned about the hostages, partly because there were families of those held hostage in beirut who got very well organized and brought this situation of their family members to public attention, to media attention, and, sometimes, they managed to confront reagan personally. And he was affected by this, by all accounts, and decided that he really needed to do something about the hostages, try to get them out, at least, partly because of his genuine concern over their welfare, but also because he remembered what happened to jimmy carter, right . He remembered the political results of the tehran hostage crisis that started in 1979. And the shadow of the tehran crisis was always there hovering in the background. But ironically, ironically, even though there were a lot of people in washington that thought iran was at least connected to, if not behind and pulling the strings behind, hezbollah and other shia groups, at the same time, there were people in washington who started to think maybe we can develop a relationship with iran, and this will help get the hostages freed. Now, where did this idea come from . This idea really came from israel. In israeli National Security thinking, theres a certain idea and its known there as the doctrine of the periphery. The idea is that, from the israeli pointofview, israel has some hostile states on its border, particularly syria and iraq. Its not on its border, but its not terribly far. It had kind of a cold peace with egypt, lebanon was a mess on its border. It had a better relationship with jordan, but israel felt that historically, it still does it has very difficult relations with some of its near neighbors, so the doctrine of the periphery among israelis was the idea that in order to outflank these hostile states that are close to its borders, israel should try to develop, perhaps only secretly, relationships with countries that are in a further ring outward from its borders, primarily turkey. And also, there were some countries in east africa, kenya and others. Turkey was the prime example of the doctrine of the periphery actually bearing fruit. Israel and turkey developed a quiet, but rather important, security relationship. And there were people in israel, believe it or not, who thought we could do the same with iran, despite the fact that rhetorically and publicly iranian government was as antiisrael as any government. But the fact is before the shah had been overthrown in 1979, israel had very close relations with the shah and its military, the Iranian Military. And some of the people who worked with the shah where still working in the irani and government, despite the change in regime. And there were people in israel who thought we can renew these ties. We can do it under the table, but iran will get something out of this, as well. What will iran get out of it . Well, they will outflank iran will outflank iraq, its blood enemy. A terrible war starting in 1980 along the iraqiran border between the two countries. A terribly, costly, bloody, murderous war between iraq and iran. Iran wanted allies. It wanted advanced weapons that it could use against the iraqis in the war. They wanted u. S. Weapons, antitank weapons and antiaircraft weapons that israel had, because the United States was selling them to israel. And so, its a little bit murky, and there are differences of opinion about exactly how the idea first came to the attention of u. S. Government personnel in the nsc, but basically, one way or another, the israeli idea migrated and made its way over to the nsc. The proposal, essentially, that israel should sell weapons to iran secretly, u. S. Weapons, americanmade weapons, and the United States should then replenish israels stocks so the u. S. Wouldnt be directly involved in sending arms to iran. They would have a cutout, a middleman. That would be israel. This was the proposal. And it fell on Fertile Ground inside the white house, as a matter of fact. There were people believe me, there were people who thought this was a terrible idea. Casper weinberger thought it was an insane idea, because actually, mcfarlane, who thought it was a neat idea, to use oliver norths phrase, brought it up in open discussion within the white house as a possible Foreign Policy for the u. S. To pursue. Weinberger ridiculed it, and mcfarlane withdrew the proposal. But he didnt totally withdraw it. He just saved it for another day. August, 1985. Ronald reagan was in the hospital. He had colon cancer, and he had a Successful Operation to remove cancerous tissue. He was convalescing in his hospital room. Macfarlane went to see him. He was not alone, schultz was there, donald regan was there, who was now white house chief of staff. Regan had come over to be chief of staff. Pardon me. And they were all there, because reagan needed to sign some papers relating to National Security and other pressing matters, and he was able to do this. And during this hospital room meeting, macfarlane brought the idea up again. The israelis have been talking, i still think its a great idea, mr. President. They are willing to send these missiles to iran. Those people have influence in bye beirut, they can get hostages released, i really believe they can, all we have to do is replenish the israelis. Reagan was noncommittal. He didnt give a yes or no during this meeting. One week later, he calls mcfarlane and says, bud, you go ahead. I approve this idea. You go ahead and do it. So, when others were present in the room, reagan didnt say yes. He knew how weinberger would react. He probably knew how schultz would react. So, he waited a week, called mcfarlane on the phone privately and said, bud, yes, green light. So mcfarlane does it. The shipments start to go. Israelis deliver the missiles. It doesnt go off without a hitch. Theres problems. A comedy of errors. Some of the missiles dont get through, but plenty of them do. Hostages arent released, but missiles are delivered by the israelis. U. S. Replenishes the israeli stocks, and as these deliveries occur, you should understand, mcfarlane keeps reagan informed. He lets him know periodically, on a regular basis, what is going on, that the deliveries are occurring. Reagan said that once in a phone call, i think its a good idea and never heard anything further. No, reagan is kept apprised by mcfarlane. By the end of 1985, the cia is antsy about this. They dont like whats happening, or at least some people at cia dont like whats happening, because the cias gotten drawn in a little bit to whats going on. We wont go into detail, but some cia personnel have been prevailed upon by the nsc to use their good offices to get these to help get these shipments delivered. Some top officials, including the cias top lawyers, are concerned about this, because reagan has not officially told the cia to do anything like this. They get reagan to sign, in december 1985, whats called a president ial finding. Now, can anybody tell me does anybody know what a president ial finding is . Theres really no reason why you should know, but i thought just in case anyone did know ill tell you. A president ial finding its really a strange sort of innocuous or at least vaguesounding document, but its actually something pretty specific. A finding is a document that the president signs in which the u. S. President authorizes a covert operation. Thats what a president ial finding is. Its a document that authorizes a covert operation. Its a piece of paper that says, because for these reasons, i order these agencies to do this and this and this, and its fairly specific. President has to sign it. Its not public knowledge. Its highly classified. But in accordance with u. S. Law, at this time, a finding was supposed to go to the house and Senate Intelligence committees. They have oversight. The members of those committees are counted on to be discreet, to keep a secret, not to tell other members of congress about whats going on. That is the law. That is how its supposed to work. There were two things about this finding in december 1985 that were highly unusual, highly unusual. The first thing is its retroactive. This is contrary to the law. The law states clearly a finding is supposed to be signed by the president before the covert action is initiated. Not after its been going on. This finding in december 1985 says explicitly all prior actions are hereby ratified and approved. Second thing thats unusual, it states explicitly, the document does, dont tell the house and Senate Intelligence committees about this. Dont tell them. Again, this is directly contrary to the law. Its very clear. Anybody who knows anything about this understands this. So, its a very, very unusual and questionable document that reagan signs. So why does he do it . Its basically because people at the cia insist reagan has to give them some kind of legal and political cover if this should ever come to light, so they cant be hung out to dry, and people wont think they were just freelancing it, doing it totally on their own initiative. They want to have paper that says the president wanted them to do this. So reagan does. Now, john poindexter, around this time, becomes National Security director. Bob mcfarlane, who is troubled, personally, resigns, returns to private life. John poindexter takes over. The shoresoindexter this finding, tears it up. Because he realized this had been a mistake. It had been a mistake. For these reasons it is clearly contrary to law, these findings. Better, he realizes, that there be no finding, no authorization for the president explicitly gave orders to his subordinates that were so clearly contrary to the law. So poindexter destroys this finding. So how do we know that it exists . Because later on, investigators found a draft copy, a draft of it from november, but it was clearly indicated, and people testified later that the president , in fact, signed it the following month in december. After this time, very interestingly i told you that reagan had initially given the green light for the iran arm sales to mcfarlane, because he suspected that schultz he knew that schultz and weinberger were going to be against it. But after this thing gets up and going, they cant really keep it a secret from the department of state, the department of defense, cia. The department of defense has to provide the missiles to replenish israeli stocks. So after it gets going, once it gets approved by reagan and the deliveries start, then, gradually, people in the white house start to talk about it openly, at least within the National Security council. So in other words, even though schultz and weinberger initially dont know about reagans authorization of this, as the weeks and months passed, they become aware of it, and they participate in discussions, where this is discussed in the National Security council. They dont like it. And they continue to register privately their opposition to the policy initiative. But they go along with it, they dont break ranks, they certainly dont resign. They are team players, but they make clear, privately, they think its a bad idea. But understand, they knew about it. Fairly early on. In fact, the guy who was the head lawyer at the cia joked later on, he said, weinberger was dr. No, and schultz was dr. I dont want to know. The fact is, even though this has its origins in a kind of secret even within the white house, as the deliveries start going forward, it becomes generally known within the National Security council. Okay. Enter the enterprise on the Eastern Front. The enterprise had been working on the contra supply operation. Well, when the nsc is tasked, first by mcfarlane and then after him by poindexter by facilitating these israeli arm shipments, making sure they get where theyre supposed to go and making sure the replacement missiles to israel this is all illegal, by the way, because the arms export control act that says that countries that the United States government sells weapons to cant just sell them or give them to anybody they want, that there are countries strictly prohibited from being end recipients. And that if a country like israel buys weapons from the United States, it needs to tell the United States who theyre giving these weapons to, it needs to get the authorization approval from the United States. , so the iran was on the do not sell to list, believe me. Top of the do not sell to list officially. So there was a major legal problem from the get go, with the very idea of having u. S. Weapons, even through indirect means, going to iran. And everybody knew this, everybody in the Reagan Administration knew this. Getting back to what i said earlier, the nsc is tasked with facilitating these shipments. But there are snags. Things dont go as smoothly as they could. Oliver north is given responsibility, because hes kind of the goto guy in the nsc. He is a guy who makes things happen. He picks up the phone. He gets in touch with people. He really makes things happen. He is working night and day on the contra operation. And he also starts getting responsibility for the arms to iran operation, as well. And so what does north, quite logically, think of doing . Getting the enterprise involved. It makes a lot of sense. After all, where did richard seacourt come from . He had been stationed in iran. Who better than to facilitate arms deliveries to the Iranian Military . From norths point of view, this made perfect sense. So the same chain of command that worked in the contra resupply operation, shifting that from cia to nsc, off the books, underground, the same chain of command operates on the Eastern Front in the arms sale to iran. Reagan talks to mcfarlane, when hes still head of the National Security adviser officially, the president of the United States is the chair of the National Security council. Understand that. Reagan talks to mcfarlane, he talks to north, north talks to seacourt. Lets get this going, lets make this a smoother. The first finding that reagan had signed in december of 1985, a month later in january of 1986, he signs a second finding, a better finding, a new and improved finding, from the point of view from the Reagan Administration. Whats new and improved about this . First of all, its not retroactive, so legally its a little bit better in that one respect, but also, it basically says we might still work with israel to get arms to iran, but, you know, the president , in his findings, say i also authorize the u. S. Government to deliver arms directly to iran, to cut israel out, to cut out the middle man. Because there had been snarls, there had been hangups, there had been problems. And there are people, like north, who were thinking maybe it would be better, if we dont go through israel anymore, if instead we just take the enterprise operation theyre arms dealers, thats what they do. Seacourt knows iran as well as any american does. Shift their operations over to the middle east. They can do this. They can do this. Thats what this finding is for. And this finding states explicitly, just as the earlier finding in december of 1985 did, that the purpose of the initiative was what . To get hostages released. North comes up with what he later on, rather famously called a neat idea. Neat idea. Hes using the same people for the contra operation and for the arms sale to iran, the deliveries of arms to iran. Were not giving these arms to iran. The u. S. Is charging him for it. The money thats handled by the enterprise for the contras and the money that the enterprise gets from its arms sales, if its going to, say, take the money from the iranian government, the money from these two operations actually starts to go into the same bank accounts. You know, so north comes up with this idea, and again, to him, it must have seemed totally logical and really neat. What north really cares about are the contras. Okay . Hes really committed to the contra cause. And the contras are always short of money, it seems. No matter how much money they get from third parties, from third countries, they always need more money. There is always a money issue for the contras. And north sees this money sitting in the bank accounts. And there are proceeds coming in from the sale of the arms to iran. So norths idea is, of course, give this money to the contras. Give the money to the contras. He comes up with a further neat idea. Well, why dont we just start to raise the prices were charging to the iranians . Start overcharging them. And then if we do that, if we charge them more than the u. S. Government normally would charge for these weapons, well have extra money that the Defense Department wont expect to see. Just give that to the contras. Overcharge the iranians for the weapons, give the money to the contras. This became known as the socalled diversion, and this is the diversion that links the iran scandal to the contra scandal. Thats what made this ultimately the irancontra scandal, the diversion of funds. Last up, a point that, you know, you cant tell this story without sharing, is that in may of 1986, bud mcfarlane, again, hes a private citizen now, out of the government. But he is asked by john poindexter, who now has his old job in the National Security council, to go with ollie north to iran, secret trip to tehran, to deliver weapons personally. Personally. Because the hostages are not getting released, and lets say if one or two are getting released, other hostages in taken in beirut. It is not working, the policy is not working for its ostensible purpose, to free hostages. So theres this idea, were going to have this highlevel delegation to deliver all the weapons personally. This will make an impression, right . And we will get a Firm Commitment about x number of hostages are going to be released if we deliver so many weapons to the iranians. So bud mcfarlane and oliver north, they go with an israeli guy, other people, on a transport plane delivering these pallets of missiles. They land in tehran. They are left in a hotel, cooling their heels for days. Lowlevel people come to see them. They are fit to be tied, because they thought they were going to be seeing highlevel people. It doesnt happen. They end up feeling like they are really taken. They deliver these weapons. They get very little in return, in terms of a commitment or even an audience with highlevel iranian officials. They came with this special cake in the shape of a key thats supposed to symbolize the unlocking of the relationship and u. S. And iran. It is supposed to be deeply meaningful to the iranian leaders. The military guards who were guarding them eat the cake. When people learn about it afterwards, it seems almost too comic to be believed. Comic, that is, except that it concerns some rather lethal weapons. Well, things blow into public view late in 1986. In october and in november. What happens . In october of 1986, the nicaraguans shoot down a plane flying over their territory transporting weapons to and supplies to the contras. People are killed in the plane crash. Yes . Did they do that incidentally or do you get some idea with all of these different groups involved that somebody that shot that down knew what was on it . Prof. Rossinow i do not know whether they could have known exactly what was on it, but in nicaragua, i think its fair to say that people felt, very clearly, that they were at war, that a war is being waged against them by the contras. Certainly on the north front, and to a lesser extent on the southern front, and they felt very clear this was being supplied and funded by the United States. So they were on their guard. They had people standing around to shoot at unidentified militarylooking planes that came into their airspace. It was a young guy, i believe, who shot the plane down. So he was not somebody with any kind of high military rank. So probably didnt know what it was. But i think they had a general sense that they were under siege. No question about that. Theres one survivor, one survivor on this plane. Eugene hasenfus. This is a photo that went around the world rapidly. Beyond that, theres video footage of him being questioned and interrogated by his nicaraguan captors and spilling everything that he knows. He was saying i was working for the cia. The guys who hired me said were working for the cia. The plane that he had been in he was at the lowest level. He was a cargo kicker. He was the low guy in the plane. He is the only who survived. One and he said, look, you know, this plane, its owned by a company that had been, at one time, owned by the cia. The cia had a tradition of owning airlines that it used to engage in operations. This had once been owned by the cia. You know, there is somebody one of the dead bodies in the plane has a Business Card, Business Card of a guy name robert owen. Who was a very close associate of oliver north. And had been appointed to head what was called the nicaraguan humanitarian assistance organization. The u. S. Congress had actually authorized the provision of humanitarian aid to the contras at a time when military aid was forbidden. And this robert owen was actually just a bag man for oliver north, and he ended up being a key witness in the hearings in 1987. And the fact that these people, who supposedly had no connection to the government in this plane, had his Business Card, highly suspicious. Reagan, the president , states in a press conference after the plane was shot down no connection to the u. S. Government. We have no relationship with the people flying that plane. Hasenfus, at the same time, is saying to the world, oh yeah, yeah, were working for the cia. Thats what i was told. What happens next month . The iran thing blows up. Theres a newspaper in lebanon, they run a story. What is is it about . It is about the trip that mcfarlane and north had made to tehran. The whole story comes out in al shiraa. This is incredibly ironic. I have to point out its incredibly ironic, because not only had the Congress Already authorized socalled humanitarian, or nonlethal aid to the contras but shortly , before this shootdown, only months beforehand, the Congress Actually had authorized, once again, military aid to the contras. So you see, it wasnt that long, the period when u. S. Military aid to the contras was forbidden by the congress. Between late 1984 and mid1986. A little more than a year and a half, perhaps. And so, of course, you know, you have to wonder, if the white house and the nsc had not engaged in the illegal contra supply operation, which later came to light, might the contra war have ended up lasting longer . The people who cared the most about the contras, north, casey, and others, and reagan, feared that a cutoff from aid would cause the contras to collapse, even for a brief period of time. But they eventually get the congress to restore the funding by amounting a very sophisticated and effective public relations, or propaganda, campaign against the sandinista government in 1985 and 1986. And its shortly after the aid is restored that the secret and illegal aid operation that had been in operation during the amendment was in effect comes to second boland amendment was in effect comes to light. Shortly after that. Yeah . How much truth is behind this Propaganda Campaign against the sandinista government . I know that reagan says, you know, were fighting for democracy and freedom. Was the sandinista government democratically elected . Was this a Grass Roots Movement by the people or was the sandinista government taking over the government the military operation . Prof. Rossinow its a good question. Its a mixed picture. They first came to power through an armed insurrection. No question. They did not overthrow a democratic government. They threw over a dictorial government. So there was not much to choose from their four someone to come to power through what we recognized as normal democratic means, if thats the acid test. The sandinista came into power through popular revolution and armed insurrection. They later on did hold democratic elections, but then delayed subsequent elections scheduled, and this gave the Reagan Administration the opportunity to say, look, they are not really democratic. Theyre going to be another cuba. The president of nicaragua is another castro. This is what the Reagan Administration was saying. The sandinistas were saying, look, were under siege. We know our domestic opposition, political opposition, is being heavily funded by the United States, which is true. So under these wartime conditions, were not ready to hold further elections, yet. So on the one hand, they felt the siege. On the other hand, they gave the Reagan Administration the opportunity to argue this is not a democratic government. There were a lot of people in the government sympathetic with the sandinista. They say lets just start a war with them and see if theyre democratic or not. They dont pose any threat to us. In the reagans administration view, which was basically this is a second cuba in the caribbean basin. We cant allow this. They are marxists. Its a beach head for soviet power in the hemisphere, just like cuba. And besides, theyre engaging in genocidal violence against the indians on the atlantic coast. And they are antisemites. There are all kinds of sometimes fairly wild allegations that against the sandinistas. Some of them had some grain of truth to it. For example, the indians, which bad relationlly a sandinistas, had bad relations with central governments in capital of nicaragua in general. They did suffer violence and oppression at the hands of the sandinistas, but nothing like a genocide with what people thought were real rights abuses portrayed done by the sandinistas. But they were portrayed in the United States and in washington as not people who had done things that were wrong under difficult circumstances and who also did some things that were probably good for the people of the country, which is what opponents of reagans policy said. They were per trade instead as totalitarians who were going to perpetrate widespread bloodshed and atrocities if not snuffed out. This argument basically succeeded in turning the tide in congress in 1986, but i should say it did not necessarily succeed with the general public, because aid to the contras and involvement in a nicaraguan civil war actually never commanded the support of the majority of the american people, but it did command support, at various points, of the majority in congress. Im supposing that the connection with the soviets was also over exaggerated and maybe possibly even the connection with cuba . Is this actually a Grassroots Popular Movement in nicaragua . Prof. Rossinow it was a popular movement, but it definitely had relations with cuba and the soviet union, no question. Daniel ortega, the president of nicaragua, made a politically rather illtimed trip to moscow, just on the eve of a congressional vote on contra aid. That wasnt good. Just politically. It played in to the hands of the people in washington who said, see, its another cuba. Its going to be theyre soviet puppets. And he had his reasons. He had his justifications for going. He said we need aid from whoever is willing to give it to us, especially when we are being besieged inbeing this war br. But the fact, the very fact, as had cuba decades earlier, the very fact that sandinista had from he relations with the soviet union and received economic aid and military advice from the soviet union was enough anonymity from a lot of people in washington and the u. S. Congress. But then this blew up, and the equation changed. Well, you know, its interesting. In october of 1986, there was the shootdown over nicaragua. In november, the al shiraa story about the iranian trip was published. Which of these two things was really alarming to the white house . It was the iran story. The contra story was bad, no question, and eight endangered what had been and it endangered what had been a new victory for the Reagan Administration regarding Central America policy. But they werent as concerned about the domestic political danger to the president over that controversy as they were over the revelation of this trip to iran by mcfarlane and north to deliver weapons to a country that was supposedly a blood enemy of the United States, the great sponsor of terrorism to the middle east, according to the u. S. Government, iran. How could this be . How could this be that the Reagan Administration, u. S. Government, would be selling arms to this country that it has been saying is maybe the worst country in the world, from the United States point of view in 1985, 1986. This is what is considered terribly dangerous politically to the president , to president reagan. And its this that causes the National Security Planning Group , which is the highlevel group within the nsc, to meet in november to talk about what are we going to do, what are we going to say . What are we going to say about the iran thing, specifically . And there are two essential elements to the line that the white house decides upon in the nsc meeting in november of 1986. The first essential point is that these arms sales to iran were not in exchange for the release of hostages. We did not trade arms for hostages. And as ive told you, both the president ial findings in 1985 and 1986 authorizing the arm sales say explicitly the purpose is to get hostages released. But the line, publicly, is going to be no arms for hostages. They have to come up with some of the extra nation. The other explanation is that we thought they were moderate elements in the iranian government, and we thought maybe we could reach out to them and develop a better relationship with them. Its a strategically important country. Not trading arms for hostages, because people understood right away that, politically, that would be bad. That would sound bad. Giving advanced weaponry to people who had taken westerners and americans hostage . Rewarding people who have taken hostages . Not with money but with advanced weaponry . Bad. No arms for hostages is point one. Point two president reagan did not authorize this beforehand, the shipment of arms to iran. He did not. He did not. These are the key points. This is where the firewall starts to be constructed around the president. Protect the president. Nobody needs to say, at the nsc meeting, were here to figure out how to protect the president. They all work for them, and they understand hes their boss. Yeah . A quick question about iran and iraq and fighting in 1980. Were we giving any aid to iraq to fight against iran . Prof. Rossinow short answer is yes. The u. S. Had engaged in what was known as a tilt toward iraq in the iraqiran war. The idea being that, with the 1979 events in mind, that iran was a greater enemy of the United States and a greater threat to the United States, more hostile than iraq was and that, at all costs, we wanted to prevent the iranian revolution from spreading to other countries, you know, that had authoritarian governments allied with the United States, like the shah had been. So there were other countries in the region, like jordan and and kuwait and saudi arabia, sunni authoritarian regimes who have good relations with the United States who view themselves as like a firewall, keeping the iranian revolution from spreading westward. And so the United States sides with its friends in the region. It also wants to prevent the iranian revolution from spreading, so it gives various kinds of assistance to iraq. Well talk about this in future weeks. There are limits to the kind of assistance the u. S. Provides, but it does provide material not necessarily weapons but military support equipment, like trucks, heavy trucks and other things, as well as realtime intelligence that the iraqis can use in battlefield operations against the iranians. So the u. S. , in its overt policy, not necessarily public, but in something in its policy thats known to the main National Security entities of the government to the uniformed military, the department of defense, department of state, cia. And as far as the u. S. Intelligence committee and the Armed Services committees are concerned, the u. S. Is basically siding with iraq, even though there are limits placed on these assistance to provide to iraq. This is totally contrary to that, obviously. There is another reason why it looks so bad, why it makes no sense. If iran is such a threat, why would you want to be delivering them advanced u. S. Weaponry . Enter meese. Who is meese . The attorney general. Prof. Rossinow yes. Attorney general of the United States. Reagan had to try a couple of times to get him confirmed as attorney general by the senate. He was very close to reagan. Nobody had been with reagan longer. He had been his state attorney general in california when reagan was governor. He became taken with him to washington when reagan was voted president. Very close. They were real comrades. Meese had kind of been cut out of Decision Making in the white house. He had a staff job there. But baker ran circles around him. And as kind of a consolation prize, reagan wanted to give meese the justice department, the buddy, his attorney general. He first tried to do this, a Republicancontrolled Senate said, no, no, no, no, no. They didnt have to vote on him at first. Reagan withdrew the nomination at first, because there were various investigations about meeses personal finances that revealed all kinds of improprieties and what you can only call personal corruption. And under this cloud of allegations and suspicion, reagan had withdrawn meeses nomination. But then he came back a second time later on, even though there was a second investigation into his finances. Reagan sent him back as a nominee for attorney general. The second time he got him through. Republicans in the senate were not happy about this, but they did it. They confirmed it. Okay. So by this time, meese is attorney general of the United States. You have to understand how close he was to reagan and how protective he was of reagan to understand the actions that he took. His role is often underappreciated. He got involved after the blowup in octobernovember of 1986, when these stories became public. What did meese do . He goes to reagan. This is later in november of 1986, on a friday, and the events in question occur between a friday and the following monday. On friday, meese goes to rayeagan and says, mr. President , why dont you let me conduct an informal investigation . Ill doing it over the weekend. It will only take me a couple of days. I will go talk to top people. Ill find out what the real facts are here. Reagan said, well, ed, that seems like a fine idea. Why dont you do that . This is friday. This is friday. Isnt that prof. Rossinow thats a very good question. Thats a very good question. Excellent question. Does meese not understand, does reagan not understand . Possibly somebody didnt understand. Possibly, they both need understand, and they understood that what meese was going to do, when he said he was going to figure out what the facts are, was maybe to i dont know, assess the damage . Figure out what could and couldnt be said plausibly in public . Its subject to interpretation. Okay. And we dont have written records of the conversation between reagan and meese, but we know that reagan spoke with meese, because meese said, afterwards, the president authorized me to go and investigate, so i did. Friday, saturday, sunday. Meese interviewed top people, okay, in the National Security establishment. People in the Reagan Administration. At their homes, at their offices, over the weekend. He worked overtime. He worked on weekends. Okay . But what happens first on friday is that very soon after meese gets permission from reagan, somehow north finds out that meese is going to conduct this weekend investigation. Who told north . I dont know. I dont know if meese told him personally or meese told somebody who told north. North finds out soon, within hours. And he starts shredding. He goes to his office in the nsc, and he starts shredding like mad, and he shreds throughout the weekend. It becomes known as the shredding party. Destroying whatever documents he can get his hands on, that he can think of that are incriminating and there are a lot of stuff. Consider the fact that a lot of documents later on get unearthed that are highly incriminated. It does make you wonder what did he shreds . What did he sure that was more damaging than what later came out . Nobody really knows, because he shredded them. You know . And he is shredding all weekend long. Heres meese at the white house. North is shredding, shredding. He gets his secretary, who later became a minor celebrity, fawn hall, who justify later that she said she thought it was ok, even though it was illegal because , she assists north over the weekend to shred documents and illegally taking them out of the white house when she left work. Very loyal to north. A true believer in what he was doing, especially for the contras. So meese does conduct these interviews between friday and sunday. But he does them in this very unusual way. Hes the head of the department of justice. The attorney general is the head of the department of justice. The fbi is under the department of justice. People asked meese later on, you had this whole staff of professional investigators in the fbi at your disposal, did you use any of them . No. No. You didnt bring any professional investigators with you you . No, i didnt see the need. He does not bring note takers. Several of these investigations, these conversations he has, interviews, no notes. He takes no notes. I just wanted to report back to the president. I didnt see the need. Meese reports on monday. He meets privately with reagan on monday morning. Oneonone. Later that day, theres a National Security council meeting. Meese, the attorney general, is present. He reports to the nsc. What does he say . He reports on his findings of his weekend investigation. What does he tell them his findings are . There was no trade of arms for hostages. Number one. And number two, the president did not know about the arms sales to iran. So that friday meeting was really him saying, i will fix things . Prof. Rossinow he said ill try. Im joking. I dont know what meese said. I dont know what meese said. But he reports back to the top people who have known about the iran Arms Initiative for months and years. And reports back to them there were no arms for hostages deals and the president did not know. And actually near the end of this meeting, meese, after he reports and poindexter is now the National Security adviser, chimes in on various points, saying yes, yes, this is correct, this is correct. Meese asks at the end of the meeting, anybody here knows anything else . Who is there . Schultz is there, weinberger is there, poindexter is there. They all know tons beyond what meese has said. And they know an incredible amount thats directly contrary to what meese has announced as his findings. Nobody says anything. When he asks, anybody know anything else . So its very clear, the purpose of this meeting this is damage control at the highest levels. This is meese, with the assistance of poindexter and with the support of the president , setting forth the white house line. This is going to be the white house line. There were no arms traded for hostages. The president did not know. It had to be subordinates doing things that they shouldnt have done. The next day, meese reports to the public. Theres a press conference at the white house. Meese and reagan appear together. Reagan appears only briefly. After a few minutes, he leaves and says the attorney general will answer questions. What does meese tell the public . He says, well, there was something bad that i have to tell you that people dont know about. They know about the arms sales to iran, because that was revealed in november. They know about the contra thing because of the shootdown of the plane in october. What you dont know yet is that the two operations actually were connected, because i found this memo about a diversion of funds from the iran arms sales to the contras. I just thought i should let you know. Because its going to come out. Clearly, meese realized that this was explosive, and if he found the documentation, north had not destroyed all the documentation, all evidence relating to the diversion of funds, other people were going to find out. Because meese knew. His informal weekend investigation was not going to be the end of the investigating right . , he knew that. He clearly calculated. What he had said. Total bombshell. This is what nobody expected, out of left field. These two breaking scandals relating to secret foreign policies in different parts of the world are actually linked by money. So basically, meese is announcing that there is an irancontra scandal at this press conference. And he says, poindexter and north, theyre fired. Poindexter, National Security adviser. North, staff member at the National Security council. Theyre fired. Theyre gone. The message is clear. These guys were doing things they shouldnt have been doing. Last thing that happens on tuesday and it is actually only about an hour after meese announces the diversion. I said reagan left the press conference early. Reagan phones north directly. Picks up the phone. Calls ollie north. This is based on norths later account. Reagan says to north, ollie, you have to understand i just didnt know. So what does this mean . How would you interpret this . If its true that reagan said to north, i just didnt know you mean he didnt know the degree to which north was prof. Rossinow i didnt know about the diversion. Maybe thats what it meant. I didnt know he was going to do this. I had no idea. Prof. Rossinow i didnt know any of it. I didnt know any of it. You know, reagan and north had had contact. They had meetings. Reagan liked north, you know . They had a relationship. He knew him to call him ollie. Maybe reagan was saying, i didnt know about the diversion. Maybe he was saying, i didnt know about any of this, which would mean that he had early onset alzheimers. Peopleyou know, some have speculated about. I am not sure there is real evidence of that at this point, 1986. Of course, theres another construction, another interpretation you can place on this remark, and this is what north suggested very clearly in the memoir he wrote about this later on called under fire. Norths clear interpretation of this phone call from reagan was that reagan was giving him a cover story. That reagan was telling north what he wanted north to say. He was asking north, personally, the president calls north and says, i didnt know. You have to understand, ollie, i didnt know. I just didnt know. North interpreted this as reagan putting the touch on him, asking him, this is what i want you to say. The serious investigations then began. People asked meese later on, why didnt you take notes, why didnt you bring investigators with you . Youre the attorney general, youre supposed to be the highest Law Enforcement officer of the country. Are you not taking this seriously as a potential criminal investigation . And you know what meeses response was yes, i was attorney general, but i wasnt acting as my capacity as attorney general. I wasnt wearing my attorney general hat when i conducted this weekend investigation. Instead, i was acting as iis is what meese said was acting as personal counsel to the president. This is a novel job description. Nobody ever heard of this job before. Personal counsel. Basically he was saying, i was his personal lawyer, acting as his personal lawyer. Normally, the attorney general of the United States would not also be the president s personal lawyer. This is what meese said. Thats the capacity of which i wasnt really acting as attorney general. Well, theres some real investigations that get going now. There are three of them. There are three of them. First, reagan appoints a special investigating board. It is actually three people, chaired by john tower, a very conservative representative from texas, the tower board. They interview reagan and other people, and they produce a report, actually very fast. , they were very efficient. And actually they do a lot of important work in getting the basic facts of the story straight and public. Theyve do this really, very quickly. So in some ways, they do quite a good job. But what they also do, and this is essential to understand, the function of the tower board and its report, which gets out there before anybody elses report does. They say that basically reagan was asleep at the switch. The problem was his lax management style. You had these cowboys at the nsc who were running amok, doing crazy things, crazy things. And the president is responsible. The president must be considered responsible for the action of his subordinate. And he is responsible for not knowing what they were doing, because hes the man at the top. So you can see how clever this is, saying he is responsible, but the essential narrative that the tower board created was reagan didnt know, reagan was asleep at the switch. Reagan was a doddering old man, and people like north got way beyond what should have been their true responsibilities or their rightful power and authority. Okay. So this is the narrative of reagans incompetence and poor leadership. Poor leadership. Its critical of reagan, but its essential to understand what its critical of reagan for. Its critical of him for not minding the store, not knowing what his subordinates were doing. Not for telling them what to do. Not for telling them to do what they did. Okay. Second, theres an independent counsel, who is appointed by the attorney general in accordance with an independent counsel law. When the attorney general is seen to have a conflict of interest in investigating something, allegations of criminal wrongdoing in the executive branch, there is a provision for him to appoint an independent counsel. And he appoints lawrence walsh, lifelong republican, former federal judge. Republicans were not terribly alarmed when he was named. Lawrence walsh solid guy. Not a democrat, not somebody who is going to be looking to nail reagan. They really changed their mind about walsh as things occurred, as events transpired, and as the months and the years passed and as walsh didnt give up and stayed on the case and tried to get criminal convictions of people who violated the law. But then third, of course, theres the show. The congressional hearings, the congressional investigations. Special committees appointed in the house and in the senate. They combine into a single joint congressional investigating committee. Its big. It looks like some sort of roman senators looking down from their tiered tables on the poor witness. So its theater that ends up working to the advantage of the people who were brought before it as wrongdoers. And, of course, the star witness is oliver north. But there are many others as well. These are the committees that hold the joint committee that holds the televised hearings in 1987, in spring and summer. They have they create a big problem for lawrence walsh. In order to get people to testify, they give them legal immunity. Oliver north, chief among them, but many others as well. And they claim its only limited legal immunity. But the idea is anything they say in the public testimony before the committee in the pursuit of the truth and in the name of getting the truth in front before the american people, that cannot be used by them against them legally by lawrence walsh. The immunity that the committee gives to witnesses creates huge problems for walsh in trying to get convictions. Basically prevents him from getting the convictions. You could argue it was worth it, because it was more important for the public to know the truth. That was clearly the view of the members of congress who sat on the committee. Heres the show. Very interesting fact about the joint congressional committee. A majority of its members had voted consistently for aid to the contras. Even though there had been many times where the majority of the congress had been against aid to the contras, and even though the American Public had consistently been against military aid particularly for the contras. So the committee does not represent the publics view, the general publics view, on the issue of the contras. And it does not even necessarily reflect the view of the entire congress. There are more democrats than republicans on the committee, because the democrats, by this point, had majority control of both houses of congress. But the minority of republicans appointed from the house and from the senate, every one of them, had favored contra aid. Okay . The larger numbers of democrats, placed by the Democratic Leaders on the committees, from the house and the senate, theyre not all people who had opposed contra aid, even though most democrats had opposed it. The democrats, as the majority party, feel some need to show that theyre being even handed. So they divide their representatives on the committee between people who had been for and people against contra aid. But this means, combined with a solid block of procontra aid republicans on the committee, the majority on the committee of both the house and Senate Members who were for contra aid. 11 senators on the committee. Only three of them had been consistently against contra aid. Three out of the 11. The house delegations. There are six republicans, i believe, and nine democrats. The six republicans all in favor of contra aid. The nine democrats . Six of them had been against contra aid, but three of them had been for it. What does that mean . That means that, altogether, there are nine house members on the committee who had favored contra aid and only six who had been against it. See . So because the democrats did not appoint, uniformly, anticontra aid members to the committee, theres actually a majority members on the committee who were favorably disposed, who basically sympathized with what north had wanted to do for the contras. And who really come to his defense in the end. They dont do it at first, because at first, its clear whats supposed to happen. North and secord and poindexter and mcfarlane, they are supposed to be the fall guys, they are supposed to take the fall for the president. Saying we did it, we did it, the president didnt authorize it. At first when north appears, republicans on the committee, senator orrin hatch of utah, they lay into north. Very hostile. They are very tough on him at first. You know, hatch calls north sleazy. North had diverted some of the funds for his personal use. Theres a lot thats made of this early on in the committee hearings. Republicans change their mind. Because north first, secord testifies. A lot of people are favorably impressed with him. He sits up right. He says im proud of what i did. Im a businessman and patriot. I dont think i did anything wrong. I was told to do what i did by high officials, i did what the president wanted to do. And a lot of people, even if they did not like what secord did, come away with a somewhat favorable impression of him. Then, north testifies. Its off to the races. Its a huge media spectacle. North becomes to a lot of people, certainly not everybody, but to a lot of people, this folk hero. In his uniform, off with the business suit, on with the uniform. Took it out of the closet. Hes got medals. Highly decorated for bravery in service in combat in the vietnam war and, you know, in an atmosphere, in the 1980s, when people are hungry for a kind of oldfashioned patriotism and a belief in the goodness of the American Military is resurgent. North seems to embodied this, and he puts on this very impressive performance. The members of the committee are not so impressed with him, because they see him sitting there. He looks, like, just physically not that imposing. But then they take a break, the members of the committee do, from the hearing. And they go and see the television coverage, and they see the closeup of norths face. His face fills the screen on tv that produces a dramatically different effect. Hes smooth skinned, and he has eyes that water. At certain moments, his voice cracks with emotion. And the senators realize, when they see him on tv, oh, this guys got something, right . So people call it olliemania. Some people exaggerated it. But it was real in the sense that he struck a chord with people, and he turns the tide of opinion. At least on the committee, and with some of the public, in his favor. And so the idea that hes going to take the fall starts to become a little bit of a problem. North says, of course i lied to you. He says to the congress, of coarse i lie to the oversight committees. I was doing my job. I was running an overt operation. Of course i lied. They are supposed to be secret except for the house and Senate Intelligence committee. You not supposed to lie to them, but that exactly that is exactly what the north had done. He said, of course i lied. It was my patriotic duty. If i had to lie, of course, of course. Becomes a problem to crucify north as some evil man, nonetheless, all of the focus on him and the subordinates takes public attention of reagan. Region is supposed to testify before the committee, and there seems to be an understanding between the democrats and republicans on the committee. They dont want to make this about reagan. They dont want to talk about it. And peter bull offenses. They dont go there to Impeachable Offenses. They dont go there to. He testified in said do you want to know what the buck stops . Truman said the buck stops with me, many the president. I protected the president. I consciously and intentionally did not tell him about all kinds of stuff because i did not want him to believe we were liable. I gave him what i called plausible deniability. These memos that north said, nor said he wrote five memos about the diversion of funds. They were written with the intent to reach the desk of the president from poindexter. Poindexter said, i did not send these to the president. The ones he did not find, i destroyed. Members of the committee who were familiar with plausible spyility isnt the cause craft, not like a leader like the president can deny what he knew about . It and that the origin of the term . Isnt that the origin of the term . The president did not know. The buck stops with me. Almost 18 the committee because he is telling them, if i had told the president , i would feel dutybound to lie about it. If i had shown him documents, i would have felt dutybound to destroy those documents. They never saw the documents he never saw the documents, and they cannot produce evidence to the contrary at that time. Poindexter fell on his short. It was quite a show for the protagonists. Oliver north being sworn in. His lawyer with the glasses, constantly conferring with north , who was giving answers to specific questions. It does not matter how much it cost, you would want that guy is your defense attorney because he was so aggressive. Interrupting u. S. Senators when they were asking questions, shouting them down. I mean, this guy was the defense lawyer of all defense lawyers, fantastic lawyers. Arthur was a leading prosecuting attorney hired by the Senate Members of the joint committee to really press the case against north and others. When reviewing the documents, arthur lyman was surprised. He had thought better reagan have been asleep at the switch. Evidence, heaw the knew that the president was much more deeply involved many thought. Deeply involved then he thought. Because it was poindexter fell on the sword, but it was also because a lot of members did not want to go there there. Id not want to go he was an oldschool senator who believed in bipartisanship. He said he could not face the idea, as an american, the idea of hauling the president and i stays before a congressional committee. He remembered watergate. Imageld create a terrible for the outside world, and he did not want to do that. Nonetheless, there were a lot of verbal fireworks. In the end, reagan escaped impeachment and full responsibility for what he had done. Behind the scenes, for the becames, reagan he white house chief of staff after baker. Very few people had confidence in Donald Reagan as chief of staff. They brought in howard baker to in early 1987. Baker replaces reagan as white house chief of staff, intensely reassuring to washington insiders. Is a familiar figure, baker is, to people in the permanent government in washington. This probably did as much as anything else to save reagan. And it happened before the hearings started, and a public did not understand how significant was politically for reagan. This meant that the hearings the a show for a public hearings were a show for the public. They were. Democrats basically did not go toward impeachment. By thisas weakened politically. Them, and a lot of policy areas, particularly domestic policy, we were starting to get what we want out of reagan and budget issues, spending and taxing. It were started to have our way want with reagan because he was weakened by this. Weakened republican president was not such a bad thing from the perspective from a lot of democrats. And republican president in office was a situation they could live with. Way, a lot of them had very bad memories of watergate, and they do not want to replay it. Finally, what saved reagan in the end was the idea, first offered by the board, that reagan was an incompetent old man edging towards to melody. This is a reason not to impeach somebody. Is actually ended up being an argument inside of washington for leaving reagan in place. And that, the idea of reagan as incompetent saved him. A safe 10 from impeachment. It saved him from impeachment. Imon realize that it was not true. Reagan have been behind, have been the leader and pressing for the contra initiative, and the armed sales to iran. Was moreublic persuaded that reagan was not mining the store. That he was asleep at the switch. Choose your metaphor. And the saved him actually. People who the courted north were disgusted. They had to stand trial for violations of the law. They had long ordeals in the courts, and large, legal bills. North wrote about it that reagan knew everything. That is what he said in his book. He said that publicly. He got reagan was displaying cowardice and not taking responsibility for his own leadership. World that,ng the yes, these were my ideas. Up, how didwrap things end . First, the southern front, the contrasts. Despite the fact that they had renewed contra aid, the scandal put a damper on that. By 1988, there was no more appetite for proving further aid to the contracts to the contras in congress. The contra war could mother continue. And stepmother was diplomacy in Central America, and ironically, the result of this turned away from result of this turned away from efforts in nicaragua. With large amounts of u. S. Aid having gone to their domestic, political opponents, but congress was willing to approve that. And so come it turned out that a combination of diplomacy and nonmilitary aid to the domestic, political opponents lavished funding insight nicaragua with pressure to hold elections which is what ousted the sandinista. Today taken any dissenters in nicaragua . Prof. Rossinow it was certainly after a war that the contras had waged marked by numerous human rights atrocities. It is quite plausible to say that played a role and motivating a lot of people. In the hope this would finally end anymore u. S. Funding of the war by rebel forces. The funding had been cut off, but did the people in nicaragua was going to be a permanent state of affairs . There were a lot of factors involved. The most important one is that the United States either gave massive amount of money to the opposition newspapers, and to the political opposition inside nicaragua, and the sandinistas had done things that create opponents for them inside their own country, but the fact that the people of the country had suffered through a civil war fueled and funded by the United States, as well as other countries, clearly was also a factor in motivating people and driving them to vote for the sandinista valley. Yes. In iran, that Eastern Front, the hostility becomes unqualified. There is a very complicated situation that develops in the late 1980s because it is known as the war. There is a lot of consummate Persian Gulf Oil continue flowing out of the persian gulf for the United States and in europe and other parts of the world. , weighty oil, saudi oil were from other countries in the persian gulf. Not irani and oil. But the United States and other countries said those are naval ships in the persian gulf area, and it becomes a very dangerous place. In 1988, the United States, the an iraniants down jet. All passengers are killed. A lowflying, civilian five between iran and i believe the light it is a mistake. But there has been an atmosphere in intensifying danger and hair trigger, some people said triggerhappy actions on the part of commanders of u. S. Ships. It is approximately the same number of people that were killed when the south korean airliner was shot down by the soviets in 1983, which reagan and american leaders, in general, per trade as a horrible in a much trustee of the soviet system, but there was not even an apology from reagan when the jet was shot down in 1988. And 1992, george h. W. Bush served one term as president and loses his reelection bid in november 1992 to bill clinton. Before he leaves office when he was a lame duck, the issue irancontra criminal investigation still pending. He pardons mcfarlane, he parlayed weinberger and three other top officials at the cia. Morons think this is the last before bush does before he leaves the presidency. Just roll the clock back a little bit, reagan was not impeached. There was no threat of impeachment levied against him,. Ut he was greatly weakened in the last two years of this president , what did he have left . You had an opportunity to resuscitate his reputation by assuming a new relationship with gorbachev from the soviet union. That is what you will be talking about in the coming weeks. Thank you. [applause] you are watching American History tv, 40 hours of programming on American History every weekend on cspan3. Follow us on twitter at cspan history for information on our schedule and keep up with the latest history news. American history tv was at the organization of american is trying to new orleans where he spoke with historian adriane lentzsmith about africanamerican involvement in world war i. She discussed how their military service expose the rachel tensions at the time. This interview is about 15 minutes. Adrian lynn smith, what was the experience of black soldiers during world war i . Adriane africanamerican soldiers had a variety of experiences. There was roughly 385,000 africanamericans in the wartime army. About 200,000 of them traveled