The U. Hezbollah, a fundamentalist Islamic group that had close ties to Iran, began seizing Americans in as a way of discouraging U. Reagan cared deeply about the plight of the hostages. In return for a supply of U. MacFarlane, however, maintained that arms sales could build U. With the help of Israel, deliveries of U. The results of these arms shipments were disappointing. Hezbollah released three U.
Lawrence Jenco, a Catholic priest; Rev. Benjamin Weir, a Presbyterian missionary; and David Jacobsen, a hospital administrator — but seized three more.
At the end of , seven Americans remained in captivity. In , the United States sold military armaments like this TOW anti-tank missile to Iran in exchange for its help in pressuring Hezbollah to release U. The Reagan administration also aided the Contras, a counter-revolutionary organization that fought against the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua.
Reagan worried that the Sandinistas, a revolutionary group that received support from Cuba and the Soviet Union and seized power in Nicaragua in , threatened to spread communism in Central America. In December , he authorized the Central Intelligence Agency CIA to provide covert training and assistance to Contra forces, who waged guerrilla war against the Sandinista government and its supporters. This U. The secret did not last. Front-page newspaper articles and magazine cover stories exposed the U.
The result was congressional passage in December of an amendment, sponsored by Rep. He made these assertions even though some Contras were involved in drug trafficking to fund their operations and political assassination. MacFarlane assigned the task of sustaining the Contras to Lt.
North relied on assistance from the CIA, including from director William Casey, to construct an organization he called the Enterprise for the secret supply of military equipment to the Contras. Funding at first came from two main sources: contributions the Reagan administration solicited from other nations, primarily Saudi Arabia; and donations North helped secure from private citizens who worried about the spread of communism in Central America. There was, however, a U. And, as an aside, the arms deal would secure funds that the CIA could secretly funnel to the Contra insurgency in Nicaragua.
Three of the seven hostages in Lebanon were also released, although the Iran-backed terrorist group there later took three more Americans hostage. Reagan initially denied that he had negotiated with Iran or the terrorists, only to retract the statement a week later. It was then that Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North , of the National Security Council, came forward to acknowledge that he had diverted the missing funds to the Contras in Nicaragua, who used them to acquire weapons.
He assumed Reagan was also aware of his efforts. The American press hounded Reagan over the matter for the rest of his presidency. During a subsequent Congressional investigation, in , protagonists in the scandal—including Reagan—testified before the commission in hearings that were televised nationally. Later, Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh launched an eight-year investigation into what by then had become known as the Iran-Contra Affair.
In all, 14 people were charged, including North, Poindexter and McFarlane. Reagan himself was never charged, and, in , George H. McFarlane was charged with four counts of withholding information from Congress, a misdemeanor. North was charged with 12 counts relating to conspiracy and making false statements. Although he was convicted in his initial trial, the case was dismissed on appeal, due to a technicality, and North has since worked as a conservative author, critic, television host and head of the NRA.
Poindexter was initially indicted on seven felonies and ultimately tried on five. He was found guilty on four of the charges and sentenced to two years in prison, although his convictions were later vacated. In addition, four CIA officers and five government contractors were also prosecuted; although all were found guilty of charges ranging from conspiracy to perjury to fraud, only one—private contractor Thomas Clines—ultimately served time in prison.
Despite the fact that Reagan had promised voters he would never negotiate with terrorists—which he or his underlings did while brokering the weapons sales with Iran—the two-term occupant of the White House left office as a popular president. However, his legacy, at least among his supporters, remains intact—and the Iran-Contra Affair has been relegated to an often-overlooked chapter in U. The Iran-Contra Affair— The Washington Post. He had become frustrated at his inability to secure the release of the seven American hostages being held by Iranian terrorists in Lebanon.
As president, Reagan felt that "he had the duty to bring those Americans home," and he convinced himself that he was not negotiating with terrorists.
While shipping arms to Iran violated the embargo, dealing with terrorists violated Reagan's campaign promise never to do so. Reagan had always been admired for his honesty. The arms-for-hostages proposal divided the administration.
With the backing of the president, the plan progressed. By the time the sales were discovered, more than 1, missiles had been shipped to Iran.
Three hostages had been released, only to be replaced with three more, in what Secretary of State George Shultz called "a hostage bazaar. He retracted the statement a week later, insisting that the sale of weapons had not been an arms-for-hostages deal. Despite the fact that Reagan defended the actions by virtue of their good intentions, his honesty was doubted. Polls showed that only 14 percent of Americans believed the president when he said he had not traded arms for hostages.
Then-unknown Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North of the National Security Council explained the discrepancy: he had been diverting funds from the arms sales to the Contras, with the full knowledge of National Security Adviser Admiral John Poindexter and with the unspoken blessing, he assumed, of President Reagan. Poindexter resigned, and North was fired, but Iran-Contra was far from over. The press hounded the president: Did he know about these illegal activities, and if not, how could something of this magnitude occur without his knowledge?
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