The Iran–Contra affair (Persian: ماجرای ایران-کنترا; Spanish: Caso Irán-Contra), often referred to as the Iran–Contra scandal and more rarely as the Iran Initiative, was a political scandal in the United States that occurred during the second term of the Reagan administration. Between 1981 and 1986, senior administration officials secretly facilitated the illegal sale of arms to Iran, which was subject to an arms embargo at the time.[1] The administration hoped to use the proceeds of the arms sale to fund the Contras, an anti-Sandinista rebel group in Nicaragua. Under the Boland Amendment, further funding of the Contras by legislative appropriations was prohibited by Congress, but the Reagan administration figured out a loophole by secretively using non-appropriated funds instead.
The official justification for the arms shipments was that they were part of an operation to free seven U.S. hostages being held in Lebanon by Hezbollah, an Islamist paramilitary group with Iranian ties connected to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.[2] The idea to exchange arms for hostages was proposed by Manucher Ghorbanifar, an expatriate Iranian arms dealer.[3][4][5] Some within the Reagan administration hoped the sales would influence Iran to get Hezbollah to release the hostages.
In late 1985, Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North of the National Security Council (NSC) diverted a portion of the proceeds from the Iranian weapon sales to fund the Contras, a group of anti-Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) rebels, in their insurgency against the socialist government of Nicaragua. North later claimed that Ghorbanifar had given him the idea for diverting profits from BGM-71 TOW and MIM-23 Hawk missile sales to Iran to the Nicaraguan Contras.[6] While President Ronald Reagan was a vocal supporter of the Contra cause,[7] the evidence is disputed as to whether he personally authorized the diversion of funds to the Contras.[2] Handwritten notes taken by Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger on 7 December 1985 indicate that Reagan was aware of potential hostage transfers with Iran, by Israel, as well as the sale of Hawk and TOW missiles to "moderate elements" within that country.[8][original research?] Weinberger wrote that Reagan said "he could answer charges of illegality but he couldn't answer charge [sic] that 'big strong President Reagan passed up a chance to free hostages.'"[8] After the weapon sales were revealed in November 1986, Reagan appeared on national television and stated that the weapons transfers had indeed occurred, but that the U.S. did not trade arms for hostages.[9] The investigation was impeded when large volumes of documents relating to the affair were destroyed or withheld from investigators by Reagan administration officials.[10] On 4 March 1987, Reagan made a further nationally televised address, saying he was taking full responsibility for the affair and stating that "what began as a strategic opening to Iran deteriorated, in its implementation, into trading arms for hostages."[11]
The affair was investigated by Congress and by the three-person, Reagan-appointed Tower Commission. Neither investigation found evidence that President Reagan himself knew of the extent of the multiple programs.[2] Additionally, U.S. Deputy Attorney General Lawrence Walsh was appointed independent counsel in December 1986 to investigate possible criminal actions by officials involved in the scheme. In the end, several dozen administration officials were indicted, including Weinberger. Eleven convictions resulted, some of which were vacated on appeal.[12]
The rest of those indicted or convicted were all pardoned in the final days of the presidency of George H. W. Bush, who had been vice president at the time of the affair.[13] Former Independent Counsel Walsh noted that, in issuing the pardons, Bush appeared to have been preempting being implicated himself by evidence that came to light during the Weinberger trial and noted that there was a pattern of "deception and obstruction" by Bush, Weinberger, and other senior Reagan administration officials.[14] Walsh submitted his final report on 4 August 1993[15] and later wrote an account of his experiences as counsel, Firewall: The Iran-Contra Conspiracy and Cover-Up.[14]
Prior to the Iranian Revolution, the U.S. was the largest seller of arms to Iran under Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and the vast majority of the weapons that the Islamic Republic of Iran inherited in January 1979 were U.S.-made.[16] To maintain this arsenal, Iran required a steady supply of spare parts to replace those broken and worn out.
In November 1979, after Iranian students stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took 52 Americans hostage, U.S. President Jimmy Carter imposed an arms embargo on Iran.[16] In September 1980, Iraq invaded Iran and Iran desperately needed weapons and spare parts for its current weapons. After Ronald Reagan took office as president on 20 January 1981 and the hostages were released, he vowed to continue Carter's policy of blocking arms sales to Iran on the grounds that Iran supported terrorism.[16] However, a group of senior Reagan administration officials in the Senior Interdepartmental Group conducted a secret study on 21 July 1981 and concluded that the arms embargo was ineffective because Iran could always buy arms and spare parts for its U.S. weapons elsewhere, while, at the same time, the arms embargo opened the door for Iran to fall into the Soviet sphere of influence as the Kremlin could sell Iran weapons if the U.S. would not.[16] The conclusion was that the U.S. should start selling Iran arms as soon as it was politically possible.[16] This was made more difficult politically due to Ayatollah Khomeini's openly declared goal of exporting his Islamic revolution all over the Middle East and overthrowing the governments of Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the other states around the Persian Gulf, which led to the Americans perceiving Khomeini as a major threat to the U.S.[16]
In the spring of 1983, the U.S. launched Operation Staunch, a wide-ranging diplomatic effort to persuade other nations all over the world not to sell arms or spare parts for weapons to Iran.[16] This was at least part of the reason the Iran–Contra affair proved so humiliating for the U.S. when the story first broke in November 1986 that the U.S. itself was selling arms to Iran.
At the same time that the U.S. government was considering its options on selling arms to Iran, Contra militants based in Honduras were waging a guerrilla war to topple the FSLN revolutionary government of Nicaragua. Almost from the time he took office in 1981, a major goal of the Reagan administration was the overthrow of the left-wing Sandinista government in Nicaragua and to support the Contra rebels.[17]
The Reagan administration's policy toward Nicaragua produced a major clash between the executive and legislative branches as Congress sought to limit, if not curb altogether, the ability of the White House to support the Contras.[17] Direct U.S. funding of the Contras insurgency was made illegal through the Boland Amendment, the name given to three U.S. legislative amendments between 1982 and 1984 aimed at limiting U.S. government assistance to Contra militants. By 1984, funding for the Contras had run out; and, in October of that year, a total ban came into effect. The second Boland Amendment, in effect from 3 October 1984 to 3 December 1985, stated:
During the fiscal year 1985 no funds available to the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense or any other agency or entity of the United States involved in intelligence activities may be obligated or expended for the purpose of or which may have the effect of supporting directly or indirectly military or paramilitary operations in Nicaragua by any nation, organization, group, movement, or individual.[17]
In violation of the Boland Amendment, senior officials of the Reagan administration continued to secretly arm and train the Contras and provide arms to Iran, an operation they called "the Enterprise".[18][19] Given the Contras' heavy dependence on U.S. military and financial support, the second Boland Amendment threatened to break the Contra movement and led to President Reagan ordering in 1984 that the NSC "keep the Contras together 'body and soul'", no matter what Congress voted for.[17]
A major legal debate at the center of the Iran–Contra affair concerned the question of whether the NSC was one of the "any other agency or entity of the United States involved in intelligence activities" covered by the Boland Amendment. The Reagan administration argued it was not, and many in Congress argued that it was.[17] The majority of constitutional scholars have asserted the NSC did indeed fall within the purview of the second Boland Amendment, though the amendment did not mention the NSC by name.[20]
The broader constitutional question at stake was the power of Congress versus the power of the presidency. The Reagan administration argued that, because the constitution assigned the right to conduct foreign policy to the executive, its efforts to overthrow the government of Nicaragua were a presidential prerogative that Congress had no right to try to halt via the Boland Amendments.[21] By contrast, Congressional leaders argued that the constitution had assigned Congress control of the budget, and Congress had every right to use that power not to fund projects they disapproved of, such as attempting to overthrow the government of Nicaragua.[21]
As part of the effort to circumvent the Boland Amendment, the NSC established "the Enterprise", an arms-smuggling network headed by a retired U.S. Air Force officer turned arms dealer Richard Secord that supplied arms to the Contras. It was ostensibly a private sector operation, but in fact was controlled by the NSC.[20] To fund "the Enterprise", the Reagan administration was constantly on the look-out for funds that came from outside the U.S. government in order not to explicitly violate the letter of the Boland Amendment, though the efforts to find alternative funding for the Contras violated the spirit of the Boland Amendment.[22] Ironically, military aid to the Contras was reinstated with Congressional consent in October 1986, a month before the scandal broke.[23][24]
In his 1995 memoir My American Journey, General Colin Powell, the U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor, wrote that the weapons sales to Iran were used "for purposes prohibited by the elected representatives of the American people [...] in a way that avoided accountability to the President and Congress. It was wrong."[25]
In 1985, Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega offered to help the U.S. by allowing Panama as a staging ground for operations against the FSLN and offering to train Contras in Panama, but this would later be overshadowed by the Iran–Contra affair itself.[26] At around the same time, the Soviet Bloc also engaged in arms deals with ideologically opponent buyers,[27] possibly involving some of the same players as the Iran–Contra affair.[28] In 1986, a complex operation involving East Germany's Stasi and the Danish-registered ship Pia Vesta ultimately aimed to sell Soviet arms and military vehicles to South Africa's Armscor, using various intermediaries to distance themselves from the deal. Noriega was apparently one of these intermediaries but backed out on the deal as the ship and weapons were seized at a Panamanian port.[29][30][28] The Pia Vesta led to a small controversy, as the Panama and Peru governments in 1986 accused the U.S. and each other of being involved in the East Germany-originated shipment.[31][28]
As reported in The New York Times in 1991, "continuing allegations that Reagan campaign officials made a deal with the Iranian Government of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in the fall of 1980" led to "limited investigations". However "limited", those investigations established that "Soon after taking office in 1981, the Reagan Administration secretly and abruptly changed United States policy." Secret Israeli arms sales and shipments to Iran began in that year, even as, in public, "the Reagan Administration" presented a different face, and "aggressively promoted a public campaign [...] to stop worldwide transfers of military goods to Iran". The New York Times explains: "Iran at that time was in dire need of arms and spare parts for its American-made arsenal to defend itself against Iraq, which had attacked it in September 1980", while "Israel [a US ally] was interested in keeping the war between Iran and Iraq going to ensure that these two potential enemies remained preoccupied with each other". Major General Avraham Tamir, a high-ranking Israeli Defense Ministry official in 1981, said there was an "oral agreement" to allow the sale of "spare parts" to Iran. This was based on an "understanding" with Secretary Alexander Haig (which a Haig adviser denied). This account was confirmed by a former senior US diplomat with a few modifications. The diplomat claimed that "[Ariel] Sharon violated it, and Haig backed away". A former "high-level" Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) official who saw reports of arms sales to Iran by Israel in the early 1980s estimated that the total was about $2 billion a year—but also said, "The degree to which it was sanctioned I don't know."[32]
On 17 June 1985, National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane wrote a National Security Decision Directive which called for the US to begin a rapprochement with the Islamic Republic of Iran.[16] The paper read:
Dynamic political evolution is taking place inside Iran. Instability caused by the pressures of the Iraq-Iran war, economic deterioration and regime in-fighting create the potential for major changes inside Iran. The Soviet Union is better positioned than the U.S. to exploit and benefit from any power struggle that results in changes from the Iranian regime [...]. The U.S. should encourage Western allies and friends to help Iran meet its import requirements so as to reduce the attractiveness of Soviet assistance [...]. This includes provision of selected military equipment.[33]
Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger was highly negative, writing on his copy of McFarlane's paper: "This is almost too absurd to comment on [...] like asking Qaddafi to Washington for a cozy chat."[34] Secretary of State George Shultz was also opposed, stating that having designated Iran a State Sponsor of Terrorism in January 1984, how could the US possibly sell arms to Iran?[34] Only the Director of the CIA William J. Casey supported McFarlane's plan to start selling arms to Iran.[34]
In early July 1985, the historian Michael Ledeen, a consultant of National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane, requested assistance from Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres for help in the sale of arms to Iran.[35] Having talked to an Israeli diplomat David Kimche and Ledeen, McFarlane learned that the Iranians were prepared to have Hezbollah release US hostages in Lebanon in exchange for Israelis shipping Iran US weapons.[34] Having been designated a State Sponsor of Terrorism since January 1984,[36] Iran was in the midst of the Iran–Iraq War and could find few Western nations willing to supply it with weapons.[citation needed] The idea behind the plan was for Israel to ship weapons through an intermediary (identified as Manucher Ghorbanifar) to the Islamic Republic as a way of aiding a supposedly moderate, politically influential faction within the regime of Ayatollah Khomeini who was believed to be seeking a rapprochement with the US; after the transaction, the US would reimburse Israel with the same weapons, while receiving monetary benefits.[37] McFarlane in a memo to Shultz and Weinberger wrote:
The short term dimension concerns the seven hostages; the long term dimension involves the establishment of a private dialogue with Iranian officials on the broader relations [...]. They sought specifically the delivery from Israel of 100 TOW missiles [...].[34]
The plan was discussed with President Reagan on 18 July 1985 and again on 6 August 1985.[34] Shultz at the latter meeting warned Reagan that "we were just falling into the arms-for-hostages business and we shouldn't do it".[34]
The Americans believed that there was a moderate faction in the Islamic Republic headed by Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the powerful speaker of the Majlis who was seen as a leading potential successor to Khomeini and who was alleged to want a rapprochement with the US.[38] The Americans believed that Rafsanjani had the power to order Hezbollah to free the US hostages and establishing a relationship with him by selling Iran arms would ultimately place Iran back within the US sphere of influence.[38] It remains unclear if Rafsanjani really wanted a rapprochement with the US or was just deceiving Reagan administration officials who were willing to believe that he was a moderate who would effect a rapprochement.[38] Rafsanjani, whose nickname is "the Shark", was described by the UK journalist Patrick Brogan as a man of great charm and formidable intelligence known for his subtlety and ruthlessness whose motives in the Iran–Contra affair remain completely mysterious.[38] The Israeli government required that the sale of arms meet high-level approval from the US government, and, when McFarlane convinced them that the US government approved the sale, Israel obliged by agreeing to sell the arms.[35]
In 1985, President Reagan entered Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for colon cancer surgery. Reagan's recovery was nothing short of miserable, as the 74-year-old President admitted having little sleep for days in addition to his immense physical discomfort. While doctors seemed to be confident that the surgery was successful, the discovery of his localized cancer was a daunting realization for Reagan. From seeing the recovery process of other patients, as well as medical “experts” on television predicting his death to be soon, Reagan's typical optimistic outlook was dampened. These factors were bound to contribute to psychological distress in the midst of an already distressing situation.[39] Additionally, Reagan's invocation of the 25th Amendment prior to the surgery was a risky and unprecedented decision that smoothly flew under the radar for the duration of the complex situation. While it only lasted slightly longer than the length of the procedure (approximately seven hours and 54 minutes), this temporary transfer of power was never formally recognized by the White House. It was later revealed that this decision was made on the grounds that "Mr. Reagan and his advisors did not want his actions to establish a definition of incapacitation that would bind future presidents." Reagan expressed this transfer of power in two identical letters that were sent to the speaker of the House of Representatives, Representative Tip O'Neill, and the president pro tempore of the senate, Senator Strom Thurmond.[40]
While the President was recovering in the hospital, McFarlane met with him and told him that representatives from Israel had contacted the National Security Agency to pass on confidential information from what Reagan later described as the "moderate" Iranian faction headed by Rafsanjani opposed to the Ayatollah's hardline anti-US policies.[37] The visit from McFarlane in Reagan's hospital room was the first visit from an administration official outside of Donald Regan since the surgery. The meeting took place five days after the surgery and only three days after doctors gave the news that his polyp had been malignant. The three participants of this meeting had very different recollections of what was discussed during its 23-minute duration. Months later, Reagan even stated that he "had no recollection of a meeting in the hospital in July with McFarlane and that he had no notes which would show such a meeting". This does not come as a surprise considering the possible short and long-term effects of anesthesia on patients above the age of 60, in addition to his already weakened physical and mental state.[39]
According to Reagan, these Iranians sought to establish a quiet relationship with the US, before establishing formal relationships upon the death of the aging Ayatollah.[37] In Reagan's account, McFarlane told Reagan that the Iranians, to demonstrate their seriousness, offered to persuade the Hezbollah militants to release the seven US hostages.[41] McFarlane met with the Israeli intermediaries;[42] Reagan claimed that he allowed this because he believed that establishing relations with a strategically located country, and preventing the Soviet Union from doing the same, was a beneficial move.[37] Although Reagan claims that the arms sales were to a "moderate" faction of Iranians, the Walsh Iran–Contra Report states that the arms sales were "to Iran" itself,[43] which was under the control of the Ayatollah.
Following the Israeli–US meeting, Israel requested permission from the US to sell a small number of BGM-71 TOW antitank missiles to Iran, claiming that this would aid the "moderate" Iranian faction,[41] by demonstrating that the group actually had high-level connections to the US government.[41] Reagan initially rejected the plan, until Israel sent information to the US showing that the "moderate" Iranians were opposed to terrorism and had fought against it.[44] Now having a reason to trust the "moderates", Reagan approved the transaction, which was meant to be between Israel and the "moderates" in Iran, with the US reimbursing Israel.[41] In his 1990 autobiography An American Life, Reagan claimed that he was deeply committed to securing the release of the hostages; it was this compassion that supposedly motivated his support for the arms initiatives. The president requested that the "moderate" Iranians do everything in their capability to free the hostages held by Hezbollah.[3] Reagan always publicly insisted after the scandal broke in late 1986 that the purpose behind the arms-for-hostages trade was to establish a working relationship with the "moderate" faction associated with Rafsanjani to facilitate the reestablishment of the US–Iranian alliance after the soon to be expected death of Khomeini, to end the Iran–Iraq War and end Iranian support for Islamic terrorism while downplaying the importance of freeing the hostages in Lebanon as a secondary issue.[45] By contrast, when testifying before the Tower Commission, Reagan declared that hostage issue was the main reason for selling arms to Iran.[46]
The following arms were supplied to Iran:[43][47]
The first arms sales to Iran began in 1981, though the official paper trail has them beginning in 1985 (see above). On 20 August 1985, Israel sent 96 US-made TOW missiles to Iran through an arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar.[48] Subsequently, on 14 September 1985, 408 more TOW missiles were delivered. On 15 September 1985, following the second delivery, Reverend Benjamin Weir was released by his captors, the Islamic Jihad Organization. On 24 November 1985, 18 Hawk antiaircraft missiles were delivered.
Robert McFarlane resigned on 4 December 1985,[49][50] stating that he wanted to spend more time with his family,[51] and was replaced by Admiral John Poindexter.[52] Two days later, Reagan met with his advisors at the White House, where a new plan was introduced. This called for a slight change in the arms transactions: instead of the weapons going to the "moderate" Iranian group, they