Iran Contra Affair Research Paper

“25 years ago, Marine Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North did something really, really bad. He sold weapons to Iran in an effort to help fund rebels fighting Nicaragua’s Socialist government. It was a war that was already being funded by the small country’s cocaine trade, a fact that prompted Congress to halt the flow of money from the U.S. to Nicaragua.” (http://time.com/2954148/iran-contra/)

This scandal garnered the public to become very dubious and outraged about the Reagans Administrations ambitions within Latin America, several investigations ensued mainly by the U.S. Congress, but the sale of weapons to Iran was not deemed a criminal offense and President Ronald Reagan was not in violation of law because of the refusal to declassify prominent documents. However, key actors within the administration were charged for being an accomplice to the

Later, Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh launched an eight-year investigation into what by then had grow to be recognised as the Iran-Contra Affair. In all, 14 humans have been charged, which include North, Poindexter and McFarlane.Reagan himself was once never charged, and, in 1992, George W. Bush, Reagan’s vice president who was elected president in 1988, preemptively pardoned Weinberger.

The Iran-Contra Affair took place during the Reagan Administration. It started with The Cold War and the clash between two different belief systems and countries that refused to work together. The U.S. being a capitalism giant, attempted to intervene and prohibit the spread of Communism. This Clash started after World War II when the US disagreed during a Conference held in the Summer of 1945. This conference discussed whether the Soviet Union could take possession of Poland. Due to this disagreement, President Truman suspended the Lend-Lease Act

The Soviet Union placed missiles with the nuclear capabilities in Cuba that “is capable of striking Washington, D.C., the Panama Canal, Cape Canaveral, Mexico City or any other city in the southeastern part of the United States, in Central America or in the Caribbean area” (document 7b). In response, the United States established a air and naval blockade around the island to prevent Fidel Castro from receiving more deadly weapons (document 7a). The U.S. also maintained close surveillance of Cuba and its military actions (document 7b). In Nicaragua, the Sandinistas established and strong military force in the country to combat non-communist after the revolution. The EPS (the Sandinista People’s Army/Ejército Popular Sandinista) and the PA (Sandinista Police/Policía Sandinista) were trained personnels from Cuba Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union (document 8a). However, Violeta Chamorro challenged the Sandinista Nicaragua’s presidential election so democracy and freedom could be brought to Nicaragua. The lives of Latin Americans changed due to the cold War. Some lost their privacy, other lost their

Moreover, the pubic appear to not be affected by the Arms for Hostages Scandal while Reagan was president, which was a deal with the Iranian government to release prisoners once the voting was over. Next, there was the contribution of the Contras in Central America, and the following Iran-Contra Affair outrage which made Col. Oliver North famed

In class, we discussed the Iran-Contra Affair involving Ronald Reagan. However, we did not go in depth about public opinion, George H.W. Bush’s involvement, or how people feel about it today. This paper will seek to continue this topic. For example, the Iran-Contra polls showed that most Americans did not believe Regan’s cover stories, yet there was never a push for him to pay the political price, which would ultimately have been impeachment. Thus this paper will further attempt to understand the mindset of people that allowed these events to occur with little penalty.

Policy violations, propriety, and violations of the law…While President Reagan and his administration may have had good intentions, the actions undertaken by certain individuals while carrying out the operations mentioned above, did in fact, violate laws and executive orders, and as a result, put the offenders in direct conflict with the rule of law.

One of the most well known scandals and government damaging scandals surfaced in November 1986 when Ronald Reagan admitted that the United States sold weapons to the Islamic Republic of Iran in efforts to get them to release 6 U.S. citizens being held hostage in Lebanon. It was also disclosed that some of the money from the arms deal with Iran had been secretly and illegally went to the aid of the right-wing Contras counter-revolutionary groups wanting to overthrow the socialist Sandinista government of Nicaragua it became known The Iran-Contra

This administration was marred with controversy in its own right. Although President Reagan faced many problems during his presidency the Iran-Contra affair is probably the most infamous. In 1986, a scandal shook the administration stemming from the use of profits from covert arms sales to the Iranian government to fund the Contras in Nicaragua, which had been specifically outlawed by an act of Congress. Iran-contra affair, in U.S. history, secret arrangement in the 1980s to provide funds to the Nicaraguan contra rebels from profits gained by selling arms to Iran. “The Iran-contra affair was the product of two separate initiatives during the administration of President Ronald Reagan. The first was a commitment to aid the contras who were conducting a guerrilla war against the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. The second was to placate ‘moderates' within the Iranian government in order to secure the release of American hostages held by pro-Iranian groups in Lebanon and to influence Iranian foreign policy in a pro-Western direction.” The Iran–Contra affair became the largest political scandal in the United States during the 1980s. The International Court of Justice, whose jurisdiction to decide the case was disputed by the United States, ruled that the United States had violated international law and breached treaties in Nicaragua in various ways. President Reagan said that he was ignorant of the

Upon taking office in 1980, Reagan issued a massive build up of the American military, and generally adapted a more confrontational policy towards the Soviet Union (which he referred to as an "evil Empire" in a 1983 speech) than had been adapted by his predecessors in the White House. This policy is ultimately credited with helping speed the economic collapse and opening of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, which ultimately led to the breakup of the former USSR under the first President Bush. However, Reagan's policy included provisions for providing covert support for anti-Communist resistance activities around the world, including giving weapons and arms to Mujaheddin guerrilla fighters in Afghanistan, some of whom led Afghan and Taliban resistance to the US invasion of Afghanistan a two decades later in the 2000s. Perhaps the biggest scandal of Reagan's presidency also resulted from this policy, as the CIA violated American law by selling guns and weapons to Iran to fund the "Contra" rebels in Nicaragua, an episode that became known as the Iran-Contra scandal.

President Reagan 's denial to terminate the anti-missile defense program which was required by the Soviets impassable a probable arrangement with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev for subduing nuclear weapons when the two leaders met in Rejkavik, Iceland in October 1986. The President 's second term was tangled with the Iran Contra scandal when officials illegally unfocused finances to help counter forces in Nicaragua. A well thought of Defense Initiative Letter was given to Majority Leader Robert Dole on October 1, 1985. During that time, tensions within the Soviet bloc became more apparent.

The public questioned the end of Ronald Reagan’s second term as President of the United States for his lack of integrity and lack of transparency. In early 1986, Reagan wanted to help a group of Nicaraguan rebels overthrow the Sandinista National Liberation Front that had taken over the Central American country (Shipler, 1986, para. 2). At the same time, seven Americans were being held hostage by Iranian revolutionists in Lebanon, and an operation to get them freed was being discussed within Reagan’s Cabinet (Gwertzman, 1986, para. 5). In an attempt to free the hostages, the United States Government sold arms to a Middle Eastern country

The Iran Contra affair is historically defined as the “Reagan administration scandal that involved the sale of arms to Iran in exchange for its efforts to secure the release of hostages in Lebanon and the redirection of the proceeds of those sales to the Nicaraguan Contras.” As the Nicaraguan counterrevolutionaries, known as the Contras, began their efforts to retaliate against the Socialist Sandinista Regime, American government forces stepped in to support the Contra cause in a hope to support the world-wide elimination of Communism. To understand the entire history of the scandal, many individuals, groups, policies, and deals must be researched and put together to tell the complete history of the Iran Contra affair.

Challenges that the relationship between the “people” and congress will and should always continue as a check and balance system. One example of a challenge between some members of the NSC, congress, and the people come from the controversial program later called the Iran- Contra affair. Iran-Contra started when President Ronald Reagan started funding the rebel group, known as the Contras, in Central America. During the early days of funding the rebel group a story by Newsweek entitled: Americas Secret War brought a different and unfavorable attention to the program (Brown.edu, 2013).