Reagan 's Scandal Of The Iran Contra Scandal

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.

i. Role of Oliver North: national security aid, stationed in the white house. he directed money from the Iranian arms sales to the contras. congress had banned this, do not fund the contras anymore. congress had forbidden this aid. North had circumvented this ban by raising money from wealthy conservatives from other governments, to fund this. (wealthy new right conservatives funded this) all in secret to the congress and to the people. New story broke, televised hearings in 1987, erased computer files right before the fbi arrived. he defended it by saying sometimes you need to go above the law for patriotism. he emphasized, I love my country and I am a patriot. Reagan praised north as a national hero, for undergoing this with American security in mind, but he also fired him. TV Reagan denied knowing anything about the scandal, but

It’s debatable whether President Jimmy Carter would have won the election of 1980 if the Iranian Hostage Crisis never happened. However, even the most profound of historians know that the conflict with Iran did indeed spark the beginning of the Ronald Reagan era and put Jimmy Carter in company with only a select number of presidents to not be re-elected to a second term. President Carter’s inability to resolve the problem made him look like a weak and ineffectual leader. Perhaps the most demonstrative example of the president’s inadequacy was an ill-advised executive decision that he made in April of 1980, the same year of the election. With lagging and inauspicious diplomacy talks ongoing with Iran, Carter grew frustrated. Not backed by his most important advisors, the president made the call to

BBC, 06 May 2004. Web. 13 May 2014). Since the National Guard didn’t have that many people, they started recruiting farmers who were kicked out because of the new farming system that the Sandinistas started using. The second group was lead by a dissatisfied Sandinistas leader, Eden Pastora. He set up two groups in Honduras called the “contras”, or counter revolutionary forces. Reagan wanted to support contras economically and he stated that quite openly; however, a lot of U.S. citizens did not like that. During that time, in 1985, a war between Iran and Iraq took place. Even though the U.S. publicly supported Iraq, the government also secretly assisted Iran. Among those years Iran asked the United States for help with weaponry. It is illegal to sell weapons to the hostages but Regan still thought it would help him and the U.S. One of the reasons why he did it was because he wanted to take control in the problematic Middle East and selling weapons to Iran would improve the relations with Iran and Lebanon. At the same time Reagan wanted to free the seven hostages that were held by Iranian terrorist and even though he strongly supported the rule of not negotiating with terrorists, he broke the rule by supplying Iran with weapons. After receiving money from Iran, Regan sponsored contras using that money. The United States had also supplied the contras with weapons and equipment. After the clandestine deal between the two countries was published in 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.

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

In The Wars of Watergate Stanley Kutler accurately “described Watergate as ‘the nations most sustained political conflict and severest constitutional crisis since the Great Depression’” (Qtd. in Hillstrom, 2004, p.75). But that incident was just the key that unlocked a worm hole of unlawful activities that Richard Nixon’s administration was involved in. Some claim that the system established by the founders more than two hundred years ago was unequipped to handle the demands of the 20th century (Mosher, 1974, p.16), which may explain it all. When one administration can monopolize power, control other governmental agencies, and commit as much illegal atrocities as Nixon’s did, people start to question the overall design in the system and

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

One of the only presidents in United States history to almost be impeached, is Richard Nixon. Richard Nixon is most famously recognized for his watergate scandal, in which Nixon’s administration was accused of committing acts in secret that are against the American constitution. However, this scandal is not the only thing America’s 37th president has to remember about him. During his short time in the White House, the republican Richard Nixon was able to accomplish many things such as signing one of the first environmental protection bills, introducing the famous War on Drugs, which legacy continues to be practiced in America today, as well as officially ending the Vietnam War.

Not only did the American public hope to be able to rely on and trust their federal government, but they also desired strong management of foreign affairs. During the Presidency of Jimmy Carter, America faced many blunders overseas. One particular high-profile issue was the Iranian Hostage Crisis where, “Iranian students stormed the U.S embassy in Tehran and took 53 Americans hostage,” and the attempted rescue of said hostages which resulted in a collision between two helicopters and eight dead marines (Davidson, et al 937). The Carter Administration’s handle on foreign affairs proved to be disastrous. As a result, the Republican party’s platform for the election of 1980, in which Carter was running for reelection, focused heavily on

This is what Richard M Nixon said after resigning from presidency, being the only president to resign. He resigned from presidency for being mixed up in the watergate scandal or was it a mix up?

Perhaps the number one event, that will cost Jimmy Carter his reelection for president was the Iranian Hostage Crisis that went on for approximately 444 days and held 52 American diplomat citizens hostage in Iran. Several Iranian students, stormed the American embassy on November 4, 1979. This had all occurred because the former, exiled, Shah of Iran had been permitted entry into the United States to receive medical treatment for cancer. In the 1950’s the Shah of Iran was appointed by the United States. He was a dictator, who ruled with violence and cruelty. The people of Iran, are traditionally Shiite Muslims and the Shah was taking Iran towards a more progressive society. This further upset the people of Iran who did not want their conservative

On November 5, 1968 Richard M. Nixon was elected the 37th president of the United States. While in office Nixon dealt with an unstable economy and oversaw reforms in welfare, civil rights and more. In foreign affairs Nixon helped end the Vietnam War, reestablish contact with china and improve relations with the Soviet Union. In 1972 Nixon was reelected in a landslide victory. However, His undoing was already in the works. A few months prior to Nixon’s reelection a group of men linked to the Nixon administration were arrested in the Democratic party headquarters in Washington’s Watergate complex and what followed was one of the biggest scandals in presidential history. The Watergate scandal was revealed as a cover-up by the Nixon

The investigation assesses the extent of significance of President Reagan’s role in the Iran-Contra affair in the 1980’s. Reagan’s role will be looked at while aiding the Nicaraguan Contras, releasing American hostages, both which led to the Iran-Contra affair, and during the cover up, in America and partly in Iran. An investigation account and American history are mostly used to evaluate Reagan’s role. Two of the sources used in this essay, Firewall: The Iran-Contra conspiracy and cover-up written by Lawrence E. Walsh and The Age of Reagan by Sean Wilentz will then be evaluated for their origins, purposes, values, and limitations.

A solution to the Nicaraguan problem seemed more difficult to solve, Reagan wanted desperately to help the “contras” but was mandated by congress to stay out of the affair. His advisors secretly proposed a way to kill two birds with one stone, a decision that came to be referred to as Ronald Reagan’s black mark on his almost spotless record on foreign policy. The U.S would sale weapons to Iran in return for hostages taken by Muslim Jihadist in Lebanon, and with the money Iran paid those weapons with the U.S would direct that money to the contras fighting the Sandinistas. While the reasons for the trade were honorable and the president was following the American policy of communist containment at the time, it was still nonetheless illegal and badly battered Reagan’s reputation.