November 25, 1986—Only a dozen years after a
Republican President was forced out of office because of scandal, the
possibility became a live one again when Attorney General Edwin Meese not only
admitted that Ronald Reagan had
authorized arms for hostages, but broke the news that at least one member of the
National Security Council had used at least proceeds from the weapons shipments to fund the
contras opposing the Marxist government of Daniel Ortega.
History has dubbed the scandal that consumed the
attention of the nation for the following nine months Iran-contra—a clumsy name whose sole virtue might be that it
attempted to capture the wide-ranging nature of an astonishing series of
events. But there’s another name for the scandal, coined by the liberal magazine
The New Republic, that is pithy while conveying the insane quality of the whole
affair: “Iranamok.”
At a reading of Democracy at New York’s 92nd
Street Y a year or two after the scandal broke, Joan Didion remarked that one
plot element in her novel was a what-if scenario—i.e., what if Lee Hart and
General Richard Secord had an affair? Both these names have faded from the public
consciousness, but Secord is one of many names in Iran-contra that should not
be forgotten, even as the nation has turned its attention to recent events
considered more momentous (the War on Terror) and trivial (Herman Cain’s confusion about President Obama’s
Libya policy—and his own position on the matter).
Iranamok was built on an entire network of deceit,
starting with the Reagan administration’s blithe assurances that they were
complying with Congress’ Boland Amendment restricting CIA and Defense
Department support of the opposition contra
forces in Nicaragua. But perhaps none reached the level of the claim by Lt. Colonel OliverNorth (self-confessed liar turned preposterous American folk hero) that as he moved outside the realm of accountability to the
American public, he had to balance “lies versus lives.”
In a word, no. Nobody, to my knowledge, has ever analyzed how the statement, already dubious when first expressed, has become more dubious with each passing day. The threat that the Reagan Administration saw was not in the Mideast but in Central America, which, in their fevered version, was in danger of seeing Nicaragua become another Cuban-style center for Marxism.
But the idea that Nicaragua ever posed a threat to the U.S. was ludicrous. Say what you want about about the Patriot Act, but it was passed in an environment in which several thousand Americans had died in an unprovoked terror attack and there was every possibility that another would occur sooner rather than later. Not only did the Communists of Nicaragua never launch such an attack, but nobody in his right mind ever believed it would. Even Ortega’s opportunity to create mischief around Latin America was becoming increasingly limited. For all the resources that the Reagan administration was pouring into the CIA, the news never really seemed to move up the ladder that the U.S.S.R. was being undermined from within by the costs of its involvement in Afghanistan and the struggle to keep its own restless republics in line. (Maybe this intelligence never went up the line because it contradicted everything they had believed for 40 years.) The U.S.S.R., under these circumstances, was finding it harder and harder to export Marxism into the region.
Instead, Americans looking at their newscasts 25 years ago were astounded to find that the President who spoke about “standing tall” against foreign threats--including famously, in the 1980 election, vowing not to negotiate with terrorists--had made a deal with hostage-takers and state sponsors of terrorism in Iran. Following the arms shipment, the three hostages released were immediately followed by another three taken. Secretary of State George Schultz, who had opposed the deal, was correct in calling it “a hostage bazaar.”
The Tower Commission, appointed the day after Meese’s revelation of the diversion of funds from the arms sale to the contras, gave the Reagan administration a tremendous gift when it attributed the crisis to Reagan’s lax “management style.” The commission's report gave Americans still traumatized by the impeachment crisis of 1974 the opportunity to believe that laws were broken by a President not because of his criminality but because he was disengaged from the government he headed. The impression of disengagement (fostered by the President's own frequent jokes about his not-too-stringent work habits as well as his advanced age) enabled Reagan to escape the impeachment that doomed Richard Nixon on Capitol Hill. But, as Theodore Draper argued compellingly in his analysis of the labyrinthine scandal, A Very Thin Line, Reagan bears responsibility because of his twin obsession with freeing the hostages (even if it meant denying he was dealing with terrorists) and with keeping together the contras “body and soul.”
In a very real sense, a line can be drawn from Iran-contra to the disastrous chain of events that led the Bush II administration to beat the drums of war on the false premise that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. One of the forgotten but astonishing aspects of Iran-contra was the excessive dependence on a purported go-between to alleged Iranian moderates who failed 13 out of 15 questions on a polygraph test. Similarly, the Iraqi defector nicknamed “Curveball” concocted stories about mobile bioweapons trucks and secret factories to try to bring down Saddam Hussein’s regime. In both the Iran-contra and weapons of mass destruction fiascoes, ideological fervor led policymakers to place too much credence in sources that clearly did not warrant the slightest trust.
One last thing: Iran-contra can not only be seen as yet another of the scandals to which modern American Presidents have found themselves inevitably drawn, but also as a marker in the Red-vs.-Blue State divide that has plagued our government in recent years. The tumultuous Bork confirmation hearings have often been cited as a milestone in the latter regard, but the Iran-contra investigation, occurring at roughly the same time, serves as an equally compelling example. To understand why the supercommittee has had super trouble taming the deficit, it doesn't hurt to look back here.
The House Judiciary Committee in 1974 would never have been able to form a critical mass of committee members against Richard Nixon if the panel’s conservative Southern Democrats and moderate Northern Republicans had not made common cause. By the time of Iran-contra, the Inouye select joint House-Senate committee charged with investigating Iran-contra had become far more starkly divided between Democrats and Republicans.
One of the key GOP members of the latter panel was Rep. Dick Cheney, who was so nakedly partisan that even fellow GOP member Warren Rudman observed that he was “more interested in protecting the president than in finding out what had happened.“ Cheney later claimed to be annoyed at how junior members of the Reagan administration were “left out to dry.” Years later, that anger would inform his wrongheaded urging of President George W. Bush to pardon Scooter Libby on the dubious grounds that abandoning him would be like leaving behind a soldier on the battlefield. (A most interesting metaphorical stretch, especially considering that Cheney never spent a day in the armed forces.) Furthermore, an additional aim while on the select committee--preserving Presidential prerogative--became one Cheney pursued perhaps even more ardently, and with equally disastrous results, while serving as Vice-President.
The Iran-contra investigation was a muddle that settled nothing and simply left lying around for later Presidential use the possibility of a secret government-within-a-government. No Democrat or Republican should permit the existence of such a principle that undermines the system of accountability.
In a word, no. Nobody, to my knowledge, has ever analyzed how the statement, already dubious when first expressed, has become more dubious with each passing day. The threat that the Reagan Administration saw was not in the Mideast but in Central America, which, in their fevered version, was in danger of seeing Nicaragua become another Cuban-style center for Marxism.
But the idea that Nicaragua ever posed a threat to the U.S. was ludicrous. Say what you want about about the Patriot Act, but it was passed in an environment in which several thousand Americans had died in an unprovoked terror attack and there was every possibility that another would occur sooner rather than later. Not only did the Communists of Nicaragua never launch such an attack, but nobody in his right mind ever believed it would. Even Ortega’s opportunity to create mischief around Latin America was becoming increasingly limited. For all the resources that the Reagan administration was pouring into the CIA, the news never really seemed to move up the ladder that the U.S.S.R. was being undermined from within by the costs of its involvement in Afghanistan and the struggle to keep its own restless republics in line. (Maybe this intelligence never went up the line because it contradicted everything they had believed for 40 years.) The U.S.S.R., under these circumstances, was finding it harder and harder to export Marxism into the region.
Instead, Americans looking at their newscasts 25 years ago were astounded to find that the President who spoke about “standing tall” against foreign threats--including famously, in the 1980 election, vowing not to negotiate with terrorists--had made a deal with hostage-takers and state sponsors of terrorism in Iran. Following the arms shipment, the three hostages released were immediately followed by another three taken. Secretary of State George Schultz, who had opposed the deal, was correct in calling it “a hostage bazaar.”
The Tower Commission, appointed the day after Meese’s revelation of the diversion of funds from the arms sale to the contras, gave the Reagan administration a tremendous gift when it attributed the crisis to Reagan’s lax “management style.” The commission's report gave Americans still traumatized by the impeachment crisis of 1974 the opportunity to believe that laws were broken by a President not because of his criminality but because he was disengaged from the government he headed. The impression of disengagement (fostered by the President's own frequent jokes about his not-too-stringent work habits as well as his advanced age) enabled Reagan to escape the impeachment that doomed Richard Nixon on Capitol Hill. But, as Theodore Draper argued compellingly in his analysis of the labyrinthine scandal, A Very Thin Line, Reagan bears responsibility because of his twin obsession with freeing the hostages (even if it meant denying he was dealing with terrorists) and with keeping together the contras “body and soul.”
In a very real sense, a line can be drawn from Iran-contra to the disastrous chain of events that led the Bush II administration to beat the drums of war on the false premise that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. One of the forgotten but astonishing aspects of Iran-contra was the excessive dependence on a purported go-between to alleged Iranian moderates who failed 13 out of 15 questions on a polygraph test. Similarly, the Iraqi defector nicknamed “Curveball” concocted stories about mobile bioweapons trucks and secret factories to try to bring down Saddam Hussein’s regime. In both the Iran-contra and weapons of mass destruction fiascoes, ideological fervor led policymakers to place too much credence in sources that clearly did not warrant the slightest trust.
One last thing: Iran-contra can not only be seen as yet another of the scandals to which modern American Presidents have found themselves inevitably drawn, but also as a marker in the Red-vs.-Blue State divide that has plagued our government in recent years. The tumultuous Bork confirmation hearings have often been cited as a milestone in the latter regard, but the Iran-contra investigation, occurring at roughly the same time, serves as an equally compelling example. To understand why the supercommittee has had super trouble taming the deficit, it doesn't hurt to look back here.
The House Judiciary Committee in 1974 would never have been able to form a critical mass of committee members against Richard Nixon if the panel’s conservative Southern Democrats and moderate Northern Republicans had not made common cause. By the time of Iran-contra, the Inouye select joint House-Senate committee charged with investigating Iran-contra had become far more starkly divided between Democrats and Republicans.
One of the key GOP members of the latter panel was Rep. Dick Cheney, who was so nakedly partisan that even fellow GOP member Warren Rudman observed that he was “more interested in protecting the president than in finding out what had happened.“ Cheney later claimed to be annoyed at how junior members of the Reagan administration were “left out to dry.” Years later, that anger would inform his wrongheaded urging of President George W. Bush to pardon Scooter Libby on the dubious grounds that abandoning him would be like leaving behind a soldier on the battlefield. (A most interesting metaphorical stretch, especially considering that Cheney never spent a day in the armed forces.) Furthermore, an additional aim while on the select committee--preserving Presidential prerogative--became one Cheney pursued perhaps even more ardently, and with equally disastrous results, while serving as Vice-President.
The Iran-contra investigation was a muddle that settled nothing and simply left lying around for later Presidential use the possibility of a secret government-within-a-government. No Democrat or Republican should permit the existence of such a principle that undermines the system of accountability.
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