The Iran Contra Affair

1999. Bledowska, Celina and Bloch, Jonathan. KGB/CIA. New York, NY. Bison Books Corp. 1987.

They would sell the weapons to Iran in exchange for money, which would then be put into a secret bank account and sent to the Nicaraguan Contras. This idea was brilliant but illegal as well, it was high treason. These series of events will forever be known as the Iran-Contra scandal. The Iran-Contra scandal was a lapse in judgment that will affect the United States for centuries to come. The public is well aware and live with the ramifications of the Iran-Contra scandal, although most are unaware that it steams from the Iran-Contr... ... middle of paper ... ... founders and soon became a shadowy network of arms dealers, fraudulent companies, and secret bank accounts.

DVD. Pistone, Joseph D. Donnie Brasco: My Undercover Life in the Mafia. Ed. Richard Woodley. New York: Signet Printing, 1987.

The Iran-Contra Affair, a covert arrangement that occurred in the 1980s, is one of the biggest, most complex, scandals in politics, but has largely been forgotten. It was mostly a political scandal, although finances were a very important part of the scandal. In the most basic terms, the administration of President Ronald Reagan secretly sold arms to Iran in hopes that, in exchange, they could use their influence to encourage the release of American hostages in Lebanon (Sabato 1 of 1). Also, money was secretly funded to the contras in Nicaragua who were fighting the Sandinistas. The biggest reason it was a scandal, besides the fact that many laws were broken and the scandal basically violated American policy, was that the President himself made a statement on November 13, 1986, saying that “We did not – repeat - did not trade weapons or anything else for hostages – nor will we.”(Busby 1 of 3).

John Wiley & Sons, 2003. McMurdo, Torey L. The United States, Britain, and the Hidden Justification of Operation TPAJAX. Risen, James. "Secrets of History: The C.I.A in Iran." The New York Times.

Sect A Kerr, Peter. “Crack Burdening a Justice System”. New York Times. Nov. 24,1986, Late ed. Sect A Lubasch, Arnold H. “US Breaks up Major Crack Ring in New York”.

His second term which dealt mostly with foreign affairs marked a downfall in his reputation. As part of his foreign policy and an effort to stop the spread of communism, Reagan thought it was important to help the Nicaraguan insurgents, the contras, to end their communistic government. Under the Reagan Doctrine, which was constructed to oppose Soviet influence and had a lot of “support for anti- Communist revolutions” , the CIA was ordered to assist the contras with military activities. However, excesses made by CIA resulted in Congress ending the aid as funding money started running out. The Boland Amendment, which was signed earlier in 1984, “denied requests of assistance to Contras and prohibited any help from any nation or group.” However, the Reagan administration decided to continue arming and traini... ... middle of paper ... ...rule of law from being applied to the perpetrators of criminal activity of constitutional dimension.” With every effort taken, the Americans were finally released.

Iran-contra affair is the name of a major United States foreign policy scandal in the 1980's. It involved two secret operations by the executive branch of the government. The operations were (1) the sale of military equipment to Iran, an enemy of the United States; and (2) the provision of military aid to contra rebels in Nicaragua, which Congress had banned. The two operations were connected by the use of profits from the Iranian arms sales to aid the contra rebels. Background.

The contras were a Nicaraguan rebel group whom the Administration was forbidden by Congress to financially assist (“Iran-Contra Affair” Infoplease.com). The Iran-contra scandal relates to Congress in that it attempted to circumvent Congress’s “power of the purse” and oversee the executive branch. The executive branch raised money itself, unaccountable and unsupervised by Congress, and disposed of that money in an illegal manner. As happens often between the executive and legislative branch, there was a power struggle between the two branches. There were two parts to the scandal; the first being arms transfers to Iran, and the second being the aid of the contras in Nicaragua.

A. Plan of Investigation This investigation assesses the Reagan Administration and its inconsistent foreign policy in regards to Iran. The Iran-Contra Affair was a controversial crisis for the fortieth president. It involved two parts: the selling of weapons to Iran and then the siphoning of that money to Nicaragua. However, in this investigation, the situation with Iran will be more prominently discussed, rather than the Nicaraguan situation.