IRAN-CONTRA

Opening

On 5 October 1986, a C-123K cargo plane was shot down over southern Nicaragua by a Sandinista soldier with a shoulder-fired missile. Three of the four men aboard died. The fourth, an American loadmaster named Eugene Hasenfus, parachuted out, was captured, and told his captors he believed he had been working for the CIA, flying weapons to the Contra rebels.

That was illegal: Congress had cut off military aid to the Contras with the Boland Amendment. A month later a Lebanese magazine revealed a second secret, that the White House had been selling missiles to Iran. The two turned out to be the same operation, and the scandal became Iran-Contra.

Timeline

1982 and 1984Congress passes the Boland Amendments, which ban US agencies involved in intelligence from spending money to support the Contras' war against Nicaragua's Sandinista government.

1985 to 1986In secret, the Reagan administration sells missiles to Iran, first through Israel and then directly, hoping to free American hostages held in Lebanon. National Security Council staffer Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North runs a private network, which its members called the Enterprise, to keep supplying the Contras.

5 October 1986Hasenfus's plane is shot down. Documents found in the wreck and his own statements tie the flight to a supply operation run out of El Salvador.

3 November 1986The Lebanese magazine Ash-Shiraa reports the arms sales to Iran.

25 November 1986Attorney General Edwin Meese announces that profits from the Iran sales were diverted to the Contras. North is fired and National Security Adviser John Poindexter resigns. North and his secretary, Fawn Hall, had already been shredding documents.

November to December 1986A Nicaraguan court sentences Hasenfus to 30 years. He is pardoned and sent home a month later.

26 February 1987The Tower Commission reports, criticising Reagan's detached management style.

4 March 1987Reagan addresses the nation.

May to August 1987Televised congressional hearings. North testifies in uniform and becomes a celebrity.

1987 to 1993Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh charges fourteen people. Eleven are convicted, but North's and Poindexter's convictions are overturned on appeal because their immunised testimony to Congress may have tainted their trials.

24 December 1992President George H. W. Bush, who had been Reagan's vice president, pardons six people, including former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger before his trial.

Key figures

Eugene Hasenfus was the man who survived the crash and made the secret operation impossible to deny. Oliver North ran the day-to-day operation. John Poindexter, his boss, testified that he approved the diversion and deliberately did not tell the president. CIA Director William Casey, whom many suspected knew more, died in May 1987 before he could testify. Lawrence Walsh spent nearly seven years investigating.

Ronald Reagan first denied trading arms for hostages, then admitted it:

A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not.

Physical and documentary trail

Iran-Contra is one of the best-documented conspiracies in American history, because it was proven. The Tower Commission report, the joint congressional committees' report of November 1987 and Walsh's final report of 1993 run to thousands of pages. Walsh found that senior officials had deliberately deceived Congress and the public, and that the cover-up reached above North.

What the paper does not settle is the question everyone asked: what did the president know? No document shows Reagan approving the diversion of money to the Contras, and Poindexter said he never told him. Many of the records that might have answered it were shredded in November 1986.

Things you might not know

• Thousands of missiles went to Iran. The listed shipments of TOW anti-tank missiles add up to more than 2,500, plus 18 Hawk anti-aircraft missiles and 240 Hawk spare parts.
• Fawn Hall hid papers in her boots. North's secretary smuggled classified documents out of the Old Executive Office Building in her boots and clothing.
• Reagan's approval crashed. A New York Times/CBS poll showed it falling from 67 to 46 percent in November 1986.
• He half-admitted it on television. In March 1987 Reagan said that his heart told him he had not traded arms for hostages, but "the facts and the evidence tell me it is not".
• Eleven were convicted, few were punished. Several convictions were overturned on appeal, including Poindexter's in 1991, and only one defendant served prison time.
• A Christmas Eve pardon ended it. On 24 December 1992 President George H. W. Bush pardoned five convicted officials and the former Defence Secretary Caspar Weinberger before his trial.

Competing explanations

A rogue operation. The administration's early line: a few NSC staffers went too far without the president's knowledge. The hearings showed North did not act alone, and Walsh's report rejected this reading.

A policy carried out in secret. The Contra aid and the hostage deals were things the White House wanted, done through private cutouts because Congress had closed the official route. This is where most historians land.

A wider cover-up reaching the top. Walsh believed senior officials, including Weinberger, hid what they knew. The pardons ended those cases before they reached a jury.

Later life of the case

Iran-Contra left lasting marks: North later became a radio host and head of the National Rifle Association, and several figures pardoned or convicted returned to government. Investigations into the Contra network's links to cocaine trafficking, including the Kerry Committee report of 1989 and Gary Webb's 1996 "Dark Alliance" series, kept the case alive for a new generation.

Finding

This one is proven. The US government secretly sold weapons to Iran, used the money and a private network to arm the Contras against a law passed by Congress, and lied about it. A cargo plane shot down over Nicaragua is what brought it into the open.

What still will not resolve: exactly how much Ronald Reagan knew about the diversion. The documents that might have shown it went through North's shredder in November 1986.