The Iran-Contra affair is one of the most significant scandals in modern American political history. At its core, the scandal revolves around secretive arms deals with Iran and the diversion of funds to support anti-Sandinista forces in Nicaragua, known as the Contras. However, beneath the surface of these covert operations belies a history of executive powers overstepping their responsibilities, carrying out clandestine policies behind the back of Congress. Despite the seemingly systematic roots of the affair, the Iran-Contra scandal is more widely understood as an aberrant incident without subsequent reforms. Through obstructing the production of evidence, the Reagan administration was able to obscure its involvement in operations and portray the scandal as the work of rogue officials, which prevented investigations from examining structural causes. Political pressures further diverted attention away from the affair's systematic issues, fixating instead on assigning political blame. As a result no reforms were made.
Plausible Deniability
From the outset, the Iran-Contra orchestrators purposefully shielded officials from details to set up deniability against potential exposure if the scandal were to become public. Following the passage of the Boland Amendments which prohibited direct government support for the Contras, Reagan directed Mcfarlane, the then National Security Officer, to keep the Contras alive “body and soul”. Interpreting Reagan’s directive as “an invitation to break the law”, Mcfarlane proceeded to break down interagency processes, cutting communication with Congress and the Departments of State and Defense. His successor, Poindexter continued Mcfarlane’s policy of isolation, refraining from debriefing Reagan and other officials, aiming to safeguard their reputation in case the operation became public knowledge.
Indeed Poindexter would later tell Congress that he believed the president “would have approved the decision had I asked him”, but chose not to inform the President as, “The cost of failure was high, the bureaucracy is not willing to endorse high risk operations, because [of] the fear of the...the resulting harangue. Therefore, … don’t make those kind[s] of hard options available to the President”. Poindexter even excluded the CIA director, William Casey from knowledge of his plans when Casey was expected to testify before Congress, and took various other precautions to convolute officials' connection to the affair. In ensuing investigations, the Independent Counsel investigations described the entire operation as “informal” because “meetings among N.S.C. principals', ' lacked “prior notice”, and had no “minutes … kept” or “decisions taken by the President… recorded”. From the start, administrators were prepared to cover up the Iran Contra operations as a deviant occasion of officials failing to observe laws; removing the affair from its historical context as the latest episode in a series of executive overreaches.
Sanitizing the Record
When the Iran-Contra Affair publically surfaced, Reagan administration officials strengthened the President's plausible deniability by obstructing the production of evidence. In response to the media frenzy over the scandal, Attorney General Meese was tasked by Reagan to develop a consistent story to answer public questions. Disguised as conducting an investigation through the Justice Department, Meese’s inquiry was “more of a damage-control exercise than an effort to find the facts”. Meese chose not to work with appropriate government agencies like the FBI; instead, he conducted informal "interrogations'' and collected evidence haphazardly. In his interview with Lieutenant Oliver North, a subordinate of Poindexter, Meese was uninterested in uncovering details of the affair, instead more concerned about disputing North’s understanding of the president’s involvement. North believed that “W(ith)/R(onald) R(eagan), it always came back to hostages. Drawn to linkage. Terrible mistake to say R(onald) R(eagan) wanted the strategic relationship because R(onald) R(eagan) wanted the hostages”, which Poindexter corrected with “He R(onald) R(eagan)talked about both- if just relationship, [he would] not agree [to] arms”. This was similar to his discussions with Secretary of State Schultz, where Meese asked leading questions to direct Schultz to the conclusion that Regan “remembers very little”. Meese’s primary motive behind his interviews were to convince individuals involved within the scandal to downplay Reagan’s involvement.
Throughout the investigation there was also no attempt to secure evidence, which provided North the opportunity to shred and alter multiple incriminating documents. When later questioned for his lackadaisical practices, Meese astonishingly responded that he believed most of the documents North had gotten rid of had “no relationship” to the affair and were “irrelevant”, despite having days earlier uncovering damning papers in North’s office that detailed the diversion of funds to the Contras. As a result, some of the most critical documents towards understanding the affair were destroyed. Documents part of the NSC system IV channel, a filing system that stored highly sensitive material, was tampered with, and over the course of a week, numerous documents were lost. The culmination of the Administration's document destruction and the plausible deniability created for Reagan effectively derailed investigations. Senator Nunn expressed his frustration to a reporter, stating, "There is tremendous circumstantial evidence that [Reagan] knew, but there is no direct evidence". Indeed, with “various notes that appear to be missing”, the Tower Commision report was unable to find any criminal undertakings by Reagan, concluding that “no serious effort appears to have been made to come grips with the risks to the President of direct N.S.C. support for the Contras in the face of Congressional restrictions''.
Instead, the commission identified the affair as the fault of “L(ieutenan)t Col(onel) North (and) V(ice)ADM(iral) Poindexter'' whose “operation functioned largely outside the orbit of the U.S. Government”. While North and Poindexter were certainly complicit in the affair, they were ultimately scapegoats, with their roles within operations overemphasized. The day prior to their resignation, Chief of Staff Donald Reagan recorded the following notes during a meeting discussing the Administration’s plan to contain political fallout; “Tough as it seems, blame must be put at NSC’s door - (it is a) rogue operation, going on without (the) President's knowledge or sanction”. In trials, Poindexter assumed responsibility, explicitly denying other Administrative involvement, "I made the decision. I believed I had the authority to do so. I deemed it a wise course of action. I was confident that the president would ultimately approve”.
Scapegoating public officials was possibly the greatest detriment to efforts at reform. It led the affair to be mischaracterized as an isolated incident resulting from the actions of rogue officials within agencies. As a result, recommended reforms were focused on increasing individual accountability. The report suggested Reagan to “communicate unambiguously to his subordinates that they must keep him advised of important actions they take for the Administration. But this advice ignores Reagan's administrative failure in defying congressional decisions and encouraging illegal behavior through vague but leading statements. And while the report did acknowledge that Reagan “set the stage for illegal activities of others by encouraging and, in general terms, ordering support of the contras”, this claim was later dismissed when the report wrote “Reagan was deeply committed to securing the release of the hostages. It was the hostages that appeared to motivate his steadfast support”. The report ultimately failed to implicate its findings that the “president created or at least tolerated an environment [...] where those [...] believed with certainty that they were carrying out the President’s policies” to make a broader claim to restrict the larger issue of executive overreach.
Reagan’s administration also used the publicity of its scapegoats to misdirect conversations. North became a household name due to his dramatic testimonies using Biblical references “'Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” which glorified him as a hero fighting for justice. Such theatrical trials drowned out other aspects of the affair, as even North admits in his memoir, "this particular detail was so dramatic" and “so sexy that it might actually- well divert public attention from other, even more important aspects of the story, such as what else the President and his top advisors have known about and approve”. North and Poindexter also strategically timed when they revealed their information, to obstruct investigations while diverting focus away from Reagan. Dissatisfied with their behavior, Senator David Durenberger complained to reporters “there had been people who had been less than forthcoming deliberately”.
Political Interference
Even if the Reagan Administration had failed at hiding its connection to the affair, reforms would still have been sidelined by Congress’s priority to allocate blame in political terms. What the Democrats were most concerned about, was to "have congressional government for the next two years”, and less so about reform minded actions.
White House Communications Director Patrick Buchanan cautioned that Democrats were not “after the truth, they’re after Ronald Reagan”. The Congressional Committees' investigation was marred by compromises aimed at prematurely concluding hearings, truncating deadlines to exploit findings for partisan advantage in the upcoming presidential election. Unfortunately this reduced the efficacy of investigations. Senator William S. Cohen criticized deadlines for providing “a convenient stratagem for those who were determined not to cooperate” and was “critical leverage for the attorneys” especially given the slowness of the “administration” in getting out documents, and security clearances (Walsh 32). The committee was able to interview less witnesses, and had to shorten the length of testimonies (book).
Because the affair was viewed in terms of political gains, the senators elected onto the Congressional Committee’s investigations were mostly trial lawyers, instead of those familiar with administrative processes (Koh 1276). As a result, the Committee approached the investigation with a prosecutorial lens meant to convict members of Reagan’s administration and assign blame, which limited discussions to legal examinations of the conflict, instead of the ideological and institutional causes.
Moreover, since the Committee had members elected by both parties, partisanship within the Committee fractured investigative efforts, and eventually resulted in the Committee to split and create a minority and majority report (Busby 150). The two reports had differences of interpretation on the severity and meaning of the scandal. Such a lack of congruency allowed parties to pick and choose according to party affiliation which report to endorse, hindering a coherent discussion within Congress.
But the most important reason Congress was unwilling to address the systematic undercurrents of the Iran contra affair, was because it would require acknowledging its own failures. While the scandal primarily involved officials deceiving Congress, it was also congress’s fault to not exercise sufficient oversight. Throughout the duration of the Iran Contra Affair, Congress had the legal authority to monitor operations through the Intelligence Oversight Act, but neglected its duty (Kornbluh 134). Despite plenty of evidence that an illegal contra arms deal was underway even before the operation became public, Congress never properly wielded its administrative capabilities. For example in 1984 two helicopters supplied and piloted by the CIA were shot down in Nicaragua but was ignored by Congress when the Reagan Administration assured that there had been “absolutely no U.S. involvement, association, or sponsorship” (136). In 1985 when reports of contra aid reached newspapers, Congress sought clarification from Mcfarlane, the national security advisor. All it took was a statement from Mcfarlane, “at no time did I or any member of the National Security Council staff violate the letter or spirit of congressional restrictions”, for Congress to put off investigations (137). There was an obvious lack of effort by Congress to exercise its responsibilities- which produced the lenient environment for covert operations to take place. Thus to describe reforms, congress would first have to acknowledge its absence in committing to the oversight mechanisms endowed to it.
Unsurprisingly, congress members weren’t enthusiastic about incriminating themselves. Senators that did attempt to bring attention to congressional oversight were quickly denounced by their colleagues. Congressman George Brown resigned from the Committee after being criticized for speaking generally about covert operations (Kornbluh 150). Thus, when offered an easier route—to attribute fault to individuals and establish the illegality of the issue, which coincidentally aligned with their political interests—Congress opted to overlook the institutional and historical aspects of the affair, and was instead determined to evaluate the affair in select parameters that benefited them.
The Truth Behind Iran-Contra
The investigations into the Iran Contra Affair fell short because it treated the affair as an isolated incident of individual transgressions, leading to a narrow focus on prosecuting individuals involved. Instead, the Iran Contra Affair should be understood by drawing parallels with its historical equivalents. Had investigators done so, they would have seen recurring themes of executive overreach- and equally important a failure at congressional oversight.
During the 1970s, significant changes occurred within Congress due to the Vietnam War, leading to the enactment of statutes aimed at subjecting the President's delegated foreign affairs authority to procedural constraints. These included requirements for factual findings, public reporting, subsequent consultation, and legislative veto provisions. However it soon became apparent that officials were merely going through the motions to appease Congress, while withholding crucial information and processes. “They treat us like Mushrooms, Keep us in the dark and feed us a lot of manure” complained Senator Norman Mineta (Koh 1256). Indeed in the decades following the implementation of these accountability measures, multiple covert operations occurred behind Congress’s back, including the Tonkin Gulf Resolution during the Vietnam War, the Bay of Pigs Invasion, and Operation Northwoods. Congressional oversight only pushed operations underground.
Committee members responsible for overseeing executive behavior were also unreliable in upholding constitutional checks and balances. The allure of secrecy forced committee members into advocates rather than overseers. Harrington, part of the Congressional Committee responsible for overseeing executive decisions, lamented, “It starts with the pleasant of being privy to things unknown to the ordinary citizen, but it works very much like blackmail. The more you know about dubious secret operations, the more you are responsible for hiding, and the more you hide, the tighter the grip of the State Department, or the CIA or the Pentagon”. As a result, despite knowledge of a number of questionable operations, Congress stayed silent (Koh 1257).
The Congressional oversight as a system is fundamentally flawed. Executive branches can deceive congress and easily pursue covert operations, while Congressional overseers often succumb to coercion and become complicit in illegal undertakings. Which is why reforms must target the foundational aspects of covert operations. Perhaps the national security advisor shouldn’t have the capacity to conduct military operations. By denying intelligence agencies their ability to carry out their initiatives, there would be forced interagency coordination which could resolve the problem of secretive operations definitively.
Regrettably, such an opportunity for reform was squandered as political interests led to the mischaracterization of the scandal, resulting in lawmakers prescribing ineffective remedies.
Conclusion
When looking at the Iran-Contra affair, we encounter not just a scandal, but a gripping history of power, deception, and institutional failure. Its prominence among the public made the scandal an excellent opportunity for reform, however, such an opportunity was squandered as political interests led to the mischaracterization of the scandal, resulting in lawmakers prescribing ineffective remedies. Because policymakers failed at dismantling the institutional structures that encouraged illegal covert operations, Iran Contra will be far from the last incident of Executive overreach. Indeed, in the years that followed, we witnessed the emergence of further controversies, including NSA surveillance programs, the establishment of black sites, the use of enhanced interrogation techniques, and the practice of extraordinary rendition. Thus, the Iran-Contra affair stands as a reminder of the enduring challenges posed by unchecked executive power.
Works Referenced
Cover Image From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Contra_affair
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