Iran–Contra affair

In November 1986 Americans learned that officials of Ronald Reagan's administration had secretly sold weapons to Iran, a country the United States officially treated as a sponsor of terrorism, in the hope of freeing American hostages in Lebanon. It soon emerged that some of the profits had been passed to the Contras, rebels fighting Nicaragua's left-wing Sandinista government, despite a congressional ban on such aid. The resulting scandal, known as the Iran–Contra affair, led to years of investigations, criminal trials and presidential pardons, and raised lasting questions about the limits of executive power.

After the Iranian Revolution and the seizure of the US embassy in Tehran in 1979, the United States imposed an arms embargo on Iran, and from 1983 it pressed other countries not to supply Iran either. Yet Iran, at war with Iraq since 1980, badly needed spare parts for its American-made arsenal, and some officials argued that refusing to sell would push it towards the Soviet Union.

At the same time, the Reagan administration was determined to support the Contras against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. Congress, through the Boland Amendments passed between 1982 and 1984, restricted and then banned US government aid to the rebels. Officials of the National Security Council responded by setting up a supposedly private network, known as "the Enterprise" and run by the retired air force officer Richard Secord, to keep the Contras supplied.

In 1985 National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane, backed by the CIA director William Casey but opposed by Secretary of State George Shultz and Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, pursued an opening to Iran through Israel and the Iranian middleman Manucher Ghorbanifar. Iran was to use its influence with Hezbollah, which held seven American hostages in Lebanon. In August and September 1985 Israel shipped more than 500 US-made TOW anti-tank missiles to Iran, and a hostage, the Reverend Benjamin Weir, was freed; Hawk anti-aircraft missiles followed in November.

After McFarlane resigned in December 1985, his successor John Poindexter and the NSC staff officer Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North took over. North proposed selling arms to Iran directly at a mark-up and channelling part of the proceeds to the Contras. More shipments followed in 1986 and further hostages were released, but new Americans were kidnapped in Lebanon.

On 3 November 1986 the Lebanese magazine Ash-Shiraa revealed the dealings. The Contra supply network had also been exposed when one of its cargo planes was shot down over Nicaragua and a surviving crewman captured. On 13 November Reagan told the nation on television that the United States had not traded arms for hostages. Late in November North and his secretary shredded and hid documents. On 25 November Attorney General Edwin Meese announced that money from the Iran sales had gone to the Contras; Poindexter resigned and North was dismissed.

The Tower Commission, appointed by Reagan, reported in February 1987 that the president had not known the extent of the operation but had failed to control his staff. On 4 March 1987 Reagan accepted responsibility on television, conceding that the initiative had deteriorated into trading arms for hostages. A congressional report in November 1987 said that the president bore ultimate responsibility for his aides' wrongdoing. Reagan's approval rating fell sharply, from 67 to 46 per cent, though it later recovered. How much he knew remains disputed.

The independent counsel, Lawrence Walsh, appointed in December 1986, indicted several dozen people, and eleven convictions resulted. The convictions of North and Poindexter were overturned on appeal because their trials may have been tainted by testimony they had given to Congress under immunity. On 24 December 1992, President George H. W. Bush, who had been Reagan's vice-president, pardoned six people, including Weinberger before his trial and McFarlane. Walsh condemned the pardons and accused senior officials of a pattern of deception and obstruction. Only one defendant ever served a prison sentence.

Our 1985 map shows the United States, Iran and Nicaragua as they were when the affair was unfolding, during the Iran–Iraq War.