The Iran Contra Affair

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Covert Wars Unraveled through the Iran Contra Scandal

Michelle Ewens

November 1, 2010
Covert wars operated by the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States have

enabled much of the expansion of American government throughout the world in the twentieth

century. These wars have impacted the lives of Americans in a number of ways. The effects of

terrorism are felt by Americans today as US civil liberties are being taken away to counter

terrorism. This paper will focus on how terrorism became the new method to enable US

expansion across the globe and how the American people are affected by it.

The CIA’s employments of rebel armies are portrayed as Freedom Fighters in the US, but

the tactics that they used to dismantle foreign governments are the same terrorist tactics which

many Americans condemn as criminal behavior. The Iran Contra scandal which took place in

1986 received much media attention (McGraw-Hill, 2006). This even sheds some light on how

covert war operations have been employed in such places as Nicaragua, Iran, Afghanistan, and

El Salvador. Examining the Iran Contra event will also reveal how some of the covert wars were

being operated without public knowledge.

The term "Contra" comes from the Spanish la contra, short for la contrarrevolución. It

translates as “counter-revolution”. After Ronald Reagan was elected President of the US in

1981, the Contra Alliance received much financial assistance from the Pentagon. In 1982,

Reagan signed the top secret National Security Decision Directive 17 (NSDD-17) which

allocated 19 million dollars to recruit the Contras in Nicaragua (Cockburn, 1988). The contras

were recruited to fight the Sandinistas. The Sandinistas ruled Nicaragua from 1979-1990. The
party is named after Augusto César Sandino who led the Nicaraguan resistance against the

United States occupation of Nicaragua in the 1930s. Considered as extreme leftists by the US

government, the Sandinistas devoted resources to improving the quality of life of the Nicaraguan

citizen. They also increased funds to healthcare industry and promoted gender equality. Many

Nicaraguan women fought for the Sandinista rebel armies which quickly transformed the

traditional gender roles of women. The Reagan administration claimed that the Sandinista

women were not free or liberated. In the spirit of freedom, the US waged a war against the

government of Nicaragua by creating a civil war to dismantle the country.

The Contras were employed to remove the Sandinistas from government. The United

States also used other covert psychological operations in destabilizing Nicaragua and waging an

informational war against the government. “These tactics involved paying off journalists,

planting disinformation and propaganda, and influencing international coverage of the country.

As one U.S. official admitted, the media war in Nicaragua sought to “demonize the Sandinista

government” in order to “turn it into a real enemy and threat” (Robinson, p. 77, 1992).

The US accused the Sandinistas foreign intervention for providing weapons to El

Salvador and Iran. El Salvador was in the middle of a civil war which the CIA was funding to

rebel armies in Honduras. The CIA distributed to the Nicaraguan citizens “The Freedom

Fighter’s Manual” as propaganda to create animosity toward the Sandinistas. This manual gave

directions on how to make bombs from household materials, and encouraged people to vandalize

government property. The Reagan administration claimed that the manual aimed to persuade the

contras to use terror in a less random, more calculated fashion.


In 1984, the CIA released another manual for the freedom fighters which was titled,

"Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare". The manual advocated deliberate acts of

terrorism on civilians. One section spoke of hiring professional criminals for some activities.

Another discussed the creation of "martyrs" by arranging the death of the contras' own men.

Other sections dealt with the selective use of violence, as in assassinating Sandinista officials to

intimidate village populations. Other sections dealt with the selective use of violence, as in

assassinating Sandinista officials to intimidate village populations (CIA, 1984).

Reagan allowed the CIA to support the Contras in hopes that they would

overthrow the Sandinistas. The Sandinistas condemned the Contras as terrorists, and human

rights organizations expressed serious concerns about the nature and frequency of Contra attacks

on civilians. Americas Watch, a human-rights group, accused the Contras in 1985 of crimes

against unarmed women and children. “In March 1985, the International Human Rights Law

Group submitted a report based on 145 sworn statements from Nicaraguans showing the Contras

guilty of a pattern of brutality against largely unarmed civilians, including rape, torture,

kidnappings, mutilation and other abuses” (Bovard, 2004). Concerned that the war could be

depicted as another Vietnam, Reagan claimed that the freedom fighters were battling in the spirit

of the American Founding Fathers. (McGraw-Hill, p.953, 2006). The war ended in 1990 when

the Contras overthrew the Sandinistas. The change in government resulted in the drastic

reduction or suspension of all Nicaraguan social programs, which brought back the burdens

characteristic of pre-revolutionary Nicaragua.

In 1982, Congress passed the Boland Agreement which forbade the CIA from funding the

Contras either directly or indirectly (Mcgraw-Hill, p 953, 2006). The Reagan administration
defied Congress and continued to back the Contras by raising money from foreign allies and

covertly selling arms to Iran. This event will later be known as the Iran Contra Scandal. In

1979, the Shah of Iran was believed to be a US puppet who served American interests. The U.S.

supplied weapons, training, and technical knowledge that aided the Shah in modernizing his

country. However, the Shah ruled as a dictator and used his secret police, to terrorize those who

opposed him. The Iranians rebelled against him to overthrow the government. The US offered

the Shah safe haven in America. Iranians demanded that he be returned to Iran to face trial for

treason amongst other crimes against humanity. When the US denied them their request, Iranian

students took 66 Americans hostage and demanded that the Shah be returned. The hostages were

released almost two years later, spawning a criminal investigation into the Reagan administration

broken agreement to uphold the Boland Amendment (Bryne, 1999).

Oliver North came into the public spotlight as a result of his participation in the Iran-

Contra affair. He was reportedly responsible for the establishment of a covert network used for

the purposes of assisting the Contras. According to the National Security Archive, he sent an e-

mail to John Poindexter in which he described a meeting with a representative of Panamanian

President Manuel Noriega: "You will recall that over the years Manuel Noriega in Panama and I

have developed a fairly good relationship", North writes before explaining Noriega's proposal. If

U.S. officials can "help clean up his image" and lift the ban on arms sales to the Panamanian

Defense Force, Noriega will "'take care of' the Sandinista leadership for us" (Bryne, 1999).

North was fired by President Ronald Reagan, and in July 1987 he was summoned to

testify before televised hearings of a joint Congressional committee formed to investigate Iran-

Contra. During the hearings, North admitted that he had lied to Congress, for which he was later
charged among other things. He defended his actions by stating that he believed in the goal of

aiding the Contras, whom he saw as freedom fighters, and said that he viewed the Iran-Contra

scheme as a good idea. Oliver North, who later became referred to as “Ollie”, was caught on

tape laughing about the scheme as he spoke to an Iranian arms dealer on the telephone. National

Security Advisor Robert McFarlane also assisted North with this plan to get around the Boland

Amendment. McFarlane told Saudi Arabia about their need to continue to aid the Contras

covertly and received $30 million in Swiss bank accounts from them as well (Mcgraw-Hill, p.

954, 2006). North was tried in 1988 in relation to his activities while at the National Security

Council. He was indicted on sixteen felony counts and on May 4, 1989, he was initially

convicted of three: accepting an illegal gratuity, aiding and abetting in the obstruction of a

congressional inquiry, and destruction of documents. He was sentenced on July 5, 1989, to a

three-year suspended prison term, two years probation, $150,000 in fines, and 1,200 hours

community service. North was later acquitted on all charges in 1991 (Isenberg, 1999).

Reagan’s silence throughout the scandal caused the American public to become

suspicious and distrustful of government. When the President finally broke his silence about

why he had defied the Boland Amendment he said, “I let my personal concern for the hostages

spill over into the geo- political strategy of reaching out to Iran. I asked so many questions about

the hostages' welfare that I didn't ask enough about the specifics of the total Iran plan”

(Reagan, 1987). The hostages were released during the month that Reagan took office as

President in 1980. The scandal was diffused after his speech in 1987 and the matter was closed.

During the same year that the CIA released the freedom fighting manuals, Soviet forces

in Afghanistan were on the verge of winning their war in Afghanistan. The Reagan
administration had been aiding the rebel armies in Afghanistan and funneled more than $2 billion

in guns and money to the Mujahidin. “It was the largest covert action program since World War

II. Former CIA director Robert Gates said that the U.S. provoked the December 1979 Soviet

intervention in Afghanistan by giving military assistance to the mujahedeen” (Gates, p. 57 1997).

The CIA’s Afghan war was very similar to its covert war against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.

Both sets of contras used terror tactics to attack literacy programs, schools, health clinics, co-ops

and other social and economic programs of the government. Both contras were also heavily

involved in the drug trade. The anti-Sandinista contras financed much of their terror by moving

cocaine into the U.S., while the Afghan contras grew opium for heroine production and trade.

The Reagan administration encountered little opposition to its policy of aiding the

Afghan rebels. Congress tripled Reagan's original request for funding to the Afghan rebels by

approving more than $250 million a year, over 80 percent of the CIA's annual covert war

operations. In the war in Afghanistan there was a clear enemy so the public overwhelmingly

approved of it. “The CIA not only tolerated but assisted the growth of drug-financed anti-

Communist assets, to offset the danger of Communist Chinese penetration into Southeast Asia”

(Scott, 2010). The Islamic "jihad" was supported by the United States and

Saudi Arabia with a significant part of the funding generated from the Golden Crescent drug

trade. In March 1985, President Reagan signed National Security Decision Directive 166 which

authorized covert military aid to the mujahedeen in order to defeat Soviet troops in Afghanistan.

The new covert U.S. assistance began with a dramatic increase in arms supplies. There the CIA

specialists met with Pakistani intelligence officers to help plan operations for the Afghan rebels.

The Pakistan-Afghanistan borders became the world's top heroin producer, supplying
most of the US demands.  “The Taliban's share of the Afghan opium economy is variously

estimated from $90 to $400 million.  But the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)

estimates that the total Afghan annual earnings from opium and heroin are in the order of from

$2.8 to $3.4 billion” (Scott, 2010). CIA assets again controlled this drug trade. As the

Mujahideen guerrillas seized territory inside Afghanistan, they ordered peasants to plant opium

as a revolutionary tax. While the CIA was heavily involved in drug trafficking in other parts of

the globe, a war on drugs in the US had just been declared by the Reagan administration. Much

of the history of US covert war is shrouded in mystery and contradictions. The Iran Contra affair

brought attention to what was happening in the world by interrupting the American television

shows with footage of Oliver North in court. This seemed to be the extent to which most

Americans were affected by this event at the time. However, the dominoes had been pushed and

to this day Americans see the effect of how terrorism can infiltrate their daily lives. Perhaps this

is just another psychological weapon against citizens to encourage them to support the wars

abroad while reducing the likelihood that American citizens will stand up one day and speak out

against imperialism. So far it appears as if the media outlets are controlling what Americans

know, and keeping them distracted.

Psychological warfare was carried out in Afghanistan in the same way that the Contras

were trained in guerrilla warfare. The CIA financed and trained the Taliban to assist them in

overthrowing the Soviets. Most Americans are not aware of the secret imperialistic wars that the

US wages in the name of freedom and liberty. The absurd reality is harder to believe than what

is accepted as truth by most Americans. Terrorism against citizens can be delivered as lies to the
people to keep them uninformed from making decisions which could change the politics of the

world.

References

Bovard, James. 2004. The future of freedom foundation. Terrorism debacles in the

Reagan administration. Retrieved on October 25, 2010 from

http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0406c.pdf

Bryne, Malcome. 1999. National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 21.

Twenty years after the hostages: declassified documents on Iran and the United States.
Retrieved on October 30, 2010 from
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB21/index.html

CIA. 1994. Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare. Retrieved on October 30,


2010 from http://www.scribd.com/doc/6138790/CIA-TEXTBOOKPsychological-
Operations-In-Guerrilla-Warfare-
Gates, Robert. 1997. From the shadows: The ultimate insider’s story of five Presidents & how
they won the cold war. Retrieved on November 1, 2010 from
http://books.google.com/books?
id=N_hfPrIMYuEC&printsec=frontcover&dq=gates+the+ultimate+insiders+story+of+ho
w+the+presidents+won+the+cold+war&source=bl&ots=oNzoCt2dN&sig=dQWXtnSV4
0OPl1uah06RacemL3Y&hl=en&ei=c5jPTLPqLI7WtQPi2rmtAw&sa=X&oi=book_resul
t&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CCgQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=largest%20covert
%20operation%20since%20WWII&f=false

Grove/Atlantic. 1985. The Freedom Fighters Manual. Retrieved on November 1, 2010


from http://www.ballistichelmet.org/school/free.html

COVERT WARS 11

References

Isenberg, David. 1999. Policy Analysis. The pitfalls of US covert operations. Cato policy
analysis number 118. Retrieved on October 31, 2010 from
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/PA118.HTM

McGraw-Hill. 2006. Nation of Nations. 4th edition. Davidson, J, Delay, B, Heyrman, C, Lytle,

M, & Stoff, M. a narrative history of the American republic. Boston, MA

Reagan, Ronald. 1987. Public speech. Retrieved on October 29, 2010 from

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reagan/filmmore/reference/primary/irancontra.html

Scott, Peter Dale. 2010. History News Network. Opium, the CIA and the Karzai

Administration Retrieved on November 1, 2010 from http://hnn.us/articles/125230.html

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