Meese Exposes Iran-Contra: Illegal Arms Deal Revealed

Attorney General Edwin Meese walked into a White House press briefing on November 25, 1986, and revealed a secret that would consume the final two years of Ronald Reagan's presidency. Profits from covert arms sales to Iran had been illegally funneled to the Contra rebels fighting Nicaragua's Sandinista government. Congress had explicitly banned such aid. The Iran-Contra affair was the most serious presidential scandal since Watergate. The operation had two explosive components. First, the Reagan administration secretly sold weapons to Iran through Israeli intermediaries, hoping to secure the release of American hostages held by Iranian-backed militants in Lebanon. This contradicted Reagan's public pledge never to negotiate with terrorists. Second, National Security Council staffer Oliver North diverted between $12 million and $30 million from the arms sales to fund the Contras, circumventing the Boland Amendment that Congress passed specifically to prohibit such aid. Reagan initially claimed total ignorance. His detractors found this either dishonest or alarming, suggesting either a president who lied or one who had lost control of his national security apparatus. The Tower Commission concluded that Reagan had failed in his management responsibilities. Congressional hearings in the summer of 1987 made Oliver North a household name as he testified in uniform, simultaneously admitting to shredding documents and wrapping himself in patriotic rhetoric. Fourteen administration officials were indicted. North's conviction was overturned on a technicality. Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and five others were pardoned by President George H.W. Bush on Christmas Eve 1992. The affair exposed the dangers of unchecked executive power in foreign policy and demonstrated how easily covert operations could evade democratic oversight.