Editing Iran–Contra affair (section)

==Discovery and scandal==
<!-- How about something on the U.S. media's reaction to the story, and how popular the story was in the media? Since Arab magazine reported the story, it would make sense to add something on the U.S. media -->
After a leak by [[Mehdi Hashemi]], a senior official in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Lebanese magazine ''[[Ash-Shiraa]]'' exposed the arrangement on 3 November 1986.<ref name="Why arms dealings failed">{{cite web |last=Cave |first=George |title=Why Secret 1986 U.S.–Iran "Arms for Hostages" Negotiations Failed |date=8 September 1994 |publisher=Washington Report on Middle Eastern Affairs |access-date=9 January 2007 |url=http://www.wrmea.com/backissues/0994/9409008.htm |archive-date=7 July 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060707232328/http://www.wrmea.com/backissues/0994/9409008.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> According to [[Seymour Hersh]], an unnamed former military officer told him that the leak may have been orchestrated by a covert team led by [[Arthur S. Moreau Jr.]], assistant to the chair of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, due to fears the scheme had grown out of control.<ref>{{cite journal |url=https://www.lrb.co.uk/v41/n02/seymour-m-hersh/the-vice-presidents-men |title=The Vice President's Men |last=Hersh |first=Seymour M. |year=2019 |journal=London Review of Books |volume=41 |issue=2 |pages=9–12 |access-date=18 January 2019 |archive-date=17 January 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190117184028/https://www.lrb.co.uk/v41/n02/seymour-m-hersh/the-vice-presidents-men |url-status=live }}</ref>

This was the first public report of the weapons-for-hostages deal. The operation was discovered only after an airlift of guns ([[Corporate Air Services HPF821]]) was downed over Nicaragua. [[Eugene Hasenfus]], who was captured by Nicaraguan authorities after surviving the plane crash, initially alleged in a press conference on Nicaraguan soil that two of his coworkers, Max Gomez and Ramon Medina, worked for the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]].<ref name=nyt-has1>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1986/10/12/weekinreview/in-summary-nicaragua-downs-plane-and-survivor-implicates-cia.html |title=Nicaragua Downs Plane and Survivor Implicates C.I.A. |work=The New York Times |date=12 October 1986 |edition=National |page=4004001 |access-date=20 January 2019 |archive-date=19 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180719054836/https://www.nytimes.com/1986/10/12/weekinreview/in-summary-nicaragua-downs-plane-and-survivor-implicates-cia.html |url-status=live }}</ref> He later said he did not know whether they did or not.<ref name=nyt-has2>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1986/11/03/world/hasenfus-tempers-comments-on-cia.html |title=Hasenfus Tempers Comments on C.I.A. |work=The New York Times |date=3 November 1986 |edition=National |at=sec. A. p. 6 |access-date=20 January 2019 |archive-date=19 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180719054743/https://www.nytimes.com/1986/11/03/world/hasenfus-tempers-comments-on-cia.html |url-status=live }}</ref> The Iranian government confirmed the ''Ash-Shiraa'' story, and, 10 days after the story was first published, President Reagan appeared on national television from the [[Oval Office]] on 13 November, stating:

<blockquote>My purpose was [...] to send a signal that the United States was prepared to replace the animosity between [the US and Iran] with a new relationship [...]. At the same time we undertook this initiative, we made clear that Iran must oppose all forms of international terrorism as a condition of progress in our relationship. The most significant step which Iran could take, we indicated, would be to use its influence in Lebanon to secure the release of all hostages held there.<ref name=reaganspeech /></blockquote>

The scandal was compounded when [[Oliver North]] destroyed or hid pertinent documents between 21 November and 25 November 1986. During North's trial in 1989, his secretary, [[Fawn Hall]], testified extensively about helping North alter and shred official US National Security Council (NSC) documents from the White House. According to ''The New York Times'', enough documents were put into a government shredder to jam it.{{sfn|Walsh|1993|loc=vol. I}} Hall also testified that she smuggled classified documents out of the [[Eisenhower Executive Office Building|Old Executive Office Building]] by concealing them in her boots and dress.<ref name="wapo87">{{Cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/tours/scandal/fawnhall.htm |title=washingtonpost.com: Hall Testifies of Necessity 'To Go Above Written Law'<!-- Bot generated title --> |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |access-date=20 January 2021 |archive-date=28 January 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210128070311/https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/tours/scandal/fawnhall.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> North's explanation for destroying some documents was to protect the lives of individuals involved in Iran and [[Contras|Contra]] operations.{{sfn|Walsh|1993|loc=vol. I}} It was not until 1993, years after the trial, that North's notebooks were made public, and only after the [[National Security Archive]] and [[Public Citizen]] sued the [[United States Office of the Independent Counsel|Office of the Independent Counsel]] under the [[Freedom of Information Act (United States)|Freedom of Information Act]].{{sfn|Walsh|1993|loc=vol. I}}

{{Quote box
 |class     = <!-- Advanced users only. See the "Custom classes" section below. -->
 |title     = The diversion of funds is revealed
 |quote     = What is involved is that in the course of the arms transfers, which involved the United States providing the arms to Israel and Israel in turn transferring the arms -- in effect, selling the arms to representatives of Iran. Certain monies which were received in the transaction between representatives of Israel and representatives of Iran were taken and made available to the forces in Central America, which are opposing the Sandinista government there.<ref>{{cite news |author=<!--not stated--> |date=November 26, 1986 |title=Transcript of Attorney General Meese's News Conference |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1986/11/26/transcript-of-attorney-general-meeses-news-conference/10941dd7-8a11-47dc-b7b0-5da392366f50/ |newspaper=The Washington Post |access-date=April 23, 2023}}</ref>
 |author    = – [[United States Attorney General|U.S. Attorney General]] [[Edwin Meese]] 
 |source    = White House news conference on November 25, 1986 
 |align     = right
 |width     = 25%
 |border    = 
 |fontsize  = 
 |bgcolor   = 
 |style     = 
 |title_bg  = 
 |title_fnt = 
 |tstyle    = 
 |qalign    = 
 |qstyle    = 
 |quoted    = 
 |salign    = 
 |sstyle    = 
}}

During the trial, North testified that on 21, 22 or 24 November, he witnessed Poindexter destroy what may have been the only signed copy of a presidential covert-action finding that sought to authorize CIA participation in the November 1985 [[MIM-23 Hawk|Hawk missile]] shipment to Iran.{{sfn|Walsh|1993|loc=vol. I}} [[United States Attorney General|U.S. Attorney General]] [[Edwin Meese]] admitted on 25 November that profits from weapons sales to Iran were made available to assist the Contra rebels in Nicaragua. On the same day, John Poindexter resigned, and President Reagan fired Oliver North.<ref name=sacking>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1986/11/26/world/white-house-shake-up-task-handed-state-dept-poindexter-north-have-limited.html |title=Poindexter and North Have Limited Options |work=The New York Times |date=26 November 1986 |edition=National |at=sec. A. p. 12 |access-date=20 January 2019 |archive-date=29 June 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190629151545/https://www.nytimes.com/1986/11/26/world/white-house-shake-up-task-handed-state-dept-poindexter-north-have-limited.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Poindexter was replaced by [[Frank Carlucci]] on 2 December 1986.<ref name="Timeline">{{cite web|title=Timeline of Ronald Reagan's life|publisher=PBS|year=2000|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reagan/timeline/index_5.html|access-date=7 June 2008|archive-date=21 April 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100421212207/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reagan/timeline/index_5.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>

When the story broke, many legal and constitutional scholars expressed dismay that the NSC, which was supposed to be just an advisory body to assist the President with formulating foreign policy, had "gone operational" by becoming an executive body covertly executing foreign policy on its own.{{sfn|Canham-Clyne|1992|pp=623–624}} The [[National Security Act of 1947]], which created the NSC, gave it the vague right to perform "such other functions and duties related to the intelligence as the National Security Council may from time to time direct."{{sfn|Canham-Clyne|1992|p=623}} However, the NSC had usually, although not always, acted as an advisory agency until the Reagan administration when the NSC had "gone operational", a situation that was condemned by both the Tower Commission and by Congress as a departure from the norm.{{sfn|Canham-Clyne|1992|p=623}} The American historian John Canham-Clyne asserted that the Iran–Contra affair and the NSC "going operational" were not departures from the norm, but were the logical and natural consequence of the existence of the "national security state", the plethora of shadowy government agencies with multi-million dollar budgets operating with little oversight from Congress, the courts or the media, and for whom upholding national security justified almost everything.{{sfn|Canham-Clyne|1992|p=623}} Canham-Clyne argued that for the "national security state", the law was an obstacle to be surmounted rather than something to uphold and that the Iran–Contra affair was just "business as usual", something he asserted that the media missed by focusing on the NSC having "gone operational."{{sfn|Canham-Clyne|1992|p=623}}

In ''Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA 1981–1987'', journalist [[Bob Woodward]] chronicled the role of the CIA in facilitating the transfer of funds from the Iran arms sales to the Nicaraguan Contras spearheaded by Oliver North. According to Woodward, then-Director of the CIA [[William J. Casey]] admitted to him in February 1987 that he was aware of the diversion of funds to the Contras.{{sfn|Woodward|1987|p=580}} The controversial admission occurred while Casey was hospitalized for a [[stroke]], and, according to his wife, was unable to communicate. On 6 May 1987, William Casey died the day after Congress began public hearings on Iran–Contra. Independent Counsel [[Lawrence Walsh]] later wrote: "Independent Counsel obtained no documentary evidence showing Casey knew about or approved the diversion. The only direct testimony linking Casey to early knowledge of the diversion came from [Oliver] North."{{sfn|Walsh|1993|loc=chpt. 15}} Gust Avrakodos, who was responsible for the arms supplies to the Afghans at this time, was aware of the operation as well and strongly opposed it, in particular the diversion of funds allotted to the Afghan operation. According to his Middle Eastern experts, the operation was pointless because the moderates in Iran were not in a position to challenge the fundamentalists. However, he was overruled by Clair George.<ref>{{cite book |last=Crile |first=George |year=2003 |title=Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of How the Wildest Man in Congress and a Rogue CIA Agent Changed the History |publisher=Grove Press}}</ref>