WThe Iran–Contra affair, popularized in Iran as the McFarlane affair, the Iran–Contra scandal, or simply Iran–Contra, was a political scandal in the United States that occurred during the second term of the Reagan Administration. Senior administration officials secretly facilitated the sale of arms to the Khomeini government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which was the subject of an arms embargo. The administration hoped to use the proceeds of the arms sale to fund the Contras in Nicaragua. Under the Boland Amendment, further funding of the Contras by the government had been prohibited by Congress.
WThe 1980 Camarate air crash occurred on 4 December 1980 when a small private aircraft carrying Portuguese Prime Minister Francisco de Sá Carneiro and Defense Minister Adelino Amaro da Costa crashed in Camarate, Lisbon, Portugal. Initial investigations concluded the incident was an accident, but later parliamentary investigations found evidence of a bomb beneath the cockpit. After the 15-year statute of limitations took effect, several people came forward confessing involvement.
WElliott Abrams is an American politician and lawyer, who has served in foreign policy positions for Presidents Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump. Abrams is considered to be a neoconservative. He is currently a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. On January 25, 2019, he was appointed as Special Representative for Venezuela.
WCharles E. Allen is an American public servant, notable for his roles at the United States Department of Homeland Security's Office of Intelligence and Analysis and, before that, the Central Intelligence Agency.
WThe 1981 Armenia mid-air collision occurred on 18 July 1981 when a Soviet Air Defense Forces Sukhoi Su-15 crashed into the tail of a Transporte Aéreo Rioplatense Canadair CL-44 commercial transport which had strayed into Soviet airspace over the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic. The three crew and one passenger on the Argentine aircraft died; the Soviet pilot was able to eject to safety.
WWilliam Joseph Casey was the Director of Central Intelligence from 1981 to 1987. In this capacity he oversaw the entire United States Intelligence Community and personally directed the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
WA number of writers have alleged that the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was involved in the Nicaraguan Contras' cocaine trafficking operations during the 1980s Nicaraguan civil war. These claims have led to investigations by the United States government, including hearings and reports by the United States House of Representatives, Senate, Department of Justice, and the CIA's Office of the Inspector General which ultimately concluded the allegations were unsupported. The subject remains controversial.
WThomas Gregory Clines was a Central Intelligence Agency covert operations officer who was a prominent figure in the Iran-Contra Affair.
WThe Confederate Memorial Hall was a museum, library, and social club at 1322 Vermont Avenue, Washington, D.C.; it called itself "the Confederate Embassy". The brownstone that housed it, just off of Logan Circle, became a private residence in 1997. The Hall was owned by the Confederate Memorial Association.
WThe Contras were the various U.S.-backed and funded right-wing rebel groups that were active from 1979 to the early 1990s in opposition to the Marxist Sandinista Junta of National Reconstruction Government in Nicaragua. Among the separate contra groups, the Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN) emerged as the largest by far. In 1987, virtually all contra organizations were united, at least nominally, into the Nicaraguan Resistance.
WCorporate Air Services HPF821 was a transport aircraft delivering weapons via clandestine airdrop to the Nicaraguan Contras which was shot down over Nicaragua on 5 October 1986 by a surface-to-air missile. Two U.S. pilots, Wallace "Buzz" Sawyer and William Cooper, and the Nicaraguan Nationalists radio operator Freddy Vilches died when the Fairchild C-123 Provider was shot down by a Sandinista soldier using an SA-7 shoulder-launched missile, while Eugene Hasenfus, the U.S. "kicker" responsible for pushing the cargo out of the aircraft, survived by parachuting to safety. The aircraft was carrying "60 collapsible AK-47 rifles, 50,000 AK-47 rifle cartridges, several dozen RPG-7 grenade launchers and 150 pairs of jungle boots".
WEdwin Gharst Corr was a United States diplomat and served as a United States Ambassador to several Latin-American nations. Corr is from Norman, Oklahoma.
WRobert Earl was a United States Marine lieutenant colonel and a deputy to Oliver North at the National Security Agency during the early 1980s.
WFreeway Rick Ross: The Untold Autobiography is a 2014 memoir by former drug kingpin Rick Ross, co-authored by American crime writer Cathy Scott, about the rise and fall of Ross, in the 1980s and '90s, to his 2009 release from prison. The book was released by Freeway Studios in June 2014.
WRoy M. Furmark was a New York businessman who played a role in the Iran-Contra affair in a number of ways, including acting as a link between CIA Director William Casey and Saudi billionaire Adnan Khashoggi, who financed the arms deal at the center of the affair. In 1986 the Los Angeles Times reported that Furmark had known Casey and Khashoggi for about 20 years.
WRobert Michael Gates is an American intelligence analyst, and university president who served as the 22nd United States Secretary of Defense from 2006 to 2011. He was originally appointed by President George W. Bush and was retained for service by President Barack Obama. Gates began his career serving as an officer in the United States Air Force but was quickly recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Gates served for 26 years in the CIA and the National Security Council, and was Director of Central Intelligence under President George H. W. Bush. After leaving the CIA, Gates became president of Texas A&M University and was a member of several corporate boards. Gates served as a member of the Iraq Study Group, the bipartisan commission co-chaired by James A. Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton, that studied the lessons of the Iraq War.
WFawn Hall is a former secretary to Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North and a notable figure in the Iran-Contra affair by helping him shred confidential documents.
WCyrus Hashemi was an Iranian arms dealer linked to the Iran-Contra affair and October Surprise conspiracy theory. Hashemi was named by Robert Dreyfuss as a CIA and Mossad agent; Hashemi sued Dreyfuss and Lyndon LaRouche, whose Executive Intelligence Review had accused Hashemi of being linked to the alleged "funding of Iranian terrorism in the United States," with the case dismissed in June 1983 due to Hashemi's failure to respond to legal documents. Hashemi died from acute myeloblastic leukemia July 1986 in London.
WThe Kerry Committee report, formally titled Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy, was the final report of an investigation by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations. The report examined the problems that drug cartels and drug money laundering in South and Central America and the Caribbean posed for American law enforcement and foreign policy. The Sub-Committee was chaired at the time by Democratic Party Senator John Kerry from Massachusetts, so that the report is often referred to under his name.
WLegacy (1987) is a novel by American author James A. Michener. Set during the Iran–Contra affair of the 1980s, the story follows Major Norman Starr, who is called to testify in front of a congressional committee to account for his involvement in covert military actions. The novel is interspersed with historical "flashbacks" as Major Starr reflects on his ancestors and their own roles in American history.
WRobert Carl "Bud" McFarlane is a retired Marine Corps officer who served as National Security Advisor to President of the United States Ronald Reagan from 1983 through 1985.
WThe Republic of Nicaragua v. The United States of America (1986) was a case where the International Court of Justice (ICJ) held that the U.S. had violated international law by supporting the Contras in their rebellion against the Sandinistas and by mining Nicaragua's harbors. The case was decided in favor of Nicaragua and against the United States with the awarding of reparations to Nicaragua.
WThe Nightingale's Song is a 1995 book by Baltimore Sun journalist Robert Timberg. It relates the military and political careers of five graduates of the United States Naval Academy, most of whom served during the Vietnam War in either the United States Navy or United States Marine Corps: John McCain, Bud McFarlane, Oliver North, John Poindexter, and Jim Webb. Timberg himself was also a Naval Academy graduate and served in Vietnam with the Marine Corps, where he was badly wounded.
WAmiram Nir was an Israeli journalist. He had also been a terrorism advisor to two Israeli prime ministers, and played a role in the Iran-Contra Affair. He married Judy Shalom Nir-Mozes in 1982.
WOliver Laurence North is an American political commentator, television host, military historian, author, and retired United States Marine Corps lieutenant colonel.
WIsrael's role in the Iran–Iraq war consisted of support provided by Israel to Iran during the Iran–Iraq War from 1980 to 1988. During the war, Israel was one of the main suppliers of military equipment to Iran. Israel also provided military instructors during the war and direct support to Iran's war effort, when it bombed and destroyed Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor, during Operation Opera. The nuclear reactor was a central component of Iraq's nuclear weapons program.
WJohn Marlan Poindexter is a retired United States naval officer and Department of Defense official. He was Deputy National Security Advisor and National Security Advisor for the Reagan administration. He was convicted in April 1990 of multiple felonies as a result of his actions in the Iran–Contra affair, but his convictions were reversed on appeal in 1991. More recently, he served a brief stint as the director of the DARPA Information Awareness Office for the George W. Bush administration. He is the father of NASA astronaut and U.S. Navy Captain Alan G. Poindexter.
WAkbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was an Iranian politician, writer and one of the founding fathers of the Islamic Republic who was the fourth President of Iran from 3 August 1989 until 3 August 1997. He was the head of the Assembly of Experts from 2007 until 2011, when he decided not to nominate himself for the post. He was also the chairman of the Expediency Discernment Council.
WRonald Wilson Reagan was an American politician who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989 and became a highly influential voice of modern conservatism. Prior to his presidency, he was a Hollywood actor and union leader before serving as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 to 1975.
WPeter Dale Scott is a Canadian-born poet, academic, and former diplomat.
WMajor General Richard Vernon Secord, Retired, is a United States Air Force officer with a notable career in covert operations. Early in his military service, he was a member of the first U.S. aviation detachment sent to the Vietnam War in August 1961, Operation Farm Gate. Secord left Vietnam in 1965 to attend Air Command and Staff College. Afterwards, he returned to Southeast Asia, being detailed to the Central Intelligence Agency for duty in the Secret War in Laos. While in Laos, he was responsible for several notable military actions. One was the Battle of Lima Site 85. Another was the only successful prisoner of war rescue of the Vietnam War. Both of these came about because of his responsibilities for overseeing the operations of the Royal Lao Air Force, Air America, and Raven FACs.
WTheodore George "Ted" Shackley, Jr. was an American CIA officer involved in many important and controversial CIA operations during the 1960s and 1970s. He is one of the most decorated CIA officers. Due to his "light hair and mysterious ways", Shackley was known to his colleagues as "the Blond Ghost".
WSouthern Air Transport (SAT) (1947–1998), based in Miami, Florida, was a cargo airline best known as a front company for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) (1960–1973) and for its crucial role in the Iran-Contra scandal in the mid-1980s. During the affair, Southern Air transported arms to Iran and to the US-backed stateless mercenary army in Central America known as the Contras, which were fighting the revolutionary Sandinista government in Nicaragua.
WCaspar Willard "Cap" Weinberger GBE was an American politician and businessman. As a prominent Republican, he served in a variety of state and federal positions for three decades, including Chairman of the California Republican Party, 1962–68. Most notably he was Secretary of Defense under President Ronald Reagan from 1981 to 1987.