WEBVTT - Iran-Contra Affair: Shady in the 80s, Part 2 0:00:00.680 --> 0:00:06.200 Did it. Attention Portland, Maine, we are coming there very soon. 0:00:07.000 --> 0:00:09.719 You guys need to buy your tickets now. Yeah, not 0:00:09.800 --> 0:00:13.040 just Portland, Maine, but as you know, outside of Boston, 0:00:13.280 --> 0:00:17.919 this is our big New England, uh debut. Sure, so 0:00:18.000 --> 0:00:20.400 people should come from all over Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. 0:00:20.440 --> 0:00:22.159 You don't have to just live in Portland. They'll let 0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:23.800 you in the city to see us. Yeah, you can, 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:26.200 like you can live one of those little rocky islands 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:29.120 and you can boat over and see us. Right, So, 0:00:29.280 --> 0:00:31.560 however you get there, just be sure that you're at 0:00:31.560 --> 0:00:35.480 the State Theater on August nineteen for our show, because 0:00:35.479 --> 0:00:38.080 it's gonna be great. Ask the people in Chicago, ask 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:40.720 the people in Toronto, ask the people in Boston who 0:00:40.720 --> 0:00:43.879 will have seen us the day before. Just buy some tickets, 0:00:43.920 --> 0:00:46.000 go to s y s K live dot com and 0:00:46.040 --> 0:00:51.240 come see us August State Theater. Welcome to Stuff You 0:00:51.280 --> 0:01:00.400 Should Know, a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, 0:01:00.440 --> 0:01:03.040 and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles 0:01:03.080 --> 0:01:05.800 to be took, Brian, there's Jerry over there, and this 0:01:05.840 --> 0:01:11.600 is Stuff you Should Know. Iran Contra Part two starting now. Go. Uh, 0:01:11.640 --> 0:01:15.440 maybe we should do a quick catch up. Um, well 0:01:15.480 --> 0:01:18.080 we're still going. You have to look, I just went 0:01:18.120 --> 0:01:21.640 to sleep. No, it's true. So what's going on here 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:27.560 is the United States is UH. Congress has decided that 0:01:27.600 --> 0:01:32.360 we cannot fund the Contras to fight the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. 0:01:32.720 --> 0:01:36.560 Shut off funding. So the Reagan administration UH makes a 0:01:36.600 --> 0:01:42.120 deep covert push to continue doing so through a bunch 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:46.720 of fun and shady ways. Right, They're fundraising, their directly, 0:01:46.840 --> 0:01:50.280 arming the Contras, their training, um, doing all sorts of 0:01:50.320 --> 0:01:53.480 crazy stuff. Yes, but if you know that this is 0:01:53.520 --> 0:01:57.240 about Iran Contra and you're like, what about Iran? What's 0:01:57.240 --> 0:01:59.600 going on here? I haven't heard anything about Iran? Keep 0:01:59.640 --> 0:02:02.680 your on. Well, here we go. This is where Iran 0:02:02.840 --> 0:02:05.880 enters the picture. You can take your socks off, right, 0:02:07.200 --> 0:02:10.720 are your socks on? I've got on a little footy socks. Yeah, 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:15.600 I do too cool. Oh, Jerry is too sweet. It's 0:02:15.639 --> 0:02:18.399 the way to go. Jerry has those true footies where 0:02:18.400 --> 0:02:20.079 you can't even see them at all. I can see 0:02:20.080 --> 0:02:22.200 you mine peek out just a little, which I'm not 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:25.000 a huge fan of. I'll check out my Yeah. No 0:02:25.080 --> 0:02:30.960 seems no, seems okay, enter Iran. If we really that 0:02:31.080 --> 0:02:34.959 was a great intro and it just went away. That's right. So, um, 0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:37.880 on the other side of the world from Nicaragua, Uh, 0:02:37.960 --> 0:02:42.200 there was another foreign policy disaster simmering that Reagan head going, 0:02:42.720 --> 0:02:45.359 and it was in the form of Iran, And specifically, 0:02:45.960 --> 0:02:47.600 it wasn't even the form of run. It was in 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:51.880 the form of a problem that America had doesn't really 0:02:51.919 --> 0:02:54.480 have much these days, but definitely did in the seventies 0:02:54.520 --> 0:03:00.239 and eighties, where Americans would be taking hostage around the world, um, 0:03:00.240 --> 0:03:06.079 but specifically almost exclusively by Lebanese terrorists who were, if 0:03:06.160 --> 0:03:10.840 not working on behalf of Iran. We're definitely sponsored by Iran. 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:14.800 And regardless of who is president, the fact that they 0:03:14.800 --> 0:03:17.440 were hostages being held by another country and there wasn't 0:03:17.440 --> 0:03:19.359 anything we could do about it, that was a real 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:23.160 blemish on the presidency. It was not a very proud 0:03:23.200 --> 0:03:25.960 thing to think about for America, but that was reality 0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:28.519 for a while there. Yeah, So Iran at the time, 0:03:28.560 --> 0:03:30.679 this is the early eighties, This is just a few 0:03:30.760 --> 0:03:35.720 years removed from the Iranian Revolution of nineteen nine, and 0:03:35.720 --> 0:03:37.640 this is where we've talked about it before. Go look 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:40.800 up photos of Iran in the mid seventies pre revolution 0:03:41.400 --> 0:03:44.880 and it looks like London in the swinging sixties and seventies, 0:03:45.400 --> 0:03:50.040 very kind of hit place to be. Iranian revolution happens. Uh, 0:03:50.120 --> 0:03:54.119 fundamentalists take control of the government that was previously um 0:03:54.240 --> 0:03:57.400 the Shaw of Iran, who was um friendly to the West, sure, 0:03:57.480 --> 0:04:02.800 friendly to America generally, and and uh the Aetola Comini 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:08.400 comani I've always heard comany coomani um installed the Islamic 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:12.920 Theocracy and bad things started happening pretty quickly. But yeah, 0:04:12.960 --> 0:04:15.640 there was a It was a about as quick a 0:04:15.840 --> 0:04:20.400 turn about face politically and socially as you could imagine 0:04:20.520 --> 0:04:23.680 for a whole country. Yeah, yeah, but not everyone in 0:04:23.720 --> 0:04:26.240 the country, as will learn, Like the whole country didn't 0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:29.880 just change overnight. No, but the the the Islamic Theocracy 0:04:30.080 --> 0:04:32.680 was in power very much. So one of the things 0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:35.839 that happened was, um, they were not very fond of 0:04:35.920 --> 0:04:40.680 America or Americans, and the American embassy was famously stormed 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:45.440 and sixty six Americans working there were taken hostage and 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:47.520 held for more than a year. Man. That was like, 0:04:48.600 --> 0:04:51.480 this is stuff I really remember, like four hundred and 0:04:51.560 --> 0:04:55.760 forty days or something, four forty four days the Iranian 0:04:55.920 --> 0:04:59.120 hostage crisis. I remember this as a nine year old 0:04:59.760 --> 0:05:03.159 very clearly. Oh yeah, I have no recollection. Yeah, it 0:05:03.200 --> 0:05:05.080 was a big deal, yellow ribbons, and it was on 0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:08.560 the news constantly. I remember entering the room and being like, 0:05:08.640 --> 0:05:10.680 what does this have to do with Rainbow Bright turn 0:05:10.760 --> 0:05:15.680 this newscast? I even remember. So what happened was, Uh, 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:21.360 Jimmy Carter did not get these hostages free during his 0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:23.040 uh his I was about to say rain, but that 0:05:23.120 --> 0:05:25.120 was sort of the opposite of who Jimmy Carter was 0:05:26.360 --> 0:05:30.400 during his administration, his iron fisted rain days of terror. 0:05:32.279 --> 0:05:34.599 But within a few days, and that may have cost 0:05:34.600 --> 0:05:37.160 some election, but within a few days of our hours, 0:05:37.200 --> 0:05:41.440 even of Reagan's inauguration, the hostages were freed. And I remember, 0:05:41.560 --> 0:05:45.680 as a nine year old hearing kids parenting their parents 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:49.480 conversations like it was really Carter that had him freed, 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:52.200 all the work he did up until then, and then 0:05:52.240 --> 0:05:54.600 other kids saying, are you kidding me? As soon as 0:05:54.600 --> 0:05:56.880 Reagan got in office, they knew that they were toast 0:05:57.400 --> 0:05:59.719 and that Reagan wasn't gonna be a patsy like Carter. 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:04.600 And I was like, what's a patsy? Who are these dudes? No? 0:06:04.720 --> 0:06:07.000 But I remember very distinctly. It's weird, like on the 0:06:07.000 --> 0:06:10.320 playground hearing the stuff. That's funny a little nine year old. 0:06:10.440 --> 0:06:12.240 I definitely didn't hear this when I was a kid, 0:06:12.279 --> 0:06:14.520 but I remember hearing later on as a grown up. 0:06:15.000 --> 0:06:18.560 UM still in the rainbow bright. Uh, that it was 0:06:18.800 --> 0:06:25.200 Reagan's campaign was somehow in touch with Iran. Yeah, and 0:06:25.240 --> 0:06:27.719 that they broke hered this. They've also got them to 0:06:27.960 --> 0:06:32.200 wait um to release the hostages until after Reagan was 0:06:32.240 --> 0:06:34.760 in office, but the timing was not at all hours 0:06:34.760 --> 0:06:37.680 after its inauguration accident. It's a little fishy, you know 0:06:37.760 --> 0:06:40.320 what I mean. But whether it was that's funny. I'm 0:06:40.360 --> 0:06:42.800 sure somebody's parents were like, Yeah, it's because they were 0:06:42.839 --> 0:06:45.039 so scared of Reagan they knew that they better release 0:06:45.120 --> 0:06:48.200 these guys. That's totally not the case, because there were 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:53.480 other hostages taken by other by actual um Lebanese terrorists 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:56.360 who were probably sponsored by Iran, and that were they 0:06:56.360 --> 0:06:59.719 were held throughout Reagan's presidency. Yeah, and that that's sort 0:06:59.760 --> 0:07:02.240 of a big part of this. The second half of 0:07:02.279 --> 0:07:05.120 this story was the fact that that was very embarrassing 0:07:05.120 --> 0:07:08.599 for Reagan. He didn't like hostages being held on his watch. No, 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:13.200 but he had campaigned against negotiating with terrorists under any circumstances. 0:07:13.240 --> 0:07:16.040 So he's stuck now, Yeah, because he's basically saying, if 0:07:16.080 --> 0:07:19.280 you get taken hostage, I mean, you're on your own. 0:07:19.400 --> 0:07:22.320 We'll we'll we'll use our rhetoric and whatever we can 0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:24.840 to influence you being released, but we're not going to 0:07:24.880 --> 0:07:27.560 negotiate for your release. That's just the way it is. 0:07:27.600 --> 0:07:31.160 And that's a longstanding American policy and it makes sense 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:35.920 because if you negotiate with terrorists, then that's just gonna 0:07:35.960 --> 0:07:39.640 lead more kidnappings because they know that you're open for business, 0:07:39.680 --> 0:07:42.600 like anywhere in the world. Yeah, there was a kidnapping 0:07:42.600 --> 0:07:45.160 of t w A flight eight forty seven, very very 0:07:45.160 --> 0:07:47.720 famous one. You know the picture of like the pilot 0:07:47.800 --> 0:07:49.960 leaning out of the cop and the guy's in the 0:07:50.000 --> 0:07:54.480 picture with the gun behind him. That was um And 0:07:54.520 --> 0:07:57.880 that was that, I mean, they that was I remember 0:07:57.880 --> 0:08:00.720 that one. That was It was probably nine then, and 0:08:00.800 --> 0:08:02.920 that was just scary because they were flying all over 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:04.679 the place. You had no idea what was going to happen. 0:08:04.920 --> 0:08:07.280 People were being beaten on the plane. When Navy guy 0:08:07.400 --> 0:08:09.960 was beaten and shot and throw his body thrown on 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:13.320 the tarmac. Yeah, the eighties, like it seems comparatively tame 0:08:13.360 --> 0:08:15.080 now in a lot of way, it's compared to the 0:08:15.080 --> 0:08:18.280 things that used to go on, thank McDonald's hijackings and 0:08:19.200 --> 0:08:22.920 kidnappings and hostages. It's like the eighties were nuts. They 0:08:22.960 --> 0:08:28.520 were nuts. But um, pac Man, you know pac Man 0:08:28.720 --> 0:08:32.440 rapping Rodney? It was crazy rapping, Like are is that 0:08:32.520 --> 0:08:38.000 Roddy Piper? No rapping Rodney? Dangerfield his big hit? Oh yeah, yeah, 0:08:38.240 --> 0:08:41.760 no respect? What about what about the Achy Shuffle that 0:08:41.840 --> 0:08:45.680 was a little crazy? Was that eighties? Sure? Late eighties? 0:08:45.720 --> 0:08:47.560 I guess so, Okay, I got one for you. Okay, 0:08:47.640 --> 0:08:51.360 the Bears what was their thing? Oh the super Bowl Shuffle? 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:54.720 Super Bowl Shuffle? Right, yeah, that was pretty eighties. I 0:08:54.720 --> 0:08:57.400 think they were eighty four. Yeah, we're putting you know, 0:08:57.440 --> 0:09:01.000 my band every year plays for sure one gig at 0:09:01.040 --> 0:09:03.680 Decatur's Porch Fest, and every year we try to do 0:09:03.720 --> 0:09:05.360 a theme, and this year we're doing an eighties sort 0:09:05.400 --> 0:09:08.840 of new wave and I jokingly suggested pac Man Fever 0:09:08.920 --> 0:09:11.600 the rap and Rodney. But are you guys gonna do it? No? 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:14.959 Songs are terrible. Do you have a synth player playing 0:09:15.000 --> 0:09:18.200 with you. I bought Emily a keyboard and she's learning. Yeah, 0:09:18.320 --> 0:09:21.480 she's gonna be like wait, hold on, I hope that's 0:09:21.520 --> 0:09:24.920 cool man. Now she's practicing. I've heard her do that um, 0:09:25.200 --> 0:09:26.760 and she played piano when she was a kid, So 0:09:26.800 --> 0:09:29.280 it's not the biggest stretch. I've heard that one that 0:09:29.480 --> 0:09:32.920 herd do. That one Blondie song she just brought the house. Yeah, 0:09:32.920 --> 0:09:34.800 we might one way or another, we might bring that 0:09:34.840 --> 0:09:38.640 back because that's eighties or was that seventies? It was 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:41.240 so close on the Cuspo. I seriously doubt anybody's going 0:09:41.280 --> 0:09:43.320 to throw a beer can at you for it. Anyway, 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:47.760 Porch beest everyone. I'll publicize it in October. So Reagan's 0:09:47.760 --> 0:09:51.400 hands are tied um in every way possible because he 0:09:51.440 --> 0:09:56.560 can't on he can't negotiate with terrorists. The only option 0:09:56.720 --> 0:10:00.600 is to send in a covert delta forced team, which 0:10:00.679 --> 0:10:03.160 they Carter tried that and it didn't work. Doesn't always work. 0:10:03.200 --> 0:10:04.680 You could lose your own men, and I think that's 0:10:04.679 --> 0:10:08.920 what happened in Carter's case, right. So what he can do, 0:10:09.040 --> 0:10:14.000 though without anyone knowing, is totally negotiate with terrorists. Yeah, 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:16.520 just as long as the American public doesn't know, suh. 0:10:16.559 --> 0:10:19.640 And that's what happened. And he followed that Reagan playbook 0:10:19.640 --> 0:10:22.320 where it's like, okay, I said this, Well, if I 0:10:22.440 --> 0:10:25.600 just changed this one little part, it makes it all 0:10:25.679 --> 0:10:29.040 fine again as long as the American public doesn't know. 0:10:29.480 --> 0:10:34.280 So well, Reagan said America will never negotiate with with hostages. 0:10:34.720 --> 0:10:40.560 They didn't say Israel will never negotiate with terrorists for hostages. Right, So, 0:10:40.800 --> 0:10:44.440 actually Israel had a long standing policy of negotiating with terrorists. 0:10:44.880 --> 0:10:47.560 They wouldn't. They would kidnap people from the other side, 0:10:48.000 --> 0:10:49.360 and then they'd be like, all right, I'll give you 0:10:49.360 --> 0:10:51.920 five guys. I've only got two. Let me kidnap a 0:10:51.920 --> 0:10:54.000 few of people. Okay, now I have five. Like there 0:10:54.000 --> 0:10:58.600 would be negotiations for hostage exchanges all the time between 0:10:58.679 --> 0:11:01.560 Israel and Palestine, right they would. They just knew what 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:04.480 they were doing. So they said, okay, well, if if 0:11:04.679 --> 0:11:06.960 Israel goes to Iran and says, hey, you know this 0:11:07.080 --> 0:11:09.920 American over there, why don't you get them released? We 0:11:09.960 --> 0:11:12.480 can help you out with some stuff. When you think 0:11:12.480 --> 0:11:15.600 about this. Yeah, So earlier when I mentioned the fact 0:11:15.679 --> 0:11:19.480 that Iran as the whole cloth did not change overnight 0:11:19.920 --> 0:11:23.400 as a country. The government did, but there were still 0:11:23.600 --> 0:11:26.679 some plenty of people there that were a little more 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:30.880 moderate in their views, and the Reagan administration had a 0:11:31.000 --> 0:11:34.760 channel to them. So he was talking to them, these 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:38.280 more moderate factions and making a little headway. And they 0:11:38.280 --> 0:11:41.480 were like, by the way, will totally give you these 0:11:41.480 --> 0:11:45.400 hostages if you give us arms. Yeah, because Iran was fighting, um, 0:11:45.640 --> 0:11:49.000 the Iran Iraq War at least half of it. Yeah, 0:11:49.040 --> 0:11:51.439 And this is just where stuff is just totally crazy, 0:11:51.520 --> 0:11:54.640 because we were we were funding both sides at the 0:11:54.720 --> 0:11:57.040 very least, we were advising both sides. Well, I mean 0:11:57.080 --> 0:12:01.840 we directly gave money, Oh yeah, you're rock. We sold 0:12:01.880 --> 0:12:04.959 them weapons, and we provided training and intelligence. And this 0:12:05.040 --> 0:12:08.040 was this wasn't secret. This was like a real deal thing. 0:12:08.240 --> 0:12:12.000 We were publicly supporting Iraq, but then we were secretly 0:12:12.520 --> 0:12:16.160 arming Iran. Yeah. I think what they never proved beyond 0:12:16.160 --> 0:12:20.079 a doubt was that we went to uh Saddam Hussein 0:12:20.720 --> 0:12:22.640 and said, hey, why don't you go in there and 0:12:22.760 --> 0:12:26.760 overthrow Iran? Yeah, that was never we started it. I 0:12:26.800 --> 0:12:29.160 don't think that was ever. There was a lot of 0:12:30.040 --> 0:12:33.200 uh circumstantial evidence that that was the case, but never 0:12:33.280 --> 0:12:36.319 like the smoking gun that we actually encouraged Saddam Hussein 0:12:36.440 --> 0:12:39.120 to do so. But it's just, man, when you look 0:12:39.160 --> 0:12:41.640 at how all this played out over the ears, just maddening. Yeah, 0:12:41.800 --> 0:12:44.719 you know, yeah, it's it's a s show. Yeah. So 0:12:44.840 --> 0:12:48.559 Iraq and Iran or fighting. We're supplying both, playing both 0:12:48.559 --> 0:12:53.400 sides of the coin. Uh. And we offered arms to Iran. 0:12:53.760 --> 0:12:58.600 And who are you gonna call? Not ghostbusters? Oh, Gorbana 0:12:58.640 --> 0:13:01.400 far Well, you're gonna call Ali? No? Oh yeah, okay, 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:04.280 I would have gotten there eventually. Yeah, because okay, so 0:13:04.440 --> 0:13:07.040 remember all the North is this total novice when it 0:13:07.080 --> 0:13:11.400 comes to covert operations. Yeah, he's been running the Nicaragua 0:13:11.440 --> 0:13:14.440 op for years now, just doing a bang up job 0:13:14.480 --> 0:13:16.800 of it. So they they're like, well, sure, we'll have 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:21.720 him do this incredibly illegal supersensitive arms sail to Iran too. 0:13:21.880 --> 0:13:24.040 Why don't you come on over here, Ali and all? 0:13:24.040 --> 0:13:26.080 He said, Okay, that's fine, but I need to go 0:13:26.120 --> 0:13:29.000 get the lay of the land. And he actually traveled 0:13:29.000 --> 0:13:32.320 to Iran with a fake passport under an assumed name 0:13:32.400 --> 0:13:36.000 William P. Good was a knee and um. When he 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:42.400 went it was it was dangerous enough that William Casey. Supposedly, 0:13:42.480 --> 0:13:46.320 Oliver North later testified gave him cyanide pills so that 0:13:46.360 --> 0:13:48.520 he could take his own life rather than be tortured 0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:50.880 by the Iranians. If if this were in fact like 0:13:50.960 --> 0:13:53.520 some sort of set up again right out of a movie. Yeah, 0:13:54.040 --> 0:14:00.000 but Oliver North went to Iran with cyanide pills. Yeah, 0:14:00.400 --> 0:14:03.080 so everything went great, though it did. He didn't need 0:14:03.120 --> 0:14:05.679 the sanid pills after all. He did not um he 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:09.800 dealt with, like you mentioned earlier, this Iranian businessman name 0:14:10.559 --> 0:14:15.840 Gourbana Far and this guy was tin shades of shady, 0:14:16.040 --> 0:14:18.360 so much so that the CIA wouldn't even deal with them. 0:14:18.360 --> 0:14:21.200 Now they issued a burn notice on him, which is 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:22.520 I don't even know what that is. That means just 0:14:22.680 --> 0:14:27.920 he's dead to us. It's basically stay away. It's putting 0:14:27.960 --> 0:14:30.600 him on blast to all the other intelligence agencies in 0:14:30.640 --> 0:14:34.400 the world persona on won't even deal with this guy. 0:14:34.800 --> 0:14:36.440 And so Ali North is like, yeah, I'll deal with 0:14:36.480 --> 0:14:40.200 this guy all right. So with his help, Oliver North 0:14:40.240 --> 0:14:44.760 set up a deal um where And it's so simple 0:14:44.880 --> 0:14:47.720 to look at like Israel. You give them your missiles 0:14:48.360 --> 0:14:51.120 and then we'll just replace those missiles for you with 0:14:51.200 --> 0:14:53.800 our missiles, so we're not giving the missiles you are. 0:14:54.120 --> 0:14:58.960 And because no American explicitly said to Iran, hey, we're 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:02.400 doing this so that you guys will get these hostages released, 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:06.040 it wasn't an arms for hostages deal, and so Reagan's 0:15:06.200 --> 0:15:10.720 vowed and never negotiate with terrorists remained intact. That's right. 0:15:11.160 --> 0:15:15.960 Five hundred and eight t OWTOW missiles was that stand 0:15:16.000 --> 0:15:20.680 for two blaunched optically tracked wireless guided missile, which is 0:15:20.720 --> 0:15:25.200 like it's like, ah, the two launched. There's a tube 0:15:25.400 --> 0:15:28.160 and it can be like mounted on the ground, mounted 0:15:28.200 --> 0:15:30.520 on a jeep. It's super portable. But they are they'll 0:15:30.520 --> 0:15:32.800 blow some stuff up. I think I've seen these you have. 0:15:33.280 --> 0:15:36.800 So five eight of these UM made it from Israel 0:15:36.840 --> 0:15:40.000 to Iran, and then in very short order, a couple 0:15:40.040 --> 0:15:42.360 of days later, one of the hostages, Benjamin we Are 0:15:42.880 --> 0:15:46.160 minister who was held by Lebanese terrorists for sixteen months, 0:15:46.200 --> 0:15:49.480 was released. So it worked. It did work. It was 0:15:49.480 --> 0:15:52.400 a big deal around the White House to UM, but 0:15:52.480 --> 0:15:56.520 they said, let's try it again, but this time it 0:15:56.520 --> 0:15:59.040 seemed a little messy to get Israel involved. Let's just 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:01.640 do this ourselves. Ali, you think you can handle this, 0:16:01.720 --> 0:16:05.160 and he said, sure, me and Gurbonafar have this. So 0:16:05.600 --> 0:16:09.600 rather than Israel giving arms to Iran, Richard S. Cord 0:16:09.720 --> 0:16:12.560 got brought in just like with Nicaragua. And again this 0:16:12.600 --> 0:16:16.400 isn't like years after Nicaragua. Nicaragua was at full bore, 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:19.160 in full sweep and all the North is running both 0:16:19.200 --> 0:16:25.240 operations simultaneously. Um. And so the new setup was the 0:16:25.280 --> 0:16:28.280 Department of Defense would sell the c I A missiles 0:16:28.800 --> 0:16:32.120 for thirty seven hundred bucks of pop. The CIA would 0:16:32.120 --> 0:16:35.520 sell them to Richard C. Cord at cost, and then 0:16:35.560 --> 0:16:39.160 c Cord would sell them to Gorbonafar for ten grand apiece, 0:16:39.880 --> 0:16:42.120 and then gorbona Far would go sell them to Iran 0:16:42.200 --> 0:16:46.200 for whatever he charged Ran. I can't I guarantee it 0:16:46.200 --> 0:16:50.360 was more than the ten grand. And this happened multiple times. 0:16:50.400 --> 0:16:53.720 Over the course of a little over a year. America 0:16:54.320 --> 0:16:59.680 secretly transferred two thousand missiles and missile parts to Iran 0:17:00.560 --> 0:17:05.680 UM in eight shipments. Yeah. For the release of hostages. Yeah, 0:17:05.800 --> 0:17:08.520 ultimately there are three hostages that got released out of 0:17:08.600 --> 0:17:12.160 seven that had been taken hostage total. Yeah, And didn't 0:17:12.160 --> 0:17:15.639 he say ultimately there were three more hostages taken? So 0:17:15.720 --> 0:17:20.919 they netted out at zero zero. Yeah. So um, but 0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:23.800 that was that was the whole Iran operation. Yeah, but 0:17:23.880 --> 0:17:28.800 here's the deals. This price markup means that that shell company, um, 0:17:28.880 --> 0:17:32.080 and those Swiss bank accounts, we're making a lot of money, 0:17:32.280 --> 0:17:34.760 and so much so that I think one of them 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:38.720 had three million dollars made an interest alone. So at 0:17:38.760 --> 0:17:41.720 some point someone's like, hey, this this is a money 0:17:41.760 --> 0:17:45.080 making operation. Now, why don't we tie a little bow 0:17:45.160 --> 0:17:48.520 on all this and use some of that money to 0:17:48.640 --> 0:17:51.199 fund the contrast Because you guys are doing both of 0:17:51.200 --> 0:17:53.919 these things and you need money. Congress won't give it 0:17:53.920 --> 0:17:58.919 to you. Forget the fundraising omelets. We'll just use the 0:17:58.920 --> 0:18:02.880 money from these illite arms sales to fund the contrass. Yeah, 0:18:02.960 --> 0:18:05.760 and that's exactly what happened. So to put it in 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:10.639 plain terms, America illegally and secretly sold missiles to Iran, 0:18:11.320 --> 0:18:14.679 used the proceeds from those missile sales to secretly and 0:18:14.720 --> 0:18:18.359 illegally fund the Contras to help them overthrow their government 0:18:18.359 --> 0:18:22.680 down in Nicaragua. That's what the Reagan administration did. That's right. 0:18:22.840 --> 0:18:26.119 That's why it's called Iran Contra. That's where they came together. 0:18:26.160 --> 0:18:29.959 There was a diversion of funds. Yeah, and the I 0:18:30.000 --> 0:18:33.760 think it was by nineteen eight six. Um, Congress finally 0:18:33.760 --> 0:18:35.919 got back on board because of this drum beat from 0:18:35.960 --> 0:18:38.520 Reagan over the years of how much we need to 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:41.720 really do this officially and keep the mind Congress still 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:44.840 didn't know any of this is going on secretly. Um. 0:18:44.920 --> 0:18:46.560 And then Congress said all right, we'll give you a 0:18:46.640 --> 0:18:50.680 hundred million dollars to aid this cause. UM and said 0:18:52.359 --> 0:18:54.480 you would think that was the end of all the 0:18:54.560 --> 0:18:57.880 uh covert stuff. It wasn't, though, No, No, it's still 0:18:57.880 --> 0:19:01.680 continued on, but now it was legitimized and had even 0:19:01.760 --> 0:19:05.080 better funding. But that was not the end of the 0:19:05.080 --> 0:19:07.160 whole thing. Like everybody didn't just get to walk away 0:19:07.200 --> 0:19:10.240 and say that was close, because the whole thing started 0:19:10.280 --> 0:19:12.600 to come apart. Actually, and I say that we take 0:19:12.600 --> 0:19:14.639 an ad break and come back and talk about it 0:19:15.240 --> 0:19:19.560 after this. Well, now we're on the road driving in 0:19:19.600 --> 0:19:22.520 your truck. Want to learn a thing or two from 0:19:22.760 --> 0:19:41.879 Josh damn Chuck stuff you should know? All right, okay, Chuck, 0:19:43.200 --> 0:19:46.000 Congress is back on board. I think it's worth pointing 0:19:46.000 --> 0:19:50.080 out that that's exactly four years after the Democrats took 0:19:50.119 --> 0:19:52.919 control of the House in two. So I wonder if 0:19:53.000 --> 0:19:55.800 the Republicans took control back in eighty six and that's 0:19:55.800 --> 0:19:59.119 why the funding got turned back. Onto the contrast, we 0:19:59.119 --> 0:20:03.879 could solve this, I like the speculating stead So this 0:20:04.000 --> 0:20:06.840 all might have Who knows if this ever would have 0:20:06.840 --> 0:20:10.560 even been found out had it not been for the 0:20:11.840 --> 0:20:15.960 sharp shooting of a young sandin Easton soldier named Jose 0:20:16.119 --> 0:20:22.560 Fernando Canales oldman. Uh. In October there was a cargo 0:20:22.560 --> 0:20:26.280 plane and see one twenty three called the provider Um 0:20:26.440 --> 0:20:31.560 flying seventy so yet Collisha coughs a hundred thousand rounds 0:20:31.560 --> 0:20:35.040 of AMMO, rocket grenades and other supplies. Uh. And this 0:20:35.119 --> 0:20:36.680 is one of those things where you said they would 0:20:36.680 --> 0:20:38.040 fly things over and kick him out in the back 0:20:38.080 --> 0:20:40.960 of the plane. This is one of those those runs. Yeah. 0:20:40.960 --> 0:20:43.440 The problem with this particular run, though, is that they 0:20:43.440 --> 0:20:46.879 did this at feet in broad daylight, and they got 0:20:46.880 --> 0:20:50.399 a little lazy or maybe cocky. I don't even know 0:20:50.440 --> 0:20:51.920 if it was that. I think it was more like, 0:20:52.000 --> 0:20:54.440 this is just work. It was an everyday job by 0:20:54.480 --> 0:20:57.199 this time. They've been doing it for years, you know, 0:20:57.280 --> 0:21:00.479 and the operation was just humming along so nicely that 0:21:00.560 --> 0:21:04.280 was almost an autopilot. Yeah, so yeah, they did this 0:21:04.359 --> 0:21:09.000 one supply drop on October in broad daylight and there 0:21:09.040 --> 0:21:12.040 were four crew aboard, William J. Cooper, Wallace Bus Sawyer, 0:21:12.600 --> 0:21:17.560 freddie Vilchis, and a guy named Eugene Hassan Fuss, who 0:21:17.680 --> 0:21:21.080 uh and again this sliding doors thing. Hassen Fuss is 0:21:21.080 --> 0:21:23.040 the only guy who had a parachute. He borrowed it 0:21:23.080 --> 0:21:26.440 from his brother, a skydiver, because you know, he thought 0:21:26.480 --> 0:21:28.719 it might be smart to take a parachute. No one 0:21:28.720 --> 0:21:31.480 else had parachutes. Had he not had a parachute, this 0:21:31.520 --> 0:21:34.080 may have turned out differently. It may have. For sure, 0:21:34.520 --> 0:21:36.960 he was the only one that survived this plane crash 0:21:37.000 --> 0:21:39.480 because he was the only one who borrowed the parachute 0:21:39.520 --> 0:21:42.359 from his brother, and he jumped out, landed, made it 0:21:42.400 --> 0:21:45.200 safely into the jungle. And I think he actually survived 0:21:45.240 --> 0:21:48.119 and evaded the Sandinistas for maybe a day or something 0:21:48.160 --> 0:21:52.120 like that before he was captured. And when he was captured, 0:21:52.160 --> 0:21:55.080 they led him out of the jungle like um with 0:21:55.160 --> 0:21:58.920 a rope around his neck, just just about as big 0:21:58.920 --> 0:22:02.280 of a prisoner as you can imagine. Super publicized. There 0:22:02.280 --> 0:22:06.320 are billboards of of him being led around by Sandinistas 0:22:06.359 --> 0:22:10.400 and they started asking him questions and he was like, 0:22:10.560 --> 0:22:12.520 what do you want to know? He's saying, like a canary, 0:22:12.640 --> 0:22:15.560 you really did? He said, Uh, this is my tense 0:22:15.560 --> 0:22:20.280 supply mission. I'm presumed that the CIA is running this. 0:22:20.440 --> 0:22:23.879 I don't know. And he would know this would be 0:22:23.920 --> 0:22:27.040 something that he would he could legitimately guess at at 0:22:27.080 --> 0:22:30.639 least because he had actually worked on ci a um 0:22:30.680 --> 0:22:34.560 air drops over Vietnam or Cambodia for Air America back 0:22:34.560 --> 0:22:38.400 in the Vietnam War. Yeah, but he wasn't like, uh, 0:22:38.560 --> 0:22:40.720 he sings like a canary because he's not very high 0:22:40.800 --> 0:22:43.159 up on the tolden pole. Like his job was to 0:22:43.160 --> 0:22:44.760 get up there and shove the stuff out of the 0:22:44.800 --> 0:22:48.399 back of the plane for three grand a month. He 0:22:48.440 --> 0:22:51.800 wasn't even a CIA operator. He's just former marine who 0:22:51.880 --> 0:22:55.840 had a background working with Air America years before. But 0:22:55.920 --> 0:22:59.280 by this time, by the time he joins on UM 0:22:59.680 --> 0:23:02.680 doing this. For the contrast, he was like working as 0:23:02.880 --> 0:23:06.560 a construction worker part time in Wisconsin back home, So 0:23:06.720 --> 0:23:08.840 this is like pretty good money. I think he was 0:23:08.840 --> 0:23:12.360 getting seven grand in today's dollars a month for basically 0:23:12.440 --> 0:23:15.399 kicking a k forty seven crates out the back of 0:23:15.600 --> 0:23:18.080 a plane over Nicaragua. Yeah, so he's not the kind 0:23:18.080 --> 0:23:21.159