Speaker 1: Did it. Attention Portland, Maine, we are coming there very soon.
Speaker 1: You guys need to buy your tickets now. Yeah, not
Speaker 1: just Portland, Maine, but as you know, outside of Boston,
Speaker 1: this is our big New England, uh debut. Sure, so
Speaker 1: people should come from all over Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: You don't have to just live in Portland. They'll let
Speaker 1: you in the city to see us. Yeah, you can,
Speaker 1: like you can live one of those little rocky islands
Speaker 1: and you can boat over and see us. Right, So,
Speaker 1: however you get there, just be sure that you're at
Speaker 1: the State Theater on August nineteen for our show, because
Speaker 1: it's gonna be great. Ask the people in Chicago, ask
Speaker 1: the people in Toronto, ask the people in Boston who
Speaker 1: will have seen us the day before. Just buy some tickets,
Speaker 1: go to s y s K live dot com and
Speaker 1: come see us August State Theater. Welcome to Stuff You
Speaker 1: Should Know, a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles
Speaker 1: to be took, Brian, there's Jerry over there, and this
Speaker 1: is Stuff you Should Know. Iran Contra Part two starting now. Go. Uh,
Speaker 1: maybe we should do a quick catch up. Um, well
Speaker 1: we're still going. You have to look, I just went
Speaker 1: to sleep. No, it's true. So what's going on here
Speaker 1: is the United States is UH. Congress has decided that
Speaker 1: we cannot fund the Contras to fight the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.
Speaker 1: Shut off funding. So the Reagan administration UH makes a
Speaker 1: deep covert push to continue doing so through a bunch
Speaker 1: of fun and shady ways. Right, They're fundraising, their directly,
Speaker 1: arming the Contras, their training, um, doing all sorts of
Speaker 1: crazy stuff. Yes, but if you know that this is
Speaker 1: about Iran Contra and you're like, what about Iran? What's
Speaker 1: going on here? I haven't heard anything about Iran? Keep
Speaker 1: your on. Well, here we go. This is where Iran
Speaker 1: enters the picture. You can take your socks off, right,
Speaker 1: are your socks on? I've got on a little footy socks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I do too cool. Oh, Jerry is too sweet. It's
Speaker 1: the way to go. Jerry has those true footies where
Speaker 1: you can't even see them at all. I can see
Speaker 1: you mine peek out just a little, which I'm not
Speaker 1: a huge fan of. I'll check out my Yeah. No
Speaker 1: seems no, seems okay, enter Iran. If we really that
Speaker 1: was a great intro and it just went away. That's right. So, um,
Speaker 1: on the other side of the world from Nicaragua, Uh,
Speaker 1: there was another foreign policy disaster simmering that Reagan head going,
Speaker 1: and it was in the form of Iran, And specifically,
Speaker 1: it wasn't even the form of run. It was in
Speaker 1: the form of a problem that America had doesn't really
Speaker 1: have much these days, but definitely did in the seventies
Speaker 1: and eighties, where Americans would be taking hostage around the world, um,
Speaker 1: but specifically almost exclusively by Lebanese terrorists who were, if
Speaker 1: not working on behalf of Iran. We're definitely sponsored by Iran.
Speaker 1: And regardless of who is president, the fact that they
Speaker 1: were hostages being held by another country and there wasn't
Speaker 1: anything we could do about it, that was a real
Speaker 1: blemish on the presidency. It was not a very proud
Speaker 1: thing to think about for America, but that was reality
Speaker 1: for a while there. Yeah, So Iran at the time,
Speaker 1: this is the early eighties, This is just a few
Speaker 1: years removed from the Iranian Revolution of nineteen nine, and
Speaker 1: this is where we've talked about it before. Go look
Speaker 1: up photos of Iran in the mid seventies pre revolution
Speaker 1: and it looks like London in the swinging sixties and seventies,
Speaker 1: very kind of hit place to be. Iranian revolution happens. Uh,
Speaker 1: fundamentalists take control of the government that was previously um
Speaker 1: the Shaw of Iran, who was um friendly to the West, sure,
Speaker 1: friendly to America generally, and and uh the Aetola Comini
Speaker 1: comani I've always heard comany coomani um installed the Islamic
Speaker 1: Theocracy and bad things started happening pretty quickly. But yeah,
Speaker 1: there was a It was a about as quick a
Speaker 1: turn about face politically and socially as you could imagine
Speaker 1: for a whole country. Yeah, yeah, but not everyone in
Speaker 1: the country, as will learn, Like the whole country didn't
Speaker 1: just change overnight. No, but the the the Islamic Theocracy
Speaker 1: was in power very much. So one of the things
Speaker 1: that happened was, um, they were not very fond of
Speaker 1: America or Americans, and the American embassy was famously stormed
Speaker 1: and sixty six Americans working there were taken hostage and
Speaker 1: held for more than a year. Man. That was like,
Speaker 1: this is stuff I really remember, like four hundred and
Speaker 1: forty days or something, four forty four days the Iranian
Speaker 1: hostage crisis. I remember this as a nine year old
Speaker 1: very clearly. Oh yeah, I have no recollection. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was a big deal, yellow ribbons, and it was on
Speaker 1: the news constantly. I remember entering the room and being like,
Speaker 1: what does this have to do with Rainbow Bright turn
Speaker 1: this newscast? I even remember. So what happened was, Uh,
Speaker 1: Jimmy Carter did not get these hostages free during his
Speaker 1: uh his I was about to say rain, but that
Speaker 1: was sort of the opposite of who Jimmy Carter was
Speaker 1: during his administration, his iron fisted rain days of terror.
Speaker 1: But within a few days, and that may have cost
Speaker 1: some election, but within a few days of our hours,
Speaker 1: even of Reagan's inauguration, the hostages were freed. And I remember,
Speaker 1: as a nine year old hearing kids parenting their parents
Speaker 1: conversations like it was really Carter that had him freed,
Speaker 1: all the work he did up until then, and then
Speaker 1: other kids saying, are you kidding me? As soon as
Speaker 1: Reagan got in office, they knew that they were toast
Speaker 1: and that Reagan wasn't gonna be a patsy like Carter.
Speaker 1: And I was like, what's a patsy? Who are these dudes? No?
Speaker 1: But I remember very distinctly. It's weird, like on the
Speaker 1: playground hearing the stuff. That's funny a little nine year old.
Speaker 1: I definitely didn't hear this when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: but I remember hearing later on as a grown up.
Speaker 1: UM still in the rainbow bright. Uh, that it was
Speaker 1: Reagan's campaign was somehow in touch with Iran. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that they broke hered this. They've also got them to
Speaker 1: wait um to release the hostages until after Reagan was
Speaker 1: in office, but the timing was not at all hours
Speaker 1: after its inauguration accident. It's a little fishy, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. But whether it was that's funny. I'm
Speaker 1: sure somebody's parents were like, Yeah, it's because they were
Speaker 1: so scared of Reagan they knew that they better release
Speaker 1: these guys. That's totally not the case, because there were
Speaker 1: other hostages taken by other by actual um Lebanese terrorists
Speaker 1: who were probably sponsored by Iran, and that were they
Speaker 1: were held throughout Reagan's presidency. Yeah, and that that's sort
Speaker 1: of a big part of this. The second half of
Speaker 1: this story was the fact that that was very embarrassing
Speaker 1: for Reagan. He didn't like hostages being held on his watch. No,
Speaker 1: but he had campaigned against negotiating with terrorists under any circumstances.
Speaker 1: So he's stuck now, Yeah, because he's basically saying, if
Speaker 1: you get taken hostage, I mean, you're on your own.
Speaker 1: We'll we'll we'll use our rhetoric and whatever we can
Speaker 1: to influence you being released, but we're not going to
Speaker 1: negotiate for your release. That's just the way it is.
Speaker 1: And that's a longstanding American policy and it makes sense
Speaker 1: because if you negotiate with terrorists, then that's just gonna
Speaker 1: lead more kidnappings because they know that you're open for business,
Speaker 1: like anywhere in the world. Yeah, there was a kidnapping
Speaker 1: of t w A flight eight forty seven, very very
Speaker 1: famous one. You know the picture of like the pilot
Speaker 1: leaning out of the cop and the guy's in the
Speaker 1: picture with the gun behind him. That was um And
Speaker 1: that was that, I mean, they that was I remember
Speaker 1: that one. That was It was probably nine then, and
Speaker 1: that was just scary because they were flying all over
Speaker 1: the place. You had no idea what was going to happen.
Speaker 1: People were being beaten on the plane. When Navy guy
Speaker 1: was beaten and shot and throw his body thrown on
Speaker 1: the tarmac. Yeah, the eighties, like it seems comparatively tame
Speaker 1: now in a lot of way, it's compared to the
Speaker 1: things that used to go on, thank McDonald's hijackings and
Speaker 1: kidnappings and hostages. It's like the eighties were nuts. They
Speaker 1: were nuts. But um, pac Man, you know pac Man
Speaker 1: rapping Rodney? It was crazy rapping, Like are is that
Speaker 1: Roddy Piper? No rapping Rodney? Dangerfield his big hit? Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: no respect? What about what about the Achy Shuffle that
Speaker 1: was a little crazy? Was that eighties? Sure? Late eighties?
Speaker 1: I guess so, Okay, I got one for you. Okay,
Speaker 1: the Bears what was their thing? Oh the super Bowl Shuffle?
Speaker 1: Super Bowl Shuffle? Right, yeah, that was pretty eighties. I
Speaker 1: think they were eighty four. Yeah, we're putting you know,
Speaker 1: my band every year plays for sure one gig at
Speaker 1: Decatur's Porch Fest, and every year we try to do
Speaker 1: a theme, and this year we're doing an eighties sort
Speaker 1: of new wave and I jokingly suggested pac Man Fever
Speaker 1: the rap and Rodney. But are you guys gonna do it? No?
Speaker 1: Songs are terrible. Do you have a synth player playing
Speaker 1: with you. I bought Emily a keyboard and she's learning. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's gonna be like wait, hold on, I hope that's
Speaker 1: cool man. Now she's practicing. I've heard her do that um,
Speaker 1: and she played piano when she was a kid, So
Speaker 1: it's not the biggest stretch. I've heard that one that
Speaker 1: herd do. That one Blondie song she just brought the house. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we might one way or another, we might bring that
Speaker 1: back because that's eighties or was that seventies? It was
Speaker 1: so close on the Cuspo. I seriously doubt anybody's going
Speaker 1: to throw a beer can at you for it. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Porch beest everyone. I'll publicize it in October. So Reagan's
Speaker 1: hands are tied um in every way possible because he
Speaker 1: can't on he can't negotiate with terrorists. The only option
Speaker 1: is to send in a covert delta forced team, which
Speaker 1: they Carter tried that and it didn't work. Doesn't always work.
Speaker 1: You could lose your own men, and I think that's
Speaker 1: what happened in Carter's case, right. So what he can do,
Speaker 1: though without anyone knowing, is totally negotiate with terrorists. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just as long as the American public doesn't know, suh.
Speaker 1: And that's what happened. And he followed that Reagan playbook
Speaker 1: where it's like, okay, I said this, Well, if I
Speaker 1: just changed this one little part, it makes it all
Speaker 1: fine again as long as the American public doesn't know.
Speaker 1: So well, Reagan said America will never negotiate with with hostages.
Speaker 1: They didn't say Israel will never negotiate with terrorists for hostages. Right, So,
Speaker 1: actually Israel had a long standing policy of negotiating with terrorists.
Speaker 1: They wouldn't. They would kidnap people from the other side,
Speaker 1: and then they'd be like, all right, I'll give you
Speaker 1: five guys. I've only got two. Let me kidnap a
Speaker 1: few of people. Okay, now I have five. Like there
Speaker 1: would be negotiations for hostage exchanges all the time between
Speaker 1: Israel and Palestine, right they would. They just knew what
Speaker 1: they were doing. So they said, okay, well, if if
Speaker 1: Israel goes to Iran and says, hey, you know this
Speaker 1: American over there, why don't you get them released? We
Speaker 1: can help you out with some stuff. When you think
Speaker 1: about this. Yeah, So earlier when I mentioned the fact
Speaker 1: that Iran as the whole cloth did not change overnight
Speaker 1: as a country. The government did, but there were still
Speaker 1: some plenty of people there that were a little more
Speaker 1: moderate in their views, and the Reagan administration had a
Speaker 1: channel to them. So he was talking to them, these
Speaker 1: more moderate factions and making a little headway. And they
Speaker 1: were like, by the way, will totally give you these
Speaker 1: hostages if you give us arms. Yeah, because Iran was fighting, um,
Speaker 1: the Iran Iraq War at least half of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And this is just where stuff is just totally crazy,
Speaker 1: because we were we were funding both sides at the
Speaker 1: very least, we were advising both sides. Well, I mean
Speaker 1: we directly gave money, Oh yeah, you're rock. We sold
Speaker 1: them weapons, and we provided training and intelligence. And this
Speaker 1: was this wasn't secret. This was like a real deal thing.
Speaker 1: We were publicly supporting Iraq, but then we were secretly
Speaker 1: arming Iran. Yeah. I think what they never proved beyond
Speaker 1: a doubt was that we went to uh Saddam Hussein
Speaker 1: and said, hey, why don't you go in there and
Speaker 1: overthrow Iran? Yeah, that was never we started it. I
Speaker 1: don't think that was ever. There was a lot of
Speaker 1: uh circumstantial evidence that that was the case, but never
Speaker 1: like the smoking gun that we actually encouraged Saddam Hussein
Speaker 1: to do so. But it's just, man, when you look
Speaker 1: at how all this played out over the ears, just maddening. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, it's it's a s show. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: Iraq and Iran or fighting. We're supplying both, playing both
Speaker 1: sides of the coin. Uh. And we offered arms to Iran.
Speaker 1: And who are you gonna call? Not ghostbusters? Oh, Gorbana
Speaker 1: far Well, you're gonna call Ali? No? Oh yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: I would have gotten there eventually. Yeah, because okay, so
Speaker 1: remember all the North is this total novice when it
Speaker 1: comes to covert operations. Yeah, he's been running the Nicaragua
Speaker 1: op for years now, just doing a bang up job
Speaker 1: of it. So they they're like, well, sure, we'll have
Speaker 1: him do this incredibly illegal supersensitive arms sail to Iran too.
Speaker 1: Why don't you come on over here, Ali and all?
Speaker 1: He said, Okay, that's fine, but I need to go
Speaker 1: get the lay of the land. And he actually traveled
Speaker 1: to Iran with a fake passport under an assumed name
Speaker 1: William P. Good was a knee and um. When he
Speaker 1: went it was it was dangerous enough that William Casey. Supposedly,
Speaker 1: Oliver North later testified gave him cyanide pills so that
Speaker 1: he could take his own life rather than be tortured
Speaker 1: by the Iranians. If if this were in fact like
Speaker 1: some sort of set up again right out of a movie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but Oliver North went to Iran with cyanide pills. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so everything went great, though it did. He didn't need
Speaker 1: the sanid pills after all. He did not um he
Speaker 1: dealt with, like you mentioned earlier, this Iranian businessman name
Speaker 1: Gourbana Far and this guy was tin shades of shady,
Speaker 1: so much so that the CIA wouldn't even deal with them.
Speaker 1: Now they issued a burn notice on him, which is
Speaker 1: I don't even know what that is. That means just
Speaker 1: he's dead to us. It's basically stay away. It's putting
Speaker 1: him on blast to all the other intelligence agencies in
Speaker 1: the world persona on won't even deal with this guy.
Speaker 1: And so Ali North is like, yeah, I'll deal with
Speaker 1: this guy all right. So with his help, Oliver North
Speaker 1: set up a deal um where And it's so simple
Speaker 1: to look at like Israel. You give them your missiles
Speaker 1: and then we'll just replace those missiles for you with
Speaker 1: our missiles, so we're not giving the missiles you are.
Speaker 1: And because no American explicitly said to Iran, hey, we're
Speaker 1: doing this so that you guys will get these hostages released,
Speaker 1: it wasn't an arms for hostages deal, and so Reagan's
Speaker 1: vowed and never negotiate with terrorists remained intact. That's right.
Speaker 1: Five hundred and eight t OWTOW missiles was that stand
Speaker 1: for two blaunched optically tracked wireless guided missile, which is
Speaker 1: like it's like, ah, the two launched. There's a tube
Speaker 1: and it can be like mounted on the ground, mounted
Speaker 1: on a jeep. It's super portable. But they are they'll
Speaker 1: blow some stuff up. I think I've seen these you have.
Speaker 1: So five eight of these UM made it from Israel
Speaker 1: to Iran, and then in very short order, a couple
Speaker 1: of days later, one of the hostages, Benjamin we Are
Speaker 1: minister who was held by Lebanese terrorists for sixteen months,
Speaker 1: was released. So it worked. It did work. It was
Speaker 1: a big deal around the White House to UM, but
Speaker 1: they said, let's try it again, but this time it
Speaker 1: seemed a little messy to get Israel involved. Let's just
Speaker 1: do this ourselves. Ali, you think you can handle this,
Speaker 1: and he said, sure, me and Gurbonafar have this. So
Speaker 1: rather than Israel giving arms to Iran, Richard S. Cord
Speaker 1: got brought in just like with Nicaragua. And again this
Speaker 1: isn't like years after Nicaragua. Nicaragua was at full bore,
Speaker 1: in full sweep and all the North is running both
Speaker 1: operations simultaneously. Um. And so the new setup was the
Speaker 1: Department of Defense would sell the c I A missiles
Speaker 1: for thirty seven hundred bucks of pop. The CIA would
Speaker 1: sell them to Richard C. Cord at cost, and then
Speaker 1: c Cord would sell them to Gorbonafar for ten grand apiece,
Speaker 1: and then gorbona Far would go sell them to Iran
Speaker 1: for whatever he charged Ran. I can't I guarantee it
Speaker 1: was more than the ten grand. And this happened multiple times.
Speaker 1: Over the course of a little over a year. America
Speaker 1: secretly transferred two thousand missiles and missile parts to Iran
Speaker 1: UM in eight shipments. Yeah. For the release of hostages. Yeah,
Speaker 1: ultimately there are three hostages that got released out of
Speaker 1: seven that had been taken hostage total. Yeah, And didn't
Speaker 1: he say ultimately there were three more hostages taken? So
Speaker 1: they netted out at zero zero. Yeah. So um, but
Speaker 1: that was that was the whole Iran operation. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: here's the deals. This price markup means that that shell company, um,
Speaker 1: and those Swiss bank accounts, we're making a lot of money,
Speaker 1: and so much so that I think one of them
Speaker 1: had three million dollars made an interest alone. So at
Speaker 1: some point someone's like, hey, this this is a money
Speaker 1: making operation. Now, why don't we tie a little bow
Speaker 1: on all this and use some of that money to
Speaker 1: fund the contrast Because you guys are doing both of
Speaker 1: these things and you need money. Congress won't give it
Speaker 1: to you. Forget the fundraising omelets. We'll just use the
Speaker 1: money from these illite arms sales to fund the contrass. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's exactly what happened. So to put it in
Speaker 1: plain terms, America illegally and secretly sold missiles to Iran,
Speaker 1: used the proceeds from those missile sales to secretly and
Speaker 1: illegally fund the Contras to help them overthrow their government
Speaker 1: down in Nicaragua. That's what the Reagan administration did. That's right.
Speaker 1: That's why it's called Iran Contra. That's where they came together.
Speaker 1: There was a diversion of funds. Yeah, and the I
Speaker 1: think it was by nineteen eight six. Um, Congress finally
Speaker 1: got back on board because of this drum beat from
Speaker 1: Reagan over the years of how much we need to
Speaker 1: really do this officially and keep the mind Congress still
Speaker 1: didn't know any of this is going on secretly. Um.
Speaker 1: And then Congress said all right, we'll give you a
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars to aid this cause. UM and said
Speaker 1: you would think that was the end of all the
Speaker 1: uh covert stuff. It wasn't, though, No, No, it's still
Speaker 1: continued on, but now it was legitimized and had even
Speaker 1: better funding. But that was not the end of the
Speaker 1: whole thing. Like everybody didn't just get to walk away
Speaker 1: and say that was close, because the whole thing started
Speaker 1: to come apart. Actually, and I say that we take
Speaker 1: an ad break and come back and talk about it
Speaker 1: after this. Well, now we're on the road driving in
Speaker 1: your truck. Want to learn a thing or two from
Speaker 1: Josh damn Chuck stuff you should know? All right, okay, Chuck,
Speaker 1: Congress is back on board. I think it's worth pointing
Speaker 1: out that that's exactly four years after the Democrats took
Speaker 1: control of the House in two. So I wonder if
Speaker 1: the Republicans took control back in eighty six and that's
Speaker 1: why the funding got turned back. Onto the contrast, we
Speaker 1: could solve this, I like the speculating stead So this
Speaker 1: all might have Who knows if this ever would have
Speaker 1: even been found out had it not been for the
Speaker 1: sharp shooting of a young sandin Easton soldier named Jose
Speaker 1: Fernando Canales oldman. Uh. In October there was a cargo
Speaker 1: plane and see one twenty three called the provider Um
Speaker 1: flying seventy so yet Collisha coughs a hundred thousand rounds
Speaker 1: of AMMO, rocket grenades and other supplies. Uh. And this
Speaker 1: is one of those things where you said they would
Speaker 1: fly things over and kick him out in the back
Speaker 1: of the plane. This is one of those those runs. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The problem with this particular run, though, is that they
Speaker 1: did this at feet in broad daylight, and they got
Speaker 1: a little lazy or maybe cocky. I don't even know
Speaker 1: if it was that. I think it was more like,
Speaker 1: this is just work. It was an everyday job by
Speaker 1: this time. They've been doing it for years, you know,
Speaker 1: and the operation was just humming along so nicely that
Speaker 1: was almost an autopilot. Yeah, so yeah, they did this
Speaker 1: one supply drop on October in broad daylight and there
Speaker 1: were four crew aboard, William J. Cooper, Wallace Bus Sawyer,
Speaker 1: freddie Vilchis, and a guy named Eugene Hassan Fuss, who
Speaker 1: uh and again this sliding doors thing. Hassen Fuss is
Speaker 1: the only guy who had a parachute. He borrowed it
Speaker 1: from his brother, a skydiver, because you know, he thought
Speaker 1: it might be smart to take a parachute. No one
Speaker 1: else had parachutes. Had he not had a parachute, this
Speaker 1: may have turned out differently. It may have. For sure,
Speaker 1: he was the only one that survived this plane crash
Speaker 1: because he was the only one who borrowed the parachute
Speaker 1: from his brother, and he jumped out, landed, made it
Speaker 1: safely into the jungle. And I think he actually survived
Speaker 1: and evaded the Sandinistas for maybe a day or something
Speaker 1: like that before he was captured. And when he was captured,
Speaker 1: they led him out of the jungle like um with
Speaker 1: a rope around his neck, just just about as big
Speaker 1: of a prisoner as you can imagine. Super publicized. There
Speaker 1: are billboards of of him being led around by Sandinistas
Speaker 1: and they started asking him questions and he was like,
Speaker 1: what do you want to know? He's saying, like a canary,
Speaker 1: you really did? He said, Uh, this is my tense
Speaker 1: supply mission. I'm presumed that the CIA is running this.
Speaker 1: I don't know. And he would know this would be
Speaker 1: something that he would he could legitimately guess at at
Speaker 1: least because he had actually worked on ci a um
Speaker 1: air drops over Vietnam or Cambodia for Air America back
Speaker 1: in the Vietnam War. Yeah, but he wasn't like, uh,
Speaker 1: he sings like a canary because he's not very high
Speaker 1: up on the tolden pole. Like his job was to
Speaker 1: get up there and shove the stuff out of the
Speaker 1: back of the plane for three grand a month. He
Speaker 1: wasn't even a CIA operator. He's just former marine who
Speaker 1: had a background working with Air America years before. But
Speaker 1: by this time, by the time he joins on UM
Speaker 1: doing this. For the contrast, he was like working as
Speaker 1: a construction worker part time in Wisconsin back home, So
Speaker 1: this is like pretty good money. I think he was
Speaker 1: getting seven grand in today's dollars a month for basically
Speaker 1: kicking a k forty seven crates out the back of
Speaker 1: a plane over Nicaragua. Yeah, so he's not the kind
Speaker 1: of guy that's going to take the fall for anyone.
Speaker 1: So he's he's singing like a canary. Even if he
Speaker 1: had kept his mouth shut, it wouldn't have mattered. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because um, all the other guys, including Hassan Fuss, had
Speaker 1: their wallets on the plane, They had all their employee
Speaker 1: I D cards and in fact, I don't think we
Speaker 1: mentioned in episode one, um the company that was set
Speaker 1: up to do these drops was set up called Southern
Speaker 1: Air Transport out of I guess Miami, So they all
Speaker 1: had their Southern Air Transport I T cards, which was
Speaker 1: the c i A front. Like everybody knew Southern Air
Speaker 1: Transport was the CIA front, So they might as well
Speaker 1: have had like CIA Junior badges or something, or like
Speaker 1: Michael Keaton and out of Sight when he has the
Speaker 1: big FBI T shirt, I haven't seen that one. Oh,
Speaker 1: you haven't seen out of Sight? No? Is that the
Speaker 1: one where he's George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez. Is he
Speaker 1: a bad guy in it? No, he's a good guy,
Speaker 1: but he walks in. He plays Ray Nicolette, who played
Speaker 1: uh same character and Jackie Brown FBI guy. But it's
Speaker 1: funny because he walks in with an FBI T shirt on.
Speaker 1: And Dennis Farina's Jennifer Lopez his dad and he's a
Speaker 1: former CUP and he goes, hey, Ray, let me ask
Speaker 1: you he got one that says undercover Dennis Farina man class,
Speaker 1: I mean, you got to see out of Sight. That's classic.
Speaker 1: All right, I'll check it out like one of the
Speaker 1: better men. I mean, I know exactly the movie you're
Speaker 1: talking about it like the Plague. It's so good you
Speaker 1: would love it. So Southern Air Transport CIA front. There's
Speaker 1: also a log book that connected this flight, uh and
Speaker 1: all the other flights. And then hassen Fuss in his
Speaker 1: wallet had a business card to Robert w Owen. This
Speaker 1: is a big one who was working with Oliver North
Speaker 1: in Washington, right, which so that provided a direct line
Speaker 1: between Oliver North and some guys who were kicking Colashna
Speaker 1: Coughs out of the back of a plane over in Nicaragua.
Speaker 1: So that was a really big deal that when this
Speaker 1: guy got captured and you know, told the Santinistas as
Speaker 1: much as he knew, because the Sandinistas were like attention, world,
Speaker 1: Listen to what we just found out. The CIA has
Speaker 1: um totally been funding these contra rebels who are trying
Speaker 1: to overthrow the sovereign government, and um, we think you
Speaker 1: guys should know about it. Yeah, And it was, um,
Speaker 1: it wasn't like you could totally discount that even though
Speaker 1: it was from the Sandinistan's like, Congress and the American
Speaker 1: media were like what I'm sure Congress was like, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, this this reeks of like something that has
Speaker 1: been happening that we tried to shut down. Yeah, because remember,
Speaker 1: even if the CIA was brief in Congress, it was
Speaker 1: either Bill Casey or Dewey Claridge, and they were doing
Speaker 1: a really obtuse job of this keeping Congress at arms linked.
Speaker 1: So any time something like this came out, almost none
Speaker 1: of Congress knew the full extent of this, and it
Speaker 1: was always in flagrant violation of whatever Congress wanted or
Speaker 1: whatever Congress that agreed to. Yeah, and this wasn't like
Speaker 1: this was sort of the straw that broke it all open,
Speaker 1: or that broke the camel's back, broke the camel's back
Speaker 1: wide open, camel. Uh. Things have been unraveling for a
Speaker 1: bit there was a party in ve in Virginia thrown
Speaker 1: thrown by Soldier of Fortune magazine. Can you imagine know
Speaker 1: what's that party? Like? I don't want to know. I
Speaker 1: can't imagine. I used to read Soldier of Fortune when
Speaker 1: I was in my ninja training as like a ten
Speaker 1: year old boy, and even then I was like this
Speaker 1: this magazine makes my stomach hurt. And it's in five
Speaker 1: Like can you imagine the amount of like blow being
Speaker 1: secretly done in the bathroom at that party? Sure, but
Speaker 1: also they were making snuff movies in the living room.
Speaker 1: And there's no telling what was going on in a
Speaker 1: Soldier of Fortune. We can't tell you. At the very least,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of boasting going on openly about
Speaker 1: this contra operation. And again this is the time when
Speaker 1: people don't know about this stuff. Yeah, but you know
Speaker 1: what happens is like you get enough people in enough
Speaker 1: years and people start talking, people start bragging, and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, you're you're you have a couple of
Speaker 1: gin and tonics at a Soldier of Fortune party and
Speaker 1: you're like, hey, guess what, and that that's what happened.
Speaker 1: Somebody goes what, Yeah, there you go here it comes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they dropped the you know, they dropped the bomb
Speaker 1: that what's been going on? A concerned citizen here's this.
Speaker 1: I guess he must have been mistakenly invited. I don't
Speaker 1: know how that guy got invited. They just happened to
Speaker 1: talk to the wrong guy or whatever, but probably that.
Speaker 1: He was like, I am really fearful of my life
Speaker 1: for saying something about this, but I feel like somebody
Speaker 1: should know. So he went to a lawyer, a human
Speaker 1: rights lawyer named David Sheehan, and he said, you go
Speaker 1: tell everybody. You put your life on the line. And
Speaker 1: he did. He submitted an affidavit to federal court. Started uh,
Speaker 1: doing interviews, talking to journalists, drumming up support. White House
Speaker 1: was like, we don't know what you're talking about. You're crazy, man,
Speaker 1: Like this is all made up. And uh, finally it
Speaker 1: took a Lebanese newspaper, Um Al shira that reported on
Speaker 1: this deal, this arms for hostage deal, like in a
Speaker 1: legitimate newspaper. Right, So now both stories have been blown open.
Speaker 1: You've got Eugene hass't was captured and the contra operation
Speaker 1: is blown open, and now Al shira Um is reporting
Speaker 1: on the Iran arms for hostage deal. And really, crazily enough,
Speaker 1: these two separate arms of this one scandal came out
Speaker 1: within a month of each other, which is it's bizarre,
Speaker 1: but that's what happened. And now it was like, there's
Speaker 1: it's on the table. The America's media knows about it,
Speaker 1: Congress knows about it. Heads are about to roll. All right,
Speaker 1: we'll take our final break and we'll come back talk
Speaker 1: about the aftermath of Iran contra. Well, now we're on
Speaker 1: the road, driving in your truck. Want to learn a
Speaker 1: thing or two from Josh? Can chuck it stuff you
Speaker 1: should know? All right? All right, Chuck, you promised after
Speaker 1: your math. Let's hear it. All right, So every every
Speaker 1: everything is exposed. Um Oliver north Uh was no longer
Speaker 1: in business doing his thing. No, he shut down shop
Speaker 1: real quick, he did, but not before very famously he
Speaker 1: and his um very eighties haired secretary, Fawn Hall. I
Speaker 1: forgot it looked. I was like Fawn Hall. I looked
Speaker 1: her up, and as soon as I saw I was like, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: Fawn Hall. And forget that hair. She could barely walk
Speaker 1: through the door. No, it was ginormous, for sure. It's
Speaker 1: so great I would be fearful around a shredder if
Speaker 1: our her, but she was not fearful at all. She
Speaker 1: and Oliver North spent a day they could. They call
Speaker 1: it a shredding party. I mean, we will never know
Speaker 1: the full truth behind this because of all the evidence
Speaker 1: that they shredded. As far as anyone knows, Oliver North
Speaker 1: decided on his own to shred every document he had
Speaker 1: on it. That's right, and yeah, that's that's it. It's
Speaker 1: it's now. It's the the um official narrative that has
Speaker 1: been written into the history book, which you can just
Speaker 1: guarantee is not anywhere near the full story, right, So
Speaker 1: it all comes out. The Reagan administration start looking around
Speaker 1: and they're like, well, who who's going to be the
Speaker 1: patsy for this one? And Oliver North could not escape it.
Speaker 1: But they're like, he's small potatoes, he's he's he'll he'll
Speaker 1: go down. Well, I think he was even willing to
Speaker 1: take the fall, like he knew he was going to
Speaker 1: be the fall guy, and was like, okay, that's part
Speaker 1: of the job, right. But they knew that it had
Speaker 1: to the American public, and certainly Congress wasn't going to
Speaker 1: be satisfied with just Oliver North. So who did they
Speaker 1: land on? So the the official line became this Point Dexter,
Speaker 1: and I guess McFarland would have started it. Became uh
Speaker 1: fully aware of just how badly Reagan wanted to help
Speaker 1: the Contras and said I'm gonna do something about this
Speaker 1: and tapped all the North and said we need to
Speaker 1: help the Contras out. Go help him out, figure it out.
Speaker 1: And North went off and basically went rogue on his
Speaker 1: own and set up this whole operation, created this entire
Speaker 1: network with c cord Um decided to do the Iranian
Speaker 1: arms deal, all this stuff basically on his own, and
Speaker 1: like Reagan and Bush knew nothing about it, nothing about it,
Speaker 1: and that the buck stopped at Point Dexter. Ultimately it
Speaker 1: didn't go any further. William Casey being CIA, he was
Speaker 1: basically out of the loop. Um, that was the official
Speaker 1: story they came out with, right, and America went, you're kidding, right,
Speaker 1: this is a joke. Yeah, I mean I remember these hearings, um,
Speaker 1: even as a little kid, like watching these and then
Speaker 1: watching the news coverage of it, and like we mentioned,
Speaker 1: all over North strolling in there with his dress uniform
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, by all accounts being a pretty
Speaker 1: stand up guy, like he didn't write anyone out, he didn't.
Speaker 1: But he also he was like, there's there's no way
Speaker 1: the president didn't know about this. He said, I don't
Speaker 1: have any direct evidence that the president didn't know about it,
Speaker 1: but it's my understanding that the president was fully aware
Speaker 1: of what was going on. Yeah, what was the deal
Speaker 1: with this missile supply shipment? Though? That's the one thing
Speaker 1: I didn't quite get. So there was North got rid
Speaker 1: of all the documents that he could right well, North
Speaker 1: didn't have any control over CIA documents, and at that
Speaker 1: first missile resupply where they were resupplying Israel, he had
Speaker 1: a C I A. He basically said, hey, C I A,
Speaker 1: do you know anybody I can use to ship these things?
Speaker 1: I'm I've got an emergency here. I need to get
Speaker 1: these to is real fast. And the CIA, being the
Speaker 1: CIA is still a bureaucracy, they had to document this event.
Speaker 1: So there was a document out there now and right
Speaker 1: that he couldn't get his hands on, that he couldn't shred.
Speaker 1: And so this led to Reagan taking responsibility or saying, okay,
Speaker 1: I was aware of this this Iran missile deal by
Speaker 1: backdating an order to William Casey saying I order you
Speaker 1: not to tell Congress about this, even though you're supposed to.
Speaker 1: So Reagan basically said, on paper, I know about this Iran,
Speaker 1: this one missile transfer to Iran. Had no idea about
Speaker 1: the contrast and it. First they started up denying everything.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, like after this, I'll share a story that
Speaker 1: we talked about. He went on television, Reagan did and
Speaker 1: denied everything. Every He said, all this is just total
Speaker 1: b us. Yeah exactly. Now let's now, let's stop talking
Speaker 1: about everybody. Ten days after that, Reagan had another press
Speaker 1: conference where he talked about the Iran operation and he
Speaker 1: acknowledged it, but said, what we're really doing here is
Speaker 1: just trying to sort of send a signal to Iran
Speaker 1: that where we want friendlier relations. It was not arms
Speaker 1: for hostage exactly. And then so that was ten days
Speaker 1: after the first den and then four months after that,
Speaker 1: because the reporting would not stop, he basically said, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: and whatever it started out as, I admit that it
Speaker 1: devolved into an arms for hostage deal, which even that
Speaker 1: even that admission, which is the closest he ever came
Speaker 1: to admitting, you know, responsibility for it. Even that's just
Speaker 1: total bs and fantasy. It was from the outset in
Speaker 1: arms for hostages deal. The whole thing was set up
Speaker 1: to get hostages released, and that that was it. So
Speaker 1: there was there was no other way to put it.
Speaker 1: But that's he He denied that to his dying day.
Speaker 1: As far as fallout point extra resign, Oliver North was fired.
Speaker 1: Um Casey died in a hospital. Um not too long
Speaker 1: after this whole thing was exposed, I mean like weeks so, Um,
Speaker 1: the press was all over the president. He um appointed
Speaker 1: the Tower Commission. Um, Yeah, that look into this. The
Speaker 1: president appointed a commission to investigate, Yeah, the president's own
Speaker 1: administration's wrongdoing. That's right. And it was determined that Reagan's
Speaker 1: disengagement from the management of his White House created condition
Speaker 1: conditions such that it was possible that he did not
Speaker 1: know about this, which does the absolute best official finding
Speaker 1: he could have hoped for, because it basically says Rangon
Speaker 1: didn't know he had a rogue guy working for him,
Speaker 1: a true believer, a patriot, But Reagan didn't know about this,
Speaker 1: and yeah, he should have. He should have had a
Speaker 1: closer watch on his executive branch, but he didn't what
Speaker 1: are you gonna do, Let's get Mr t in here
Speaker 1: for a photo op with Nancy. Uh. There was a
Speaker 1: criminal investigation and what they were really um honing in
Speaker 1: on was the eighteen million dollars in profits UM that
Speaker 1: that were made and what happened to that money where
Speaker 1: it went. Fourteen people were charged um Oliver North was
Speaker 1: tried and found guilty on three counts. Yeah. Uh. One
Speaker 1: of the counts was um for getting a uh sixteen
Speaker 1: thousand dollar security system installed uh in his home courtesy
Speaker 1: of s Cord With with that money, there was a
Speaker 1: rumor that his his there's a bounty on his head
Speaker 1: from terrorists and him up right. Now. That was a
Speaker 1: big problem for North because North's hole bag was I
Speaker 1: was following orders that I assumed we're coming from the
Speaker 1: president ultimately, and I was doing it out of my
Speaker 1: patriotic duty and a sense of, you know, as a
Speaker 1: true believer that we need to get rid of communism.
Speaker 1: And the American public loved it. They're like, great, make
Speaker 1: this man a saint. Congress started to love it too,
Speaker 1: and he got off. But that was a real problem
Speaker 1: because it's saying, well, you took this gift from funds
Speaker 1: from this illicit arms sales, right, But it was a
Speaker 1: gift of a security system to help protect his family,
Speaker 1: So it's not like, you know, it was a gift
Speaker 1: of ten pounds of blow and like and Nicaraguan sex
Speaker 1: worker from the Eastern government exactly. Secord was convicted of
Speaker 1: one count of lying to Congress uh and the investigators. Um.
Speaker 1: He basically denied that North received any funds from any
Speaker 1: of this. So it's still kind of hinged on that
Speaker 1: security system, I guess. And so everybody went to jail
Speaker 1: forever after that point. Right, No, that's not true at all. Um.
Speaker 1: Hakim got two years probation, a five thousand dollar fine.
Speaker 1: Secord got two years probation. Is that what he got?
Speaker 1: Two years probation. So the two guys who were actually
Speaker 1: running the company that ran this whole thing each got
Speaker 1: two years probation. North's conviction was overturned on a technicality,
Speaker 1: and President Bush, the senior Bush on Christmas Eve. Um,
Speaker 1: this was Christmas Eve as he was leaving office, right,
Speaker 1: he issued six pardons basically a lot let everyone off
Speaker 1: the hook, including Casper Weinberger, who hadn't even gone to
Speaker 1: trial yet no, and neither had um Duane Claridge Dewey
Speaker 1: Claridge was going to stay in trial to both of
Speaker 1: them received preemptive pardons, and a lot of people are like,
Speaker 1: that was about the shadiest set of pardons anyone's ever issued,
Speaker 1: because there's a lot of people out there who say
Speaker 1: Bush really walked away from the Scott free, but there
Speaker 1: is no way he wasn't even more involved in this
Speaker 1: than Reagan was. Yeah, I mean George Bush withheld subpoena
Speaker 1: his subpoena diary entries that basically indicated that he had
Speaker 1: full knowledge of this the entire time. UM. Eventually in
Speaker 1: UH Independent Council Lawrence Walsh um asked for these again
Speaker 1: and Bush like said, I asked you for these diary entrees.
Speaker 1: And Bush was like, I didn't you did, I didn't
Speaker 1: fully understand. Uh, it was inadvertent, Like you asked me
Speaker 1: for a lot of stuff. I didn't know you asked
Speaker 1: me for the diary entrees. And Uh, walsh was really
Speaker 1: upset and he said, the Iran Contra contra cover up
Speaker 1: has now been completed. Uh. And George Bush as a
Speaker 1: president who has such a contempt for honesty and arrogant
Speaker 1: disregard for the rule of law. Yeah, and I mean
Speaker 1: the the forestalling that the Reagan White House and then
Speaker 1: later on the Bush White House did um in in
Speaker 1: allowing these investigations to go forward and trying to keep
Speaker 1: Congress at arm's length after everything came out. It worked
Speaker 1: because there were articles of impeachment introduced in the House
Speaker 1: um against Ronald Reagan, and they managed to stave him
Speaker 1: off to where it was like while he's leaving office anyway,
Speaker 1: forget about it. This investigation took years and years and years,
Speaker 1: and then finally when Bush pardoned everybody that was it,
Speaker 1: there was nothing else to do. Everybody who was involved
Speaker 1: was impl was was off scott free. And then um,
Speaker 1: the fact that Oliver North had shredded all those documents,
Speaker 1: they were all lost to history, like the actual truth
Speaker 1: is lost to history. Yeah. Reagan, Uh, his reputation took
Speaker 1: a hit, temporary it um for a while there. He
Speaker 1: went from sixty in the span of a couple of
Speaker 1: months to forty three to forty seven percent depending on
Speaker 1: which poll you looked at on his approval rating. And uh,
Speaker 1: he would get it back though. Um. Despite in the
Speaker 1: position the very very famous deposition where Ronald Reagan said
Speaker 1: I don't remember or I don't recall eighty eight times.
Speaker 1: That was a very big deal, was all over the news.
Speaker 1: Um almost as famous or just as famous as Bill
Speaker 1: Clinton's very famous depends what your definition of is is exactly.
Speaker 1: But Reagan rebounded. He did man to the most popular
Speaker 1: presidency since FDR Right. Yeah. Upon his exit, his his
Speaker 1: approval rating had bounced all the way back up to
Speaker 1: the early sixties. Mr T famously carried him out of
Speaker 1: the White House on his shoulders on his last day
Speaker 1: in office. Oh man, so that's a wrong contra Man,
Speaker 1: what a story of a story? Where's this movie? I
Speaker 1: don't know. Hopefully we'll get some rights to it after
Speaker 1: this episode. I want to play Fawn Hall. Also, that's great.
Speaker 1: You get Jerry to play Fawn Hall. That would be great,
Speaker 1: Jerry Um. Well. In the meantime, while we find a
Speaker 1: suitable wig for Jerry Um, you can find out more
Speaker 1: about Iran Contract by going and reading contemporary articles on it.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you it's really awesome. And since I said
Speaker 1: that it's time for listener mail, I'm gonna call this
Speaker 1: follow up on the moon Landing thing. Hey guys. In
Speaker 1: my opinion, the Apollo missions and Moon landings are the
Speaker 1: most significant events in the history of life on Earth.
Speaker 1: On the question why the Command module and Lunar Lander
Speaker 1: were launched separated, I think the reason was to allow
Speaker 1: the Command module to be ejected in case of an emergency.
Speaker 1: The very top of the Apollo stack was the launch
Speaker 1: escape system, like an injector seat on steroids. I imagine
Speaker 1: they had to keep things as light and nimble as
Speaker 1: possible for the l S to be effective. I don't
Speaker 1: think you mentioned something that's really significant the Apollo eight mission.
Speaker 1: It was the very first time humans went to the Moon,
Speaker 1: on top of being the first time we broke free
Speaker 1: of Earth's gravity. Like like eleven, the stakes were incredibly high.
Speaker 1: They had to first insert the correct trajectory to make
Speaker 1: it to the Moon, then do a burn to enter
Speaker 1: the orbit around the Moon, then perform another burn to
Speaker 1: break free of the Moon's gravity and head back towards Earth.
Speaker 1: If any piece was not in place, those astronauts would
Speaker 1: have spent the rest of their lives either orbiting the
Speaker 1: Sun or orbiting the Moon. Apollo eight also gave us
Speaker 1: the Earth rise photo. Oh yeah, yeah, I've been hearing
Speaker 1: a lot about Apollo eight um lately too, so this
Speaker 1: person is hats off to you. Jim Lovell was on
Speaker 1: both Apollo eight and Apollo thirteen. He traveled to the
Speaker 1: moon twice but never had the opportunity to land. Signed
Speaker 1: a space geek Noah Alloy, Nice work, Noah Alloy Alloy Alloy,
Speaker 1: great name too. Thanks a lot for a getting in
Speaker 1: touch with us. We love space geeks. We love to
Speaker 1: put you guys in headlocks and rub your heads with
Speaker 1: our knuckles until you go stop. It's called a noogie
Speaker 1: right here on Earth. That's right, um. If you want
Speaker 1: a noogie from me and Chuck, send us a space
Speaker 1: geeky or any kind of geeky thing. We love that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. You can go onto stuff you should
Speaker 1: Know dot com and follow our social links and you
Speaker 1: can send us a good old fashioned email, wrap it up,
Speaker 1: spank it on the bottom, and send it off to
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