Speaker 1: Pushkin From the day the story broke in lebanon early November.
Speaker 1: All the possible outcomes and worsening scandal were immediately obvious,
Speaker 1: it seemed to me, and I reached the conclusion that
Speaker 1: at least if you can't turn things around, maybe you
Speaker 1: can atone and I won't develop for you the nature
Speaker 1: of depression and how it can worsen and lead to
Speaker 1: a cycle of decline. And yet that was what was happening.
Speaker 2: One of the most important figures in the Iran Contra affair,
Speaker 2: Robert McFarlan, is in a hospital tonight. The former National
Speaker 2: Security advisor apparently took an overdose of valium as an
Speaker 2: attempted suicide.
Speaker 3: It was shortly after seven am when Missus McFarland tried
Speaker 3: to rouse her husband and couldn't.
Speaker 4: In the months after the Iran Contra scandal broke, Bud
Speaker 4: McFarlane had felt a duty to take responsibility for it.
Speaker 4: McFarland believed he was the only one in Reagan's inner
Speaker 4: circle who could have stopped the arms for Hostages initiative,
Speaker 4: and he had failed. Still, McFarland had maintained hope that
Speaker 4: the administration could set the scandal aside and recommit itself
Speaker 4: to its foreign policy ambitions. If McFarlane could help his
Speaker 4: former colleagues in the White House make that happen, maybe
Speaker 4: he could set things right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I still had this foolish I think believe that
Speaker 1: we shouldn't close down the government with a scandal in
Speaker 1: pre occupation with it when you had other things that
Speaker 1: still needed to be done.
Speaker 4: So McFarland wrote down the policy goals he thought the
Speaker 4: administration could still pursue.
Speaker 1: The President had achieved quite a lot, that is, he
Speaker 1: had teed up opportunities that were enormous, and I wrote
Speaker 1: down what ought to be done in four areas where
Speaker 1: we would be taking an initiative of importance to our country.
Speaker 4: When he was finished, McFarlane says that he submitted the
Speaker 4: memo to the President, the Vice President, and the Secretary
Speaker 4: of State.
Speaker 1: But I didn't even get an answer. One of the
Speaker 1: three did. I'd forgotten who it was, But I had
Speaker 1: no signal that any of it was being considered.
Speaker 5: And so.
Speaker 1: To me, that was kind of a moment of truth
Speaker 1: that your best efforts have failed. You have exhausted all
Speaker 1: possible recourse for salvaging the considerable gains that could be
Speaker 1: made aid and under President Reagan's leadership.
Speaker 4: When McFarland saw that his memo was being ignored, he
Speaker 4: became convinced that the promise of the Reagan administration had
Speaker 4: been truly squandered and that it was partly his fault. Later,
Speaker 4: McFarland explained his decision to try to take his own
Speaker 4: life by invoking the Japanese ritual of seppuku, a form
Speaker 4: of suicide practiced by disgraced samurai who wanted to restore
Speaker 4: honor to their families.
Speaker 1: It was foolish looking back, but no, it has a
Speaker 1: tradition in the Far East, and it's just more comment
Speaker 1: on how deep the depression had become.
Speaker 4: Around midnight on February eighth, nineteen eighty seven, Bud McFarland
Speaker 4: swallowed roughly thirty volume tablets. When his wife woke up
Speaker 4: the next morning, she saw that something was wrong and
Speaker 4: called an ambulance.
Speaker 3: Missus McFarland was clutching a note from her husband, which
Speaker 3: she refused to show to the medics.
Speaker 2: McFarlan has come under increasing strong as the Iran a
Speaker 2: fair defense.
Speaker 4: McFarlane, who was forty nine years old, was taken to
Speaker 4: a nearby naval hospital to recover. News of McFarland's suicide
Speaker 4: attempt came as multiple investigations into Iran Contra were lurching
Speaker 4: to life.
Speaker 6: The nation's one hundredth Congress convened today clearly preoccupied with
Speaker 6: the Iran Contra crisis.
Speaker 4: The House and the Senate had both formed committees to
Speaker 4: look into the matter, and they were preparing for public hearings.
Speaker 6: After a long debate, the Senate finally approved a resolution
Speaker 6: authorizing a bipartisan committee to investigate.
Speaker 7: Adopted overwhelmingly bipartisanly by a margin of four hundred and.
Speaker 8: Sixteen to two.
Speaker 7: The House also established its Select Committee.
Speaker 4: While Congress set its inquiry in motion, prosecutors working in
Speaker 4: the Office of the Independent Council were undertaking a separate investigation.
Speaker 8: Lawrence Walsh, a former judge and former Deputy Attorney General,
Speaker 8: demand to search for any criminal wrongdoing.
Speaker 4: Unlike Congress, the Independent Council was pursuing a criminal probe
Speaker 4: intended to identify any illegal acts that may have been
Speaker 4: committed as part of Iran contract.
Speaker 7: I think that we have a statutory basis to believe
Speaker 7: that a federal law may have been violated.
Speaker 4: And then there was the Tower Commission, a three person
Speaker 4: panel appointed by the President that included a former national
Speaker 4: security advisor and two former senators.
Speaker 6: Former Texas Senator John Tower, former National Security Advisor Brent Scolcroft,
Speaker 6: and former Secretary of State Edmund Muski are.
Speaker 9: The other members.
Speaker 4: Their job was to find out what had gone wrong
Speaker 4: in the White House and then share their findings with
Speaker 4: the public. The Tower Commission was most focused on the
Speaker 4: National Security Council.
Speaker 2: The panel reportably has expanded its investigation to include possible
Speaker 2: attempts to cover up the scandal.
Speaker 4: Looking back, it's no surprise McFarland's foreign policy memo didn't
Speaker 4: get more attention. Reagan was under siege and the notion
Speaker 4: that he could just set the scandal aside and get
Speaker 4: back to business was wishful thinking. As Congress prepared to
Speaker 4: hold hearings, the American public wanted answers. What had the
Speaker 4: President known about Iran Contra, when did he know it?
Speaker 4: And had he lied to cover it up. I'm Leon
Speaker 4: Nafok from Prolog Projects and Pushkin Industries. This is fiasco
Speaker 4: Iran contract.
Speaker 8: The full story of the Iran Contra affair begins to
Speaker 8: unfold for all of us to see.
Speaker 10: Colonel lath please rise.
Speaker 3: Oliver North has become the hottest tickets in town.
Speaker 7: The man's become an instant celebrity.
Speaker 2: I mispled the Congress secrecy, deception, and disdain for the law.
Speaker 11: We were shocked. To this day, I'm shocked.
Speaker 12: Millions of Americans have a nagging suspicion that the truth
Speaker 12: has not yet come out.
Speaker 4: Episode six fault Lines, The Iran Contra goes on trial
Speaker 4: as each of its principal architects takes a turn fielding
Speaker 4: the blame. We'll be right back, Bud. McFarlane ended up
Speaker 4: spending about two weeks in the hospital. During his recovery,
Speaker 4: he received several notable visits. One was from former President
Speaker 4: Richard Nixon, who gave McFarland advice on overcoming adversity and
Speaker 4: living with one's mistakes. McFarland was also visited by the
Speaker 4: three members of the Tower Commission, who interviewed him in
Speaker 4: his hospital room for more than six hours. They were
Speaker 4: particularly interested in whether Reagan had pre approved the very
Speaker 4: first arm sales to Iran. McFarlane told them he had.
Speaker 4: Just a few days later, the Tower Commission released its
Speaker 4: report on Iran Contra, It was more than three hundred
Speaker 4: pages long, and its conclusions were not flattering to the president.
Speaker 13: The Special Review Board has completed its work, but it
Speaker 13: might be helpful to give you the highlights of this
Speaker 13: rather lengthy report to the president.
Speaker 4: At a press conference, the commission's chairman and namesake, John
Speaker 4: Tower detailed the president's failings as a manager. Though most
Speaker 4: of the bad ideas had come from Reagan's subordinates, Tower
Speaker 4: said it was his job to watch what they were
Speaker 4: doing and rain them in.
Speaker 13: Now you can say that perhaps this president holds himself
Speaker 13: a little bit too aloof from the implementation of policy.
Speaker 13: But one thing is very very clear that members of
Speaker 13: the system who were privied of what was going on
Speaker 13: failed to the president because the president clearly didn't understand.
Speaker 2: And the President of the United States is described here
Speaker 2: generally as a man who just simply was not very
Speaker 2: much in control of the foreign policy apparatus of his administration.
Speaker 4: The Tower report would not be the final verdict underran contract.
Speaker 4: There were still congressional hearings ahead, as well as potential
Speaker 4: indictments coming out of the Independent Council's Office, but for
Speaker 4: the time being, the report spoke loudly here was a
Speaker 4: panel created by the President, and the best thing they
Speaker 4: could say about him was that he was out to lunch.
Speaker 3: This is an NBCU special President Reagan's response to the
Speaker 3: Tower Commission report. I.
Speaker 14: Fellow Americans, I've spoken to you from this historic office
Speaker 14: on many occasions and about many things.
Speaker 4: On March fourth, nineteen eighty seven, Reagan delivered a primetime
Speaker 4: speech in response to the Tower Board's findings.
Speaker 14: For the past three months, I've been silent on the
Speaker 14: revelations about Iran, and you must have been thinking of
Speaker 14: why doesn't he tell us what's happening. But I've had
Speaker 14: to wait, as you have, for the complete story.
Speaker 4: Reagan called the Tower report honest, convincing, and highly critical.
Speaker 4: Then he referred back to his first public statements about
Speaker 4: the scandal, it admitted that they had been inaccurate.
Speaker 14: A few months ago, I told the American people, I
Speaker 14: did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my
Speaker 14: best intentions still tell me that's true. But the facts
Speaker 14: and the evidence tell me it is. Not reasons why
Speaker 14: it happened, but no excuses. It was a mistake.
Speaker 4: But the time for candid self reflection had passed. As
Speaker 4: much as Reagan may have wanted to move on from
Speaker 4: Iran Contra. The scrutiny was only going to intensify as
Speaker 4: Congress prepared for televised hearings.
Speaker 5: The public and the press wanted to know what the
Speaker 5: hell happened, how high it went, who was responsible for it,
Speaker 5: and was there anything that we didn't know.
Speaker 4: This is John Neilds. He's a former prosecutor who was
Speaker 4: hired by House Democrats as chief counsel to lead their
Speaker 4: investigation and question witnesses during the hearings.
Speaker 5: Our job was to tell the story in a way
Speaker 5: that people could figure out for themselves what things were wrong,
Speaker 5: what things were arguably wrong and arguably right, and what
Speaker 5: things were fine.
Speaker 4: It's important to note that these were not impeachment hearings.
Speaker 4: Neilds was convinced it was highly unlikely that Congress would
Speaker 4: ever take that step. Reagan was too popular and his
Speaker 4: second term was almost up anyway. Also, Neilds thought it
Speaker 4: was pretty clear that whatever Reagan did, his intentions had
Speaker 4: not been malevolent. There was one circumstance in which Congress
Speaker 4: might consider impeachment. According to Neilds, the ranking Republican on
Speaker 4: the committee, Warren Rudman, took the view that impeachment would
Speaker 4: only be appropriate if Reagan had personally authorized the diversion.
Speaker 5: He made it the only issue on which Reagan could
Speaker 5: be impeached. He really wanted to find out as soon
Speaker 5: as possible the facts that, in his mind would answer
Speaker 5: the question, is anything impeachable happened here?
Speaker 2: And this survey finds that public skepticism is now very deep,
Speaker 2: and forty one percent think that President Reagan should resign
Speaker 2: if it turns out he knew that money was being
Speaker 2: diverted to the Nicaraguan contras.
Speaker 4: But as Neil saw it, the diversion, the hyphen at
Speaker 4: the center of Iran contra was only a shiny object,
Speaker 4: a diversion, you might say, from everything else that was
Speaker 4: wrong with the Iran weapons program and the country war individually.
Speaker 5: Knowing whether the president was responsible for the diversion was
Speaker 5: probably the most exciting question that we had to deal with.
Speaker 5: I don't think it has an awful lot to do
Speaker 5: with answering the question of whether this was a shocking
Speaker 5: and really serious a breakdown in the way our government functioned.
Speaker 5: That's what I thought this was about.
Speaker 12: Millions of Americans have a nagging suspicion that the truth
Speaker 12: has not yet come out.
Speaker 15: Three branches must be involved in the governing of the
Speaker 15: people of this country, and when one branch goes all
Speaker 15: wild without even including consultation with the other branches, that
Speaker 15: spells trouble.
Speaker 4: It's hard to overstate how huge an undertake these hearings were.
Speaker 4: Before Congress could publicly question a single witness, Meals and
Speaker 4: his team of investigators had to obtain documents, take depositions,
Speaker 4: and figure out which leads to pursue. That meant probing
Speaker 4: multiple government agencies, including the National Security Council, the State Department,
Speaker 4: the Pentagon, the Justice Department, and the White House itself.
Speaker 4: Then there was the international angle. The Nicaraguin thread alone
Speaker 4: involved members of the Contras who were based in Honduras
Speaker 4: and Costa Rica. On the Iran side of things, the
Speaker 4: investigators would have to make contact with Middle Eastern arms
Speaker 4: dealers and Israeli diplomats. It was hard to say where
Speaker 4: the trail would take them, but even in the simplest scenario,
Speaker 4: Meals and his colleagues were going to have to trace
Speaker 4: millions of dollars moving through a maze of Swiss bank accounts,
Speaker 4: shell companies, and foreign countries.
Speaker 3: The Senate, so like Comeree voted today to order General
Speaker 3: Richard Seacourt to disclose records of Swiss bank accounts he holds.
Speaker 1: See what happened to the money, who set the accounts up,
Speaker 1: who had access to the accounts, how much more when
Speaker 1: it was in the accounts, and where do the money
Speaker 1: go now?
Speaker 5: This was a set of issues that if I had
Speaker 5: been in an assistant US attorney, as I had been
Speaker 5: previously in my life, I would have looked at this
Speaker 5: as a one or two year investigation before you could
Speaker 5: say you've done your job. And it was very clear
Speaker 5: that we were only going to have a matter of months.
Speaker 4: The time crunch was the result of a compromise between
Speaker 4: Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress. As you might imagine,
Speaker 4: Republicans wanted to get the hearings over and done with
Speaker 4: as quickly as possible, while Democrats argued for letting them
Speaker 4: go on as long as they needed to. Hanging over
Speaker 4: this procedural debate was the upcoming presidential election, in which
Speaker 4: Ronald Reagan's vice President, George H. W. Bush was expected
Speaker 4: to run. In the end, it was decided that Congress
Speaker 4: would have until August to get through the hearings. Here
Speaker 4: is Pam Nonton, who worked on the House investigation with
Speaker 4: John Nields.
Speaker 11: It did make more difficult because when you put an
Speaker 11: end date on the investigation before you've even begun it,
Speaker 11: how in the world do you know how long it
Speaker 11: will take. It may take less than that, may take
Speaker 11: more than that. You go where the evidence leads, you
Speaker 11: don't just stop.
Speaker 4: The team divided the case up into silos and assigned
Speaker 4: investigators to each one. Notton, for instance, was put on
Speaker 4: the Department of Justice, which meant she was looking into
Speaker 4: the weekend fact finding mission you heard about in our
Speaker 4: previous episode.
Speaker 11: I mean, obviously I was there to investigate what the
Speaker 11: Attorney General did when this first broke his quote unquote
Speaker 11: investigation to you know, get their quote get their arms
Speaker 11: around the facts, but also the broader issue of what
Speaker 11: did the Department of Justice know about the arms sale?
Speaker 11: So it was sort of a wide swath of things
Speaker 11: because it involved different divisions of the department.
Speaker 4: The clock ticked, Nilds and his team encountered an obstacle
Speaker 4: that was no less daunting than their deadline. Their two
Speaker 4: would be star witnesses, Oliver North and his supervisor John
Speaker 4: Poindexter were going to plead the Fifth North and Poindexter
Speaker 4: would refuse to testify at the hearings unless Congress gave
Speaker 4: them immunity. That meant guaranteeing that North and Poindexter's words
Speaker 4: would not be used against them in a criminal inquiry.
Speaker 4: The situation put Neilds and his team on a collision
Speaker 4: course with the other big Iran contraprobe in Town, the
Speaker 4: Independent Council, Lawrence Walsh.
Speaker 7: In a strongly worded letter accompanied by a legal memo,
Speaker 7: Walsh urges the House Committee not to grant witnesses immunity
Speaker 7: until after his work is done. To do so, he writes,
Speaker 7: would quote create serious and perhaps insurmountable barriers to the
Speaker 7: prosecution of the witnesses.
Speaker 4: Walsh's mandate was to identify any criminal wrongdoing that may
Speaker 4: have occurred as part of Iran Contra. That was why
Speaker 4: North and Poindexter wanted immunity. If they could get it,
Speaker 4: nothing they said to Congress could be used against them
Speaker 4: in an indictment.
Speaker 7: And that the prosecution would have to prove its case
Speaker 7: was based on other information.
Speaker 4: As a former prosecutor, John Neilds understood how much harder
Speaker 4: that would make it for Walsh to build cases, but
Speaker 4: in the end he supported the grant of immunity.
Speaker 5: I felt conflicted. I knew that something good was going
Speaker 5: to come out of it, which was what I thought
Speaker 5: was the more important good, which is the public is
Speaker 5: going to learn everything.
Speaker 2: The Congressional committee's investigating the scandal formally approved a plan
Speaker 2: for a limited immunity for these two men, John Poindexter
Speaker 2: and Oliver.
Speaker 8: North, and here on Capitol Hill today, after months of expectation,
Speaker 8: the full story of the Iran Contra affair begins to
Speaker 8: unfold for all of us to see.
Speaker 4: The Iran contray hearings opened on May fifth, nineteen eighty seven,
Speaker 4: a little more than six months after the scandal broke.
Speaker 4: They were run by a joint committee, meaning the House
Speaker 4: and the Senate were combining their investigations so that witnesses
Speaker 4: wouldn't have to testify twice.
Speaker 10: The joint hearings of the House Select Committee to Investigate
Speaker 10: Covert Arms Transaction with Iran and the Senate Select Committee
Speaker 10: on Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaraguan Opposition
Speaker 10: will come to order.
Speaker 4: The first witness would be retired Major General Richard Seacord,
Speaker 4: who had overseen logistics for both the Contra war and
Speaker 4: the Iran weapons program.
Speaker 8: A key figure who has not been heard from before,
Speaker 8: began to tell the committees of his own involvement in
Speaker 8: sending arms to Iran and in helping the countries in
Speaker 8: Central Americas.
Speaker 4: Seacord did not demand immunity in exchange for his testimony.
Speaker 4: He insisted that his involvement was that of a private
Speaker 4: citizen and a businessman. He told the committee about how
Speaker 4: his operation had worked and said he thought he was
Speaker 4: just carrying out the president's policy.
Speaker 16: The president has certain rights in the foreign policy area.
Speaker 16: I never saw myself as being foreign policy operative.
Speaker 12: You saw nothing wrong with this operation.
Speaker 16: I did not see anything wrong with it.
Speaker 4: Then, Seacord seemed sensitive to suggestions that he had only
Speaker 4: gotten involved in ron Contra to make money.
Speaker 16: There was no intention of profiteerian. I know that some
Speaker 16: people were tossing this word around right now, and I
Speaker 16: resent it.
Speaker 3: If Seacord wasn't doing all this for profit, why wouldn't
Speaker 3: he turnover records of his Swiss bank accounts.
Speaker 16: I relied on the advice of my accounsel. Let's get
Speaker 16: off the subject.
Speaker 17: You're making the rulings.
Speaker 16: No, sir, but I did not come here.
Speaker 18: To be badger.
Speaker 4: Seacord's testimony set the tone for the rest of the hearings.
Speaker 4: Bud McFarland testified next.
Speaker 19: Our witness this morning is mister Robert Carl McFarlane, the
Speaker 19: former National Security Advisor to the President.
Speaker 4: When McFarland was asked about Oliver North's destruction of documents,
Speaker 4: the term shredding party was introduced into the national lexicon.
Speaker 17: Colonel North tell you when the car that there was
Speaker 17: going to be a shredding party that weekend.
Speaker 1: Well, just that there had to be one, the attorney.
Speaker 4: By the end of May nineteen eighty seven, the Iran
Speaker 4: contry hearings were becoming a national obsession. This is a
Speaker 4: song from a late night Cinemax show called This Week
Speaker 4: Indoors Document.
Speaker 13: Peoples Have Not.
Speaker 4: As the hearings continued, the witnesses just kept getting more exciting.
Speaker 4: About a month then America met Oliver North's personal secretary,
Speaker 4: Fawn Hall.
Speaker 8: She is twenty seven years old. She went to high
Speaker 8: school in Virginia and then on to finishing school and
Speaker 8: of course in modeling.
Speaker 4: Hall is blonde and striking. As it turned out, she
Speaker 4: was a former model.
Speaker 3: Fawn Hall's appearance on Capitol Hill was a media event.
Speaker 3: She was surrounded by cameras and security men.
Speaker 7: Paul read an opening statement, making as clear as she
Speaker 7: could that despite her looks, she is not just a
Speaker 7: pretty face.
Speaker 17: And perform my duties in exemplary manner.
Speaker 19: I can type.
Speaker 7: That last, of course, a reference to congressional sex scandals
Speaker 7: involving secretaries who admitted they could not type.
Speaker 4: Hall's looks were not the only reason people were anticipating
Speaker 4: her testimony. They also wanted to know about the so
Speaker 4: called shredding party that she and North allegedly collaborated on
Speaker 4: after the Iran scandal broke.
Speaker 2: Fawn Hall told how she altered and shredded key documents
Speaker 2: a secretary to Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North at the White.
Speaker 20: House, and as he pulled documents from each dower and
Speaker 20: placed on top of the shredder, I inserted them into
Speaker 20: the shredder.
Speaker 4: Hall also testified to sneaking documents out of North's office
Speaker 4: by stuffing them in her clothes.
Speaker 16: And then you proceeded to remove documents from your boots
Speaker 16: and from other parts of your clothing.
Speaker 17: Is that correct?
Speaker 11: That's correct?
Speaker 4: Her more than anything. Fawn Hall's testimony was about defending
Speaker 4: Oliver North. He portrayed the colonel as a patriot, a
Speaker 4: hard working idealist whose only goal was to protect the
Speaker 4: United States. According to Hall, everything North did, including the
Speaker 4: destruction of documents, was done in the name of American interests.
Speaker 17: And did you.
Speaker 13: Surmise that this was a way of trying to cover
Speaker 13: up something in conjunction with the Iran initiative or the
Speaker 13: Contra initiative.
Speaker 11: I do not use the word cover up. I would
Speaker 11: use the word protect.
Speaker 4: Vawn Hall wasn't the only witness to go to bat
Speaker 4: for North. One of the Contra leaders flew in to
Speaker 4: testify as well. And even though most of what he
Speaker 4: had to say implicated North in Contra activities, what stuck
Speaker 4: out was the ardor with which he defended North's character
Speaker 4: and dedication to the anti communist cause.
Speaker 17: I have and still have high respect for Colonel North.
Speaker 17: But there was a group saying that they were going
Speaker 17: to erect a monument for Colonel North once that Mikaraua
Speaker 17: was liberated.
Speaker 9: Would it be possible to make a brief quote statement,
Speaker 9: And I will ask before I read it. It's a
Speaker 9: poem that.
Speaker 4: Then North assistant Robert Owen ended his closing statement by
Speaker 4: reading a poem.
Speaker 9: Ali, your enemies are more clever and more treacherous than ours.
Speaker 9: Yet you have given all you had to give. We
Speaker 9: have so very little to give you in return. Yet
Speaker 9: we want you to know that in our hearts and
Speaker 9: our prayers, you're with us daily. You're giving our children
Speaker 9: a chance to live as free individuals. And for these
Speaker 9: things we say thank you, Oli North. And I can
Speaker 9: only add that I love Oli North like a brother,
Speaker 9: and I want to thank the committee.
Speaker 4: For all this fanfare around Oliver North, who had been
Speaker 4: refusing to testify, built anticipation for the moment when the
Speaker 4: man himself would finally appear before the committee and give
Speaker 4: his side of the story.
Speaker 3: Oliver North, after months of delaying and stonewalling, finally goes
Speaker 3: before Congress tomorrow.
Speaker 15: Ifty nine percent of those surveyed thank North will lie
Speaker 15: to Congressional committees investigating the scandal when he begins testifying Tuesday.
Speaker 4: The summer of Iran Contra war on North had everyone's
Speaker 4: attention a lot.
Speaker 6: In the history of Congress have so many lawmakers been
Speaker 6: so interested in what our lieutenant colonel in the Marine
Speaker 6: Corps has to say, well, the swashbuckling marine who once
Speaker 6: declared without complaint that.
Speaker 3: He was ready to be the pall guy d day
Speaker 3: is at hand.
Speaker 10: The hurrying will please come to order.
Speaker 4: On the morning of July seventh, nineteen eighty seven, Oliver
Speaker 4: North sat before the Congressional Committee waiting for his testimony
Speaker 4: to begin. He wore his marine uniform, proudly displaying the
Speaker 4: ribbons and medals he had earned in Vietnam, including two
Speaker 4: purple hearts and a silver Star North Saltan Pepper hare
Speaker 4: was neatly parted, and he sat straight up with his
Speaker 4: jaw squared.
Speaker 20: Colonel Law, please rise.
Speaker 4: He looked young and almost indecently handsome. Here's Pam Nawton again.
Speaker 11: When he took the oa with all the cameras started snapping,
Speaker 11: as like a whole flock of birds of descended upon
Speaker 11: the room.
Speaker 10: Do you solemnly where that in the testimony you're about
Speaker 10: to give will be the proof the whole pooth and nothing.
Speaker 4: Remember, North's testimony was being shown live on television, and
Speaker 4: Noughton believes that the camera angles affected the way he
Speaker 4: was perceived.
Speaker 11: They had placed a third camera on the floor so
Speaker 11: that you could sort of see him sitting over the camera,
Speaker 11: and it made him much larger than he was in person.
Speaker 11: He's a rather slight man, but on TV, because of
Speaker 11: the angle of the camera, he looked, you know, heroic
Speaker 11: and huge and strong.
Speaker 4: John Neilds was first up to question North, and North
Speaker 4: did not waste any time telegraphing his attitude about what
Speaker 4: was going on.
Speaker 21: Colonel North, you were involved in two operations of this
Speaker 21: government of great significance to the people of this country.
Speaker 9: Is that correct?
Speaker 21: At least two, yes, sir, And these operations were carried
Speaker 21: out in.
Speaker 14: Secret, we hoped so.
Speaker 4: Neilds began with a line of questioning about why North
Speaker 4: had felt it was proper to keep his activities secret
Speaker 4: and to destroy evidence after the fact. North's response was
Speaker 4: that he couldn't risk the possibility of America's adversaries getting
Speaker 4: their hands on classified information. Neilds pressed him, But it.
Speaker 21: Was designed to be kept a secret from the American people.
Speaker 20: I think what is important, mister neild says, that we
Speaker 20: somehow arrive at some kind of an understanding right here
Speaker 20: and now as to what a covert operation is. I mean,
Speaker 20: if we could find a way to insulate with a
Speaker 20: bubble over these hearings that are being broadcast in Moscow
Speaker 20: and talk about covert operations to the American people without
Speaker 20: it getting into the hands of our adversaries. I'm sure
Speaker 20: we would do that.
Speaker 4: Neilds was trying to make an argument that in retrospect
Speaker 4: he feels like he didn't quite get a in the
Speaker 4: heat of the moment.
Speaker 5: What the reason this was covert was not because we
Speaker 5: were afraid our enemies would find out about it, was
Speaker 5: we're afraid of the American people were going to find
Speaker 5: out about it. Lots of it was unlawful, and that
Speaker 5: he's going to wrap himself in God country and flag
Speaker 5: as a justification for telling lies about stuff.
Speaker 4: The contrast between North and Neilds was almost cartoonish. North
Speaker 4: looked like g I. Joe Well. Neilds was more like
Speaker 4: a pencil necked, long haired graduate student, and though North
Speaker 4: went out of his way to punctuate his comments with
Speaker 4: polite formalities, the mutual hostility between the two men was obvious.
Speaker 4: It didn't help that North's lawyer, Brendan Sullivan, was regularly
Speaker 4: interrupting neils and raising objections.
Speaker 21: Objection, how many times do we have to have the
Speaker 21: question answer, asked mister chairman.
Speaker 4: At one point, North and Sullivan seemed to be mocking
Speaker 4: Neils from their table. Neilds was frustrated, Well.
Speaker 15: What is your question, council?
Speaker 21: Have you forgotten the question?
Speaker 19: All I have? And I have to make objections?
Speaker 22: So you ask it again?
Speaker 21: And you did, and it was overruled, and the question stands.
Speaker 21: I'd like the witness to answer it if he remembers.
Speaker 20: It, could we He obviously doesn't remember it.
Speaker 13: He just asked you to repeat it.
Speaker 21: May yeah you did, he did not, Sir, do you
Speaker 21: remember the question?
Speaker 20: My memory has been shredded, if you would be so
Speaker 20: kind as to repeat the question.
Speaker 4: Pam Norton, the congressional investigator working under Neild's, was taken
Speaker 4: aback by North's demeanor.
Speaker 11: I remember after about an hour or so, John Yild said, well,
Speaker 11: we're going to take a break now, but when we
Speaker 11: come back, I'm going to ask you about X Y Z,
Speaker 11: and North said something the effective, Oh, I can hardly wait.
Speaker 21: When we get back, I am going to ask you
Speaker 21: some questions relating to those transactions.
Speaker 20: That's a cliffhanger of an ending.
Speaker 4: When the committee took a short break, notting and some
Speaker 4: of our colleagues whispered to each other about North's performance.
Speaker 11: We were saying to ourselves, behind the dice, boy, he's
Speaker 11: really coming off like a jerk.
Speaker 4: But then an ABC News reporter named Britt Hume checked
Speaker 4: in with the committee lawyers and set them straight.
Speaker 11: You know, we said, what do you think, and he goes,
Speaker 11: I think he's a jerk, he said, but he's coming
Speaker 11: off great on TV. We're getting flooded with calls. People
Speaker 11: love him.
Speaker 4: At the same time, committee members were also getting a
Speaker 4: sense of how well North was playing with the folks
Speaker 4: watching at home.
Speaker 11: The members went back to their offices and were finding
Speaker 11: that their switchboards were getting flooded with calls of people
Speaker 11: who loved this handsome Lieutenant Kernel.
Speaker 3: With all of his medals, all of the North seems
Speaker 3: to have much of the nation in the palm of
Speaker 3: his hand.
Speaker 4: Over the course of his six days of testimony, North
Speaker 4: developed a true fan base.
Speaker 23: Of those surveyed North as a patriot and hero, forty
Speaker 23: eight percent believe North is being harassed by the congressional panels,
Speaker 23: and twenty eight percent say they would enthusiastically support North
Speaker 23: if he ran for public office.
Speaker 4: Journalists were happy to embrace the public affection for North,
Speaker 4: evidently relieved to have a real leading man in the
Speaker 4: Iran Contra crisis. The media took to calling him by
Speaker 4: his nickname Ali, and before long everyone was talking about
Speaker 4: Ali Mania.
Speaker 13: Movies, lectures, Millingham dollar, book contracts.
Speaker 7: The Washington Post ran a lengthy analysis of Colonel North's face.
Speaker 4: The three major news networks canceled regularly scheduled programming to
Speaker 4: show north testimony. Gavel to Gavel, a bar maid near Boston,
Speaker 4: had expected to dislike Colonel North.
Speaker 22: After watching the testimony, I began to dislike the committee
Speaker 22: that was questioning him.
Speaker 18: I felt though they were conducting a witch hunt.
Speaker 11: His brush is in that uniform, the.
Speaker 6: Real hero, and I'm with you one hundred percent, And
Speaker 6: I'm Glady of the American mine.
Speaker 20: And I'm proud of it.
Speaker 4: By the third day of North's testimony, thousands of telegrams
Speaker 4: have been sent to the White House, very few of
Speaker 4: them critical. Flowers for North arrived daily to the Senate
Speaker 4: Office building.
Speaker 5: Oliver North has become the hottest tickets.
Speaker 9: In town or Oliver North's t shirts.
Speaker 17: There is talk of an Oliver North doll.
Speaker 4: Barber's offered Ali North style haircuts Oli for President merch
Speaker 4: sprang up across the country.
Speaker 22: Ali Berger served up with shredded lettuce, shredded cheese, and
Speaker 22: of course topped with an American flag.
Speaker 13: Let's place it lovely more Haitian.
Speaker 19: The man's become an instant celebrity.
Speaker 8: You think of another country where that had happened.
Speaker 4: John Nields, the long haired lawyer for the House Democrats,
Speaker 4: remembers North's popularity rising at his expense.
Speaker 5: I found out that there were a significant portion of
Speaker 5: the world that thought Ali North was a cool guy,
Speaker 5: and that I wasn't a cool guy.
Speaker 4: But Neil's got the appeal and he understood the dynamic.
Speaker 5: This was Vietnam right. I don't know what it is now,
Speaker 5: maybe it's immigration or something, but the left right thing
Speaker 5: was Vietnam, and he was playing to the people who
Speaker 5: felt dissed, their patriotism had been disrespected after Vietnam, and
Speaker 5: that the country had abandoned them in the middle of
Speaker 5: a war, and who left them to die and come
Speaker 5: home as anything other than heroes. And I understand that
Speaker 5: very well. I mean, I thought the Vietnam War was
Speaker 5: a big, big mistake, and so if he was trying
Speaker 5: to pitch me as one of those people. It would
Speaker 5: be truthful.
Speaker 4: Pam Norton says, the deluge of calls and letters had
Speaker 4: an immediate effect on the committee member's line of questioning.
Speaker 11: And that's when they basically stopped asking, you know, questions,
Speaker 11: just the natural fear of a member. Whenever you put
Speaker 11: a question in front of them, the member would say, well,
Speaker 11: what's he going to say? Well, I don't know what
Speaker 11: he's going to say. That's why it's an investigation. And
Speaker 11: they wouldn't do it, not with the witness who had
Speaker 11: that much public powerful sway.
Speaker 4: At that point, the softballs the North was getting from
Speaker 4: the committee members stood in stark contrast to the grilling
Speaker 4: he received from Neils.
Speaker 5: That's sort of the end of his questioning. I asked
Speaker 5: him about lying to Congress.
Speaker 4: North was defiant.
Speaker 20: I think we can abbreviate this in hopes that we
Speaker 20: can move on so that I can finish this week.
Speaker 5: But almost like proud of himself, I will tell you
Speaker 5: right now, Council, and all the members here gathered.
Speaker 20: And all the members here gathered that.
Speaker 5: I misled the CONGRESSSS I.
Speaker 16: Missed at that meeting.
Speaker 21: At that meeting face to face, face to face.
Speaker 5: You made false statements to them about your activities in
Speaker 5: support of the contries I did. I mean, it's who
Speaker 5: he is and he was telling the truth then, so
Speaker 5: that's again credit for that's good.
Speaker 4: One thing that was interesting about Oliver North's testimony was that,
Speaker 4: as unapologetic as he was, he didn't exactly take the
Speaker 4: blame for the scandal. In fact, he made it clear
Speaker 4: over and over again that even though he stood by
Speaker 4: everything he had done, he'd also just been following orders
Speaker 4: like a good marine.
Speaker 20: I was simply a staff member with a demonstrated ability
Speaker 20: to get the job done. I reported directly to mister
Speaker 20: McFarland and to Admiral Poindexter. My authority to act always flowed,
Speaker 20: I believe from my superiors. My military training inculcated in
Speaker 20: me a strong belief in the chain of command, and
Speaker 20: so far as I can recall, I always acted on
Speaker 20: major matters with specific approval, after informing my superiors of
Speaker 20: the facts as I knew them, the risks and the
Speaker 20: potential benefits.
Speaker 4: This testimony fed into the big question coursing through the
Speaker 4: Iran Contra hearings. How much had the President known specifically
Speaker 4: what had he known about the diversion of funds from
Speaker 4: the Iran operation to the contrace. The person best position
Speaker 4: to answer this question was John Poindexter, Oliver North's boss
Speaker 4: and the National Security advisor at the time of the
Speaker 4: nineteen eighty six arm shipments.
Speaker 24: Sword says he had sent Poindexter five memos seeking President
Speaker 24: Reagan's approval for the diversion. Nord says he doesn't know
Speaker 24: if they reached the President. So committee members will ask Poindexter.
Speaker 4: We'll be right back.
Speaker 19: The committees meet this morning to hear the testimony of
Speaker 19: Admiral John Poindexter. Admiral would you please rise to take
Speaker 19: the oath?
Speaker 4: John Poindexter, who had resigned as Reagan's National Security advisor
Speaker 4: over Iran contra, took the stand on July fifteenth, right
Speaker 4: after North. Poindexter was more subdued than North, but came
Speaker 4: across as similarly unrepentant, stating flatly that he had been
Speaker 4: hoping to withhold information from Congress.
Speaker 18: It wasn't withholding it from the American people. It was
Speaker 18: that there were a lot of opponents in the Congress
Speaker 18: that would have not agreed with our interpretation of the
Speaker 18: Bowld amendment, they wouldn't have agreed to the Iranian project,
Speaker 18: and if it came out, it was going to be
Speaker 18: a very hot political issue and it would be used
Speaker 18: to pound on the president.
Speaker 4: Then it came time for Poindexter to answer the million
Speaker 4: dollar question. Taking intermittent puffs on his pipe, he explained
Speaker 4: that none of his superiors, including President Reagan, had been
Speaker 4: aware of the diversion of Iran weapons profits to the Contras.
Speaker 4: To drive the point home, Poindexter invoked Harry Truman's famous
Speaker 4: line about accountability.
Speaker 18: I think it's, you know, an important point here is
Speaker 18: on this whole issue. You know, the buck stops here
Speaker 18: with me.
Speaker 5: I made the decision.
Speaker 18: I felt that I had the authority to do it.
Speaker 18: I was convinced that the President would in the end
Speaker 18: think it was a good idea, but I did not
Speaker 18: want him to be associated with the decision.
Speaker 4: John Neilds told me he still thinks about Poindexter's answer,
Speaker 4: and he still doesn't know what to make of it.
Speaker 4: On the one hand, Poindexter was testifying plainly that he
Speaker 4: did not tell Reagan about the diversion. On the other hand,
Speaker 4: he was admitting that his goal had been to give
Speaker 4: the president deniability.
Speaker 5: He was telling them my role in life, according to
Speaker 5: my lights, is to take the blame so that the
Speaker 5: president doesn't have to And there could be two ways
Speaker 5: of doing that. One not tell the president and not
Speaker 5: tell the truth. Here, those are the two different ways. Well,
Speaker 5: it goes without saying I have no idea whether he
Speaker 5: told the truth or not. And I think that's what
Speaker 5: everybody thought, what that they didn't know whether Poindexter told
Speaker 5: the truth.
Speaker 4: After Poindexter's testimony, the three news networks began rotating coverage
Speaker 4: of the hearings and resumed their regularly scheduled programming. By
Speaker 4: eliminating the possibility that Reagan would be personally linked to
Speaker 4: the diversion, Poindexter had effectively closed the case and take
Speaker 4: an impeachment off the table.
Speaker 7: The scandal is largely over.
Speaker 3: Some committee members say this is a suspense novel which
Speaker 3: has lost a suspense. That may be one reason the
Speaker 3: committee now hopes to wrap up its work a week
Speaker 3: early by the end of July.
Speaker 4: Pam Nawton remembers thinking about how differently all Over North
Speaker 4: and John Poindexter had approached the issue of responsibility. Poindexter
Speaker 4: had at least made a show of owning the diversion. North,
Speaker 4: on the other hand, had emphasized his status as a
Speaker 4: low level operative carrying out a mission handed to him
Speaker 4: from on high.
Speaker 11: To this day, I'm shocked because he is still viewed
Speaker 11: in many segments of the right as this hero this
Speaker 11: heroic guy. The truth of the matter is, he took
Speaker 11: the Fifth Amendment. He only testified with the grant of
Speaker 11: immunity with a deal. And if you listen to his testimony,
Speaker 11: he pointed the finger upward. He said he believed the
Speaker 11: President of the United States knew what he was doing.
Speaker 11: He was a snitch essentially in common parlance. And it
Speaker 11: was Poindexter, his boss, that took the bullet. It's Poindexter
Speaker 11: who came in a regular street suit, not an admiral uniform,
Speaker 11: and basically said, the buck stops here. I didn't discuss
Speaker 11: it with the President. I take the bullet.
Speaker 4: After the hearings ended, the Congressional Committee wrote up their
Speaker 4: findings and published them that November in a six hundred
Speaker 4: and ninety page report.
Speaker 2: Good Morning, the Joint House and Senate committees which investigated
Speaker 2: the Iran Contra affair today issue their majority report, a
Speaker 2: six hundred and ninety page document that does not produce
Speaker 2: a smoking god.
Speaker 4: And the committee's conclusions were quite different than the Tower
Speaker 4: Commission's report released earlier in the year.
Speaker 6: It was, in the opinion of the majority who signed
Speaker 6: this report the President who had set the tone allowing
Speaker 6: a cabal of Zealotz to seize control.
Speaker 19: The common ingredients in the Iran Contra affair were secrecy, deception,
Speaker 19: and a disdain for law.
Speaker 4: The report was particularly critical of the White House's and
Speaker 4: runs around Congress.
Speaker 10: They conducted a secret foreign policy and concealed it through
Speaker 10: a concerted campaign of dishonesty and deception, and when the
Speaker 10: affair began to unravel, they attempted to cover up their deeds.
Speaker 4: But a group of eight Republicans who had served in
Speaker 4: the committee refused to sign on to the verdict.
Speaker 6: Included in the final report is a minority section which
Speaker 6: accuses the committees of reaching hysterical conclusions.
Speaker 7: It started out as a witch hunt, it proceeded as
Speaker 7: a witch hunt, and the final report indicates that indeed
Speaker 7: it was a witch.
Speaker 4: Hunt led by a Wyoming Congressman named Dick Cheney. The
Speaker 4: Republican dissenters published their own report, making the case not
Speaker 4: only for Reagan's innocence, but for the innocence of his
Speaker 4: entire administration. They said there was no systematic disrespect for
Speaker 4: the rule of law, no grand conspiracy, and no administration
Speaker 4: wide dishonesty or cover up. In their opinion, the majority's
Speaker 4: conclusions were hysterical.
Speaker 22: I think what the president was guildia was making an
Speaker 22: unwise decisions, such as sending arms to Iran. But I
Speaker 22: think he had the legal authority to do that. I
Speaker 22: think he had the legal authority to withhold notification from Congress.
Speaker 22: I don't think those decisions were always why.
Speaker 4: Cheney and the other seven Republicans argued that the real
Speaker 4: fault for Iran contra lay with the congressman who had
Speaker 4: pushed for the restrictions on contra funding. It was a
Speaker 4: robust defense of executive authority won that Dick Cheney would
Speaker 4: later echo as Vice President. By the time Congress wrapped
Speaker 4: up its work, there was one politician besides Ronald Reagan
Speaker 4: who remained unscathed. George H. W. Bush had been director
Speaker 4: of the CIA before becoming Vice president. He had set
Speaker 4: in on many high level meetings involving national security during
Speaker 4: the Reagan years, but The committee report was inconclusive on
Speaker 4: what Bush knew about Iran Contra.
Speaker 6: The committees concluded that there is no evidence that Vice
Speaker 6: President Bush knew about the diversion.
Speaker 4: In the fall of nineteen eighty seven, when the report
Speaker 4: was released, Bush was on to bigger and better things.
Speaker 4: I am here today to announce my candidacy for President
Speaker 4: of the United States. When asked about Iran Contra in interviews,
Speaker 4: Bush insisted that he had been out of the loop. However,
Speaker 4: Bush told The Washington Post if he were ever to
Speaker 4: find himself in Ronald Reagan's position, he would expect his
Speaker 4: staff to give him the facts. I wouldn't want somebody,
Speaker 4: he said, to protect me from myself. On the next
Speaker 4: episode of Fiasco, Iran Contra goes to Hollywood.
Speaker 1: Ali, you can't lie to your own people.
Speaker 12: It's not a lie.
Speaker 14: It's a Cocord operation. Hostage lives depend on what we
Speaker 14: do here Eric.
Speaker 4: For a list of books, articles, and documentaries used in
Speaker 4: our research, follow the link in the show notes. Fiasco
Speaker 4: is a production of Prolog Projects, and it's distributed by
Speaker 4: Pushkin Industries. Shows produced by Andrew Parsons, madelin kaplan Ula, Kulpa,
Speaker 4: and me Leon Mayfock. Our editor was Camilla Hammer. Our
Speaker 4: researcher was Francis Carr. Additional archival research from Caitlin Nicholas.
Speaker 4: Our music is by Nick Silvester. Our theme song is
Speaker 4: by Spatial Relations. Our artwork is by Teddy Blanks at
Speaker 4: Chips and y Audio, mixed by Rob Buyers, Michael Rayphield
Speaker 4: and Johnny Vince Evans. Copyright council provided by Peter Yassi
Speaker 4: at Yassi Butler Plc. Thanks to Lee Hamilton, Amy Freed,
Speaker 4: Brendan Sullivan, Melissa Kaplan, Harold Coe, as well as Sam
Speaker 4: gram Felsen, Sireya Shackley and Katya Kumkova. Special thanks to
Speaker 4: Luminary and thank you for listening. Binge the entire season
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Speaker 4: Sign up on the Fiasco show page on Apple Podcasts
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