August 8, 2019 • 43 mins
As the operation expands it also begins to unravel. Word starts to leak out of the illegal stuff the Reagan administration was up to, Congress and the press investigate and people start to point fingers. Spoiler alert – they all got off scot free.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Did it. Attention Portland, Maine, we are coming there very soon.
You guys need to buy your tickets now. Yeah, not
just Portland, Maine, but as you know, outside of Boston,
this is our big New England, uh debut. Sure, so
people should come from all over Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
You don't have to just live in Portland. They'll let
(00:22):
you in the city to see us. Yeah, you can,
like you can live one of those little rocky islands
and you can boat over and see us. Right, So,
however you get there, just be sure that you're at
the State Theater on August nineteen for our show, because
it's gonna be great. Ask the people in Chicago, ask
the people in Toronto, ask the people in Boston who
will have seen us the day before. Just buy some tickets,
(00:43):
go to s y s K live dot com and
come see us August State Theater. Welcome to Stuff You
Should Know, a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles
to be took, Brian, there's Jerry over there, and this
(01:05):
is Stuff you Should Know. Iran Contra Part two starting now. Go. Uh,
maybe we should do a quick catch up. Um, well
we're still going. You have to look, I just went
to sleep. No, it's true. So what's going on here
is the United States is UH. Congress has decided that
(01:27):
we cannot fund the Contras to fight the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.
Shut off funding. So the Reagan administration UH makes a
deep covert push to continue doing so through a bunch
of fun and shady ways. Right, They're fundraising, their directly,
arming the Contras, their training, um, doing all sorts of
(01:50):
crazy stuff. Yes, but if you know that this is
about Iran Contra and you're like, what about Iran? What's
going on here? I haven't heard anything about Iran? Keep
your on. Well, here we go. This is where Iran
enters the picture. You can take your socks off, right,
are your socks on? I've got on a little footy socks. Yeah,
(02:10):
I do too cool. Oh, Jerry is too sweet. It's
the way to go. Jerry has those true footies where
you can't even see them at all. I can see
you mine peek out just a little, which I'm not
a huge fan of. I'll check out my Yeah. No
seems no, seems okay, enter Iran. If we really that
(02:31):
was a great intro and it just went away. That's right. So, um,
on the other side of the world from Nicaragua, Uh,
there was another foreign policy disaster simmering that Reagan head going,
and it was in the form of Iran, And specifically,
it wasn't even the form of run. It was in
the form of a problem that America had doesn't really
(02:51):
have much these days, but definitely did in the seventies
and eighties, where Americans would be taking hostage around the world, um,
but specifically almost exclusively by Lebanese terrorists who were, if
not working on behalf of Iran. We're definitely sponsored by Iran.
And regardless of who is president, the fact that they
(03:14):
were hostages being held by another country and there wasn't
anything we could do about it, that was a real
blemish on the presidency. It was not a very proud
thing to think about for America, but that was reality
for a while there. Yeah, So Iran at the time,
this is the early eighties, This is just a few
years removed from the Iranian Revolution of nineteen nine, and
(03:35):
this is where we've talked about it before. Go look
up photos of Iran in the mid seventies pre revolution
and it looks like London in the swinging sixties and seventies,
very kind of hit place to be. Iranian revolution happens. Uh,
fundamentalists take control of the government that was previously um
the Shaw of Iran, who was um friendly to the West, sure,
(03:57):
friendly to America generally, and and uh the Aetola Comini
comani I've always heard comany coomani um installed the Islamic
Theocracy and bad things started happening pretty quickly. But yeah,
there was a It was a about as quick a
turn about face politically and socially as you could imagine
(04:20):
for a whole country. Yeah, yeah, but not everyone in
the country, as will learn, Like the whole country didn't
just change overnight. No, but the the the Islamic Theocracy
was in power very much. So one of the things
that happened was, um, they were not very fond of
America or Americans, and the American embassy was famously stormed
(04:41):
and sixty six Americans working there were taken hostage and
held for more than a year. Man. That was like,
this is stuff I really remember, like four hundred and
forty days or something, four forty four days the Iranian
hostage crisis. I remember this as a nine year old
very clearly. Oh yeah, I have no recollection. Yeah, it
(05:03):
was a big deal, yellow ribbons, and it was on
the news constantly. I remember entering the room and being like,
what does this have to do with Rainbow Bright turn
this newscast? I even remember. So what happened was, Uh,
Jimmy Carter did not get these hostages free during his
uh his I was about to say rain, but that
was sort of the opposite of who Jimmy Carter was
(05:26):
during his administration, his iron fisted rain days of terror.
But within a few days, and that may have cost
some election, but within a few days of our hours,
even of Reagan's inauguration, the hostages were freed. And I remember,
as a nine year old hearing kids parenting their parents
conversations like it was really Carter that had him freed,
(05:50):
all the work he did up until then, and then
other kids saying, are you kidding me? As soon as
Reagan got in office, they knew that they were toast
and that Reagan wasn't gonna be a patsy like Carter.
And I was like, what's a patsy? Who are these dudes? No?
But I remember very distinctly. It's weird, like on the
playground hearing the stuff. That's funny a little nine year old.
(06:10):
I definitely didn't hear this when I was a kid,
but I remember hearing later on as a grown up.
UM still in the rainbow bright. Uh, that it was
Reagan's campaign was somehow in touch with Iran. Yeah, and
that they broke hered this. They've also got them to
wait um to release the hostages until after Reagan was
(06:32):
in office, but the timing was not at all hours
after its inauguration accident. It's a little fishy, you know
what I mean. But whether it was that's funny. I'm
sure somebody's parents were like, Yeah, it's because they were
so scared of Reagan they knew that they better release
these guys. That's totally not the case, because there were
other hostages taken by other by actual um Lebanese terrorists
(06:53):
who were probably sponsored by Iran, and that were they
were held throughout Reagan's presidency. Yeah, and that that's sort
of a big part of this. The second half of
this story was the fact that that was very embarrassing
for Reagan. He didn't like hostages being held on his watch. No,
but he had campaigned against negotiating with terrorists under any circumstances.
So he's stuck now, Yeah, because he's basically saying, if
(07:16):
you get taken hostage, I mean, you're on your own.
We'll we'll we'll use our rhetoric and whatever we can
to influence you being released, but we're not going to
negotiate for your release. That's just the way it is.
And that's a longstanding American policy and it makes sense
because if you negotiate with terrorists, then that's just gonna
lead more kidnappings because they know that you're open for business,
(07:39):
like anywhere in the world. Yeah, there was a kidnapping
of t w A flight eight forty seven, very very
famous one. You know the picture of like the pilot
leaning out of the cop and the guy's in the
picture with the gun behind him. That was um And
that was that, I mean, they that was I remember
that one. That was It was probably nine then, and
(08:00):
that was just scary because they were flying all over
the place. You had no idea what was going to happen.
People were being beaten on the plane. When Navy guy
was beaten and shot and throw his body thrown on
the tarmac. Yeah, the eighties, like it seems comparatively tame
now in a lot of way, it's compared to the
things that used to go on, thank McDonald's hijackings and
kidnappings and hostages. It's like the eighties were nuts. They
(08:22):
were nuts. But um, pac Man, you know pac Man
rapping Rodney? It was crazy rapping, Like are is that
Roddy Piper? No rapping Rodney? Dangerfield his big hit? Oh yeah, yeah,
no respect? What about what about the Achy Shuffle that
was a little crazy? Was that eighties? Sure? Late eighties?
(08:45):
I guess so, Okay, I got one for you. Okay,
the Bears what was their thing? Oh the super Bowl Shuffle?
Super Bowl Shuffle? Right, yeah, that was pretty eighties. I
think they were eighty four. Yeah, we're putting you know,
my band every year plays for sure one gig at
Decatur's Porch Fest, and every year we try to do
a theme, and this year we're doing an eighties sort
of new wave and I jokingly suggested pac Man Fever
(09:08):
the rap and Rodney. But are you guys gonna do it? No?
Songs are terrible. Do you have a synth player playing
with you. I bought Emily a keyboard and she's learning. Yeah,
she's gonna be like wait, hold on, I hope that's
cool man. Now she's practicing. I've heard her do that um,
and she played piano when she was a kid, So
it's not the biggest stretch. I've heard that one that
(09:29):
herd do. That one Blondie song she just brought the house. Yeah,
we might one way or another, we might bring that
back because that's eighties or was that seventies? It was
so close on the Cuspo. I seriously doubt anybody's going
to throw a beer can at you for it. Anyway,
Porch beest everyone. I'll publicize it in October. So Reagan's
hands are tied um in every way possible because he
(09:51):
can't on he can't negotiate with terrorists. The only option
is to send in a covert delta forced team, which
they Carter tried that and it didn't work. Doesn't always work.
You could lose your own men, and I think that's
what happened in Carter's case, right. So what he can do,
though without anyone knowing, is totally negotiate with terrorists. Yeah,
(10:14):
just as long as the American public doesn't know, suh.
And that's what happened. And he followed that Reagan playbook
where it's like, okay, I said this, Well, if I
just changed this one little part, it makes it all
fine again as long as the American public doesn't know.
So well, Reagan said America will never negotiate with with hostages.
(10:34):
They didn't say Israel will never negotiate with terrorists for hostages. Right, So,
actually Israel had a long standing policy of negotiating with terrorists.
They wouldn't. They would kidnap people from the other side,
and then they'd be like, all right, I'll give you
five guys. I've only got two. Let me kidnap a
few of people. Okay, now I have five. Like there
would be negotiations for hostage exchanges all the time between
(10:58):
Israel and Palestine, right they would. They just knew what
they were doing. So they said, okay, well, if if
Israel goes to Iran and says, hey, you know this
American over there, why don't you get them released? We
can help you out with some stuff. When you think
about this. Yeah, So earlier when I mentioned the fact
that Iran as the whole cloth did not change overnight
(11:19):
as a country. The government did, but there were still
some plenty of people there that were a little more
moderate in their views, and the Reagan administration had a
channel to them. So he was talking to them, these
more moderate factions and making a little headway. And they
were like, by the way, will totally give you these
(11:41):
hostages if you give us arms. Yeah, because Iran was fighting, um,
the Iran Iraq War at least half of it. Yeah,
And this is just where stuff is just totally crazy,
because we were we were funding both sides at the
very least, we were advising both sides. Well, I mean
we directly gave money, Oh yeah, you're rock. We sold
(12:01):
them weapons, and we provided training and intelligence. And this
was this wasn't secret. This was like a real deal thing.
We were publicly supporting Iraq, but then we were secretly
arming Iran. Yeah. I think what they never proved beyond
a doubt was that we went to uh Saddam Hussein
and said, hey, why don't you go in there and
(12:22):
overthrow Iran? Yeah, that was never we started it. I
don't think that was ever. There was a lot of
uh circumstantial evidence that that was the case, but never
like the smoking gun that we actually encouraged Saddam Hussein
to do so. But it's just, man, when you look
at how all this played out over the ears, just maddening. Yeah,
you know, yeah, it's it's a s show. Yeah. So
(12:44):
Iraq and Iran or fighting. We're supplying both, playing both
sides of the coin. Uh. And we offered arms to Iran.
And who are you gonna call? Not ghostbusters? Oh, Gorbana
far Well, you're gonna call Ali? No? Oh yeah, okay,
I would have gotten there eventually. Yeah, because okay, so
remember all the North is this total novice when it
(13:07):
comes to covert operations. Yeah, he's been running the Nicaragua
op for years now, just doing a bang up job
of it. So they they're like, well, sure, we'll have
him do this incredibly illegal supersensitive arms sail to Iran too.
Why don't you come on over here, Ali and all?
He said, Okay, that's fine, but I need to go
get the lay of the land. And he actually traveled
(13:29):
to Iran with a fake passport under an assumed name
William P. Good was a knee and um. When he
went it was it was dangerous enough that William Casey. Supposedly,
Oliver North later testified gave him cyanide pills so that
he could take his own life rather than be tortured
by the Iranians. If if this were in fact like
(13:50):
some sort of set up again right out of a movie. Yeah,
but Oliver North went to Iran with cyanide pills. Yeah,
so everything went great, though it did. He didn't need
the sanid pills after all. He did not um he
dealt with, like you mentioned earlier, this Iranian businessman name
Gourbana Far and this guy was tin shades of shady,
(14:16):
so much so that the CIA wouldn't even deal with them.
Now they issued a burn notice on him, which is
I don't even know what that is. That means just
he's dead to us. It's basically stay away. It's putting
him on blast to all the other intelligence agencies in
the world persona on won't even deal with this guy.
And so Ali North is like, yeah, I'll deal with
(14:36):
this guy all right. So with his help, Oliver North
set up a deal um where And it's so simple
to look at like Israel. You give them your missiles
and then we'll just replace those missiles for you with
our missiles, so we're not giving the missiles you are.
And because no American explicitly said to Iran, hey, we're
(14:59):
doing this so that you guys will get these hostages released,
it wasn't an arms for hostages deal, and so Reagan's
vowed and never negotiate with terrorists remained intact. That's right.
Five hundred and eight t OWTOW missiles was that stand
for two blaunched optically tracked wireless guided missile, which is
(15:20):
like it's like, ah, the two launched. There's a tube
and it can be like mounted on the ground, mounted
on a jeep. It's super portable. But they are they'll
blow some stuff up. I think I've seen these you have.
So five eight of these UM made it from Israel
to Iran, and then in very short order, a couple
of days later, one of the hostages, Benjamin we Are
(15:42):
minister who was held by Lebanese terrorists for sixteen months,
was released. So it worked. It did work. It was
a big deal around the White House to UM, but
they said, let's try it again, but this time it
seemed a little messy to get Israel involved. Let's just
do this ourselves. Ali, you think you can handle this,
and he said, sure, me and Gurbonafar have this. So
(16:05):
rather than Israel giving arms to Iran, Richard S. Cord
got brought in just like with Nicaragua. And again this
isn't like years after Nicaragua. Nicaragua was at full bore,
in full sweep and all the North is running both
operations simultaneously. Um. And so the new setup was the
Department of Defense would sell the c I A missiles
(16:28):
for thirty seven hundred bucks of pop. The CIA would
sell them to Richard C. Cord at cost, and then
c Cord would sell them to Gorbonafar for ten grand apiece,
and then gorbona Far would go sell them to Iran
for whatever he charged Ran. I can't I guarantee it
was more than the ten grand. And this happened multiple times.
(16:50):
Over the course of a little over a year. America
secretly transferred two thousand missiles and missile parts to Iran
UM in eight shipments. Yeah. For the release of hostages. Yeah,
ultimately there are three hostages that got released out of
seven that had been taken hostage total. Yeah, And didn't
(17:12):
he say ultimately there were three more hostages taken? So
they netted out at zero zero. Yeah. So um, but
that was that was the whole Iran operation. Yeah, but
here's the deals. This price markup means that that shell company, um,
and those Swiss bank accounts, we're making a lot of money,
(17:32):
and so much so that I think one of them
had three million dollars made an interest alone. So at
some point someone's like, hey, this this is a money
making operation. Now, why don't we tie a little bow
on all this and use some of that money to
fund the contrast Because you guys are doing both of
these things and you need money. Congress won't give it
(17:53):
to you. Forget the fundraising omelets. We'll just use the
money from these illite arms sales to fund the contrass. Yeah,
and that's exactly what happened. So to put it in
plain terms, America illegally and secretly sold missiles to Iran,
used the proceeds from those missile sales to secretly and
(18:14):
illegally fund the Contras to help them overthrow their government
down in Nicaragua. That's what the Reagan administration did. That's right.
That's why it's called Iran Contra. That's where they came together.
There was a diversion of funds. Yeah, and the I
think it was by nineteen eight six. Um, Congress finally
got back on board because of this drum beat from
(18:35):
Reagan over the years of how much we need to
really do this officially and keep the mind Congress still
didn't know any of this is going on secretly. Um.
And then Congress said all right, we'll give you a
hundred million dollars to aid this cause. UM and said
you would think that was the end of all the
uh covert stuff. It wasn't, though, No, No, it's still
(18:57):
continued on, but now it was legitimized and had even
better funding. But that was not the end of the
whole thing. Like everybody didn't just get to walk away
and say that was close, because the whole thing started
to come apart. Actually, and I say that we take
an ad break and come back and talk about it
after this. Well, now we're on the road driving in
(19:19):
your truck. Want to learn a thing or two from
Josh damn Chuck stuff you should know? All right, okay, Chuck,
(19:43):
Congress is back on board. I think it's worth pointing
out that that's exactly four years after the Democrats took
control of the House in two. So I wonder if
the Republicans took control back in eighty six and that's
why the funding got turned back. Onto the contrast, we
could solve this, I like the speculating stead So this
(20:04):
all might have Who knows if this ever would have
even been found out had it not been for the
sharp shooting of a young sandin Easton soldier named Jose
Fernando Canales oldman. Uh. In October there was a cargo
plane and see one twenty three called the provider Um
(20:26):
flying seventy so yet Collisha coughs a hundred thousand rounds
of AMMO, rocket grenades and other supplies. Uh. And this
is one of those things where you said they would
fly things over and kick him out in the back
of the plane. This is one of those those runs. Yeah.
The problem with this particular run, though, is that they
did this at feet in broad daylight, and they got
(20:46):
a little lazy or maybe cocky. I don't even know
if it was that. I think it was more like,
this is just work. It was an everyday job by
this time. They've been doing it for years, you know,
and the operation was just humming along so nicely that
was almost an autopilot. Yeah, so yeah, they did this
one supply drop on October in broad daylight and there
(21:09):
were four crew aboard, William J. Cooper, Wallace Bus Sawyer,
freddie Vilchis, and a guy named Eugene Hassan Fuss, who
uh and again this sliding doors thing. Hassen Fuss is
the only guy who had a parachute. He borrowed it
from his brother, a skydiver, because you know, he thought
it might be smart to take a parachute. No one
else had parachutes. Had he not had a parachute, this
(21:31):
may have turned out differently. It may have. For sure,
he was the only one that survived this plane crash
because he was the only one who borrowed the parachute
from his brother, and he jumped out, landed, made it
safely into the jungle. And I think he actually survived
and evaded the Sandinistas for maybe a day or something
like that before he was captured. And when he was captured,
(21:52):
they led him out of the jungle like um with
a rope around his neck, just just about as big
of a prisoner as you can imagine. Super publicized. There
are billboards of of him being led around by Sandinistas
and they started asking him questions and he was like,
what do you want to know? He's saying, like a canary,
(22:12):
you really did? He said, Uh, this is my tense
supply mission. I'm presumed that the CIA is running this.
I don't know. And he would know this would be
something that he would he could legitimately guess at at
least because he had actually worked on ci a um
air drops over Vietnam or Cambodia for Air America back
(22:34):
in the Vietnam War. Yeah, but he wasn't like, uh,
he sings like a canary because he's not very high
up on the tolden pole. Like his job was to
get up there and shove the stuff out of the
back of the plane for three grand a month. He
wasn't even a CIA operator. He's just former marine who
had a background working with Air America years before. But
(22:55):
by this time, by the time he joins on UM
doing this. For the contrast, he was like working as
a construction worker part time in Wisconsin back home, So
this is like pretty good money. I think he was
getting seven grand in today's dollars a month for basically
kicking a k forty seven crates out the back of
a plane over Nicaragua. Yeah, so he's not the kind
(23:18):
of guy that's going to take the fall for anyone.
So he's he's singing like a canary. Even if he
had kept his mouth shut, it wouldn't have mattered. Yeah,
because um, all the other guys, including Hassan Fuss, had
their wallets on the plane, They had all their employee
I D cards and in fact, I don't think we
mentioned in episode one, um the company that was set
(23:41):
up to do these drops was set up called Southern
Air Transport out of I guess Miami, So they all
had their Southern Air Transport I T cards, which was
the c i A front. Like everybody knew Southern Air
Transport was the CIA front, So they might as well
have had like CIA Junior badges or something, or like
Michael Keaton and out of Sight when he has the
(24:03):
big FBI T shirt, I haven't seen that one. Oh,
you haven't seen out of Sight? No? Is that the
one where he's George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez. Is he
a bad guy in it? No, he's a good guy,
but he walks in. He plays Ray Nicolette, who played
uh same character and Jackie Brown FBI guy. But it's
funny because he walks in with an FBI T shirt on.
And Dennis Farina's Jennifer Lopez his dad and he's a
(24:26):
former CUP and he goes, hey, Ray, let me ask
you he got one that says undercover Dennis Farina man class,
I mean, you got to see out of Sight. That's classic.
All right, I'll check it out like one of the
better men. I mean, I know exactly the movie you're
talking about it like the Plague. It's so good you
would love it. So Southern Air Transport CIA front. There's
also a log book that connected this flight, uh and
(24:49):
all the other flights. And then hassen Fuss in his
wallet had a business card to Robert w Owen. This
is a big one who was working with Oliver North
in Washington, right, which so that provided a direct line
between Oliver North and some guys who were kicking Colashna
Coughs out of the back of a plane over in Nicaragua.
(25:09):
So that was a really big deal that when this
guy got captured and you know, told the Santinistas as
much as he knew, because the Sandinistas were like attention, world,
Listen to what we just found out. The CIA has
um totally been funding these contra rebels who are trying
to overthrow the sovereign government, and um, we think you
guys should know about it. Yeah, And it was, um,
(25:32):
it wasn't like you could totally discount that even though
it was from the Sandinistan's like, Congress and the American
media were like what I'm sure Congress was like, wait
a minute, this this reeks of like something that has
been happening that we tried to shut down. Yeah, because remember,
even if the CIA was brief in Congress, it was
(25:52):
either Bill Casey or Dewey Claridge, and they were doing
a really obtuse job of this keeping Congress at arms linked.
So any time something like this came out, almost none
of Congress knew the full extent of this, and it
was always in flagrant violation of whatever Congress wanted or
whatever Congress that agreed to. Yeah, and this wasn't like
(26:13):
this was sort of the straw that broke it all open,
or that broke the camel's back, broke the camel's back
wide open, camel. Uh. Things have been unraveling for a
bit there was a party in ve in Virginia thrown
thrown by Soldier of Fortune magazine. Can you imagine know
(26:34):
what's that party? Like? I don't want to know. I
can't imagine. I used to read Soldier of Fortune when
I was in my ninja training as like a ten
year old boy, and even then I was like this
this magazine makes my stomach hurt. And it's in five
Like can you imagine the amount of like blow being
secretly done in the bathroom at that party? Sure, but
also they were making snuff movies in the living room.
(26:56):
And there's no telling what was going on in a
Soldier of Fortune. We can't tell you. At the very least,
there was a lot of boasting going on openly about
this contra operation. And again this is the time when
people don't know about this stuff. Yeah, but you know
what happens is like you get enough people in enough
years and people start talking, people start bragging, and all
(27:17):
of a sudden, you're you're you have a couple of
gin and tonics at a Soldier of Fortune party and
you're like, hey, guess what, and that that's what happened.
Somebody goes what, Yeah, there you go here it comes. Yeah,
and they dropped the you know, they dropped the bomb
that what's been going on? A concerned citizen here's this.
I guess he must have been mistakenly invited. I don't
(27:38):
know how that guy got invited. They just happened to
talk to the wrong guy or whatever, but probably that.
He was like, I am really fearful of my life
for saying something about this, but I feel like somebody
should know. So he went to a lawyer, a human
rights lawyer named David Sheehan, and he said, you go
tell everybody. You put your life on the line. And
he did. He submitted an affidavit to federal court. Started uh,
(28:02):
doing interviews, talking to journalists, drumming up support. White House
was like, we don't know what you're talking about. You're crazy, man,
Like this is all made up. And uh, finally it
took a Lebanese newspaper, Um Al shira that reported on
this deal, this arms for hostage deal, like in a
legitimate newspaper. Right, So now both stories have been blown open.
(28:26):
You've got Eugene hass't was captured and the contra operation
is blown open, and now Al shira Um is reporting
on the Iran arms for hostage deal. And really, crazily enough,
these two separate arms of this one scandal came out
within a month of each other, which is it's bizarre,
(28:48):
but that's what happened. And now it was like, there's
it's on the table. The America's media knows about it,
Congress knows about it. Heads are about to roll. All right,
we'll take our final break and we'll come back talk
about the aftermath of Iran contra. Well, now we're on
the road, driving in your truck. Want to learn a
thing or two from Josh? Can chuck it stuff you
(29:12):
should know? All right? All right, Chuck, you promised after
your math. Let's hear it. All right, So every every
(29:36):
everything is exposed. Um Oliver north Uh was no longer
in business doing his thing. No, he shut down shop
real quick, he did, but not before very famously he
and his um very eighties haired secretary, Fawn Hall. I
forgot it looked. I was like Fawn Hall. I looked
(29:56):
her up, and as soon as I saw I was like, right, yeah,
Fawn Hall. And forget that hair. She could barely walk
through the door. No, it was ginormous, for sure. It's
so great I would be fearful around a shredder if
our her, but she was not fearful at all. She
and Oliver North spent a day they could. They call
it a shredding party. I mean, we will never know
(30:18):
the full truth behind this because of all the evidence
that they shredded. As far as anyone knows, Oliver North
decided on his own to shred every document he had
on it. That's right, and yeah, that's that's it. It's
it's now. It's the the um official narrative that has
been written into the history book, which you can just
(30:38):
guarantee is not anywhere near the full story, right, So
it all comes out. The Reagan administration start looking around
and they're like, well, who who's going to be the
patsy for this one? And Oliver North could not escape it.
But they're like, he's small potatoes, he's he's he'll he'll
go down. Well, I think he was even willing to
take the fall, like he knew he was going to
(31:00):
be the fall guy, and was like, okay, that's part
of the job, right. But they knew that it had
to the American public, and certainly Congress wasn't going to
be satisfied with just Oliver North. So who did they
land on? So the the official line became this Point Dexter,
and I guess McFarland would have started it. Became uh
fully aware of just how badly Reagan wanted to help
(31:23):
the Contras and said I'm gonna do something about this
and tapped all the North and said we need to
help the Contras out. Go help him out, figure it out.
And North went off and basically went rogue on his
own and set up this whole operation, created this entire
network with c cord Um decided to do the Iranian
arms deal, all this stuff basically on his own, and
(31:46):
like Reagan and Bush knew nothing about it, nothing about it,
and that the buck stopped at Point Dexter. Ultimately it
didn't go any further. William Casey being CIA, he was
basically out of the loop. Um, that was the official
story they came out with, right, and America went, you're kidding, right,
this is a joke. Yeah, I mean I remember these hearings, um,
(32:06):
even as a little kid, like watching these and then
watching the news coverage of it, and like we mentioned,
all over North strolling in there with his dress uniform
and uh, you know, by all accounts being a pretty
stand up guy, like he didn't write anyone out, he didn't.
But he also he was like, there's there's no way
the president didn't know about this. He said, I don't
have any direct evidence that the president didn't know about it,
(32:29):
but it's my understanding that the president was fully aware
of what was going on. Yeah, what was the deal
with this missile supply shipment? Though? That's the one thing
I didn't quite get. So there was North got rid
of all the documents that he could right well, North
didn't have any control over CIA documents, and at that
first missile resupply where they were resupplying Israel, he had
(32:52):
a C I A. He basically said, hey, C I A,
do you know anybody I can use to ship these things?
I'm I've got an emergency here. I need to get
these to is real fast. And the CIA, being the
CIA is still a bureaucracy, they had to document this event.
So there was a document out there now and right
that he couldn't get his hands on, that he couldn't shred.
(33:13):
And so this led to Reagan taking responsibility or saying, okay,
I was aware of this this Iran missile deal by
backdating an order to William Casey saying I order you
not to tell Congress about this, even though you're supposed to.
So Reagan basically said, on paper, I know about this Iran,
(33:37):
this one missile transfer to Iran. Had no idea about
the contrast and it. First they started up denying everything.
Oh yeah, like after this, I'll share a story that
we talked about. He went on television, Reagan did and
denied everything. Every He said, all this is just total
b us. Yeah exactly. Now let's now, let's stop talking
about everybody. Ten days after that, Reagan had another press
(33:59):
conference where he talked about the Iran operation and he
acknowledged it, but said, what we're really doing here is
just trying to sort of send a signal to Iran
that where we want friendlier relations. It was not arms
for hostage exactly. And then so that was ten days
after the first den and then four months after that,
because the reporting would not stop, he basically said, okay, yeah,
(34:23):
and whatever it started out as, I admit that it
devolved into an arms for hostage deal, which even that
even that admission, which is the closest he ever came
to admitting, you know, responsibility for it. Even that's just
total bs and fantasy. It was from the outset in
arms for hostages deal. The whole thing was set up
to get hostages released, and that that was it. So
(34:45):
there was there was no other way to put it.
But that's he He denied that to his dying day.
As far as fallout point extra resign, Oliver North was fired.
Um Casey died in a hospital. Um not too long
after this whole thing was exposed, I mean like weeks so, Um,
the press was all over the president. He um appointed
(35:07):
the Tower Commission. Um, Yeah, that look into this. The
president appointed a commission to investigate, Yeah, the president's own
administration's wrongdoing. That's right. And it was determined that Reagan's
disengagement from the management of his White House created condition
conditions such that it was possible that he did not
(35:29):
know about this, which does the absolute best official finding
he could have hoped for, because it basically says Rangon
didn't know he had a rogue guy working for him,
a true believer, a patriot, But Reagan didn't know about this,
and yeah, he should have. He should have had a
closer watch on his executive branch, but he didn't what
are you gonna do, Let's get Mr t in here
(35:50):
for a photo op with Nancy. Uh. There was a
criminal investigation and what they were really um honing in
on was the eighteen million dollars in profits UM that
that were made and what happened to that money where
it went. Fourteen people were charged um Oliver North was
tried and found guilty on three counts. Yeah. Uh. One
(36:10):
of the counts was um for getting a uh sixteen
thousand dollar security system installed uh in his home courtesy
of s Cord With with that money, there was a
rumor that his his there's a bounty on his head
from terrorists and him up right. Now. That was a
big problem for North because North's hole bag was I
(36:33):
was following orders that I assumed we're coming from the
president ultimately, and I was doing it out of my
patriotic duty and a sense of, you know, as a
true believer that we need to get rid of communism.
And the American public loved it. They're like, great, make
this man a saint. Congress started to love it too,
and he got off. But that was a real problem
(36:53):
because it's saying, well, you took this gift from funds
from this illicit arms sales, right, But it was a
gift of a security system to help protect his family,
So it's not like, you know, it was a gift
of ten pounds of blow and like and Nicaraguan sex
worker from the Eastern government exactly. Secord was convicted of
(37:14):
one count of lying to Congress uh and the investigators. Um.
He basically denied that North received any funds from any
of this. So it's still kind of hinged on that
security system, I guess. And so everybody went to jail
forever after that point. Right, No, that's not true at all. Um.
Hakim got two years probation, a five thousand dollar fine.
(37:35):
Secord got two years probation. Is that what he got?
Two years probation. So the two guys who were actually
running the company that ran this whole thing each got
two years probation. North's conviction was overturned on a technicality,
and President Bush, the senior Bush on Christmas Eve. Um,
this was Christmas Eve as he was leaving office, right,
(37:56):
he issued six pardons basically a lot let everyone off
the hook, including Casper Weinberger, who hadn't even gone to
trial yet no, and neither had um Duane Claridge Dewey
Claridge was going to stay in trial to both of
them received preemptive pardons, and a lot of people are like,
that was about the shadiest set of pardons anyone's ever issued,
because there's a lot of people out there who say
(38:19):
Bush really walked away from the Scott free, but there
is no way he wasn't even more involved in this
than Reagan was. Yeah, I mean George Bush withheld subpoena
his subpoena diary entries that basically indicated that he had
full knowledge of this the entire time. UM. Eventually in
(38:39):
UH Independent Council Lawrence Walsh um asked for these again
and Bush like said, I asked you for these diary entrees.
And Bush was like, I didn't you did, I didn't
fully understand. Uh, it was inadvertent, Like you asked me
for a lot of stuff. I didn't know you asked
me for the diary entrees. And Uh, walsh was really
upset and he said, the Iran Contra contra cover up
(39:03):
has now been completed. Uh. And George Bush as a
president who has such a contempt for honesty and arrogant
disregard for the rule of law. Yeah, and I mean
the the forestalling that the Reagan White House and then
later on the Bush White House did um in in
allowing these investigations to go forward and trying to keep
Congress at arm's length after everything came out. It worked
(39:26):
because there were articles of impeachment introduced in the House
um against Ronald Reagan, and they managed to stave him
off to where it was like while he's leaving office anyway,
forget about it. This investigation took years and years and years,
and then finally when Bush pardoned everybody that was it,
there was nothing else to do. Everybody who was involved
was impl was was off scott free. And then um,
(39:49):
the fact that Oliver North had shredded all those documents,
they were all lost to history, like the actual truth
is lost to history. Yeah. Reagan, Uh, his reputation took
a hit, temporary it um for a while there. He
went from sixty in the span of a couple of
months to forty three to forty seven percent depending on
which poll you looked at on his approval rating. And uh,
(40:11):
he would get it back though. Um. Despite in the
position the very very famous deposition where Ronald Reagan said
I don't remember or I don't recall eighty eight times.
That was a very big deal, was all over the news.
Um almost as famous or just as famous as Bill
Clinton's very famous depends what your definition of is is exactly.
(40:35):
But Reagan rebounded. He did man to the most popular
presidency since FDR Right. Yeah. Upon his exit, his his
approval rating had bounced all the way back up to
the early sixties. Mr T famously carried him out of
the White House on his shoulders on his last day
in office. Oh man, so that's a wrong contra Man,
(40:56):
what a story of a story? Where's this movie? I
don't know. Hopefully we'll get some rights to it after
this episode. I want to play Fawn Hall. Also, that's great.
You get Jerry to play Fawn Hall. That would be great,
Jerry Um. Well. In the meantime, while we find a
suitable wig for Jerry Um, you can find out more
(41:17):
about Iran Contract by going and reading contemporary articles on it.
I'm telling you it's really awesome. And since I said
that it's time for listener mail, I'm gonna call this
follow up on the moon Landing thing. Hey guys. In
my opinion, the Apollo missions and Moon landings are the
most significant events in the history of life on Earth.
On the question why the Command module and Lunar Lander
(41:38):
were launched separated, I think the reason was to allow
the Command module to be ejected in case of an emergency.
The very top of the Apollo stack was the launch
escape system, like an injector seat on steroids. I imagine
they had to keep things as light and nimble as
possible for the l S to be effective. I don't
think you mentioned something that's really significant the Apollo eight mission.
(42:00):
It was the very first time humans went to the Moon,
on top of being the first time we broke free
of Earth's gravity. Like like eleven, the stakes were incredibly high.
They had to first insert the correct trajectory to make
it to the Moon, then do a burn to enter
the orbit around the Moon, then perform another burn to
break free of the Moon's gravity and head back towards Earth.
If any piece was not in place, those astronauts would
(42:20):
have spent the rest of their lives either orbiting the
Sun or orbiting the Moon. Apollo eight also gave us
the Earth rise photo. Oh yeah, yeah, I've been hearing
a lot about Apollo eight um lately too, so this
person is hats off to you. Jim Lovell was on
both Apollo eight and Apollo thirteen. He traveled to the
moon twice but never had the opportunity to land. Signed
(42:45):
a space geek Noah Alloy, Nice work, Noah Alloy Alloy Alloy,
great name too. Thanks a lot for a getting in
touch with us. We love space geeks. We love to
put you guys in headlocks and rub your heads with
our knuckles until you go stop. It's called a noogie
right here on Earth. That's right, um. If you want
a noogie from me and Chuck, send us a space
(43:07):
geeky or any kind of geeky thing. We love that
kind of stuff. You can go onto stuff you should
Know dot com and follow our social links and you
can send us a good old fashioned email, wrap it up,
spank it on the bottom, and send it off to
stuff podcast at i heeart radio dot com. Stuff you
Should Know is a production of iHeart Radios. How stuff
(43:27):
works for more podcasts for my heart Radio because at
the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows
Did it. Attention Portland, Maine, we are coming there very soon.
You guys need to buy your tickets now. Yeah, not
just Portland, Maine, but as you know, outside of Boston,
this is our big New England, uh debut. Sure, so
people should come from all over Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
You don't have to just live in Portland. They'll let
(00:22):
you in the city to see us. Yeah, you can,
like you can live one of those little rocky islands
and you can boat over and see us. Right, So,
however you get there, just be sure that you're at
the State Theater on August nineteen for our show, because
it's gonna be great. Ask the people in Chicago, ask
the people in Toronto, ask the people in Boston who
will have seen us the day before. Just buy some tickets,
(00:43):
go to s y s K live dot com and
come see us August State Theater. Welcome to Stuff You
Should Know, a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles
to be took, Brian, there's Jerry over there, and this
(01:05):
is Stuff you Should Know. Iran Contra Part two starting now. Go. Uh,
maybe we should do a quick catch up. Um, well
we're still going. You have to look, I just went
to sleep. No, it's true. So what's going on here
is the United States is UH. Congress has decided that
(01:27):
we cannot fund the Contras to fight the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.
Shut off funding. So the Reagan administration UH makes a
deep covert push to continue doing so through a bunch
of fun and shady ways. Right, They're fundraising, their directly,
arming the Contras, their training, um, doing all sorts of
(01:50):
crazy stuff. Yes, but if you know that this is
about Iran Contra and you're like, what about Iran? What's
going on here? I haven't heard anything about Iran? Keep
your on. Well, here we go. This is where Iran
enters the picture. You can take your socks off, right,
are your socks on? I've got on a little footy socks. Yeah,
(02:10):
I do too cool. Oh, Jerry is too sweet. It's
the way to go. Jerry has those true footies where
you can't even see them at all. I can see
you mine peek out just a little, which I'm not
a huge fan of. I'll check out my Yeah. No
seems no, seems okay, enter Iran. If we really that
(02:31):
was a great intro and it just went away. That's right. So, um,
on the other side of the world from Nicaragua, Uh,
there was another foreign policy disaster simmering that Reagan head going,
and it was in the form of Iran, And specifically,
it wasn't even the form of run. It was in
the form of a problem that America had doesn't really
(02:51):
have much these days, but definitely did in the seventies
and eighties, where Americans would be taking hostage around the world, um,
but specifically almost exclusively by Lebanese terrorists who were, if
not working on behalf of Iran. We're definitely sponsored by Iran.
And regardless of who is president, the fact that they
(03:14):
were hostages being held by another country and there wasn't
anything we could do about it, that was a real
blemish on the presidency. It was not a very proud
thing to think about for America, but that was reality
for a while there. Yeah, So Iran at the time,
this is the early eighties, This is just a few
years removed from the Iranian Revolution of nineteen nine, and
(03:35):
this is where we've talked about it before. Go look
up photos of Iran in the mid seventies pre revolution
and it looks like London in the swinging sixties and seventies,
very kind of hit place to be. Iranian revolution happens. Uh,
fundamentalists take control of the government that was previously um
the Shaw of Iran, who was um friendly to the West, sure,
(03:57):
friendly to America generally, and and uh the Aetola Comini
comani I've always heard comany coomani um installed the Islamic
Theocracy and bad things started happening pretty quickly. But yeah,
there was a It was a about as quick a
turn about face politically and socially as you could imagine
(04:20):
for a whole country. Yeah, yeah, but not everyone in
the country, as will learn, Like the whole country didn't
just change overnight. No, but the the the Islamic Theocracy
was in power very much. So one of the things
that happened was, um, they were not very fond of
America or Americans, and the American embassy was famously stormed
(04:41):
and sixty six Americans working there were taken hostage and
held for more than a year. Man. That was like,
this is stuff I really remember, like four hundred and
forty days or something, four forty four days the Iranian
hostage crisis. I remember this as a nine year old
very clearly. Oh yeah, I have no recollection. Yeah, it
(05:03):
was a big deal, yellow ribbons, and it was on
the news constantly. I remember entering the room and being like,
what does this have to do with Rainbow Bright turn
this newscast? I even remember. So what happened was, Uh,
Jimmy Carter did not get these hostages free during his
uh his I was about to say rain, but that
was sort of the opposite of who Jimmy Carter was
(05:26):
during his administration, his iron fisted rain days of terror.
But within a few days, and that may have cost
some election, but within a few days of our hours,
even of Reagan's inauguration, the hostages were freed. And I remember,
as a nine year old hearing kids parenting their parents
conversations like it was really Carter that had him freed,
(05:50):
all the work he did up until then, and then
other kids saying, are you kidding me? As soon as
Reagan got in office, they knew that they were toast
and that Reagan wasn't gonna be a patsy like Carter.
And I was like, what's a patsy? Who are these dudes? No?
But I remember very distinctly. It's weird, like on the
playground hearing the stuff. That's funny a little nine year old.
(06:10):
I definitely didn't hear this when I was a kid,
but I remember hearing later on as a grown up.
UM still in the rainbow bright. Uh, that it was
Reagan's campaign was somehow in touch with Iran. Yeah, and
that they broke hered this. They've also got them to
wait um to release the hostages until after Reagan was
(06:32):
in office, but the timing was not at all hours
after its inauguration accident. It's a little fishy, you know
what I mean. But whether it was that's funny. I'm
sure somebody's parents were like, Yeah, it's because they were
so scared of Reagan they knew that they better release
these guys. That's totally not the case, because there were
other hostages taken by other by actual um Lebanese terrorists
(06:53):
who were probably sponsored by Iran, and that were they
were held throughout Reagan's presidency. Yeah, and that that's sort
of a big part of this. The second half of
this story was the fact that that was very embarrassing
for Reagan. He didn't like hostages being held on his watch. No,
but he had campaigned against negotiating with terrorists under any circumstances.
So he's stuck now, Yeah, because he's basically saying, if
(07:16):
you get taken hostage, I mean, you're on your own.
We'll we'll we'll use our rhetoric and whatever we can
to influence you being released, but we're not going to
negotiate for your release. That's just the way it is.
And that's a longstanding American policy and it makes sense
because if you negotiate with terrorists, then that's just gonna
lead more kidnappings because they know that you're open for business,
(07:39):
like anywhere in the world. Yeah, there was a kidnapping
of t w A flight eight forty seven, very very
famous one. You know the picture of like the pilot
leaning out of the cop and the guy's in the
picture with the gun behind him. That was um And
that was that, I mean, they that was I remember
that one. That was It was probably nine then, and
(08:00):
that was just scary because they were flying all over
the place. You had no idea what was going to happen.
People were being beaten on the plane. When Navy guy
was beaten and shot and throw his body thrown on
the tarmac. Yeah, the eighties, like it seems comparatively tame
now in a lot of way, it's compared to the
things that used to go on, thank McDonald's hijackings and
kidnappings and hostages. It's like the eighties were nuts. They
(08:22):
were nuts. But um, pac Man, you know pac Man
rapping Rodney? It was crazy rapping, Like are is that
Roddy Piper? No rapping Rodney? Dangerfield his big hit? Oh yeah, yeah,
no respect? What about what about the Achy Shuffle that
was a little crazy? Was that eighties? Sure? Late eighties?
(08:45):
I guess so, Okay, I got one for you. Okay,
the Bears what was their thing? Oh the super Bowl Shuffle?
Super Bowl Shuffle? Right, yeah, that was pretty eighties. I
think they were eighty four. Yeah, we're putting you know,
my band every year plays for sure one gig at
Decatur's Porch Fest, and every year we try to do
a theme, and this year we're doing an eighties sort
of new wave and I jokingly suggested pac Man Fever
(09:08):
the rap and Rodney. But are you guys gonna do it? No?
Songs are terrible. Do you have a synth player playing
with you. I bought Emily a keyboard and she's learning. Yeah,
she's gonna be like wait, hold on, I hope that's
cool man. Now she's practicing. I've heard her do that um,
and she played piano when she was a kid, So
it's not the biggest stretch. I've heard that one that
(09:29):
herd do. That one Blondie song she just brought the house. Yeah,
we might one way or another, we might bring that
back because that's eighties or was that seventies? It was
so close on the Cuspo. I seriously doubt anybody's going
to throw a beer can at you for it. Anyway,
Porch beest everyone. I'll publicize it in October. So Reagan's
hands are tied um in every way possible because he
(09:51):
can't on he can't negotiate with terrorists. The only option
is to send in a covert delta forced team, which
they Carter tried that and it didn't work. Doesn't always work.
You could lose your own men, and I think that's
what happened in Carter's case, right. So what he can do,
though without anyone knowing, is totally negotiate with terrorists. Yeah,
(10:14):
just as long as the American public doesn't know, suh.
And that's what happened. And he followed that Reagan playbook
where it's like, okay, I said this, Well, if I
just changed this one little part, it makes it all
fine again as long as the American public doesn't know.
So well, Reagan said America will never negotiate with with hostages.
(10:34):
They didn't say Israel will never negotiate with terrorists for hostages. Right, So,
actually Israel had a long standing policy of negotiating with terrorists.
They wouldn't. They would kidnap people from the other side,
and then they'd be like, all right, I'll give you
five guys. I've only got two. Let me kidnap a
few of people. Okay, now I have five. Like there
would be negotiations for hostage exchanges all the time between
(10:58):
Israel and Palestine, right they would. They just knew what
they were doing. So they said, okay, well, if if
Israel goes to Iran and says, hey, you know this
American over there, why don't you get them released? We
can help you out with some stuff. When you think
about this. Yeah, So earlier when I mentioned the fact
that Iran as the whole cloth did not change overnight
(11:19):
as a country. The government did, but there were still
some plenty of people there that were a little more
moderate in their views, and the Reagan administration had a
channel to them. So he was talking to them, these
more moderate factions and making a little headway. And they
were like, by the way, will totally give you these
(11:41):
hostages if you give us arms. Yeah, because Iran was fighting, um,
the Iran Iraq War at least half of it. Yeah,
And this is just where stuff is just totally crazy,
because we were we were funding both sides at the
very least, we were advising both sides. Well, I mean
we directly gave money, Oh yeah, you're rock. We sold
(12:01):
them weapons, and we provided training and intelligence. And this
was this wasn't secret. This was like a real deal thing.
We were publicly supporting Iraq, but then we were secretly
arming Iran. Yeah. I think what they never proved beyond
a doubt was that we went to uh Saddam Hussein
and said, hey, why don't you go in there and
(12:22):
overthrow Iran? Yeah, that was never we started it. I
don't think that was ever. There was a lot of
uh circumstantial evidence that that was the case, but never
like the smoking gun that we actually encouraged Saddam Hussein
to do so. But it's just, man, when you look
at how all this played out over the ears, just maddening. Yeah,
you know, yeah, it's it's a s show. Yeah. So
(12:44):
Iraq and Iran or fighting. We're supplying both, playing both
sides of the coin. Uh. And we offered arms to Iran.
And who are you gonna call? Not ghostbusters? Oh, Gorbana
far Well, you're gonna call Ali? No? Oh yeah, okay,
I would have gotten there eventually. Yeah, because okay, so
remember all the North is this total novice when it
(13:07):
comes to covert operations. Yeah, he's been running the Nicaragua
op for years now, just doing a bang up job
of it. So they they're like, well, sure, we'll have
him do this incredibly illegal supersensitive arms sail to Iran too.
Why don't you come on over here, Ali and all?
He said, Okay, that's fine, but I need to go
get the lay of the land. And he actually traveled
(13:29):
to Iran with a fake passport under an assumed name
William P. Good was a knee and um. When he
went it was it was dangerous enough that William Casey. Supposedly,
Oliver North later testified gave him cyanide pills so that
he could take his own life rather than be tortured
by the Iranians. If if this were in fact like
(13:50):
some sort of set up again right out of a movie. Yeah,
but Oliver North went to Iran with cyanide pills. Yeah,
so everything went great, though it did. He didn't need
the sanid pills after all. He did not um he
dealt with, like you mentioned earlier, this Iranian businessman name
Gourbana Far and this guy was tin shades of shady,
(14:16):
so much so that the CIA wouldn't even deal with them.
Now they issued a burn notice on him, which is
I don't even know what that is. That means just
he's dead to us. It's basically stay away. It's putting
him on blast to all the other intelligence agencies in
the world persona on won't even deal with this guy.
And so Ali North is like, yeah, I'll deal with
(14:36):
this guy all right. So with his help, Oliver North
set up a deal um where And it's so simple
to look at like Israel. You give them your missiles
and then we'll just replace those missiles for you with
our missiles, so we're not giving the missiles you are.
And because no American explicitly said to Iran, hey, we're
(14:59):
doing this so that you guys will get these hostages released,
it wasn't an arms for hostages deal, and so Reagan's
vowed and never negotiate with terrorists remained intact. That's right.
Five hundred and eight t OWTOW missiles was that stand
for two blaunched optically tracked wireless guided missile, which is
(15:20):
like it's like, ah, the two launched. There's a tube
and it can be like mounted on the ground, mounted
on a jeep. It's super portable. But they are they'll
blow some stuff up. I think I've seen these you have.
So five eight of these UM made it from Israel
to Iran, and then in very short order, a couple
of days later, one of the hostages, Benjamin we Are
(15:42):
minister who was held by Lebanese terrorists for sixteen months,
was released. So it worked. It did work. It was
a big deal around the White House to UM, but
they said, let's try it again, but this time it
seemed a little messy to get Israel involved. Let's just
do this ourselves. Ali, you think you can handle this,
and he said, sure, me and Gurbonafar have this. So
(16:05):
rather than Israel giving arms to Iran, Richard S. Cord
got brought in just like with Nicaragua. And again this
isn't like years after Nicaragua. Nicaragua was at full bore,
in full sweep and all the North is running both
operations simultaneously. Um. And so the new setup was the
Department of Defense would sell the c I A missiles
(16:28):
for thirty seven hundred bucks of pop. The CIA would
sell them to Richard C. Cord at cost, and then
c Cord would sell them to Gorbonafar for ten grand apiece,
and then gorbona Far would go sell them to Iran
for whatever he charged Ran. I can't I guarantee it
was more than the ten grand. And this happened multiple times.
(16:50):
Over the course of a little over a year. America
secretly transferred two thousand missiles and missile parts to Iran
UM in eight shipments. Yeah. For the release of hostages. Yeah,
ultimately there are three hostages that got released out of
seven that had been taken hostage total. Yeah, And didn't
(17:12):
he say ultimately there were three more hostages taken? So
they netted out at zero zero. Yeah. So um, but
that was that was the whole Iran operation. Yeah, but
here's the deals. This price markup means that that shell company, um,
and those Swiss bank accounts, we're making a lot of money,
(17:32):
and so much so that I think one of them
had three million dollars made an interest alone. So at
some point someone's like, hey, this this is a money
making operation. Now, why don't we tie a little bow
on all this and use some of that money to
fund the contrast Because you guys are doing both of
these things and you need money. Congress won't give it
(17:53):
to you. Forget the fundraising omelets. We'll just use the
money from these illite arms sales to fund the contrass. Yeah,
and that's exactly what happened. So to put it in
plain terms, America illegally and secretly sold missiles to Iran,
used the proceeds from those missile sales to secretly and
(18:14):
illegally fund the Contras to help them overthrow their government
down in Nicaragua. That's what the Reagan administration did. That's right.
That's why it's called Iran Contra. That's where they came together.
There was a diversion of funds. Yeah, and the I
think it was by nineteen eight six. Um, Congress finally
got back on board because of this drum beat from
(18:35):
Reagan over the years of how much we need to
really do this officially and keep the mind Congress still
didn't know any of this is going on secretly. Um.
And then Congress said all right, we'll give you a
hundred million dollars to aid this cause. UM and said
you would think that was the end of all the
uh covert stuff. It wasn't, though, No, No, it's still
(18:57):
continued on, but now it was legitimized and had even
better funding. But that was not the end of the
whole thing. Like everybody didn't just get to walk away
and say that was close, because the whole thing started
to come apart. Actually, and I say that we take
an ad break and come back and talk about it
after this. Well, now we're on the road driving in
(19:19):
your truck. Want to learn a thing or two from
Josh damn Chuck stuff you should know? All right, okay, Chuck,
(19:43):
Congress is back on board. I think it's worth pointing
out that that's exactly four years after the Democrats took
control of the House in two. So I wonder if
the Republicans took control back in eighty six and that's
why the funding got turned back. Onto the contrast, we
could solve this, I like the speculating stead So this
(20:04):
all might have Who knows if this ever would have
even been found out had it not been for the
sharp shooting of a young sandin Easton soldier named Jose
Fernando Canales oldman. Uh. In October there was a cargo
plane and see one twenty three called the provider Um
(20:26):
flying seventy so yet Collisha coughs a hundred thousand rounds
of AMMO, rocket grenades and other supplies. Uh. And this
is one of those things where you said they would
fly things over and kick him out in the back
of the plane. This is one of those those runs. Yeah.
The problem with this particular run, though, is that they
did this at feet in broad daylight, and they got
(20:46):
a little lazy or maybe cocky. I don't even know
if it was that. I think it was more like,
this is just work. It was an everyday job by
this time. They've been doing it for years, you know,
and the operation was just humming along so nicely that
was almost an autopilot. Yeah, so yeah, they did this
one supply drop on October in broad daylight and there
(21:09):
were four crew aboard, William J. Cooper, Wallace Bus Sawyer,
freddie Vilchis, and a guy named Eugene Hassan Fuss, who
uh and again this sliding doors thing. Hassen Fuss is
the only guy who had a parachute. He borrowed it
from his brother, a skydiver, because you know, he thought
it might be smart to take a parachute. No one
else had parachutes. Had he not had a parachute, this
(21:31):
may have turned out differently. It may have. For sure,
he was the only one that survived this plane crash
because he was the only one who borrowed the parachute
from his brother, and he jumped out, landed, made it
safely into the jungle. And I think he actually survived
and evaded the Sandinistas for maybe a day or something
like that before he was captured. And when he was captured,
(21:52):
they led him out of the jungle like um with
a rope around his neck, just just about as big
of a prisoner as you can imagine. Super publicized. There
are billboards of of him being led around by Sandinistas
and they started asking him questions and he was like,
what do you want to know? He's saying, like a canary,
(22:12):
you really did? He said, Uh, this is my tense
supply mission. I'm presumed that the CIA is running this.
I don't know. And he would know this would be
something that he would he could legitimately guess at at
least because he had actually worked on ci a um
air drops over Vietnam or Cambodia for Air America back
(22:34):
in the Vietnam War. Yeah, but he wasn't like, uh,
he sings like a canary because he's not very high
up on the tolden pole. Like his job was to
get up there and shove the stuff out of the
back of the plane for three grand a month. He
wasn't even a CIA operator. He's just former marine who
had a background working with Air America years before. But
(22:55):
by this time, by the time he joins on UM
doing this. For the contrast, he was like working as
a construction worker part time in Wisconsin back home, So
this is like pretty good money. I think he was
getting seven grand in today's dollars a month for basically
kicking a k forty seven crates out the back of
a plane over Nicaragua. Yeah, so he's not the kind
(23:18):
of guy that's going to take the fall for anyone.
So he's he's singing like a canary. Even if he
had kept his mouth shut, it wouldn't have mattered. Yeah,
because um, all the other guys, including Hassan Fuss, had
their wallets on the plane, They had all their employee
I D cards and in fact, I don't think we
mentioned in episode one, um the company that was set
(23:41):
up to do these drops was set up called Southern
Air Transport out of I guess Miami, So they all
had their Southern Air Transport I T cards, which was
the c i A front. Like everybody knew Southern Air
Transport was the CIA front, So they might as well
have had like CIA Junior badges or something, or like
Michael Keaton and out of Sight when he has the
(24:03):
big FBI T shirt, I haven't seen that one. Oh,
you haven't seen out of Sight? No? Is that the
one where he's George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez. Is he
a bad guy in it? No, he's a good guy,
but he walks in. He plays Ray Nicolette, who played
uh same character and Jackie Brown FBI guy. But it's
funny because he walks in with an FBI T shirt on.
And Dennis Farina's Jennifer Lopez his dad and he's a
(24:26):
former CUP and he goes, hey, Ray, let me ask
you he got one that says undercover Dennis Farina man class,
I mean, you got to see out of Sight. That's classic.
All right, I'll check it out like one of the
better men. I mean, I know exactly the movie you're
talking about it like the Plague. It's so good you
would love it. So Southern Air Transport CIA front. There's
also a log book that connected this flight, uh and
(24:49):
all the other flights. And then hassen Fuss in his
wallet had a business card to Robert w Owen. This
is a big one who was working with Oliver North
in Washington, right, which so that provided a direct line
between Oliver North and some guys who were kicking Colashna
Coughs out of the back of a plane over in Nicaragua.
(25:09):
So that was a really big deal that when this
guy got captured and you know, told the Santinistas as
much as he knew, because the Sandinistas were like attention, world,
Listen to what we just found out. The CIA has
um totally been funding these contra rebels who are trying
to overthrow the sovereign government, and um, we think you
guys should know about it. Yeah, And it was, um,
(25:32):
it wasn't like you could totally discount that even though
it was from the Sandinistan's like, Congress and the American
media were like what I'm sure Congress was like, wait
a minute, this this reeks of like something that has
been happening that we tried to shut down. Yeah, because remember,
even if the CIA was brief in Congress, it was
(25:52):
either Bill Casey or Dewey Claridge, and they were doing
a really obtuse job of this keeping Congress at arms linked.
So any time something like this came out, almost none
of Congress knew the full extent of this, and it
was always in flagrant violation of whatever Congress wanted or
whatever Congress that agreed to. Yeah, and this wasn't like
(26:13):
this was sort of the straw that broke it all open,
or that broke the camel's back, broke the camel's back
wide open, camel. Uh. Things have been unraveling for a
bit there was a party in ve in Virginia thrown
thrown by Soldier of Fortune magazine. Can you imagine know
(26:34):
what's that party? Like? I don't want to know. I
can't imagine. I used to read Soldier of Fortune when
I was in my ninja training as like a ten
year old boy, and even then I was like this
this magazine makes my stomach hurt. And it's in five
Like can you imagine the amount of like blow being
secretly done in the bathroom at that party? Sure, but
also they were making snuff movies in the living room.
(26:56):
And there's no telling what was going on in a
Soldier of Fortune. We can't tell you. At the very least,
there was a lot of boasting going on openly about
this contra operation. And again this is the time when
people don't know about this stuff. Yeah, but you know
what happens is like you get enough people in enough
years and people start talking, people start bragging, and all
(27:17):
of a sudden, you're you're you have a couple of
gin and tonics at a Soldier of Fortune party and
you're like, hey, guess what, and that that's what happened.
Somebody goes what, Yeah, there you go here it comes. Yeah,
and they dropped the you know, they dropped the bomb
that what's been going on? A concerned citizen here's this.
I guess he must have been mistakenly invited. I don't
(27:38):
know how that guy got invited. They just happened to
talk to the wrong guy or whatever, but probably that.
He was like, I am really fearful of my life
for saying something about this, but I feel like somebody
should know. So he went to a lawyer, a human
rights lawyer named David Sheehan, and he said, you go
tell everybody. You put your life on the line. And
he did. He submitted an affidavit to federal court. Started uh,
(28:02):
doing interviews, talking to journalists, drumming up support. White House
was like, we don't know what you're talking about. You're crazy, man,
Like this is all made up. And uh, finally it
took a Lebanese newspaper, Um Al shira that reported on
this deal, this arms for hostage deal, like in a
legitimate newspaper. Right, So now both stories have been blown open.
(28:26):
You've got Eugene hass't was captured and the contra operation
is blown open, and now Al shira Um is reporting
on the Iran arms for hostage deal. And really, crazily enough,
these two separate arms of this one scandal came out
within a month of each other, which is it's bizarre,
(28:48):
but that's what happened. And now it was like, there's
it's on the table. The America's media knows about it,
Congress knows about it. Heads are about to roll. All right,
we'll take our final break and we'll come back talk
about the aftermath of Iran contra. Well, now we're on
the road, driving in your truck. Want to learn a
thing or two from Josh? Can chuck it stuff you
(29:12):
should know? All right? All right, Chuck, you promised after
your math. Let's hear it. All right, So every every
(29:36):
everything is exposed. Um Oliver north Uh was no longer
in business doing his thing. No, he shut down shop
real quick, he did, but not before very famously he
and his um very eighties haired secretary, Fawn Hall. I
forgot it looked. I was like Fawn Hall. I looked
(29:56):
her up, and as soon as I saw I was like, right, yeah,
Fawn Hall. And forget that hair. She could barely walk
through the door. No, it was ginormous, for sure. It's
so great I would be fearful around a shredder if
our her, but she was not fearful at all. She
and Oliver North spent a day they could. They call
it a shredding party. I mean, we will never know
(30:18):
the full truth behind this because of all the evidence
that they shredded. As far as anyone knows, Oliver North
decided on his own to shred every document he had
on it. That's right, and yeah, that's that's it. It's
it's now. It's the the um official narrative that has
been written into the history book, which you can just
(30:38):
guarantee is not anywhere near the full story, right, So
it all comes out. The Reagan administration start looking around
and they're like, well, who who's going to be the
patsy for this one? And Oliver North could not escape it.
But they're like, he's small potatoes, he's he's he'll he'll
go down. Well, I think he was even willing to
take the fall, like he knew he was going to
(31:00):
be the fall guy, and was like, okay, that's part
of the job, right. But they knew that it had
to the American public, and certainly Congress wasn't going to
be satisfied with just Oliver North. So who did they
land on? So the the official line became this Point Dexter,
and I guess McFarland would have started it. Became uh
fully aware of just how badly Reagan wanted to help
(31:23):
the Contras and said I'm gonna do something about this
and tapped all the North and said we need to
help the Contras out. Go help him out, figure it out.
And North went off and basically went rogue on his
own and set up this whole operation, created this entire
network with c cord Um decided to do the Iranian
arms deal, all this stuff basically on his own, and
(31:46):
like Reagan and Bush knew nothing about it, nothing about it,
and that the buck stopped at Point Dexter. Ultimately it
didn't go any further. William Casey being CIA, he was
basically out of the loop. Um, that was the official
story they came out with, right, and America went, you're kidding, right,
this is a joke. Yeah, I mean I remember these hearings, um,
(32:06):
even as a little kid, like watching these and then
watching the news coverage of it, and like we mentioned,
all over North strolling in there with his dress uniform
and uh, you know, by all accounts being a pretty
stand up guy, like he didn't write anyone out, he didn't.
But he also he was like, there's there's no way
the president didn't know about this. He said, I don't
have any direct evidence that the president didn't know about it,
(32:29):
but it's my understanding that the president was fully aware
of what was going on. Yeah, what was the deal
with this missile supply shipment? Though? That's the one thing
I didn't quite get. So there was North got rid
of all the documents that he could right well, North
didn't have any control over CIA documents, and at that
first missile resupply where they were resupplying Israel, he had
(32:52):
a C I A. He basically said, hey, C I A,
do you know anybody I can use to ship these things?
I'm I've got an emergency here. I need to get
these to is real fast. And the CIA, being the
CIA is still a bureaucracy, they had to document this event.
So there was a document out there now and right
that he couldn't get his hands on, that he couldn't shred.
(33:13):
And so this led to Reagan taking responsibility or saying, okay,
I was aware of this this Iran missile deal by
backdating an order to William Casey saying I order you
not to tell Congress about this, even though you're supposed to.
So Reagan basically said, on paper, I know about this Iran,
(33:37):
this one missile transfer to Iran. Had no idea about
the contrast and it. First they started up denying everything.
Oh yeah, like after this, I'll share a story that
we talked about. He went on television, Reagan did and
denied everything. Every He said, all this is just total
b us. Yeah exactly. Now let's now, let's stop talking
about everybody. Ten days after that, Reagan had another press
(33:59):
conference where he talked about the Iran operation and he
acknowledged it, but said, what we're really doing here is
just trying to sort of send a signal to Iran
that where we want friendlier relations. It was not arms
for hostage exactly. And then so that was ten days
after the first den and then four months after that,
because the reporting would not stop, he basically said, okay, yeah,
(34:23):
and whatever it started out as, I admit that it
devolved into an arms for hostage deal, which even that
even that admission, which is the closest he ever came
to admitting, you know, responsibility for it. Even that's just
total bs and fantasy. It was from the outset in
arms for hostages deal. The whole thing was set up
to get hostages released, and that that was it. So
(34:45):
there was there was no other way to put it.
But that's he He denied that to his dying day.
As far as fallout point extra resign, Oliver North was fired.
Um Casey died in a hospital. Um not too long
after this whole thing was exposed, I mean like weeks so, Um,
the press was all over the president. He um appointed
(35:07):
the Tower Commission. Um, Yeah, that look into this. The
president appointed a commission to investigate, Yeah, the president's own
administration's wrongdoing. That's right. And it was determined that Reagan's
disengagement from the management of his White House created condition
conditions such that it was possible that he did not
(35:29):
know about this, which does the absolute best official finding
he could have hoped for, because it basically says Rangon
didn't know he had a rogue guy working for him,
a true believer, a patriot, But Reagan didn't know about this,
and yeah, he should have. He should have had a
closer watch on his executive branch, but he didn't what
are you gonna do, Let's get Mr t in here
(35:50):
for a photo op with Nancy. Uh. There was a
criminal investigation and what they were really um honing in
on was the eighteen million dollars in profits UM that
that were made and what happened to that money where
it went. Fourteen people were charged um Oliver North was
tried and found guilty on three counts. Yeah. Uh. One
(36:10):
of the counts was um for getting a uh sixteen
thousand dollar security system installed uh in his home courtesy
of s Cord With with that money, there was a
rumor that his his there's a bounty on his head
from terrorists and him up right. Now. That was a
big problem for North because North's hole bag was I
(36:33):
was following orders that I assumed we're coming from the
president ultimately, and I was doing it out of my
patriotic duty and a sense of, you know, as a
true believer that we need to get rid of communism.
And the American public loved it. They're like, great, make
this man a saint. Congress started to love it too,
and he got off. But that was a real problem
(36:53):
because it's saying, well, you took this gift from funds
from this illicit arms sales, right, But it was a
gift of a security system to help protect his family,
So it's not like, you know, it was a gift
of ten pounds of blow and like and Nicaraguan sex
worker from the Eastern government exactly. Secord was convicted of
(37:14):
one count of lying to Congress uh and the investigators. Um.
He basically denied that North received any funds from any
of this. So it's still kind of hinged on that
security system, I guess. And so everybody went to jail
forever after that point. Right, No, that's not true at all. Um.
Hakim got two years probation, a five thousand dollar fine.
(37:35):
Secord got two years probation. Is that what he got?
Two years probation. So the two guys who were actually
running the company that ran this whole thing each got
two years probation. North's conviction was overturned on a technicality,
and President Bush, the senior Bush on Christmas Eve. Um,
this was Christmas Eve as he was leaving office, right,
(37:56):
he issued six pardons basically a lot let everyone off
the hook, including Casper Weinberger, who hadn't even gone to
trial yet no, and neither had um Duane Claridge Dewey
Claridge was going to stay in trial to both of
them received preemptive pardons, and a lot of people are like,
that was about the shadiest set of pardons anyone's ever issued,
because there's a lot of people out there who say
(38:19):
Bush really walked away from the Scott free, but there
is no way he wasn't even more involved in this
than Reagan was. Yeah, I mean George Bush withheld subpoena
his subpoena diary entries that basically indicated that he had
full knowledge of this the entire time. UM. Eventually in
(38:39):
UH Independent Council Lawrence Walsh um asked for these again
and Bush like said, I asked you for these diary entrees.
And Bush was like, I didn't you did, I didn't
fully understand. Uh, it was inadvertent, Like you asked me
for a lot of stuff. I didn't know you asked
me for the diary entrees. And Uh, walsh was really
upset and he said, the Iran Contra contra cover up
(39:03):
has now been completed. Uh. And George Bush as a
president who has such a contempt for honesty and arrogant
disregard for the rule of law. Yeah, and I mean
the the forestalling that the Reagan White House and then
later on the Bush White House did um in in
allowing these investigations to go forward and trying to keep
Congress at arm's length after everything came out. It worked
(39:26):
because there were articles of impeachment introduced in the House
um against Ronald Reagan, and they managed to stave him
off to where it was like while he's leaving office anyway,
forget about it. This investigation took years and years and years,
and then finally when Bush pardoned everybody that was it,
there was nothing else to do. Everybody who was involved
was impl was was off scott free. And then um,
(39:49):
the fact that Oliver North had shredded all those documents,
they were all lost to history, like the actual truth
is lost to history. Yeah. Reagan, Uh, his reputation took
a hit, temporary it um for a while there. He
went from sixty in the span of a couple of
months to forty three to forty seven percent depending on
which poll you looked at on his approval rating. And uh,
(40:11):
he would get it back though. Um. Despite in the
position the very very famous deposition where Ronald Reagan said
I don't remember or I don't recall eighty eight times.
That was a very big deal, was all over the news.
Um almost as famous or just as famous as Bill
Clinton's very famous depends what your definition of is is exactly.
(40:35):
But Reagan rebounded. He did man to the most popular
presidency since FDR Right. Yeah. Upon his exit, his his
approval rating had bounced all the way back up to
the early sixties. Mr T famously carried him out of
the White House on his shoulders on his last day
in office. Oh man, so that's a wrong contra Man,
(40:56):
what a story of a story? Where's this movie? I
don't know. Hopefully we'll get some rights to it after
this episode. I want to play Fawn Hall. Also, that's great.
You get Jerry to play Fawn Hall. That would be great,
Jerry Um. Well. In the meantime, while we find a
suitable wig for Jerry Um, you can find out more
(41:17):
about Iran Contract by going and reading contemporary articles on it.
I'm telling you it's really awesome. And since I said
that it's time for listener mail, I'm gonna call this
follow up on the moon Landing thing. Hey guys. In
my opinion, the Apollo missions and Moon landings are the
most significant events in the history of life on Earth.
On the question why the Command module and Lunar Lander
(41:38):
were launched separated, I think the reason was to allow
the Command module to be ejected in case of an emergency.
The very top of the Apollo stack was the launch
escape system, like an injector seat on steroids. I imagine
they had to keep things as light and nimble as
possible for the l S to be effective. I don't
think you mentioned something that's really significant the Apollo eight mission.
(42:00):
It was the very first time humans went to the Moon,
on top of being the first time we broke free
of Earth's gravity. Like like eleven, the stakes were incredibly high.
They had to first insert the correct trajectory to make
it to the Moon, then do a burn to enter
the orbit around the Moon, then perform another burn to
break free of the Moon's gravity and head back towards Earth.
If any piece was not in place, those astronauts would
(42:20):
have spent the rest of their lives either orbiting the
Sun or orbiting the Moon. Apollo eight also gave us
the Earth rise photo. Oh yeah, yeah, I've been hearing
a lot about Apollo eight um lately too, so this
person is hats off to you. Jim Lovell was on
both Apollo eight and Apollo thirteen. He traveled to the
moon twice but never had the opportunity to land. Signed
(42:45):
a space geek Noah Alloy, Nice work, Noah Alloy Alloy Alloy,
great name too. Thanks a lot for a getting in
touch with us. We love space geeks. We love to
put you guys in headlocks and rub your heads with
our knuckles until you go stop. It's called a noogie
right here on Earth. That's right, um. If you want
a noogie from me and Chuck, send us a space
(43:07):
geeky or any kind of geeky thing. We love that
kind of stuff. You can go onto stuff you should
Know dot com and follow our social links and you
can send us a good old fashioned email, wrap it up,
spank it on the bottom, and send it off to
stuff podcast at i heeart radio dot com. Stuff you
Should Know is a production of iHeart Radios. How stuff
(43:27):
works for more podcasts for my heart Radio because at
the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows
Stuff You Should Know News
Hosts And Creators
Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
Show Links
AboutOrder Our BookStoreSYSK ArmyRSSPopular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com