August 8, 2026 • 45 mins
When Ronald Reagan was president, America got involved in some deeply shady stuff, not the least of which was the Iran-Contra scandal – a convoluted operation that managed to combine an illegal covert war in Nicaragua with secretly selling arms to Iran. Learn all about it with Josh and Chuck in this classic episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey guys, it's me Josh. For this week's select I've
chosen our twenty nineteen episode on the Iran Contra affair.
We called it Shady in the eighties for two good reasons.
One it took place in the eighties, and two it
was probably the shadiest thing the US government has ever done.
And that's really saying something. Anyway, if you like your stuff,
(00:23):
you should know episodes eye popping, then prepare for this one.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's
Charles w Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry over there eating with chopstick.
As a matter of fact.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
You know what, Jerry pulls up the chopsticks.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
It's time to record.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Yeah, she's got she's got Facebook open and she's sitting
there with her chopstick. So it's we're recording now.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
He's been fork free since eighty three.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Speaking of eighty three, your shirt, I guess it's kind
of eighty three ish.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
It looks very Thomas Magnum.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
It does, Chuck. It does not just the shirt, the
whole outfit. Look at the jeans, the shoes.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Yeah, yeah, you got the Ferrari out back.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Thank you for noticing. Man, I look like a chubby
Thomas Magnum.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
It's funny because I just finished Stranger Things three and
I saw that there was a have you seen it yet?
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Are you into that?
Speaker 1 (01:31):
No? I like the first season. I never really got
back into it after that. No, no offense to anybody.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Sure, the main the sheriff guy, Yeah, Hopper wears a
shirt kind of like that through most of this season.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (01:44):
And so someone did a cut of a like a
Magnum p I intro and had him running around and
shooting things and jumping into cars, all set to the
Magnum thing, and it really fits. All I gotta do
is throw that song with the guy with a shirt
like that Magnum.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Yep. Of course he has the mustache too. Well, I'm
a mustacheless chubby Magnum.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
You should wear a mustache. That looks interesting.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
I don't know. I do solve a lot of mysteries though.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Nothing can change a look like.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Mustaches, Oh dude, especially right, especially a.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Fake mustache, because you just put it on and bam,
you're done. Right, So I tried. I'm going to go
back to the eighty three segue.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Yeah we're here, right, We're right in the middle of
the eighties.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Yeah, like this was super eighties. This is as eighties
as it gets. Yeah, Iran Contra, fair, that's what we're
talking about. Some people call it iron Gate. I poo
poo that name.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Iran Contra.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Sure. I remember this going on at the time, me too.
I remember watching All Over North Testify me too, and
my sister was like, he's so dreamy. Look at how
much poise he has.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
He had his dress greens on right exactly those metal.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Had his boy scout three fingers up like swearing. I
really think he did do that. But even as an adult,
like everything I knew about around Contra was like, until
researching this, it was just the glossiest version.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Well, I mean I was like ten and eleven, so
you were like seven and eight.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Sure, sure, but I mean like it's still over time.
As you age, you're like, oh, that's what was going
on or oh I understand that. Even as an adult,
my conception of it was not very thorough at all.
And as I dug into I'm like, this is one
of the shadiest things in Meerica has ever done yeah ever.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Yeah, and it was really great to do this, and like,
now I know it. Now I have a full understanding
of what happened. And if it ever comes up at
a party, right and people are like, oh, what was
that all about? Anyway, I'm gonna be like, wow.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Please sit down for an hour and.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
I'll just pull up my smartphone and play our episodes.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Right, actually, maybe an hour and a half. We'll see
how this goes.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yeah, by the way, everyone, this is a two parter. Yeah,
buckle up, and so, uh this is part one.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
I figured we'd start with the beginning.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
I think that that's a really good idea.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
That reminds me of my friend in college watched the movie,
Oh which one was it?
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Burned Shortcuts?
Speaker 2 (04:09):
The movie that was on two video cassettes? What it
was so long?
Speaker 1 (04:13):
You know?
Speaker 3 (04:13):
I had to split him up? Was it Magnolia?
Speaker 1 (04:16):
The Bridge Too Far?
Speaker 3 (04:17):
I can't remember.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
My friend in college, very very famously among our friends
watched the second tape first and then watched the first
tape second and didn't really put it together.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
She was just like, I thought it was a little.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Confusing, really, so it was accidental.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Oh yeah, oh, and then she was like and then
she showed up in the in the second part, and
I was like, she's already dead.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
She was kind of country. This is kind of funny.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
This movie is one of them an achronisms. Yeah, well,
this is not an acronism, because we're going to be normal, smart,
singing people and start at the beginning.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
And there's really no better place to start than the
election of Ronald Reagan in nineteen eighty Ronald Reagan, if
you weren't familiar with him already when he was president,
he had already been governor of California, But even before that,
he had a pretty extensive career in Hollywood. And while
he was a pretty big star in Hollywood, at least
(05:10):
B plus list, if not a list.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Actor, yeah him. Mean, he was a medium sized.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Star, sure, but definitely way more famous as president than
he ever was as a movie star.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
He learned to detest communism. Yeah, and at the time,
communism was a really big thing in Hollywood, Like it
was very fashionable, especially among the intellectuals of Hollywood. Yeah,
and he learned to hate it so much so that
by the time he got to be president, he had
this idea that there was. It was impossible for capitalist
(05:45):
democracy and communism to coexist even peacefully on earth. You
couldn't have both. You had to have one or the other.
And by god, Ronald Breagan was going to see to
it that the one that we had was a capitalist democracy.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Ye want to stamp out communism wherever it reared its head,
and it was rearing its head close to home, which
we'll see here in a second, but all over the world.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Oh, yeah, for sure. It was called the Reagan.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
Yeah, bits and pieces of it were right.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
And he came up with the Reagan doctrine. And the
Reagan doctrine was, we will aid any any opposition to
communism wherever it sprouts, Like if you're if you're fighting
against a communist revolution, we'll support your country. If you're
a rebel fighting against a leftist communist government, we'll help
(06:35):
you overthrow. That's the Reagan doctrine.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Yeah, via money, via arms, via training, via covert operations
that we carried out ourselves. Yeah, there were all kinds
of ways that we could and did help stem the
flow of communism.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
So there was, as you were saying, there was a
place pretty close to home where communism had sprouted up,
and that was Nicaragua down in Central America, and in
Central America in the thirties, the Sandinista government had taken
power and had held onto power well into the seventies
and by this time the early eighties, and it drove
Ronald Reagan nuts that there was a communist power right
(07:15):
there that was being supported by the Soviet Union through Cuba. Ostensibly.
I've never gotten the impression that this was ever conclusively proven.
They definitely got support from Cuba. But whether it was
the Soviet Union who was really calling the shots of
Nicaragua or not, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Yeah, And I think, you know, to go even further
back and draw the lines a little even more clear.
The Sandinistans were named for Augusto Sandino, who led the
nationalist rebellion against what the US occupation of Central America.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Oh that's where it started.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Huh, that's where it all started. And from nineteen you know,
the US occupied. This is all part of the Banana Wars.
So we occupied Nicaragua from nineteen twelve to nineteen thirty
three for a lot of reasons, but one was like, hey,
no one's going to build a canal here unless it's us, right.
That was sort of one of the main reasons, and
that all ceased in nineteen thirty to three with Roosevelt's
(08:11):
Good Neighbor policy, which is basically like, we're going to
pull out in Nicaragua.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Oh really, yeah, okay, So, but we.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Had our fingers all over Central America right for many, many,
many years. And that's why when people forget or choose
not to remember when people flee horrible situations in Central
America to come to the United States now like kind
of where all these horrible situations started years and years
ago because of things that we did right well.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
When Reagan became president, intervening in Nicaragua, Nick Man, I'm
going to have a hard time if I can't say
Nicaragua intervening in Nicaragua became like a like first and
foremost priority for them.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Almost immediately they started funding the Contras. The Contra are
the groups who were fighting against the Santa Nista government.
They were right wing groups, and they were funding them,
they were training them, like you were saying, and they're
doing all this secretly. There was an operation called Operation
Black Eagle Man that one that was something else. Yeah,
(09:16):
So we were already funding them, and at the time,
Congress was on board. Congress was on board, especially at
first because the Republicans controlled the House. Well, you know
how when somebody comes in and just steamrolls over the
other party, usually in a presidential election, very frequently in
the midterms, the congressional midterms, there's like a backlash against that.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Yeah, like a house flip.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Believe it or not. That happened to Ronald Reagan in
nineteen eighty two, and the House did flip. They flipped
over to the Democrats. And that Democrat controlled House, combined
with a Newsweek cover story that came out, kind of
turned the tide against Reagan's policy on helping out in Nicaragua.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
There was a CIA director named William Casey who was
he was kind of telling Congress what they needed to
hear here and there you have been here vague briefings.
That was probably a generous way to say it. Sometimes
Casey would send another guy, though, named Dwayne Dewey Clarridge.
And this is where things really went south because Clarridge
(10:22):
did not present well to Congress, and anytime Congress feels
like they're being subverted or ignored or like kept out
of the loop, or like not able to offer their
checks and balances on the executive branch. They really get mad,
they do. And like we're seeing that today. This is
like history just repeats itself over and over again.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Exactly. Yeah. And in this particular case, the place where
where the administration, the regular administration in Congress just started
butting heads over niic Aragua, it was Duane Claridge. Yeah,
you know, he just that's how poor a job he did.
But in his defense, he was coming from a place
where he was a CIA man through and through. And
(11:04):
this is less than ten years after Congress had just
basically rooted out the CIA, held public hearings. That's when
like the MK ultra came out and the fact that
they've been dosing unsuspecting Americans with LSD.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Yeah, So in his defense, he was mad because they
uncovered all the awful things that.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
He'd been doing, right right, right, true compassion, Chuck, Yeah,
that's true, compassion. So Congress is starting to get a
little unhappy with this. And there was one congressman in
particular named Edward Edward Boland I believe, and he was
from Massachusetts, and he said Hey, I just read about
(11:43):
this cover story in Newsweek has a title America's Secret
War colon Nicaragua. Seems like they should have flip flopped that,
you know, Nicaragua colon America's Secret War.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
I think they both had the same end goal.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
It's fine, right, But he was like, wait.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Why am I reading about this in a magazine? Yes,
and I'm a member of Congress, right.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Because at this time, like Congress was like, well, okay,
we think we're just kind of funding things, we're maybe
helping out a little bit. This Newsweek magazine was like, no, no, no,
it's way more than that. Yeah, like there is way
more American involvement down in Nicaragua then you've been led
to believe Congress.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Like actual covert CIA ops like blowing up bridges and
blowing up buildings and you know, direct saboteur type ops.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Yeah, not just here's some arms. Yeah, and then you
know you close this one eye, believe this eye open
when you're shooting. There was way more involved than that.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
Or we could just do the shooting basically here, just
let me do it.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
So Congress in the guys of Edward Bolan said Nope,
we're not doing that, and they passed the bowl In Amendment,
which basically said, if you cannot use CIA funds or
Department Defense Department funds to aid the Contras in Nicaragua,
it's done. Good night. Congress went to sleep.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
And so that should have been the that's the end
of it, right, because Congress passed a well it was
at a law, now passed.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
An amendment in act in act.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Yeah, and so everyone just stopped, right, that's how it works,
all right, what's part two going to be about that?
Speaker 1 (13:19):
We're just going to see here quietly.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
So this did not stop anything. Here's what happened. In
nineteen eighty three. The CIA had this one operation where
they went into the commercial shipping harbors of Nicaragua.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Oh boy, I know it's it's pageous.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
I said it right in my head all morning. Nicaragua.
And they put mines there. You know, I was about
to say land mines, but they were sea mines, yeah,
floating mines, right. And the idea here was we're going
to plant these mines that we're going to whip up
our own press releases for the Contras where they take
credit for it, like we don't even trust them to
(13:58):
write a good press release.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
The CIA wrote the press release for.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
It, so where the Contras are saying that they.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Did it, and the overall effect it's going to have
is they're not gonna be able to ship arms via
the seaport, at least into Nicaragua.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Plus it also makes the Contras look way more together,
sure and with it than they actually were.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Right, like, all we need to do is give them
some money, and they got it covered.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Right. So the CIA does this and they're thinking, okay,
so mine are shipping in the Nicaragua Harbor's is going
to stop. It does not stop. No, as a matter
of fact, there there was damage. So they used little
firecracker mines which make a big blast in a lot
of water everywhere. But if it's a big ship, it's
not going to hurt the ship. Well, it's sunk a
lot of small fishing vessels. But it also damaged ships
(14:42):
from the Netherlands, Great Britain, Oops, Japan, and the USSR
commercial ships. So the Wall Street Journal broke this story
and said, hey, you guys, Congress, you remember how you
pass this amendment saying there could be no CIA involvement
in Nicaragua. Well, they mined the whole arbor of the
sovereign nation, and it blew up a bunch of other
(15:04):
other country ships.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
In Congress once again, it's like, man, you keep doing
secret things behind our back. That really makes us mad.
Should we take a break.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
All right, let's take a break.
Speaker 4 (15:19):
Stuff you should know, Josh and shuck. Stuff you should know.
Stuff you should know.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Okay, let's keep going. So what does Congress do? They're like,
all right, they're mad. We passed one Bowlan amendment, which
I don't think we said chuck. That first Bowlin Amendment
was pasted four hundred and eleven to zero, unanimously saying
do not mess around in Nicaragua anymore. That's when you
know VERSU is mad, right, when they unanimously agree on something.
And then then the Wall Street Journal breaks the story
(16:05):
about the harbor mining long after the Bowling Amendment was passed.
And now Congress is even madder.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Right, So they passed two more amendments, Boland amendments, because
there were loopholes basically that allowed you know, the US
to sort of do these things semi legally. So it
was like, well, here's a loophole, so it wasn't really
fully illegal that we did this stuff.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Yeah, that's like the Reagan administration's way.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
All right.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
They closed these loopholes and now this was like it
was pretty ironclad. I don't know about iron clad, but
it was pretty tight amendment wise.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
At the very least. Congress walked away thinking it's done.
So we made ourselves quite clear, right, Ronald Reagan signed
these into law.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
Yeah, he didn't bete him.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
No, he accepted these things. I think he even said like, yeah,
this is a good idea, great way to go Congress
and signed it. I'm not going to do a Reagan impression.
But so Congress thought that the matter was settled, but
it wasn't settled. Like this is how laser focused Reagan
was on overthrowing the Santainista government down in Nicaragua. He
(17:15):
just took a CIA operation and took it even further
underground than it had been before. Basically, he was like, Okay,
if you guys are going to outlaw this stuff, we're
just going to have to get even more illegal.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
So there were a couple of factions here at work.
One was this continued operation underground, deep deep underground now,
and then there was Reagan's public like he still wanted
to get real money from Congress, so he didn't have.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
To do this stuff.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
So he kept up this public PR campaign, beating this
drum about communism at our doorstep. He said that the
contrast were the moral equals of our founding fathers.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
That's a big one to pull out, Like that's.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
A direct quote, Yeah, of our found founding fathers. Yeah,
and started in with the and again you see this
stuff kind of repeating itself, the campaign of fear, where
he basically said, unless we do something tough here, then
there will be a tidal wave of feet people.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
I don't even know what that means, but that's that
just seems super offensive.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Swarming into our country. He meant, you know, refugees, feat
people seeking a safe haven.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
It was one word, even I think one word.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
It's funny because I looked up feet People and that's
a company that, like, I think, makes shoelaces.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
And they're like, yes, say it again, say dot com. Uh.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
So this is all going on and on the on
the on the down low, all the operations are going
on and on the public facing side, Reagan's just continuing
this PR push.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Right basically saying, like Congress, look at these heartless old
you know, gas bags. Turning off the funding to these
Founding father moral equivalent to our Founding fathers. Go vote
these guys out of office and vote in some people
who will turn the funding back on.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Yeah. And while the Contras may have been fighting Communism,
they were doing so through means that the Founding Fathers
probably would not have approved of, like murder and torture
and rape and mutilation, kidnapping and not. You know, I
mean it wasn't so widespread that it was like that's
all they were doing, but they would resort to those tactics, right,
(19:24):
And that's not Founding father stuff.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
No, it's definitely not, not as far as I've ever learned.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
No, I don't think so.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
And I mean it's had a few hundred couple hundred
years to come out, yeah, and it still hasn't. So Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
I read some of the stuff too, Like some of
the affidavits were like just brutal.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Oh yeah, dude. The war down in Nicaragua, the civil war, Yeah,
that the US basically fomented and supported. It went on
for a decade, like it was, it went on into
the nineties, and it was like not just like countrymen
against countrymen, like civilians were getting murdered by the scores. Yeah,
and just they would get kidnapp and tortured and killed,
(20:01):
and like, it was a really brutal time in Nicaragua.
And the Reggae administration is right in the middle of this,
like providing as much I eat as they can to
one side.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
Yeah, and it was.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
One of the big problems was that the Contras back
then were a bunch of different factions and they did
an answer to a single leader. And the one thing
I got out of the affidavits, one of which this
woman described them taking her children and her finding their
mutilated bodies the next day.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
It was brutal.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
One of the leaders said that there's no disciplinary system
at all within the Contra groups, so oh yeah, yeah,
like there's no accountability, so you could do anything you
wanted and there's no discipline set up. So it was
just they were fractured and no one was talking to
each other and it was just a big mess.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Right. But Reagan was doing his best to paint everything
in black and white. Right, Contra's good Santinista is bad.
So anything that Contras did was good, and stuff that
couldn't be painted as good would just be denied or
glossed over, not reported on.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
So, while while Reagan's out running around trying to drum
up public support for the Contras and thus congressional aid
being turned back on.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
And also saying don't do drugs, he yeah, that was
a big one, even though we're shipping a lot of
drugs back and forth.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
It's awfully rich now that you know all that stuff.
You know, he's also secretly supporting them, going in flagrant
violation of what Congress has said that America can do.
He tells his people he wants the Contras movement to
be kept alive, body and soul is how we put it,
which and he basically said do it. This is what
(21:41):
history has told us, is that Reagan basically said keep
the Contra movement alive, body and soul. I'm going to
go work on Congress. I'm putting my hands over my
ears from now on. Whether that's true or not, we
will probably never know as far as the history books
is concerned. That's what happened.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Right, So here's what they did.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
They said the CIA has a bad rap for a
lot of reasons, and Congress is not super friendly with them.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Well, they expressly forbade the CIA from operating.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
There, right, So he said, here's what we're going to do.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
We're going to use the National Security Council and they're
the CIA chief. William Casey he's around. He's going to
just like advise here and there. And William Casey was like,
oh no, I really got to be involved because this
is really good stuff.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
They're like no, no, no, we're talking like officially, here's oh yeah,
okay exactly.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
So at first National Security Advisors Robert McFarlane, and then
he was succeeded by John Poindexter, very important, you remember
that name. And then Casey's still there, like you said,
doing his thing on the down load unofficially, right.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
I think even in some cases kind of stepping on
toes or whatever. He was like an additional boss to
the main guy, the guy everybody's heard of, the guy
who's mine or whose name jumps to mine when you
hear about this, Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North North. And in retrospect,
especially if you went if you lived through the Iran
(23:06):
Contra hearings and you were familiar with Olie North, like
you would guess that when Allie North was tapped to
head up this extraordinarily difficult secret operation to go against
Congress and keep the Contra movement alive and kicking that.
Alie North was a bad a covert operator to the
(23:29):
ninth degree. Right, that is not at all correct.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
No career marine, very highly decorated marine, served in Vietnam one,
silver stars and purple hearts, devout Catholic, and by all accounts,
a stand up guy. And to many many Americans he
is still like a top notch American hero.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Sure well, he was like the president of NRA until
I think recently, Yeah, I think there's some scandal that
just happened where there. It came out that he like
tried to depose Wayne Lapierre or something like that.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
I don't either. But even beyond that, like, even beyond
whether he's a stand up guy or not, as far
as you know, patriotism is concerned, sure, just job experience
he had, like none, Yeah, he had no experience whatsoever
as far as I could ever tell in covert operations.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
He did a pretty good job for a while, it
did an amazing job.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
He was basically the the White House's operations and intel
arm of the shadiest stuff it was doing stuff that
was so shady the CIA was even kept in the
dark about it. That's how shady this stuff Allie North
was doing. And he had no experience. He's learning as
he went, Yeah, just making it up as he went along.
And he really did do a pretty good job of
(24:45):
it if you look at it from that angle, just.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
As far as like getting getting or done right. So
what they basically decided was, all right, if we can't
get the real taxpayer money and like official funds, we'll
just go and raise fund on the side and secret
through business people that you know, we can have these
big parties and dinners and say, hey, listen, communism is
(25:10):
knocking at a door. This wouldn't be good for America,
wouldn't be good for your company, right, and why don't
you give us some money?
Speaker 3 (25:17):
Open up the checkbook. Reagan's here, you want a photo.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Yeah, Sometimes he would show up to these secret fundraisers.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
And it was it was it really worked.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Like they raised a ton of money from the business
elite of America to stop the sandin Eastans in Nicaragua.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
So they actually forget this. They founded they had two
private citizens found in nonprofit the National Endowment for the
preservation of liberty. Its sole purpose was to get these
fund these illicit funds to send to the Contras, which
means that the people who are donating to the president's illegal,
secret proxy war could write their donations off on their taxes.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
It's just mind boggling hilarious in some senses.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Yeah, but they were not the most stand up nonprofit because,
as you point out, they raised six point three million
dollars through that organization during eighty five eighty six, about
three point three million made it to the Contras. And
uh so that means a fifty two percent program expense rate.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
That's pretty bad. Yeah, that's not good at all.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Now, three million dollars it took supposedly to run to
run that nonprofit.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Those fund raising breakfast for a year. Yeah, pretty bad.
Good omelets though, so yeah, oh yeah, the best not Yeah.
So from this this idea, like, okay, this is this
is probably kind of legal. We're just fundraising, right, We're
not giving any American taxpayer funds, We're just getting other
people that donate. Private citizens. Saudi Arabia was a big
(26:47):
one and it was all to stop communism.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
So, like, I think their intentions were that, oh, definitely,
theirs were.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Yeah, but there was this definite and justifies the means
kind of thing, And really, isn't the president really the
most powerful person in the world. Can Congress really tells
the president what to do as far as foreign policy goes? Nah? Yeah,
that was kind of the idea, I think. So Saudi
Arabia donated a bunch of money. There's all these private
citizens donating money. And here's the thing. The contrasts found
(27:18):
themselves for lush with cash.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
Yeah, many millions of dollars.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Over just two years. Saudi Arabia alone donated thirty two million.
To the contrast, this is a couple of loosely affiliated
factions fighting in two spots of Nicaragua that suddenly have
thirty plus million dollars at their disposal. The problem is
they don't have the contacts in the international arms trade
(27:44):
to buy arms with this money. They've had a bunch
of money, They're like, who wants this? And they were
getting crickets out, got some bombs, right, you know, the
cartoonish black kind, the round ones that are shiny. It
take fifteen of those.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
This is before Craigslist two, right, So they're only their
only avenue was to go back to the Americans and
Oliver North and he began working with a guy named
Richard Seacord. He was a retired forest retired we'll get
into that in a minute, air Force major general, and
he had a lot of experience. There was this group
(28:19):
of dudes in the nineteen seventies and eighties that were
former CIA or current CIA, former CIA, former and current
American military who were all had their fingers in the
illegal arms trade.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Right, so exactly what you can imagine a Hollywood writer
would come up with, Yeah, this is the real life
version of yeah, for sure. So they would. They would.
You could farm out assassinations to them. They could rustle
up mercenaries, they could carry out sabotage operations. They could
(28:52):
find whatever, gun, bomb, anything you need.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
On some money laundered gun, right, anything.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
That is extraordinarily illegal and deals in death. Like these
guys could get their.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
Hands on here, he's a poison done, Sure.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
A bomb disguise as a briefcase. We got it, buddy. Yeah,
and they would. Here's the other thing too. They were
an illegal black market arms ring. But they were also
even more illegal and that they would sell to whoever,
whether you were an enemy or a friend of America,
it didn't matter. These guys were operating well above any
sort of national loyalty or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Yeah, this was about making money, sure, like many millions
of dollars.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
So, especially a guy like Seacord, he wasn't He was
in it to make dough, definitely, whereas an Ali North
was seemingly in it to stop the you know, communism.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Right, So that's an important point. But the fact that
they that they contract with Seacord to kind of swoop
in and help hook the contras up with arms means
that the Reagan administration is contracting with this extraordinarily illegal
black market arms ring.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Yeah, which they took down some of these dudes over
the years, but one of them, one of the founders
of this group was a CIA op named Edwin Wilson.
He was sentenced He served twenty two years, twelve of
which were in solitary confinement, but was sentenced to fifty
two years for illegally arming Libya with ten thousand machine
guns and twenty tons of C four that he hid
(30:22):
in barrels of mud and flew on a chartered jet
to Libya.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Right, the Hollywood stuff, I know, it really is, like
this really happened.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
It's crazy.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
And it wasn't just Libya. This guy was funding or
outfitting Momar Kadafi.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Edie Amine was another customer, Like, whoever, if you need
to keep a stranglehold on power in your country, were
the people to help you do that?
Speaker 3 (30:43):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (30:44):
And when I teased earlier about Richard Seacord being forced
into retirement, that was due to his connection with Edwin Wilson. Right,
so he was forced to retire from the Air Force.
They couldn't pin anything on him, but there was enough
of a connection there where he had a step.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Yeah. They're like, you can do this the hardware or
the easy way. We're going to give you the option.
And he took the easy way.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
And then he went on to make a lot of money. Right.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
He was like, okay, well, I'll just do the arm
stealing thing full time now, right, And he did so.
When they brought him in at first, Seacord was basically
acting as like a very lase Fair intermediary. He was
basically the guy who on behalf of Ali North was like, yeah,
I can introduce the contras to my friends in the
arms ring.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
Yeah in Canada of all places.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Yeah. He introduced the Contras to some Canadian arms dealers.
So now the setup was this the friendliest arm steeler. Right,
They're like, well, these bullets will really put a hole
in somebody.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Ah yeah, oh sorry, I meant to include rocket launchers
on that order.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
Sorry.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
Sorry, that's pretty good. So Seacord was just there to
make some introductions, make sure things went smoothly, and then
it was up to the Contras to use these funds
that were coming in from other people and to buy
weapons from the Canadians. Easyps, right, you'd think, okay, that's fine,
(32:02):
that's fine. It still has like a slight veneer of
arms length legality as far as America is concerned.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
Yeah, and we should mention too that he to do this,
he set up a shell company, the Stanford Technology Trading Group,
with an Iranian American businessman named Albert Hakim, who knew
how to get around certain official procedures and stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
He's another guy who could get things done.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
So he set up Swiss bank accounts, untraceable accounts, because
that's what you do to run the funds through. And
this became known as the Enterprise.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Yeah, there's Stanford Technology Trading Company or.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
Group Starting Group, aka the Enterprise.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Yeah, that was like everybody called it that because they're
like this sounds way cooler, the enterprise, right.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
All right, But like you were alluding to, you'd think
it would have been going great. But the contras in
the North, who was the FDN, They were the.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
Largest, by far, the largest group.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
They were better organized from what I understanding.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Yeah, they were doing a pretty good job. But in
the South they were not doing a very good job.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
No. Somehow they were like, we don't have the arms
and equipment. They're like, what are you talking about. You
have the same amount of money, you have the same contacts. Yeah,
just buy the weapons. They're like, oh no. So Allie
North is like, okay, all right, here's what we're gonna do.
He called the leaders of the FDN and the fsl
N to Miami to meet with them, and he said,
here's how it's going to be from now on. Any
(33:30):
veneer of legality is going out the window. From now on,
I'd like you to meet your new boss, Richard Secourt.
Not only is he going to make sure you have arms,
he's going to take the funnel money himself by the
arms himself, and then he's going to have it kicked
out of a plane over your camps. So now America
(33:51):
is directly involved in supporting and arming and training the
Contra rebels in the north and the south of Nicaragua.
And if there was any again, if there's any kind
of legality, it's totally gone at this point.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
Yeah. And in the meantime, Seacord and Achem were marking
up their stuff as much as like three hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
Dude, they ate a lot of money off of this.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
Yeah, they made a ton.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
But they put it. They put a lot back into
the enterprise. I mean, they took this job very seriously.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
That was a company.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
If you are, if you were Allie North, you were
quite happy with the work you were getting from Richard
Seacord and Albert Hakim. Because the shipments went out on time,
they got everything they needed. They had so much money
they had it left over, but they were also investing
it into the enterprise. They bought planes, they rented air strips,
they hired employees, They contracted with other airlines like a
(34:44):
CIA Front I can't remember the name of it right now,
but they were doing the work for sure, great healthcare, yeah,
the best benefits. All of the contrace had really nice
teeth after Richard Seacord took over.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
Work from home.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
All right, so let's take another break here, then we'll
come back and bring it home for part one with
a little bit about the propaganda machine that was set up.
Speaker 4 (35:11):
Stuff you should know, Josh, and shock. Stuff you should know,
stuff you should know.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
All right, Chuck. So things are in full swing. America
is unknowingly totally hooking up the countries. I'm basically running
this proxy war that the contracts are fighting against the
Santa Nista government. The enterprise is working full bore. And
if it couldn't get any more illegal, if you thought
(35:54):
it couldn't get any more illegal, prepared to just be
knocked right over.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
So here the home front, it was decided that there
needed to be a pretty massive, in dense propaganda campaign.
And it's we're not talking about Reagan just going on
the news talking about communism being at our doorstep. We're
talking about a real deal propaganda campaign. And they even
set up an office, the Office of Public Diplomacy for
(36:22):
Latin America and the Caribbean, that was founded and managed
by a Cuban American named Otto Reich, and this was
all exposed later on by the Miami Herald by the
reporting of a guy named Alfonso Chardie.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Yeah, I just want to interject you real quick. So
do you remember when we've done, you know, historic stuff
in the past, and I'm like, go read the contemporary articles.
Was really good reporting going on because the story was
so huge and multifaceted.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
Oh yeah, I mean Newsweek broke it before Congress knew,
the Washington Post broke it, and the Wall Street Journal, yeah,
Wall Street Journal, and then the Miami Herald at really
one fun like in Miami's backyard.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
But it was back when it wasn't like, oh, think peace,
think peace, think piece, actual article, I think peace, think piece.
You know, it was like real recording. And even then
it's still it wasn't up to snuff in the end,
but there were actual journalists like actually paying attention and
writing about this stuff and informed the public about it.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
And this is when you and I were kids, and
I think like maybe even the seeds of us because
we both kind of had desires to be real deal
journalists sure in our lives at one point.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
Yeah, what got us now?
Speaker 1 (37:29):
Speaking of what a joke rip Mad magazine.
Speaker 3 (37:33):
Oh yeah, what a shame. Yeah, they tried that reboot
didn't work.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Yeah, it's tough.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
It is.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
It's it's tough busy these days.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Yeah, and I got friends that worked for him too,
like in this recent reiteration Oh really yeah, or iteration
I guess I know.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
One of their illustrators is the stuff you should know
fan from yours back.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
Yeah. Yeah, it's very sad to see it go.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
So, uh, it was very eighties reference though it was.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
It really wasn't up track. So all right, this is
going on.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
They set up this office run by Otto Reich, and
this whole thing was designed and orchestrated by the CIA.
But here's the deal. The CIA wasn't supposed to be
doing this. They were barred from doing this.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
Yeah, there was a long standing like prohibition on the
CIA from operating in the US. Basically, like we know
who you are and we know you're so good. You
can't use that stuff on us. You can only use
it overseas. It's fine if you go overthrow other countries.
Speaker 3 (38:34):
On your mind tricks, Yeah, use those.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
On other groups, but you can't use them here in
the States. And actually Reagan himself also had his own
executive order explicitly banning the CIA from, let's see, doing
any activity that was intended to influence United States political processes,
public opinion, or media. This is Reagan's executive Order twelve
(38:57):
three point thirty three. And he, at least his administration
was like, forget about that. We'll just get around that.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
Yeah, And who was this?
Speaker 2 (39:07):
It says here that they the CIA's biggest, foremost psychological
warfare expert retired from the agency officially and then was
hired as a consultant. I guess to this Office of
Public Diplomacy, was that Auto Reich?
Speaker 3 (39:21):
Was that someone else?
Speaker 1 (39:22):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
I don't well that's the whole point, right, yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
But that was how That's why I was saying earlier,
like Reagan, that's the Reagan administration way, just like here's
the letter of the law. Well let's change this letter
in our sentence, and now we're following the letter of
the law, right, you know. And that's what they did.
So the CIA's psychological warfare guy retired, came on as
a consultant. He said, oh, here's what you do. You
need to basically start setting up some sting operations, because
(39:49):
the point of this is to I can't remember who
said this, but to paint or to glue black hats
on the Santainistas and white hats on the Contras in
the public mine.
Speaker 3 (40:01):
Right.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
So when you say, uh, sting operations, we mean literally
the United States and Oliver North smuggling cocaine into Nicaragua,
photographing Sandinistan officials with this shipment, and then smuggling the
cocaine back to the United States, back to Florida.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
Back to Florida, They're like, we told you, we bring
it back. Chill man, unbelievable, give us their driver's licenses. Bank.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
So this photo is published.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
This is during the middle of the Just Say No movement,
champion by Nancy Reagan. So it all, it all fit
on the surface, but what was going on behind the
scenes is just unconscionable.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
It is unconscionable. Unconscionable both but so the but this
gave Reagan this photograph that got published all over the place.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
Oh yeah, and he's like, look what's going on. Look
what these guys are doing. These are they're bringing this
stuff into America. They're killing our kids.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
Exactly right, So these are the people that were fighting,
or the contras are fighting. How can you keep the
funding turned off for the contras? Congress jerks?
Speaker 3 (41:07):
And that was the only evidence too.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
Yeah, the case somehow came out and said, by the way,
I don't know if anybody cares or not, but we
have no evidence whatsoever that this Santinistan official has ever
engaged in drug trafficking aside from this photograph. But this
was a follow up, probably weeks after the big splash
of the original photograph came out. So that was one
(41:29):
sting operation. Yeah, there's another one that involved Manuel Noriega,
the dictator of Panama, who actually was selling drugs to
America's youth.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
Yeah, but he was also a friend of the CIA.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Exactly, so much so that he was a CIA operator
for a very long time.
Speaker 3 (41:46):
Yeah. I don't know about a friend, but he was
at least an asset, right. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
So this sting operation was they were going to through Panama,
have Panama arranged for a shipment of arms to be
seized in Honduras, El Salvador, El Salvador, Yeah, on its
way to Honduras or maybe just in El Salvador. Ostensibly
arms from Nicaragua.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
Yeah, basically saying you're arming Salvadorians, you're arming Hondurans.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
You're exporting your revolution. This is exactly the kind of
thing that Ronald Reagan has been saying, we need to contain,
we need to pluck this sprout of communism out from Nicaragua. Yeah,
because they're trying to spread out of the region. Totally
made up, complete sting operation and it didn't even work
because Manuel Noriega was like, I didn't like that New
(42:31):
York Times piece you guys just published about me. I'm
going to keep this shipment of arms for myself.
Speaker 3 (42:37):
Yeah, but I love it. First he was like I
can do that. Oh yeah, sure, send me the arms. Yeah,
and then we were like, okay.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
There would be I think it's from the Iran Contra investigation.
The description of Manuel Noriega was that he ran a
narco kleptocracy. That was the government that he ran.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
He was about break down that word.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
He was as shady as they come.
Speaker 3 (43:01):
That just means drugs favory.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (43:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
So this is what's going on in the United States
in the in the mid eighties. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:12):
And here's the deal.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
If you were a reporter at the time, right, and
you were reporting on this stuff. The NSC didn't like
that very much. So they would meet with editors and
reporters themselves, right and be like, hey, can you, like,
can you report on the Sandonisians that they're really not
good people? Like, can you help us out a little bit? Well,
but here's the thing. If you didn't play ball, then
(43:33):
didn't they cook up some story that they would that
they would send like Sandinistan sex workers there to the
like pleasure of the reporters.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
That was the rumor was that if if you were
a journalist who reported favorably on the Sandinista government, the
reason you reported favorably on him was because the Santainista
government was furnishing you with sex workers.
Speaker 3 (43:52):
Right.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
That was that was directly from the Office of Public Diplomacy.
And I read the thing about it and they said
the guy was like, and we're not just talking women either.
If they were gay men, then they would we would
send gay sex workers.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
So totally discredit them. It's like a complete page right
out of the Edward Burnet's playbook. It's orchestrated by the
CIA's foremost expert on psychological warfare and this was the
state of America in the mid eighties. But that was
just one dimension of this whole thing. And I say,
this is the end of part one. What do you think.
(44:25):
I think that's great, And we're going to make this
a cliff thing.
Speaker 3 (44:30):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
And as per tradition, we are not going to do
a listener mail, but instead we'll do a call, which
we rarely do. A little just a little marketing call everyone.
If you like stuff, you should know. We've been doing
this so long. We're so bad at this, yet we've
managed to grow.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
Anyway, it's crazy.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
Tell a friend, share an episode with a friend right
now that they don't have to. You don't have to
explain what a podcast is, right, It's a lot cleaner now.
Speaker 1 (44:54):
Maybe start with a good one like Ballpoint Pens or something.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
Yeah, tell a friend about the show, leave a night
review or just any kind of review at all on
iTunes that would help us out.
Speaker 1 (45:04):
Yeah. Yeah, that's how classy Chuck and I are. He
even corrected himself from good review to just any review.
Whatever you want to leave. We're not going to try
to influence you. No, like the Reagan White House.
Speaker 3 (45:16):
That's all right, so yeah, we'd really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
Spread a little love, try and turn one person onto
our podcast this week, and that really helps us out.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
Nice Chuck, how about that? That sounds like a good pyramid.
Speaker 3 (45:26):
We like to do this once every five or six years.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
Well, thank you for joining us this week. If you
want to get in touch with us, you can go
on to stuff youshould Know dot com and check out
our social links. You can also send us an email
to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3 (45:42):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (45:45):
For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey guys, it's me Josh. For this week's select I've
chosen our twenty nineteen episode on the Iran Contra affair.
We called it Shady in the eighties for two good reasons.
One it took place in the eighties, and two it
was probably the shadiest thing the US government has ever done.
And that's really saying something. Anyway, if you like your stuff,
(00:23):
you should know episodes eye popping, then prepare for this one.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's
Charles w Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry over there eating with chopstick.
As a matter of fact.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
You know what, Jerry pulls up the chopsticks.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
It's time to record.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Yeah, she's got she's got Facebook open and she's sitting
there with her chopstick. So it's we're recording now.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
He's been fork free since eighty three.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Speaking of eighty three, your shirt, I guess it's kind
of eighty three ish.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
It looks very Thomas Magnum.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
It does, Chuck. It does not just the shirt, the
whole outfit. Look at the jeans, the shoes.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Yeah, yeah, you got the Ferrari out back.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Thank you for noticing. Man, I look like a chubby
Thomas Magnum.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
It's funny because I just finished Stranger Things three and
I saw that there was a have you seen it yet?
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Are you into that?
Speaker 1 (01:31):
No? I like the first season. I never really got
back into it after that. No, no offense to anybody.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Sure, the main the sheriff guy, Yeah, Hopper wears a
shirt kind of like that through most of this season.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (01:44):
And so someone did a cut of a like a
Magnum p I intro and had him running around and
shooting things and jumping into cars, all set to the
Magnum thing, and it really fits. All I gotta do
is throw that song with the guy with a shirt
like that Magnum.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Yep. Of course he has the mustache too. Well, I'm
a mustacheless chubby Magnum.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
You should wear a mustache. That looks interesting.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
I don't know. I do solve a lot of mysteries though.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Nothing can change a look like.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Mustaches, Oh dude, especially right, especially a.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Fake mustache, because you just put it on and bam,
you're done. Right, So I tried. I'm going to go
back to the eighty three segue.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Yeah we're here, right, We're right in the middle of
the eighties.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Yeah, like this was super eighties. This is as eighties
as it gets. Yeah, Iran Contra, fair, that's what we're
talking about. Some people call it iron Gate. I poo
poo that name.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Iran Contra.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Sure. I remember this going on at the time, me too.
I remember watching All Over North Testify me too, and
my sister was like, he's so dreamy. Look at how
much poise he has.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
He had his dress greens on right exactly those metal.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Had his boy scout three fingers up like swearing. I
really think he did do that. But even as an adult,
like everything I knew about around Contra was like, until
researching this, it was just the glossiest version.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Well, I mean I was like ten and eleven, so
you were like seven and eight.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Sure, sure, but I mean like it's still over time.
As you age, you're like, oh, that's what was going
on or oh I understand that. Even as an adult,
my conception of it was not very thorough at all.
And as I dug into I'm like, this is one
of the shadiest things in Meerica has ever done yeah ever.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Yeah, and it was really great to do this, and like,
now I know it. Now I have a full understanding
of what happened. And if it ever comes up at
a party, right and people are like, oh, what was
that all about? Anyway, I'm gonna be like, wow.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Please sit down for an hour and.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
I'll just pull up my smartphone and play our episodes.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Right, actually, maybe an hour and a half. We'll see
how this goes.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yeah, by the way, everyone, this is a two parter. Yeah,
buckle up, and so, uh this is part one.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
I figured we'd start with the beginning.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
I think that that's a really good idea.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
That reminds me of my friend in college watched the movie,
Oh which one was it?
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Burned Shortcuts?
Speaker 2 (04:09):
The movie that was on two video cassettes? What it
was so long?
Speaker 1 (04:13):
You know?
Speaker 3 (04:13):
I had to split him up? Was it Magnolia?
Speaker 1 (04:16):
The Bridge Too Far?
Speaker 3 (04:17):
I can't remember.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
My friend in college, very very famously among our friends
watched the second tape first and then watched the first
tape second and didn't really put it together.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
She was just like, I thought it was a little.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Confusing, really, so it was accidental.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Oh yeah, oh, and then she was like and then
she showed up in the in the second part, and
I was like, she's already dead.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
She was kind of country. This is kind of funny.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
This movie is one of them an achronisms. Yeah, well,
this is not an acronism, because we're going to be normal, smart,
singing people and start at the beginning.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
And there's really no better place to start than the
election of Ronald Reagan in nineteen eighty Ronald Reagan, if
you weren't familiar with him already when he was president,
he had already been governor of California, But even before that,
he had a pretty extensive career in Hollywood. And while
he was a pretty big star in Hollywood, at least
(05:10):
B plus list, if not a list.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Actor, yeah him. Mean, he was a medium sized.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Star, sure, but definitely way more famous as president than
he ever was as a movie star.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
He learned to detest communism. Yeah, and at the time,
communism was a really big thing in Hollywood, Like it
was very fashionable, especially among the intellectuals of Hollywood. Yeah,
and he learned to hate it so much so that
by the time he got to be president, he had
this idea that there was. It was impossible for capitalist
(05:45):
democracy and communism to coexist even peacefully on earth. You
couldn't have both. You had to have one or the other.
And by god, Ronald Breagan was going to see to
it that the one that we had was a capitalist democracy.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Ye want to stamp out communism wherever it reared its head,
and it was rearing its head close to home, which
we'll see here in a second, but all over the world.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Oh, yeah, for sure. It was called the Reagan.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
Yeah, bits and pieces of it were right.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
And he came up with the Reagan doctrine. And the
Reagan doctrine was, we will aid any any opposition to
communism wherever it sprouts, Like if you're if you're fighting
against a communist revolution, we'll support your country. If you're
a rebel fighting against a leftist communist government, we'll help
(06:35):
you overthrow. That's the Reagan doctrine.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Yeah, via money, via arms, via training, via covert operations
that we carried out ourselves. Yeah, there were all kinds
of ways that we could and did help stem the
flow of communism.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
So there was, as you were saying, there was a
place pretty close to home where communism had sprouted up,
and that was Nicaragua down in Central America, and in
Central America in the thirties, the Sandinista government had taken
power and had held onto power well into the seventies
and by this time the early eighties, and it drove
Ronald Reagan nuts that there was a communist power right
(07:15):
there that was being supported by the Soviet Union through Cuba. Ostensibly.
I've never gotten the impression that this was ever conclusively proven.
They definitely got support from Cuba. But whether it was
the Soviet Union who was really calling the shots of
Nicaragua or not, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Yeah, And I think, you know, to go even further
back and draw the lines a little even more clear.
The Sandinistans were named for Augusto Sandino, who led the
nationalist rebellion against what the US occupation of Central America.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Oh that's where it started.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Huh, that's where it all started. And from nineteen you know,
the US occupied. This is all part of the Banana Wars.
So we occupied Nicaragua from nineteen twelve to nineteen thirty
three for a lot of reasons, but one was like, hey,
no one's going to build a canal here unless it's us, right.
That was sort of one of the main reasons, and
that all ceased in nineteen thirty to three with Roosevelt's
(08:11):
Good Neighbor policy, which is basically like, we're going to
pull out in Nicaragua.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Oh really, yeah, okay, So, but we.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Had our fingers all over Central America right for many, many,
many years. And that's why when people forget or choose
not to remember when people flee horrible situations in Central
America to come to the United States now like kind
of where all these horrible situations started years and years
ago because of things that we did right well.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
When Reagan became president, intervening in Nicaragua, Nick Man, I'm
going to have a hard time if I can't say
Nicaragua intervening in Nicaragua became like a like first and
foremost priority for them.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Almost immediately they started funding the Contras. The Contra are
the groups who were fighting against the Santa Nista government.
They were right wing groups, and they were funding them,
they were training them, like you were saying, and they're
doing all this secretly. There was an operation called Operation
Black Eagle Man that one that was something else. Yeah,
(09:16):
So we were already funding them, and at the time,
Congress was on board. Congress was on board, especially at
first because the Republicans controlled the House. Well, you know
how when somebody comes in and just steamrolls over the
other party, usually in a presidential election, very frequently in
the midterms, the congressional midterms, there's like a backlash against that.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Yeah, like a house flip.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Believe it or not. That happened to Ronald Reagan in
nineteen eighty two, and the House did flip. They flipped
over to the Democrats. And that Democrat controlled House, combined
with a Newsweek cover story that came out, kind of
turned the tide against Reagan's policy on helping out in Nicaragua.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
There was a CIA director named William Casey who was
he was kind of telling Congress what they needed to
hear here and there you have been here vague briefings.
That was probably a generous way to say it. Sometimes
Casey would send another guy, though, named Dwayne Dewey Clarridge.
And this is where things really went south because Clarridge
(10:22):
did not present well to Congress, and anytime Congress feels
like they're being subverted or ignored or like kept out
of the loop, or like not able to offer their
checks and balances on the executive branch. They really get mad,
they do. And like we're seeing that today. This is
like history just repeats itself over and over again.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Exactly. Yeah. And in this particular case, the place where
where the administration, the regular administration in Congress just started
butting heads over niic Aragua, it was Duane Claridge. Yeah,
you know, he just that's how poor a job he did.
But in his defense, he was coming from a place
where he was a CIA man through and through. And
(11:04):
this is less than ten years after Congress had just
basically rooted out the CIA, held public hearings. That's when
like the MK ultra came out and the fact that
they've been dosing unsuspecting Americans with LSD.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Yeah, So in his defense, he was mad because they
uncovered all the awful things that.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
He'd been doing, right right, right, true compassion, Chuck, Yeah,
that's true, compassion. So Congress is starting to get a
little unhappy with this. And there was one congressman in
particular named Edward Edward Boland I believe, and he was
from Massachusetts, and he said Hey, I just read about
(11:43):
this cover story in Newsweek has a title America's Secret
War colon Nicaragua. Seems like they should have flip flopped that,
you know, Nicaragua colon America's Secret War.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
I think they both had the same end goal.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
It's fine, right, But he was like, wait.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Why am I reading about this in a magazine? Yes,
and I'm a member of Congress, right.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Because at this time, like Congress was like, well, okay,
we think we're just kind of funding things, we're maybe
helping out a little bit. This Newsweek magazine was like, no, no, no,
it's way more than that. Yeah, like there is way
more American involvement down in Nicaragua then you've been led
to believe Congress.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Like actual covert CIA ops like blowing up bridges and
blowing up buildings and you know, direct saboteur type ops.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Yeah, not just here's some arms. Yeah, and then you
know you close this one eye, believe this eye open
when you're shooting. There was way more involved than that.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
Or we could just do the shooting basically here, just
let me do it.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
So Congress in the guys of Edward Bolan said Nope,
we're not doing that, and they passed the bowl In Amendment,
which basically said, if you cannot use CIA funds or
Department Defense Department funds to aid the Contras in Nicaragua,
it's done. Good night. Congress went to sleep.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
And so that should have been the that's the end
of it, right, because Congress passed a well it was
at a law, now passed.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
An amendment in act in act.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Yeah, and so everyone just stopped, right, that's how it works,
all right, what's part two going to be about that?
Speaker 1 (13:19):
We're just going to see here quietly.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
So this did not stop anything. Here's what happened. In
nineteen eighty three. The CIA had this one operation where
they went into the commercial shipping harbors of Nicaragua.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Oh boy, I know it's it's pageous.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
I said it right in my head all morning. Nicaragua.
And they put mines there. You know, I was about
to say land mines, but they were sea mines, yeah,
floating mines, right. And the idea here was we're going
to plant these mines that we're going to whip up
our own press releases for the Contras where they take
credit for it, like we don't even trust them to
(13:58):
write a good press release.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
The CIA wrote the press release for.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
It, so where the Contras are saying that they.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Did it, and the overall effect it's going to have
is they're not gonna be able to ship arms via
the seaport, at least into Nicaragua.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Plus it also makes the Contras look way more together,
sure and with it than they actually were.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Right, like, all we need to do is give them
some money, and they got it covered.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Right. So the CIA does this and they're thinking, okay,
so mine are shipping in the Nicaragua Harbor's is going
to stop. It does not stop. No, as a matter
of fact, there there was damage. So they used little
firecracker mines which make a big blast in a lot
of water everywhere. But if it's a big ship, it's
not going to hurt the ship. Well, it's sunk a
lot of small fishing vessels. But it also damaged ships
(14:42):
from the Netherlands, Great Britain, Oops, Japan, and the USSR
commercial ships. So the Wall Street Journal broke this story
and said, hey, you guys, Congress, you remember how you
pass this amendment saying there could be no CIA involvement
in Nicaragua. Well, they mined the whole arbor of the
sovereign nation, and it blew up a bunch of other
(15:04):
other country ships.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
In Congress once again, it's like, man, you keep doing
secret things behind our back. That really makes us mad.
Should we take a break.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
All right, let's take a break.
Speaker 4 (15:19):
Stuff you should know, Josh and shuck. Stuff you should know.
Stuff you should know.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Okay, let's keep going. So what does Congress do? They're like,
all right, they're mad. We passed one Bowlan amendment, which
I don't think we said chuck. That first Bowlin Amendment
was pasted four hundred and eleven to zero, unanimously saying
do not mess around in Nicaragua anymore. That's when you
know VERSU is mad, right, when they unanimously agree on something.
And then then the Wall Street Journal breaks the story
(16:05):
about the harbor mining long after the Bowling Amendment was passed.
And now Congress is even madder.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Right, So they passed two more amendments, Boland amendments, because
there were loopholes basically that allowed you know, the US
to sort of do these things semi legally. So it
was like, well, here's a loophole, so it wasn't really
fully illegal that we did this stuff.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Yeah, that's like the Reagan administration's way.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
All right.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
They closed these loopholes and now this was like it
was pretty ironclad. I don't know about iron clad, but
it was pretty tight amendment wise.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
At the very least. Congress walked away thinking it's done.
So we made ourselves quite clear, right, Ronald Reagan signed
these into law.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
Yeah, he didn't bete him.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
No, he accepted these things. I think he even said like, yeah,
this is a good idea, great way to go Congress
and signed it. I'm not going to do a Reagan impression.
But so Congress thought that the matter was settled, but
it wasn't settled. Like this is how laser focused Reagan
was on overthrowing the Santainista government down in Nicaragua. He
(17:15):
just took a CIA operation and took it even further
underground than it had been before. Basically, he was like, Okay,
if you guys are going to outlaw this stuff, we're
just going to have to get even more illegal.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
So there were a couple of factions here at work.
One was this continued operation underground, deep deep underground now,
and then there was Reagan's public like he still wanted
to get real money from Congress, so he didn't have.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
To do this stuff.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
So he kept up this public PR campaign, beating this
drum about communism at our doorstep. He said that the
contrast were the moral equals of our founding fathers.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
That's a big one to pull out, Like that's.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
A direct quote, Yeah, of our found founding fathers. Yeah,
and started in with the and again you see this
stuff kind of repeating itself, the campaign of fear, where
he basically said, unless we do something tough here, then
there will be a tidal wave of feet people.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
I don't even know what that means, but that's that
just seems super offensive.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Swarming into our country. He meant, you know, refugees, feat
people seeking a safe haven.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
It was one word, even I think one word.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
It's funny because I looked up feet People and that's
a company that, like, I think, makes shoelaces.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
And they're like, yes, say it again, say dot com. Uh.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
So this is all going on and on the on
the on the down low, all the operations are going
on and on the public facing side, Reagan's just continuing
this PR push.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Right basically saying, like Congress, look at these heartless old
you know, gas bags. Turning off the funding to these
Founding father moral equivalent to our Founding fathers. Go vote
these guys out of office and vote in some people
who will turn the funding back on.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Yeah. And while the Contras may have been fighting Communism,
they were doing so through means that the Founding Fathers
probably would not have approved of, like murder and torture
and rape and mutilation, kidnapping and not. You know, I
mean it wasn't so widespread that it was like that's
all they were doing, but they would resort to those tactics, right,
(19:24):
And that's not Founding father stuff.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
No, it's definitely not, not as far as I've ever learned.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
No, I don't think so.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
And I mean it's had a few hundred couple hundred
years to come out, yeah, and it still hasn't. So Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
I read some of the stuff too, Like some of
the affidavits were like just brutal.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Oh yeah, dude. The war down in Nicaragua, the civil war, Yeah,
that the US basically fomented and supported. It went on
for a decade, like it was, it went on into
the nineties, and it was like not just like countrymen
against countrymen, like civilians were getting murdered by the scores. Yeah,
and just they would get kidnapp and tortured and killed,
(20:01):
and like, it was a really brutal time in Nicaragua.
And the Reggae administration is right in the middle of this,
like providing as much I eat as they can to
one side.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
Yeah, and it was.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
One of the big problems was that the Contras back
then were a bunch of different factions and they did
an answer to a single leader. And the one thing
I got out of the affidavits, one of which this
woman described them taking her children and her finding their
mutilated bodies the next day.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
It was brutal.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
One of the leaders said that there's no disciplinary system
at all within the Contra groups, so oh yeah, yeah,
like there's no accountability, so you could do anything you
wanted and there's no discipline set up. So it was
just they were fractured and no one was talking to
each other and it was just a big mess.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Right. But Reagan was doing his best to paint everything
in black and white. Right, Contra's good Santinista is bad.
So anything that Contras did was good, and stuff that
couldn't be painted as good would just be denied or
glossed over, not reported on.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
So, while while Reagan's out running around trying to drum
up public support for the Contras and thus congressional aid
being turned back on.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
And also saying don't do drugs, he yeah, that was
a big one, even though we're shipping a lot of
drugs back and forth.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
It's awfully rich now that you know all that stuff.
You know, he's also secretly supporting them, going in flagrant
violation of what Congress has said that America can do.
He tells his people he wants the Contras movement to
be kept alive, body and soul is how we put it,
which and he basically said do it. This is what
(21:41):
history has told us, is that Reagan basically said keep
the Contra movement alive, body and soul. I'm going to
go work on Congress. I'm putting my hands over my
ears from now on. Whether that's true or not, we
will probably never know as far as the history books
is concerned. That's what happened.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Right, So here's what they did.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
They said the CIA has a bad rap for a
lot of reasons, and Congress is not super friendly with them.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Well, they expressly forbade the CIA from operating.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
There, right, So he said, here's what we're going to do.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
We're going to use the National Security Council and they're
the CIA chief. William Casey he's around. He's going to
just like advise here and there. And William Casey was like,
oh no, I really got to be involved because this
is really good stuff.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
They're like no, no, no, we're talking like officially, here's oh yeah,
okay exactly.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
So at first National Security Advisors Robert McFarlane, and then
he was succeeded by John Poindexter, very important, you remember
that name. And then Casey's still there, like you said,
doing his thing on the down load unofficially, right.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
I think even in some cases kind of stepping on
toes or whatever. He was like an additional boss to
the main guy, the guy everybody's heard of, the guy
who's mine or whose name jumps to mine when you
hear about this, Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North North. And in retrospect,
especially if you went if you lived through the Iran
(23:06):
Contra hearings and you were familiar with Olie North, like
you would guess that when Allie North was tapped to
head up this extraordinarily difficult secret operation to go against
Congress and keep the Contra movement alive and kicking that.
Alie North was a bad a covert operator to the
(23:29):
ninth degree. Right, that is not at all correct.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
No career marine, very highly decorated marine, served in Vietnam one,
silver stars and purple hearts, devout Catholic, and by all accounts,
a stand up guy. And to many many Americans he
is still like a top notch American hero.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Sure well, he was like the president of NRA until
I think recently, Yeah, I think there's some scandal that
just happened where there. It came out that he like
tried to depose Wayne Lapierre or something like that.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
I don't either. But even beyond that, like, even beyond
whether he's a stand up guy or not, as far
as you know, patriotism is concerned, sure, just job experience
he had, like none, Yeah, he had no experience whatsoever
as far as I could ever tell in covert operations.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
He did a pretty good job for a while, it
did an amazing job.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
He was basically the the White House's operations and intel
arm of the shadiest stuff it was doing stuff that
was so shady the CIA was even kept in the
dark about it. That's how shady this stuff Allie North
was doing. And he had no experience. He's learning as
he went, Yeah, just making it up as he went along.
And he really did do a pretty good job of
(24:45):
it if you look at it from that angle, just.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
As far as like getting getting or done right. So
what they basically decided was, all right, if we can't
get the real taxpayer money and like official funds, we'll
just go and raise fund on the side and secret
through business people that you know, we can have these
big parties and dinners and say, hey, listen, communism is
(25:10):
knocking at a door. This wouldn't be good for America,
wouldn't be good for your company, right, and why don't
you give us some money?
Speaker 3 (25:17):
Open up the checkbook. Reagan's here, you want a photo.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Yeah, Sometimes he would show up to these secret fundraisers.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
And it was it was it really worked.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Like they raised a ton of money from the business
elite of America to stop the sandin Eastans in Nicaragua.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
So they actually forget this. They founded they had two
private citizens found in nonprofit the National Endowment for the
preservation of liberty. Its sole purpose was to get these
fund these illicit funds to send to the Contras, which
means that the people who are donating to the president's illegal,
secret proxy war could write their donations off on their taxes.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
It's just mind boggling hilarious in some senses.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Yeah, but they were not the most stand up nonprofit because,
as you point out, they raised six point three million
dollars through that organization during eighty five eighty six, about
three point three million made it to the Contras. And
uh so that means a fifty two percent program expense rate.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
That's pretty bad. Yeah, that's not good at all.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Now, three million dollars it took supposedly to run to
run that nonprofit.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Those fund raising breakfast for a year. Yeah, pretty bad.
Good omelets though, so yeah, oh yeah, the best not Yeah.
So from this this idea, like, okay, this is this
is probably kind of legal. We're just fundraising, right, We're
not giving any American taxpayer funds, We're just getting other
people that donate. Private citizens. Saudi Arabia was a big
(26:47):
one and it was all to stop communism.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
So, like, I think their intentions were that, oh, definitely,
theirs were.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Yeah, but there was this definite and justifies the means
kind of thing, And really, isn't the president really the
most powerful person in the world. Can Congress really tells
the president what to do as far as foreign policy goes? Nah? Yeah,
that was kind of the idea, I think. So Saudi
Arabia donated a bunch of money. There's all these private
citizens donating money. And here's the thing. The contrasts found
(27:18):
themselves for lush with cash.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
Yeah, many millions of dollars.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Over just two years. Saudi Arabia alone donated thirty two million.
To the contrast, this is a couple of loosely affiliated
factions fighting in two spots of Nicaragua that suddenly have
thirty plus million dollars at their disposal. The problem is
they don't have the contacts in the international arms trade
(27:44):
to buy arms with this money. They've had a bunch
of money, They're like, who wants this? And they were
getting crickets out, got some bombs, right, you know, the
cartoonish black kind, the round ones that are shiny. It
take fifteen of those.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
This is before Craigslist two, right, So they're only their
only avenue was to go back to the Americans and
Oliver North and he began working with a guy named
Richard Seacord. He was a retired forest retired we'll get
into that in a minute, air Force major general, and
he had a lot of experience. There was this group
(28:19):
of dudes in the nineteen seventies and eighties that were
former CIA or current CIA, former CIA, former and current
American military who were all had their fingers in the
illegal arms trade.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Right, so exactly what you can imagine a Hollywood writer
would come up with, Yeah, this is the real life
version of yeah, for sure. So they would. They would.
You could farm out assassinations to them. They could rustle
up mercenaries, they could carry out sabotage operations. They could
(28:52):
find whatever, gun, bomb, anything you need.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
On some money laundered gun, right, anything.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
That is extraordinarily illegal and deals in death. Like these
guys could get their.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
Hands on here, he's a poison done, Sure.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
A bomb disguise as a briefcase. We got it, buddy. Yeah,
and they would. Here's the other thing too. They were
an illegal black market arms ring. But they were also
even more illegal and that they would sell to whoever,
whether you were an enemy or a friend of America,
it didn't matter. These guys were operating well above any
sort of national loyalty or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Yeah, this was about making money, sure, like many millions
of dollars.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
So, especially a guy like Seacord, he wasn't He was
in it to make dough, definitely, whereas an Ali North
was seemingly in it to stop the you know, communism.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Right, So that's an important point. But the fact that
they that they contract with Seacord to kind of swoop
in and help hook the contras up with arms means
that the Reagan administration is contracting with this extraordinarily illegal
black market arms ring.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Yeah, which they took down some of these dudes over
the years, but one of them, one of the founders
of this group was a CIA op named Edwin Wilson.
He was sentenced He served twenty two years, twelve of
which were in solitary confinement, but was sentenced to fifty
two years for illegally arming Libya with ten thousand machine
guns and twenty tons of C four that he hid
(30:22):
in barrels of mud and flew on a chartered jet
to Libya.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Right, the Hollywood stuff, I know, it really is, like
this really happened.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
It's crazy.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
And it wasn't just Libya. This guy was funding or
outfitting Momar Kadafi.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Edie Amine was another customer, Like, whoever, if you need
to keep a stranglehold on power in your country, were
the people to help you do that?
Speaker 3 (30:43):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (30:44):
And when I teased earlier about Richard Seacord being forced
into retirement, that was due to his connection with Edwin Wilson. Right,
so he was forced to retire from the Air Force.
They couldn't pin anything on him, but there was enough
of a connection there where he had a step.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Yeah. They're like, you can do this the hardware or
the easy way. We're going to give you the option.
And he took the easy way.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
And then he went on to make a lot of money. Right.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
He was like, okay, well, I'll just do the arm
stealing thing full time now, right, And he did so.
When they brought him in at first, Seacord was basically
acting as like a very lase Fair intermediary. He was
basically the guy who on behalf of Ali North was like, yeah,
I can introduce the contras to my friends in the
arms ring.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
Yeah in Canada of all places.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Yeah. He introduced the Contras to some Canadian arms dealers.
So now the setup was this the friendliest arm steeler. Right,
They're like, well, these bullets will really put a hole
in somebody.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Ah yeah, oh sorry, I meant to include rocket launchers
on that order.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
Sorry.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
Sorry, that's pretty good. So Seacord was just there to
make some introductions, make sure things went smoothly, and then
it was up to the Contras to use these funds
that were coming in from other people and to buy
weapons from the Canadians. Easyps, right, you'd think, okay, that's fine,
(32:02):
that's fine. It still has like a slight veneer of
arms length legality as far as America is concerned.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
Yeah, and we should mention too that he to do this,
he set up a shell company, the Stanford Technology Trading Group,
with an Iranian American businessman named Albert Hakim, who knew
how to get around certain official procedures and stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
He's another guy who could get things done.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
So he set up Swiss bank accounts, untraceable accounts, because
that's what you do to run the funds through. And
this became known as the Enterprise.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Yeah, there's Stanford Technology Trading Company or.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
Group Starting Group, aka the Enterprise.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Yeah, that was like everybody called it that because they're
like this sounds way cooler, the enterprise, right.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
All right, But like you were alluding to, you'd think
it would have been going great. But the contras in
the North, who was the FDN, They were the.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
Largest, by far, the largest group.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
They were better organized from what I understanding.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Yeah, they were doing a pretty good job. But in
the South they were not doing a very good job.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
No. Somehow they were like, we don't have the arms
and equipment. They're like, what are you talking about. You
have the same amount of money, you have the same contacts. Yeah,
just buy the weapons. They're like, oh no. So Allie
North is like, okay, all right, here's what we're gonna do.
He called the leaders of the FDN and the fsl
N to Miami to meet with them, and he said,
here's how it's going to be from now on. Any
(33:30):
veneer of legality is going out the window. From now on,
I'd like you to meet your new boss, Richard Secourt.
Not only is he going to make sure you have arms,
he's going to take the funnel money himself by the
arms himself, and then he's going to have it kicked
out of a plane over your camps. So now America
(33:51):
is directly involved in supporting and arming and training the
Contra rebels in the north and the south of Nicaragua.
And if there was any again, if there's any kind
of legality, it's totally gone at this point.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
Yeah. And in the meantime, Seacord and Achem were marking
up their stuff as much as like three hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
Dude, they ate a lot of money off of this.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
Yeah, they made a ton.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
But they put it. They put a lot back into
the enterprise. I mean, they took this job very seriously.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
That was a company.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
If you are, if you were Allie North, you were
quite happy with the work you were getting from Richard
Seacord and Albert Hakim. Because the shipments went out on time,
they got everything they needed. They had so much money
they had it left over, but they were also investing
it into the enterprise. They bought planes, they rented air strips,
they hired employees, They contracted with other airlines like a
(34:44):
CIA Front I can't remember the name of it right now,
but they were doing the work for sure, great healthcare, yeah,
the best benefits. All of the contrace had really nice
teeth after Richard Seacord took over.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
Work from home.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
All right, so let's take another break here, then we'll
come back and bring it home for part one with
a little bit about the propaganda machine that was set up.
Speaker 4 (35:11):
Stuff you should know, Josh, and shock. Stuff you should know,
stuff you should know.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
All right, Chuck. So things are in full swing. America
is unknowingly totally hooking up the countries. I'm basically running
this proxy war that the contracts are fighting against the
Santa Nista government. The enterprise is working full bore. And
if it couldn't get any more illegal, if you thought
(35:54):
it couldn't get any more illegal, prepared to just be
knocked right over.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
So here the home front, it was decided that there
needed to be a pretty massive, in dense propaganda campaign.
And it's we're not talking about Reagan just going on
the news talking about communism being at our doorstep. We're
talking about a real deal propaganda campaign. And they even
set up an office, the Office of Public Diplomacy for
(36:22):
Latin America and the Caribbean, that was founded and managed
by a Cuban American named Otto Reich, and this was
all exposed later on by the Miami Herald by the
reporting of a guy named Alfonso Chardie.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Yeah, I just want to interject you real quick. So
do you remember when we've done, you know, historic stuff
in the past, and I'm like, go read the contemporary articles.
Was really good reporting going on because the story was
so huge and multifaceted.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
Oh yeah, I mean Newsweek broke it before Congress knew,
the Washington Post broke it, and the Wall Street Journal, yeah,
Wall Street Journal, and then the Miami Herald at really
one fun like in Miami's backyard.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
But it was back when it wasn't like, oh, think peace,
think peace, think piece, actual article, I think peace, think piece.
You know, it was like real recording. And even then
it's still it wasn't up to snuff in the end,
but there were actual journalists like actually paying attention and
writing about this stuff and informed the public about it.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
And this is when you and I were kids, and
I think like maybe even the seeds of us because
we both kind of had desires to be real deal
journalists sure in our lives at one point.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
Yeah, what got us now?
Speaker 1 (37:29):
Speaking of what a joke rip Mad magazine.
Speaker 3 (37:33):
Oh yeah, what a shame. Yeah, they tried that reboot
didn't work.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Yeah, it's tough.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
It is.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
It's it's tough busy these days.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Yeah, and I got friends that worked for him too,
like in this recent reiteration Oh really yeah, or iteration
I guess I know.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
One of their illustrators is the stuff you should know
fan from yours back.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
Yeah. Yeah, it's very sad to see it go.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
So, uh, it was very eighties reference though it was.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
It really wasn't up track. So all right, this is
going on.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
They set up this office run by Otto Reich, and
this whole thing was designed and orchestrated by the CIA.
But here's the deal. The CIA wasn't supposed to be
doing this. They were barred from doing this.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
Yeah, there was a long standing like prohibition on the
CIA from operating in the US. Basically, like we know
who you are and we know you're so good. You
can't use that stuff on us. You can only use
it overseas. It's fine if you go overthrow other countries.
Speaker 3 (38:34):
On your mind tricks, Yeah, use those.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
On other groups, but you can't use them here in
the States. And actually Reagan himself also had his own
executive order explicitly banning the CIA from, let's see, doing
any activity that was intended to influence United States political processes,
public opinion, or media. This is Reagan's executive Order twelve
(38:57):
three point thirty three. And he, at least his administration
was like, forget about that. We'll just get around that.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
Yeah, And who was this?
Speaker 2 (39:07):
It says here that they the CIA's biggest, foremost psychological
warfare expert retired from the agency officially and then was
hired as a consultant. I guess to this Office of
Public Diplomacy, was that Auto Reich?
Speaker 3 (39:21):
Was that someone else?
Speaker 1 (39:22):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
I don't well that's the whole point, right, yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
But that was how That's why I was saying earlier,
like Reagan, that's the Reagan administration way, just like here's
the letter of the law. Well let's change this letter
in our sentence, and now we're following the letter of
the law, right, you know. And that's what they did.
So the CIA's psychological warfare guy retired, came on as
a consultant. He said, oh, here's what you do. You
need to basically start setting up some sting operations, because
(39:49):
the point of this is to I can't remember who
said this, but to paint or to glue black hats
on the Santainistas and white hats on the Contras in
the public mine.
Speaker 3 (40:01):
Right.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
So when you say, uh, sting operations, we mean literally
the United States and Oliver North smuggling cocaine into Nicaragua,
photographing Sandinistan officials with this shipment, and then smuggling the
cocaine back to the United States, back to Florida.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
Back to Florida, They're like, we told you, we bring
it back. Chill man, unbelievable, give us their driver's licenses. Bank.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
So this photo is published.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
This is during the middle of the Just Say No movement,
champion by Nancy Reagan. So it all, it all fit
on the surface, but what was going on behind the
scenes is just unconscionable.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
It is unconscionable. Unconscionable both but so the but this
gave Reagan this photograph that got published all over the place.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
Oh yeah, and he's like, look what's going on. Look
what these guys are doing. These are they're bringing this
stuff into America. They're killing our kids.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
Exactly right, So these are the people that were fighting,
or the contras are fighting. How can you keep the
funding turned off for the contras? Congress jerks?
Speaker 3 (41:07):
And that was the only evidence too.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
Yeah, the case somehow came out and said, by the way,
I don't know if anybody cares or not, but we
have no evidence whatsoever that this Santinistan official has ever
engaged in drug trafficking aside from this photograph. But this
was a follow up, probably weeks after the big splash
of the original photograph came out. So that was one
(41:29):
sting operation. Yeah, there's another one that involved Manuel Noriega,
the dictator of Panama, who actually was selling drugs to
America's youth.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
Yeah, but he was also a friend of the CIA.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Exactly, so much so that he was a CIA operator
for a very long time.
Speaker 3 (41:46):
Yeah. I don't know about a friend, but he was
at least an asset, right. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
So this sting operation was they were going to through Panama,
have Panama arranged for a shipment of arms to be
seized in Honduras, El Salvador, El Salvador, Yeah, on its
way to Honduras or maybe just in El Salvador. Ostensibly
arms from Nicaragua.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
Yeah, basically saying you're arming Salvadorians, you're arming Hondurans.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
You're exporting your revolution. This is exactly the kind of
thing that Ronald Reagan has been saying, we need to contain,
we need to pluck this sprout of communism out from Nicaragua. Yeah,
because they're trying to spread out of the region. Totally
made up, complete sting operation and it didn't even work
because Manuel Noriega was like, I didn't like that New
(42:31):
York Times piece you guys just published about me. I'm
going to keep this shipment of arms for myself.
Speaker 3 (42:37):
Yeah, but I love it. First he was like I
can do that. Oh yeah, sure, send me the arms. Yeah,
and then we were like, okay.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
There would be I think it's from the Iran Contra investigation.
The description of Manuel Noriega was that he ran a
narco kleptocracy. That was the government that he ran.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
He was about break down that word.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
He was as shady as they come.
Speaker 3 (43:01):
That just means drugs favory.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (43:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
So this is what's going on in the United States
in the in the mid eighties. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:12):
And here's the deal.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
If you were a reporter at the time, right, and
you were reporting on this stuff. The NSC didn't like
that very much. So they would meet with editors and
reporters themselves, right and be like, hey, can you, like,
can you report on the Sandonisians that they're really not
good people? Like, can you help us out a little bit? Well,
but here's the thing. If you didn't play ball, then
(43:33):
didn't they cook up some story that they would that
they would send like Sandinistan sex workers there to the
like pleasure of the reporters.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
That was the rumor was that if if you were
a journalist who reported favorably on the Sandinista government, the
reason you reported favorably on him was because the Santainista
government was furnishing you with sex workers.
Speaker 3 (43:52):
Right.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
That was that was directly from the Office of Public Diplomacy.
And I read the thing about it and they said
the guy was like, and we're not just talking women either.
If they were gay men, then they would we would
send gay sex workers.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
So totally discredit them. It's like a complete page right
out of the Edward Burnet's playbook. It's orchestrated by the
CIA's foremost expert on psychological warfare and this was the
state of America in the mid eighties. But that was
just one dimension of this whole thing. And I say,
this is the end of part one. What do you think.
(44:25):
I think that's great, And we're going to make this
a cliff thing.
Speaker 3 (44:30):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
And as per tradition, we are not going to do
a listener mail, but instead we'll do a call, which
we rarely do. A little just a little marketing call everyone.
If you like stuff, you should know. We've been doing
this so long. We're so bad at this, yet we've
managed to grow.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
Anyway, it's crazy.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
Tell a friend, share an episode with a friend right
now that they don't have to. You don't have to
explain what a podcast is, right, It's a lot cleaner now.
Speaker 1 (44:54):
Maybe start with a good one like Ballpoint Pens or something.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
Yeah, tell a friend about the show, leave a night
review or just any kind of review at all on
iTunes that would help us out.
Speaker 1 (45:04):
Yeah. Yeah, that's how classy Chuck and I are. He
even corrected himself from good review to just any review.
Whatever you want to leave. We're not going to try
to influence you. No, like the Reagan White House.
Speaker 3 (45:16):
That's all right, so yeah, we'd really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
Spread a little love, try and turn one person onto
our podcast this week, and that really helps us out.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
Nice Chuck, how about that? That sounds like a good pyramid.
Speaker 3 (45:26):
We like to do this once every five or six years.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
Well, thank you for joining us this week. If you
want to get in touch with us, you can go
on to stuff youshould Know dot com and check out
our social links. You can also send us an email
to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3 (45:42):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (45:45):
For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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