April 21, 2025 • 46 mins
How Oliver North decided to do a little multitasking -- and ended up on a plane to Tehran.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Pushkin. Oliver North had no formal training in covert operations.
He had never seriously studied diplomacy either, or international relations
(00:36):
or political science. He was a soldier. So when he
found himself in charge of two top secret foreign policy programs,
one in Nicaragua, the other in Iran, he kind of
had to make it up as he went along. In Nicaragua,
North was counting on Contra rebel leaders to allocate the
millions of dollars he was raising on their behalf. Remember,
(00:58):
the CIA had been forced by Congress to stop helping
the Contras. Now in their absence, it seemed like a
lot of money was being wasted or worse stolen.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
The problem was the Contress didn't know how to run
their war. They were very bad managers.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
This is journalist Doyle McManus. You've heard from him before.
He covered the Contra war for the Los Angeles Times
and co authored a book about the Reagan administration called Landslide.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
The weapons were piling up in warehouses in Miami. The
Contress had no reliable way to ship them to the battlefield,
and there were persistent reports that there was corruption going on,
that the Contras were either taking kickbacks from arms, merchants
or just skimming money off the top.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Oliver North and his superiors needed more control in Nicaragua,
and they no longer wanted to rely on people they
couldn't trust, so they enlisted the help of someone they
could count on and who had the experience that North lacked.
His name was Richard Seacord.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Richard Seacord had precisely the expertise that Ali North and
the Contra needed. He knew how to move equipment from
one country to another in airplanes secretly.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Richard Seacord was a retired Air Force general. He was
known for his extensive experience with covert operations and as
a strong believer in giving the president broad powers to
undertake them. For his master's thesis at the Naval War College,
Seacord wrote that when it came to covert ops, quote,
bureaucratic obstacles should be dismissed out of hand. After carrying
(02:40):
out secret missions in Vietnam and Laos, Seacords served in
the Department of Defense. Then in nineteen eighty three he
was forced to retire from government service under a cloud
of scandal when one of his associates was convicted of
illegally selling plastic explosives to Muimar Kadafi.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Of interest to the Grand Jury. Sources say Major General
Richard Seacord, a deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
With his career in Washington cut short. Seacord went into
the private sector fascination, and while some of his former
colleagues and government viewed him with suspicion due to the
Kadafi scandal, there were those who felt he had been
unfairly tarnished by it. Among them was the director of
the CIA, who suggested to Oliver North that he brings
Seacord in to help with the Contra war.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
I was asked if I could help out logistically keeping
the contras in the field resupplied.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
I interviewed Major General Richard Seacoord in Florida in twenty nineteen.
He died in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
They were next to Despert, you know, they knew that
I knew Air and so forth, and so that was
the beginning of it.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
In the summer of nineteen eighty five, about a year
after Congress forced the CIA to stop funding the contras,
Seacord and a business partner created a Swiss bank account
to hold money being donated to the Contra cause. Using
that money, Sea Court set about building a resupply operation
for the Contras from scratch. That meant putting together what
was essentially a mini CIA, or at least a mini airline.
(04:10):
The operation required Seacord to buy a fleet of small
planes and organize a network of airstrips near the Nicaraguan border.
He jokingly called it Air Contra. It wasn't action hero
type work, but it was exactly the kind of work
Seacord was good at.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
Logistics are the senews of war military history writers going back.
I know is far as Napoleon's time, right about that,
but people tend to forget it because it's not very glamorous.
The logistics is the chore. It's the long pole in
that tent.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
A few months after Seacord started working with the Contras,
Oliver North came to him for help with another matter,
the White House's secret program to sell arms to Iran.
As you heard in episode two, Ronald Reagan had approved
the sale of missiles to Iran as part of an
effort to free American hostages in Beirut. The administration was
(05:03):
relying on Israel to serve as a go between, meaning
Israel would sell American made weapons to Iran and then
get their stocks replenished by the US Department of Defense.
But the Israelis were making mistakes. In November of nineteen
eighty five, a shipment of missiles to Iran had ended
in disaster after Israel fumbled just about every aspect of
(05:24):
the delivery. Here's Doyle McManus again.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
The Israeli plane got stuck in Portugal. The Portuguese couldn't
figure out what this shipment was or why they should
let it go through. A CIA plane had to be
called in to take the arms to Iran. And when
the Iranians opened the shipment, they were very unhappy because
there weren't as many missiles as they expected. They were
(05:48):
the wrong model, and some of the missiles even had
the Israeli Star of David on them, and so the
Iranians erupted in fury and refused to release any hostages
at all.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Oliver North briefed his boss, John Poindexter on what had
gone wrong. Poindexter was Reagan's new National security advisor. In
a memo, North acknowledged that the Iran initiative was a mess,
but he argued we are now so far down the
road that stopping could have even more serious repercussions. In
a follow up memo to Poindexter titled Next Steps, North
(06:25):
proposed they cut Israel out of the deal and sell
the weapons to Iran themselves, bringing in Richard Seacord as
the middleman. So that's what they did.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
We're running a successful air up down there. Why not
this one? Yeah? And I guess point to extra figured
that good old Dick Secord, the can't do guy. He'll
get her done.
Speaker 5 (06:48):
With that.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Seacord's responsibilities expanded. In addition to managing money and supplies
for the Contras, this private citizen would now also be
facilitating the sale of American weapons to Iran. This was
the moment when the twin Engine scandal, now known as
Iran Contra took off. I'm Leon Nahan from Prologue Projects
(07:12):
and Pushkin Industries. This is fiasco Iran Contra.
Speaker 6 (07:16):
The issue is back paid for the Contras fighting the
Nicaraguan government.
Speaker 7 (07:20):
North was very excited he had pulled it off.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
His secret visit to TAYHRANI.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
These kinds of escapades.
Speaker 7 (07:26):
He and had suicide pills and I had nothing.
Speaker 8 (07:29):
I was very convinced the President would agree it was
the right thing to do.
Speaker 6 (07:33):
The President has thrown himself into this battle.
Speaker 9 (07:36):
I was going to go ahead and tell them my story.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Episode four diverted, how Oliver North and Richard Seacord put
the hyphen in Iran Contra, and how North ended up
on a plane to Tehran.
Speaker 4 (07:55):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
In order to build the resupply operation for the Contras,
Richard Seacord needed to hire a crew of airmen who
could fly planes and knew how to make air drops.
In December of nineteen eighty five, the word reached Ian Crawford,
a soft spoken twenty nine year old who had served
as part of the Army's elite Delta Force Unit. Crawford
had recently returned to civilian life in Fayetteville, North Carolina,
(08:24):
and he had started a business sowing custom vests, backpacks,
and other military.
Speaker 9 (08:28):
Equipment and out of the field blue. At a New
Year's Eve party, somebody is talking to my mother in law,
of all people, and this person said that they needed
to find some ex military people with a parachute background.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Crawford just happened to be a certified parachute specialist, so
his mother in law put him in touch with the
guy from the party, who in turn put him in
touch with a guy in Washington who worked for Richard Seacoord.
That guy offered Crawford a job.
Speaker 9 (09:01):
He told me, I was going to air drop equipment
to a newly formed group somewhere in the world he
wouldn't tell me, and that I was being hired for
my parachute and air drop specialties.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
A few months later, Crawford boarded a southbound plane packed
with military fatigues, jungle boots, and tents. When the plane landed,
he found himself standing on a dirt airstrip in Honduras.
He had arrived at Aguacat, a bare bones military encampment
that was being used as part of Secord's new resupply operation.
Speaker 9 (09:37):
When we finally landed in Awacati, Honduras, we knew that
we were in a contract camp. It was a confined,
primitive and secret base. The Hondurans knew about it, but
they didn't want to advertise that they were allowing the
(09:59):
contries to be on their side of the border.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
When Crawford first got to Aguacata, there was just one
plane available to fly missions. It was a C seven
Cariboo cargo plane, the same kind that was used in Vietnam.
Speaker 10 (10:15):
Soon you will be flying the C seven a Cariboo
in remote, underdeveloped areas of the world.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Crawford's job was to help the contras pack supplies into
bundles and load them onto the Cariboo. Inside the bundles
was a mix of food, ammunition, grenades, rockets, mortar shells,
and AK forty sevens. Crawford would use a forklift to
get them into the Cariboo, then line them up side
by side and attach parachutes to them. Then he would
(10:43):
take a seat as the plane took off for Nicaragua.
Speaker 10 (10:46):
Short primitive runways hacked from the jungle and desolate terrain
make these parts of the world Cariboo country.
Speaker 9 (10:54):
I would fly in the back of the aircraft. We'd
fly for twenty or thirty minutes to a drop zone.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
The pilot flying the Cariboo would get down as low
as possible over the drop zones, which were located over
sandbars in the Rio Cocoa. Contraforces would then pick up
the supplies.
Speaker 10 (11:14):
If no airstrip exists or it is under enemy fire,
a personnel drop maybe the only way to reinforce a
Special Forces camp, and.
Speaker 9 (11:22):
I'd take a very large knife and cut a nylon
strap that was holding these bundles back, and the pilot
would raise the aircraft nose up and the bundles would
roll out the back of the aircraft.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Sometimes as the caribou flew over the jungle, Crawford would
sit with his legs dangling from the back of the
aircraft and watch for Sandinista helicopters. It was dangerous work.
The threat of being shot down was real, but Crawford
and his crew were also worried about their own plane
(12:00):
giving out on them.
Speaker 9 (12:01):
And there were actually holes in the dashboard where gauges
had been taken out and sent back for maintenance, and
we were all kind of shocked at the level of
maintenance that the aircraft actually needed.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Crawford chucked this up to penny pinching by the operation's
top brass, and he wasn't happy about it.
Speaker 9 (12:24):
Management was trying to cut corners, spend the least amount
of money to get whatever mission done the cheapest possible.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
When I asked Seacort about this, he flatly rejected the
notion that his planes were in poor condition.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
Those airplanes were well equipped and being operated by a
professional airmen who knew what the hell they were doing,
which is why we had him.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
That's at least half true, as Seacoorts top operations manager
would later testify, the airmen's Seacorts Company had recruited were
fortunately the kinds of guys that could put together an
operating aircraft with baling wire and chewing gum. In any event,
there's no question that Seacord's budget was modest. As far
as he was concerned, the resupply operation was only viable
(13:15):
as a short term proposition. At some point the CIA
would have to step back into the role it played
before the Boland Amendment made it illegal.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
My belief was it was just a short term, a
stopgap operation, a bridging operation. It became a bridge too far.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Oliver North was feeling the pressure too. I'm not complaining,
and you know that I love the work, he wrote
to John Poindexter, but we have to lift some of
this onto the CIA so that I can get more
than two or three hours of sleep at night. Unfortunately
for North, the CIA could not step back into Nicaragua
unless Congress changed its mind about funding the Contras, and
(13:55):
that didn't seem like it was in the cards, at
least not yet. By the end of nineteen eighty five,
the Contra aid program and the Iran weapons program were
being managed by the same group of people. Oliver North
was running the day to day with supervision from that
security advisor John Poindexter, and Richard Seacord, the Air Force
general turned arms deer, was overseeing logistics, procuring the weapons,
(14:18):
and moving the money. All three of them had their
own set of motivations, particularly when it came to Iran. North,
by his own account, was dead set on bringing the
hostages back from Beirut because he knew how strongly the
President felt about it. North declined to be interviewed for
this podcast, but here's how he explained himself. In nineteen
eighty seven.
Speaker 11 (14:38):
The President very clearly articulated in the meetings I was
in with him in the Oval Office on this issue.
It was very clear that the President wanted as many
Americans home, all of them home, as fast as possible.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Richard Seacord had more personal reasons for getting involved. One
of them was surely financial. He and his partner stood
to make millions of dollars and commissions. But there was
something else too. Remember, Seacord's career in the intelligence community
had been cut short by scandal. He thought that helping
out with the operation could help him get back in
the fold.
Speaker 4 (15:12):
I was thinking about the possibility of taking over the CIA,
no question about that. That was the right age, They
had the right background. I would not have taken a
job by than the director, but they needed some operator
to run that place, and not a bunch of shoe clerks.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
So that's at least part of what was driving sea Cord.
Then there was John Poindexter, who inherited the Iran initiative
from his predecessor, Bud McFarlane. Poindexter's reasons for continuing to
pursue the program have remained remarkably consistent over time. As
he told me in late twenty nineteen, he saw the
decision to sell weapons to Iran as part of the
(15:57):
Reagan administration's plan to win the Cold War.
Speaker 8 (16:00):
I ran, from a geographic standpoint, occupies a very important
position in the Middle East.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
This is John Poindexter.
Speaker 8 (16:10):
There on the east side of the what used to
be called the Persian Gulf, and at the end the
south end of the Gulf are the straits of Hormus,
which is a very narrow body of water that connects
the Gulf to the Indian Ocean. So the Soviet Union
(16:31):
has always wanted access to the Indian Ocean, and one
way for them to get that is to develop a
cooperative relationship with Iran.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Poindexter believed that in the long run, Iran would probably
end up aligning itself with either the United States or
the Soviet Union. Even though the Komanian regime was fiercely
anti American, Establishing a diplomatic opening with more moderate elements
in the Iranian government was a way to make sure
the United States came out on top in a post
Komani world.
Speaker 8 (17:05):
We always thought that eventually there would be some kind
of transition in Iran as Amede whenever he died, and
it would have been foolish for us to think that
the Soviet Union was not also interested in some future
transition of the Iranian government. And it has never been
(17:30):
in our strategic interest that the Soviet Union would gain
that foothold in the Middle East.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Later, when the Iran Contra scandal exploded into public view,
Poindexter's high minded rationale for the weapons sales was buried
under the simpler, more unsavory explanation that the White House
had been trying to buy back hostages by paying ransom
to terrorists, which explanation you believe comes down to how
much credit you're willing to give the Reagan administration. But
(18:01):
as even Poindexter concedes, the person who authorized the arm shipments,
the only person who had the power to do so,
was pretty clear about what was driving him.
Speaker 8 (18:11):
The President was probably more interested in the short term
objectives than the long term objectives. So I've convinced that
he believed in what we were trying to do, but
he probably, in hindsight, did put more emphasis on the hostages.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
This question of who was motivated by what takes on
even more significance when you consider how badly the Iran
initiative was going By the start of nineteen eighty six.
The White House's key Iranian contact, Minuture Garboni Phar, had
revealed himself to be erratic and unreliable. The moderates Gorbonifar
was supposedly speaking for had given no indication that they
(18:54):
even existed. On multiple occasions, the US had sent Iran weapons,
only to have the terms of the deal change in
the middle and yet the negotiations continued, just as Bud
McFarlane had feared they would. From the outside, and with
the benefit of hindsight, you look at all these red
flags and think, how could this have continued? How could
(19:16):
Poindexter and North and Reagan all have convinced themselves that
this was a good idea? I think the answer probably
lies and what drove each of them to pursue it
in the first place. Whatever it was, it seems to
have made them all either giddy with optimism or deluded
by desperation. Not long into John Poindexter's tenure as National
(19:41):
Security Advisor, the determination was made that the US needed
to speak directly with the Iranian moderates that Manuchaerir Gurbanifhar
claimed to represent. After months of negotiation, North and Gurbanifhar
finalized plans for an in person meeting between senior American
officials and a group of high ranking members of the
Iranian government. The meeting would take place in a hotel
(20:03):
room in Tehran.
Speaker 8 (20:05):
Because of the importance of establishing some kind of working,
real life relationship with Iran, it made sense to send
a delegation to Tehran to try to meet with people
that we hoped would be moderate and began a dialogue.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Poindexter's understanding was that this would be the final exchange
of weapons for hostages. As North explained the agreement to
Poindexter in a memo, the US delegation would bring a
load of spare missile parts to Tehran, and the Iranians
would bring about the release of the hostages still being
held in Beirut. The American delegation to Tehran would include
(20:45):
Oliver North, a CIA officer who could serve as a translator,
and strangely enough, former National Security Advisor Bud McFarlan. McFarlan
had been out of government for months at this point,
and as you heard in episode two, he had profound
misgivings about the Iran initiative. But when Poindexter asked him
to go to Tehran, McFarlan accepted.
Speaker 8 (21:07):
You know, he sort of was a secret emissary. He
wasn't in government. He had been a former senior government official,
so he had credentials and it would be clear to
the Iranians that this was a presidentially approved mission. So
Bud was a logical person to go, and so we
(21:28):
sent him.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Also along for the trip was a senior staffer from
the National Security Council named Howard Titcher, an expert on
the Middle East. Like Poindexter, Tycher saw the arm sales
as a path to improving relations with Iran in a
way that would serve the US's long term goal of
protecting the Middle East from Soviet influence.
Speaker 7 (21:48):
Actually was exciting, you know, this was the chance to
change the course of history and protect American interest in
a very fundamental way. And you know, so this was
a risk worth taking.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Tycher's wife was more apprehensive. She was a lawyer in
the State Department, and based on what her husband was
telling her, she suspected that the arms deal might be illegal.
She also thought it was possible, if not downright likely,
that in their quest to free the hostages, her husband
and the other members of the delegation would end up
getting kidnapped themselves, you know.
Speaker 7 (22:20):
And I talked to Colonel North about this and he said,
I want you to know everything's taken care of. And
I said, so there's a plan, And all he would
say was, don't worry, everything's taken care of. So he
did his best to assure me that that was a case.
That there was some rescue plan in the event that
we were not allowed to leave, and in the circumstances
(22:42):
I later learned that he and McFarlane had suicide pills
and I had nothing. So I presume that was the plan,
that they would take their lives and the rest of
us would be left to deal with the Iranians.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
According to Oliver North's memoir, he actually had enough suicide
pills for everyone, and he got them directly from the
head of the CIA. That underscore is just how big
a risk the administration was taking. Who knew what was
waiting for North, farl And and Titcher in Tehran. There was
no longer an American embassy there. The country was a
(23:15):
black box. All the Americans had to go on was
the word of Manuture or Bonifi, and so far that
had not proven to be worth very much.
Speaker 8 (23:25):
We hadn't had any kind of a diplomatic approach to
Iran up to that point that I'm aware of today,
and so it was momentus to decide to send a mission.
You know, the odds were not in our favor of
(23:45):
it working out, but we thought because of the importance
of returning Iran to a more constructive physician, it was worth.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
The risk, as it happened. Days before North and his
team embarked on their trip, French officials were working to
free their citizens who had been kidnapped in Lebanon by
Islamic militants. According to news report Sort, France was negotiating
with the Iranians.
Speaker 5 (24:12):
US officials fear of the French willingness to negotiate will
only harden the kidnappers resolve and encourage others to kidnap
for ransom.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
The journey to Tehran began Washington's Dallas Airport on May
twenty third, nineteen eighty six. It would involve multiple legs,
with stops at an air Force base in Frankfurt and
in Tel Aviv. Everyone in the group carried fake passports.
The plan was that if anyone asked, they would say
they were part of a trade delegation from Ireland. Here's
(24:45):
Howard Titcher again.
Speaker 7 (24:46):
That was the cover, they decided. And so I was
asked to come up with a legend that, you know,
I could remember about being born in Ireland. So if
somebody in iranset, so why are you here? I'm Irish traders?
Where are you from? Are you from Dingle Oh? I
never went to Dingle. What's it like in Dingle? You know?
So I became Tim mcgahann and that became the the
(25:10):
Irish passport.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Titcher asked the obvious question, would they have to use
fake Irish accents? The answer was eh.
Speaker 7 (25:19):
They told us that they didn't think anybody who we
were going to encounter would have any idea what an
Irish accent sounded like.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
In Tel Aviv, the delegation with rendezvous with Richard Seacord, who,
as usual, would be in charge of logistics. It was
not an easy assignment. Seacord had to ensure that the
trip was one hundred percent secret.
Speaker 4 (25:43):
We borrowed an airplane from Israel.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Here's Seacord again, one of.
Speaker 4 (25:48):
Their VIP airplanes, and sanitized it. We went over every
bit of that airplane and anything that would indicate it
was Israeli, an aeroplane with the marks or stars of
David or whatever. We got rid of it.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Seacord himself was not going to Tehran. He would stay
in his hotel room in Tel Aviv, managing the trip
remotely and staying in touch with the pilots through a
secure communications rig set up in his window. The plane
was set to take off at midnight from Ben Gurion Airport.
In addition to its human cargo, it would also be
carrying some, but not all, the spare missile parts the
(26:27):
Americans had promised the Iranians. As soon as the hostages
were freed, Secord would send a second plane to Iran
with the rest of the weapons parts. Before takeoff, North
decided he wanted to bring some kind of gift to Tehran.
As Tyer understood it, North wanted something that would break
(26:48):
the ice and serve as a gesture of goodwill.
Speaker 7 (26:51):
At one point, North had said to Gorbani far what
should we bring, you know, as a gift, and he goes, oh,
bring the weapons and bring a cake. It is a
tradition among Persians when you've had us a feud or
a or a spat with your girlfriend or friends, you
(27:13):
make up by bringing each other pastries.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
So, according to Titcher, North boarded the plane carrying a
chocolate cake purchased from an Israeli bakery. He decorated the
cake with a key intended to represent the opening of
relations between the US and Iran.
Speaker 7 (27:29):
North was, you know, very excited again. You know, he
had started this process some months before. You know, and
he had had a couple of probably dodgy meetings with
you know this arms merchant Manu shark or Banifhar, and
now he had pulled it off.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
North's jubilation was premature, which became obvious almost as soon
as the plane landed in Tehran. He was a little
after seven in the morning on May twenty fifth, but
when North, McFarlane, and Tycher got off the plane, the
only person there to greet them was an airport worker
who didn't know who they were. Finally, Gorbanifar showed up,
(28:12):
apologizing for the delay. He led the delegation to a
caravan of old, beat up cars that were waiting outside
the airport. The cars were driven by armed revolutionary guards.
In his memoir, North described the vehicle's belching blue and
black smoke from their exhaust pipes. As they drove through Tehran,
they passed landmarks once associated with the Shah that were
(28:33):
now covered in graffiti praising the Iyatola Comani. After half
an hour, the cars pulled up to the entrance of
the Independence Hotel and the Americans were taken to a
suite on the fifteenth floor. Gorbanifhar did not make a
powerful first impression on Howard tier.
Speaker 7 (28:53):
He struck me as someone in his early fifties, early
to mid fifties, very nondescript, balding, no tie, sort of
typical Iranian garbed, you know, suit shirt, no tie, overweight.
He didn't come across like the people we see in
movies of these vicious evil arms merchants, you know, with
giant mustaches and bandoliers. I mean, he looked like a
(29:15):
business person.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
It seemed like Gorbanifard just wanted to make everyone happy.
At one point, when it turned out the hotel was
short on food, he had his mother cook the group
an elaborate Persian feast. But hospitality was not what the
Americans were worried about. As morning turned to afternoon on
their first day in Tehran, there was no sign of
any high ranking Iranian officials. Instead, at five PM, a
(29:41):
man entered the suite and introduced himself by a name
the Americans didn't recognize. He brought a disconcerting message, no
hostages could be released until after the Americans handed over
the spare weapons parts they had promised. In fact, he
said there was no certainty that Iran would be able
to get the hostages released at all, but if all
(30:01):
the weapons were delivered, they would be willing to try.
Speaker 7 (30:04):
We now understood that the Iranian government had not committed
to it, certainly not guaranteed that it was going to
bring about the release of the hostages. And yet we
had shown up and we had given them a palette
load half of the load of hawk spare parts. And
you know, we faced considerable embarrassment because you know, we
(30:24):
were not going to succeed.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Bud McFarlane was furious. It was now clear that the
Iranian emissaries who had been sent to meet the American
delegation were not nearly a senior as the officials Garbanifar
had told North to expect.
Speaker 7 (30:38):
North confronted Gorbani Phar, and he made him tell us,
he goes, well, I basically, you know, exaggerated a little
bit in order to you know, get you guys here.
And we were appalled.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
So began a standoff that would last three long days
over the course of several torturous meetings. McFarlane was uncompromising.
There would be no more weapons delivered to the Iranians
until the hostages in Beirut were free.
Speaker 7 (31:10):
Farland was just fed up and believe that the appropriate
posture to take was you guys have misled us. You
did not deliver what you said. You could say whatever
you want about what we were going to do. What
Colonel North told or Bonnie faire we were going to do,
we did it. You didn't do what we were told
you're going to do. We're out of here.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Oliver North had a different read on the situation. He
thought there was still a chance for a positive outcome
despite the false pretenses that had brought both parties to
the table. He really wanted the deal to work.
Speaker 7 (31:41):
He and where Bonnie Faarr had similar interest. Right, they
both wanted it to work. North was patient, right, he
had worked months to get to this point. You know,
it's like, let's give him a little more time.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
But McFarlane's patience was running out. We'll be right back.
After three days of negotiation in Tehran Bud, McFarlane decided
the time to cut bait. He made arrangements for the
American delegation to be taken to the airport and back
to Tel Aviv. One of the Iranian officials MacFarlane had
(32:19):
been dealing with begged him to stay and work it out,
but McFarlane was firm, it's too late. He said, you're
not keeping the agreement. We are leaving. When the Americans
landed on the tarmac and Tel Aviv, North could tell
that MacFarlane was disappointed. According to North Spmoir, he tried
(32:40):
to cheer McFarlane up. Well, Bud, it's not a total loss.
North quotes himself saying part of the money from these
transactions is going to help the Nicaraguin resistance. McFarland would
later testify that the comment left him a little startled,
but as they made their way off the plane, he
did not ask North to elaborate. It's worth pausing here
(33:03):
to talk about that offhand comment Oliver North made on
the tarmac because the idea of taking money generated by
the ear Ran weapons sales and spending it on the
Contra war would end up becoming the single most explosive
aspect of the Iran Contra scandal. In fact, without it,
there wouldn't be an Iran Contra scandal. The money was
(33:23):
the thing that joined the two operations together. It came
to be known simply as the diversion, and there are
a few conflicting accounts of when and where the idea originated,
but according to Oliver North, it happened in January of
nineteen eighty six, five months before the Tehran trip. In
North's version of the story, he was in London for
(33:46):
a meeting with Manuchair Gorbonifar aimed at getting the arms
for Hostages deal back on track. During that meeting, as
part of a private conversation in a hotel bathroom, Gorbonifar
suggested to North that he could use the profits from
the arm sales to fund the Contras. Gorbonifar made the
comment in an apparent effort to convince North that continuing
with the weapons sales would be worth the trouble, and
(34:09):
it worked. North was into it, and when he came
back to the United States he put the idea in
front of John Poindexter.
Speaker 8 (34:17):
Ali suggested, since Dick was also running the logistics pipeline
to the Contras, that Dick used those excess profits to
provide funding for the Contra support program. Would you think
I thought it was a good idea.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
You have to admit there's a certain elegance to it.
By combining their two covert operations, financially, the US would
be able to take money they weren't supposed to be
making in Iran and spend it on something they weren't
supposed to be spending it on, the Contra war.
Speaker 8 (34:51):
I knew it was going to be controversial, but I
also didn't see anything illegal about it. It was not
US government money. The Defense Department was being paid exactly
what they asked for for the weapons, so that there
was no cost to the US government, and so I
thought it It was perfectly legal on the one hand.
(35:13):
But on the other hand, I knew the Democrats, if
they found out about it, would object and claim all
sorts of wild theories, which is typical of the Democrat Party.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
Poindexter says this was why he made the decision not
to tell the President about the diversion.
Speaker 8 (35:31):
I was very convinced the President would agree that it
was the right thing to do, but I thought it
was better to keep him out of that direct loop.
It was a judgment called on my part, and I
wanted to give the President some deniability of authorizing it.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
In the end, investigators concluded that at least three point
six million dollars were diverted from the Iran weapons sales
to the Contras. It was a modest sum in the
grand scheme of things, But for Richard Seabord, who was
struggling to keep the Contra resupply operation going, it was
a welcome bit of additional funding at a time when
resources were running low. It was May of nineteen eighty six,
(36:15):
about a year had passed since Seacourt accepted the Contra
aid assignment, and he was getting fed up. One flight
to Nicaragua's southern border had ended with a plane getting
stuck in the mud. Another faltered due to unexpected fog,
which caused the pilot to clip the top of a
tree and knock out one of his plane's engines. The
operation needed more money, and soon, luckily, the Reagan White
(36:40):
House was gearing up to persuade Congress to lift the
Bowland Amendment and allow the administration to once again start
funding the Contras.
Speaker 6 (36:48):
The issue is back aid for the contrast fighting the
Nicaraguan government. President Reagan reported he has decided that the
CIA should have day to day's supervision of the renewed
and widened, undeclared war against Nicaragua.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
As John Poindexter wrote in a memo to NSC staff
in May of nineteen eighty six, the President is ready
to confront the Congress on the constitutional question of who
controlled foreign policy.
Speaker 6 (37:11):
The President has thrown himself into this battle, claiming that
a defeat will mean the establishment of a Soviet military
beachhead within the defense perimeter of the United States.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
More than a year had passed since Congress forced the
CIA to stop helping the Contras. In that time, the
situation in Nicaragua had changed. The Sandinista government had become
increasingly repressive against suspected Contra sympathizers. The Sandinistas also seemed
to be growing closer to the Soviet Union. President Don
yell Ortega had recently visited Moscow and the Nicaraguan army
(37:44):
was receiving Soviet made weapons. By the summer of nineteen
eighty six, Congress had become more receptive to the idea
of supporting the Contras. Sensing an opportunity, the administration asked
for one hundred million dollars in aid and the issue
went up for a vote.
Speaker 6 (37:59):
The President's men feel aid to the Contras as a
top priority, and in the coming congressional battle, they'll use
every advantage they can.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
The stakes for the Contras were high. If the US
pumped one hundred million dollars worth of guns, grenades, and
food to the rebels. It would be a huge boost
to the anti Sandinist to movement. Also, getting a green
light from Congress would mean the US Contra aid operation
could be taken over by the actual government again instead
(38:28):
of a network of private citizens recruited by Oliver North.
Just before Congress was set to vote, Reagan gave a
televised dress from the White House imploring Congress to back
the Contras.
Speaker 12 (38:40):
My fellow citizens, Members of the House, let us not
take the path of least resistance in Central America again.
Let us keep faith with these brave people struggling for
their freedom. Give them, give me your support. Let us
send this message to the world that America is still
a beacon of hope, still alight under the nations. Thank you, God,
(39:05):
bless you.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
On June twenty fifth, nineteen eighty six, the House voted
on the President's proposal.
Speaker 6 (39:13):
The House of Representative has approved one hundred million dollars
in additional American aid for the Contras.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
The aid package passed the House two hundred and twenty
one to two hundred and nine, with fifty one Democrats voting.
The President's way.
Speaker 6 (39:25):
The vote was a political triumph for President Reagan.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
The era of the Bowlan Amendment was coming to an end.
For Richard Seacord. That meant he could finally disentangle himself
from the mess in Central America. As soon as the
new funding was approved, sea Court started pushing for the
CIA to take over the resupply operation he had built.
How this handoff was supposed to work is a matter
of some disagreement. One of Seacord's associates testified before Congress
(39:52):
that Seacord wanted the CIA to buy his assets in
Central America. The assets were valued at around four million
dollars that consisted of five airplanes, an airstrip in Costa Rica,
and a ship. It was all stuff sea Court had
bought using money either donated to the Contract Cause or
generated through this sale of weapons to Iran. Seacord has
(40:12):
always held firm that he was desperate to hand everything
over to the CIA as soon as possible, free of charge.
Speaker 4 (40:19):
We never proposed to sell it to see. I proposed
to give it to him. The bowl And Amendment was
repealed in the summer of eighty six. Time marches on
the CIA can't get their act together to take over
my operation. They were just dilly dow ain't around. They
could have if they wanted to, they really motivated, were
(40:42):
ordered to, they could have taken over my operation in
a day or two.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
The reason Seacord sounds upset when he talks about this
is that he can still picture an alternate reality in
which the CIA did take over the contrary supply as
soon as Congress restored the AID, And in that alternate reality,
it's possible that Seacord and the White House could have
avoided what happened next.
Speaker 6 (41:06):
Who is cargo plane carrying ammunition to the anti government
countries were shot down I inside Nicaraguay yesterday.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
On the afternoon of October fifth, nineteen eighty six, a
young Sandinista soldier patrolling the jungles of southern Nicaragua looked
up at the sky and saw a plane covered in
camouflage paint. He raised his Essay seven rocket launcher, took
aim and fired. The plane went down in flames, killing
three of the four people aboard. The lone survivor was
(41:34):
taken prisoner by the Sandinistas, who quickly determined that he
was an American.
Speaker 6 (41:38):
Market camera crews were taken to the crash site. They
were shown a loan survivor who was identified as Eugene Haw.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
His name was Eugene Hasenfuss. He was forty five years
old and he was originally from Wisconsin.
Speaker 3 (41:51):
The man captured by the Sandinista is it from Marinette,
Wisconsin and apparently joined the mercenary operation this summer.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
Hassenphuss was paraded in front of reporters.
Speaker 3 (41:59):
My name is Jeen Hausenfuss.
Speaker 7 (42:02):
When I was captured.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
Yesterday, Hassenfuss said that he had been delivering weapons to
the Contras as part of an operation overseen by US
government officials.
Speaker 3 (42:12):
Eugene Hassenfuss said today he was paid three thousand dollars
a month to smuggle arms to the Nicaraguan control rebels.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
The Reagan White House categorically denied that Hastenfuss had any
connection to the government. They maintained this stance even as
the Sandinistas charged Hastenfuss with terrorism and threatened him with
a thirty year prison sentence. As American journalists scrambled to
find out anything they could about Hassenfuss, the young parachute
(42:39):
rigger Ian Crawford received a phone call in his sewing
shop in Fayetteville, North Carolina.
Speaker 9 (42:44):
I pick up the phone and the guy started asking
me all these questions about who I was, how I
had a connection to Eugene Haussenfuss, and such like that.
I ended up hanging up the phone.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
Crawford had quit working for Richard Seacord's resupply operation just
a few months earlier. Crawford says Hassenpfuss had replaced him,
and as it turned out, he'd kept Crawford's business card
in his wallet. Soon more reporters tracked Crawford down, and
he came around to sharing with them what he knew.
Speaker 9 (43:15):
I decided I was going to go ahead and tell
them my story.
Speaker 3 (43:19):
Ian Crawford is a master parachute rigger, a former member
of Delta Force, and one of the first men hired
for the covert effort to fly guns to the Contras.
Speaker 5 (43:28):
There were three individuals who I later recognized as being
Colonel North and Richard Seacourd, and a third member I
still haven't recognized.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
The shootdown of Eugene Hasenphuss's plane had exposed Ronald Reagan's
secret war in Nicaragua again, and it had happened just
days before one hundred million dollars in federal aid money
was supposed to start flowing legally to the Contras. But
before the issue could provoke yet another round of debate
in Congress, something else happened. A month after the Hassenphuss crash,
(44:03):
one of the remaining American hostages in Beirut was released.
The very next day, a Lebanese magazine called Chirau published
a stunning article. It revealed that the US had sold
missiles to Iran and that former National Security Advisor Bud
McFarlane had recently traveled to Tehran as part of a
diplomatic mission.
Speaker 3 (44:23):
In a bizarre tale worthy of a thriller, Robert McFarlane,
President Reagan's former national security advisor, recently made a secret
visit to Tayarai.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
When American newspapers picked up the al Cherral report, they
made no mention of the Contra War, because at this point,
no one had any clue the two stories were connected.
That was about to change. Up Next on Fiasco, a
(44:59):
special bonus episode featuring two journalists, Martha Honey and her
husband Tony Avrigan, who found themselves in the crossfire of
the Contra War.
Speaker 12 (45:07):
Anybody who had their mouth close that the moment of
glass went off had their ear drums punctured because of
the force.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
For a list of books, articles and documentaries we used
in our research, follow the link in the show notes.
Fiasco is a production of Prolog Projects and it's distributed
by Pushkin Industries. The show is produced by Andrew Parsons,
Madeline kaplan Ula Culpa and me Leon Mayfock. Our editor
was Camilla Hammer. Our researcher was Francis Carr, with additional
(45:37):
archival research from Caitlin Nicholas. Our music is by Nick Sylvester.
Our theme song is by Spatial Relations. Our artwork is
by Teddy Blanks at Chips and y Audio, mixed by
Rob Buyers, Michael Rayfield and Johnny Vince Evans. Copyright council
provided by Peter Yassi at Yassi Butler PLC. Thanks to
(45:58):
Malcolm Byrne, Shane Harris, Kathy Hoyt, Richard Murphy, Paul Richter,
An Rowe, as well as Sam Graham Felsen, Sireya Shockley
and Katcha kum Kova. Special thanks to Luminary and thank
you for listening. Binge. The entire season of Fiasco Iran
(46:27):
Contra AD free by subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Sign up
on the Fiasco show page on Apple Podcasts, or at
pushkin dot fm slash Plus. Pushkin Plus subscribers can access
ad free episodes, full audiobooks, exclusive binges, and bonus content
for all pushkin podcasts
Pushkin. Oliver North had no formal training in covert operations.
He had never seriously studied diplomacy either, or international relations
(00:36):
or political science. He was a soldier. So when he
found himself in charge of two top secret foreign policy programs,
one in Nicaragua, the other in Iran, he kind of
had to make it up as he went along. In Nicaragua,
North was counting on Contra rebel leaders to allocate the
millions of dollars he was raising on their behalf. Remember,
(00:58):
the CIA had been forced by Congress to stop helping
the Contras. Now in their absence, it seemed like a
lot of money was being wasted or worse stolen.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
The problem was the Contress didn't know how to run
their war. They were very bad managers.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
This is journalist Doyle McManus. You've heard from him before.
He covered the Contra war for the Los Angeles Times
and co authored a book about the Reagan administration called Landslide.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
The weapons were piling up in warehouses in Miami. The
Contress had no reliable way to ship them to the battlefield,
and there were persistent reports that there was corruption going on,
that the Contras were either taking kickbacks from arms, merchants
or just skimming money off the top.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Oliver North and his superiors needed more control in Nicaragua,
and they no longer wanted to rely on people they
couldn't trust, so they enlisted the help of someone they
could count on and who had the experience that North lacked.
His name was Richard Seacord.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Richard Seacord had precisely the expertise that Ali North and
the Contra needed. He knew how to move equipment from
one country to another in airplanes secretly.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Richard Seacord was a retired Air Force general. He was
known for his extensive experience with covert operations and as
a strong believer in giving the president broad powers to
undertake them. For his master's thesis at the Naval War College,
Seacord wrote that when it came to covert ops, quote,
bureaucratic obstacles should be dismissed out of hand. After carrying
(02:40):
out secret missions in Vietnam and Laos, Seacords served in
the Department of Defense. Then in nineteen eighty three he
was forced to retire from government service under a cloud
of scandal when one of his associates was convicted of
illegally selling plastic explosives to Muimar Kadafi.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Of interest to the Grand Jury. Sources say Major General
Richard Seacord, a deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
With his career in Washington cut short. Seacord went into
the private sector fascination, and while some of his former
colleagues and government viewed him with suspicion due to the
Kadafi scandal, there were those who felt he had been
unfairly tarnished by it. Among them was the director of
the CIA, who suggested to Oliver North that he brings
Seacord in to help with the Contra war.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
I was asked if I could help out logistically keeping
the contras in the field resupplied.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
I interviewed Major General Richard Seacoord in Florida in twenty nineteen.
He died in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
They were next to Despert, you know, they knew that
I knew Air and so forth, and so that was
the beginning of it.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
In the summer of nineteen eighty five, about a year
after Congress forced the CIA to stop funding the contras,
Seacord and a business partner created a Swiss bank account
to hold money being donated to the Contra cause. Using
that money, Sea Court set about building a resupply operation
for the Contras from scratch. That meant putting together what
was essentially a mini CIA, or at least a mini airline.
(04:10):
The operation required Seacord to buy a fleet of small
planes and organize a network of airstrips near the Nicaraguan border.
He jokingly called it Air Contra. It wasn't action hero
type work, but it was exactly the kind of work
Seacord was good at.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
Logistics are the senews of war military history writers going back.
I know is far as Napoleon's time, right about that,
but people tend to forget it because it's not very glamorous.
The logistics is the chore. It's the long pole in
that tent.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
A few months after Seacord started working with the Contras,
Oliver North came to him for help with another matter,
the White House's secret program to sell arms to Iran.
As you heard in episode two, Ronald Reagan had approved
the sale of missiles to Iran as part of an
effort to free American hostages in Beirut. The administration was
(05:03):
relying on Israel to serve as a go between, meaning
Israel would sell American made weapons to Iran and then
get their stocks replenished by the US Department of Defense.
But the Israelis were making mistakes. In November of nineteen
eighty five, a shipment of missiles to Iran had ended
in disaster after Israel fumbled just about every aspect of
(05:24):
the delivery. Here's Doyle McManus again.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
The Israeli plane got stuck in Portugal. The Portuguese couldn't
figure out what this shipment was or why they should
let it go through. A CIA plane had to be
called in to take the arms to Iran. And when
the Iranians opened the shipment, they were very unhappy because
there weren't as many missiles as they expected. They were
(05:48):
the wrong model, and some of the missiles even had
the Israeli Star of David on them, and so the
Iranians erupted in fury and refused to release any hostages
at all.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Oliver North briefed his boss, John Poindexter on what had
gone wrong. Poindexter was Reagan's new National security advisor. In
a memo, North acknowledged that the Iran initiative was a mess,
but he argued we are now so far down the
road that stopping could have even more serious repercussions. In
a follow up memo to Poindexter titled Next Steps, North
(06:25):
proposed they cut Israel out of the deal and sell
the weapons to Iran themselves, bringing in Richard Seacord as
the middleman. So that's what they did.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
We're running a successful air up down there. Why not
this one? Yeah? And I guess point to extra figured
that good old Dick Secord, the can't do guy. He'll
get her done.
Speaker 5 (06:48):
With that.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Seacord's responsibilities expanded. In addition to managing money and supplies
for the Contras, this private citizen would now also be
facilitating the sale of American weapons to Iran. This was
the moment when the twin Engine scandal, now known as
Iran Contra took off. I'm Leon Nahan from Prologue Projects
(07:12):
and Pushkin Industries. This is fiasco Iran Contra.
Speaker 6 (07:16):
The issue is back paid for the Contras fighting the
Nicaraguan government.
Speaker 7 (07:20):
North was very excited he had pulled it off.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
His secret visit to TAYHRANI.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
These kinds of escapades.
Speaker 7 (07:26):
He and had suicide pills and I had nothing.
Speaker 8 (07:29):
I was very convinced the President would agree it was
the right thing to do.
Speaker 6 (07:33):
The President has thrown himself into this battle.
Speaker 9 (07:36):
I was going to go ahead and tell them my story.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Episode four diverted, how Oliver North and Richard Seacord put
the hyphen in Iran Contra, and how North ended up
on a plane to Tehran.
Speaker 4 (07:55):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
In order to build the resupply operation for the Contras,
Richard Seacord needed to hire a crew of airmen who
could fly planes and knew how to make air drops.
In December of nineteen eighty five, the word reached Ian Crawford,
a soft spoken twenty nine year old who had served
as part of the Army's elite Delta Force Unit. Crawford
had recently returned to civilian life in Fayetteville, North Carolina,
(08:24):
and he had started a business sowing custom vests, backpacks,
and other military.
Speaker 9 (08:28):
Equipment and out of the field blue. At a New
Year's Eve party, somebody is talking to my mother in law,
of all people, and this person said that they needed
to find some ex military people with a parachute background.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Crawford just happened to be a certified parachute specialist, so
his mother in law put him in touch with the
guy from the party, who in turn put him in
touch with a guy in Washington who worked for Richard Seacoord.
That guy offered Crawford a job.
Speaker 9 (09:01):
He told me, I was going to air drop equipment
to a newly formed group somewhere in the world he
wouldn't tell me, and that I was being hired for
my parachute and air drop specialties.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
A few months later, Crawford boarded a southbound plane packed
with military fatigues, jungle boots, and tents. When the plane landed,
he found himself standing on a dirt airstrip in Honduras.
He had arrived at Aguacat, a bare bones military encampment
that was being used as part of Secord's new resupply operation.
Speaker 9 (09:37):
When we finally landed in Awacati, Honduras, we knew that
we were in a contract camp. It was a confined,
primitive and secret base. The Hondurans knew about it, but
they didn't want to advertise that they were allowing the
(09:59):
contries to be on their side of the border.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
When Crawford first got to Aguacata, there was just one
plane available to fly missions. It was a C seven
Cariboo cargo plane, the same kind that was used in Vietnam.
Speaker 10 (10:15):
Soon you will be flying the C seven a Cariboo
in remote, underdeveloped areas of the world.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Crawford's job was to help the contras pack supplies into
bundles and load them onto the Cariboo. Inside the bundles
was a mix of food, ammunition, grenades, rockets, mortar shells,
and AK forty sevens. Crawford would use a forklift to
get them into the Cariboo, then line them up side
by side and attach parachutes to them. Then he would
(10:43):
take a seat as the plane took off for Nicaragua.
Speaker 10 (10:46):
Short primitive runways hacked from the jungle and desolate terrain
make these parts of the world Cariboo country.
Speaker 9 (10:54):
I would fly in the back of the aircraft. We'd
fly for twenty or thirty minutes to a drop zone.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
The pilot flying the Cariboo would get down as low
as possible over the drop zones, which were located over
sandbars in the Rio Cocoa. Contraforces would then pick up
the supplies.
Speaker 10 (11:14):
If no airstrip exists or it is under enemy fire,
a personnel drop maybe the only way to reinforce a
Special Forces camp, and.
Speaker 9 (11:22):
I'd take a very large knife and cut a nylon
strap that was holding these bundles back, and the pilot
would raise the aircraft nose up and the bundles would
roll out the back of the aircraft.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Sometimes as the caribou flew over the jungle, Crawford would
sit with his legs dangling from the back of the
aircraft and watch for Sandinista helicopters. It was dangerous work.
The threat of being shot down was real, but Crawford
and his crew were also worried about their own plane
(12:00):
giving out on them.
Speaker 9 (12:01):
And there were actually holes in the dashboard where gauges
had been taken out and sent back for maintenance, and
we were all kind of shocked at the level of
maintenance that the aircraft actually needed.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Crawford chucked this up to penny pinching by the operation's
top brass, and he wasn't happy about it.
Speaker 9 (12:24):
Management was trying to cut corners, spend the least amount
of money to get whatever mission done the cheapest possible.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
When I asked Seacort about this, he flatly rejected the
notion that his planes were in poor condition.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
Those airplanes were well equipped and being operated by a
professional airmen who knew what the hell they were doing,
which is why we had him.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
That's at least half true, as Seacoorts top operations manager
would later testify, the airmen's Seacorts Company had recruited were
fortunately the kinds of guys that could put together an
operating aircraft with baling wire and chewing gum. In any event,
there's no question that Seacord's budget was modest. As far
as he was concerned, the resupply operation was only viable
(13:15):
as a short term proposition. At some point the CIA
would have to step back into the role it played
before the Boland Amendment made it illegal.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
My belief was it was just a short term, a
stopgap operation, a bridging operation. It became a bridge too far.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Oliver North was feeling the pressure too. I'm not complaining,
and you know that I love the work, he wrote
to John Poindexter, but we have to lift some of
this onto the CIA so that I can get more
than two or three hours of sleep at night. Unfortunately
for North, the CIA could not step back into Nicaragua
unless Congress changed its mind about funding the Contras, and
(13:55):
that didn't seem like it was in the cards, at
least not yet. By the end of nineteen eighty five,
the Contra aid program and the Iran weapons program were
being managed by the same group of people. Oliver North
was running the day to day with supervision from that
security advisor John Poindexter, and Richard Seacord, the Air Force
general turned arms deer, was overseeing logistics, procuring the weapons,
(14:18):
and moving the money. All three of them had their
own set of motivations, particularly when it came to Iran. North,
by his own account, was dead set on bringing the
hostages back from Beirut because he knew how strongly the
President felt about it. North declined to be interviewed for
this podcast, but here's how he explained himself. In nineteen
eighty seven.
Speaker 11 (14:38):
The President very clearly articulated in the meetings I was
in with him in the Oval Office on this issue.
It was very clear that the President wanted as many
Americans home, all of them home, as fast as possible.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Richard Seacord had more personal reasons for getting involved. One
of them was surely financial. He and his partner stood
to make millions of dollars and commissions. But there was
something else too. Remember, Seacord's career in the intelligence community
had been cut short by scandal. He thought that helping
out with the operation could help him get back in
the fold.
Speaker 4 (15:12):
I was thinking about the possibility of taking over the CIA,
no question about that. That was the right age, They
had the right background. I would not have taken a
job by than the director, but they needed some operator
to run that place, and not a bunch of shoe clerks.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
So that's at least part of what was driving sea Cord.
Then there was John Poindexter, who inherited the Iran initiative
from his predecessor, Bud McFarlane. Poindexter's reasons for continuing to
pursue the program have remained remarkably consistent over time. As
he told me in late twenty nineteen, he saw the
decision to sell weapons to Iran as part of the
(15:57):
Reagan administration's plan to win the Cold War.
Speaker 8 (16:00):
I ran, from a geographic standpoint, occupies a very important
position in the Middle East.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
This is John Poindexter.
Speaker 8 (16:10):
There on the east side of the what used to
be called the Persian Gulf, and at the end the
south end of the Gulf are the straits of Hormus,
which is a very narrow body of water that connects
the Gulf to the Indian Ocean. So the Soviet Union
(16:31):
has always wanted access to the Indian Ocean, and one
way for them to get that is to develop a
cooperative relationship with Iran.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Poindexter believed that in the long run, Iran would probably
end up aligning itself with either the United States or
the Soviet Union. Even though the Komanian regime was fiercely
anti American, Establishing a diplomatic opening with more moderate elements
in the Iranian government was a way to make sure
the United States came out on top in a post
Komani world.
Speaker 8 (17:05):
We always thought that eventually there would be some kind
of transition in Iran as Amede whenever he died, and
it would have been foolish for us to think that
the Soviet Union was not also interested in some future
transition of the Iranian government. And it has never been
(17:30):
in our strategic interest that the Soviet Union would gain
that foothold in the Middle East.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Later, when the Iran Contra scandal exploded into public view,
Poindexter's high minded rationale for the weapons sales was buried
under the simpler, more unsavory explanation that the White House
had been trying to buy back hostages by paying ransom
to terrorists, which explanation you believe comes down to how
much credit you're willing to give the Reagan administration. But
(18:01):
as even Poindexter concedes, the person who authorized the arm shipments,
the only person who had the power to do so,
was pretty clear about what was driving him.
Speaker 8 (18:11):
The President was probably more interested in the short term
objectives than the long term objectives. So I've convinced that
he believed in what we were trying to do, but
he probably, in hindsight, did put more emphasis on the hostages.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
This question of who was motivated by what takes on
even more significance when you consider how badly the Iran
initiative was going By the start of nineteen eighty six.
The White House's key Iranian contact, Minuture Garboni Phar, had
revealed himself to be erratic and unreliable. The moderates Gorbonifar
was supposedly speaking for had given no indication that they
(18:54):
even existed. On multiple occasions, the US had sent Iran weapons,
only to have the terms of the deal change in
the middle and yet the negotiations continued, just as Bud
McFarlane had feared they would. From the outside, and with
the benefit of hindsight, you look at all these red
flags and think, how could this have continued? How could
(19:16):
Poindexter and North and Reagan all have convinced themselves that
this was a good idea? I think the answer probably
lies and what drove each of them to pursue it
in the first place. Whatever it was, it seems to
have made them all either giddy with optimism or deluded
by desperation. Not long into John Poindexter's tenure as National
(19:41):
Security Advisor, the determination was made that the US needed
to speak directly with the Iranian moderates that Manuchaerir Gurbanifhar
claimed to represent. After months of negotiation, North and Gurbanifhar
finalized plans for an in person meeting between senior American
officials and a group of high ranking members of the
Iranian government. The meeting would take place in a hotel
(20:03):
room in Tehran.
Speaker 8 (20:05):
Because of the importance of establishing some kind of working,
real life relationship with Iran, it made sense to send
a delegation to Tehran to try to meet with people
that we hoped would be moderate and began a dialogue.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Poindexter's understanding was that this would be the final exchange
of weapons for hostages. As North explained the agreement to
Poindexter in a memo, the US delegation would bring a
load of spare missile parts to Tehran, and the Iranians
would bring about the release of the hostages still being
held in Beirut. The American delegation to Tehran would include
(20:45):
Oliver North, a CIA officer who could serve as a translator,
and strangely enough, former National Security Advisor Bud McFarlan. McFarlan
had been out of government for months at this point,
and as you heard in episode two, he had profound
misgivings about the Iran initiative. But when Poindexter asked him
to go to Tehran, McFarlan accepted.
Speaker 8 (21:07):
You know, he sort of was a secret emissary. He
wasn't in government. He had been a former senior government official,
so he had credentials and it would be clear to
the Iranians that this was a presidentially approved mission. So
Bud was a logical person to go, and so we
(21:28):
sent him.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Also along for the trip was a senior staffer from
the National Security Council named Howard Titcher, an expert on
the Middle East. Like Poindexter, Tycher saw the arm sales
as a path to improving relations with Iran in a
way that would serve the US's long term goal of
protecting the Middle East from Soviet influence.
Speaker 7 (21:48):
Actually was exciting, you know, this was the chance to
change the course of history and protect American interest in
a very fundamental way. And you know, so this was
a risk worth taking.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Tycher's wife was more apprehensive. She was a lawyer in
the State Department, and based on what her husband was
telling her, she suspected that the arms deal might be illegal.
She also thought it was possible, if not downright likely,
that in their quest to free the hostages, her husband
and the other members of the delegation would end up
getting kidnapped themselves, you know.
Speaker 7 (22:20):
And I talked to Colonel North about this and he said,
I want you to know everything's taken care of. And
I said, so there's a plan, And all he would
say was, don't worry, everything's taken care of. So he
did his best to assure me that that was a case.
That there was some rescue plan in the event that
we were not allowed to leave, and in the circumstances
(22:42):
I later learned that he and McFarlane had suicide pills
and I had nothing. So I presume that was the plan,
that they would take their lives and the rest of
us would be left to deal with the Iranians.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
According to Oliver North's memoir, he actually had enough suicide
pills for everyone, and he got them directly from the
head of the CIA. That underscore is just how big
a risk the administration was taking. Who knew what was
waiting for North, farl And and Titcher in Tehran. There was
no longer an American embassy there. The country was a
(23:15):
black box. All the Americans had to go on was
the word of Manuture or Bonifi, and so far that
had not proven to be worth very much.
Speaker 8 (23:25):
We hadn't had any kind of a diplomatic approach to
Iran up to that point that I'm aware of today,
and so it was momentus to decide to send a mission.
You know, the odds were not in our favor of
(23:45):
it working out, but we thought because of the importance
of returning Iran to a more constructive physician, it was worth.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
The risk, as it happened. Days before North and his
team embarked on their trip, French officials were working to
free their citizens who had been kidnapped in Lebanon by
Islamic militants. According to news report Sort, France was negotiating
with the Iranians.
Speaker 5 (24:12):
US officials fear of the French willingness to negotiate will
only harden the kidnappers resolve and encourage others to kidnap
for ransom.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
The journey to Tehran began Washington's Dallas Airport on May
twenty third, nineteen eighty six. It would involve multiple legs,
with stops at an air Force base in Frankfurt and
in Tel Aviv. Everyone in the group carried fake passports.
The plan was that if anyone asked, they would say
they were part of a trade delegation from Ireland. Here's
(24:45):
Howard Titcher again.
Speaker 7 (24:46):
That was the cover, they decided. And so I was
asked to come up with a legend that, you know,
I could remember about being born in Ireland. So if
somebody in iranset, so why are you here? I'm Irish traders?
Where are you from? Are you from Dingle Oh? I
never went to Dingle. What's it like in Dingle? You know?
So I became Tim mcgahann and that became the the
(25:10):
Irish passport.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Titcher asked the obvious question, would they have to use
fake Irish accents? The answer was eh.
Speaker 7 (25:19):
They told us that they didn't think anybody who we
were going to encounter would have any idea what an
Irish accent sounded like.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
In Tel Aviv, the delegation with rendezvous with Richard Seacord, who,
as usual, would be in charge of logistics. It was
not an easy assignment. Seacord had to ensure that the
trip was one hundred percent secret.
Speaker 4 (25:43):
We borrowed an airplane from Israel.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Here's Seacord again, one of.
Speaker 4 (25:48):
Their VIP airplanes, and sanitized it. We went over every
bit of that airplane and anything that would indicate it
was Israeli, an aeroplane with the marks or stars of
David or whatever. We got rid of it.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Seacord himself was not going to Tehran. He would stay
in his hotel room in Tel Aviv, managing the trip
remotely and staying in touch with the pilots through a
secure communications rig set up in his window. The plane
was set to take off at midnight from Ben Gurion Airport.
In addition to its human cargo, it would also be
carrying some, but not all, the spare missile parts the
(26:27):
Americans had promised the Iranians. As soon as the hostages
were freed, Secord would send a second plane to Iran
with the rest of the weapons parts. Before takeoff, North
decided he wanted to bring some kind of gift to Tehran.
As Tyer understood it, North wanted something that would break
(26:48):
the ice and serve as a gesture of goodwill.
Speaker 7 (26:51):
At one point, North had said to Gorbani far what
should we bring, you know, as a gift, and he goes, oh,
bring the weapons and bring a cake. It is a
tradition among Persians when you've had us a feud or
a or a spat with your girlfriend or friends, you
(27:13):
make up by bringing each other pastries.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
So, according to Titcher, North boarded the plane carrying a
chocolate cake purchased from an Israeli bakery. He decorated the
cake with a key intended to represent the opening of
relations between the US and Iran.
Speaker 7 (27:29):
North was, you know, very excited again. You know, he
had started this process some months before. You know, and
he had had a couple of probably dodgy meetings with
you know this arms merchant Manu shark or Banifhar, and
now he had pulled it off.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
North's jubilation was premature, which became obvious almost as soon
as the plane landed in Tehran. He was a little
after seven in the morning on May twenty fifth, but
when North, McFarlane, and Tycher got off the plane, the
only person there to greet them was an airport worker
who didn't know who they were. Finally, Gorbanifar showed up,
(28:12):
apologizing for the delay. He led the delegation to a
caravan of old, beat up cars that were waiting outside
the airport. The cars were driven by armed revolutionary guards.
In his memoir, North described the vehicle's belching blue and
black smoke from their exhaust pipes. As they drove through Tehran,
they passed landmarks once associated with the Shah that were
(28:33):
now covered in graffiti praising the Iyatola Comani. After half
an hour, the cars pulled up to the entrance of
the Independence Hotel and the Americans were taken to a
suite on the fifteenth floor. Gorbanifhar did not make a
powerful first impression on Howard tier.
Speaker 7 (28:53):
He struck me as someone in his early fifties, early
to mid fifties, very nondescript, balding, no tie, sort of
typical Iranian garbed, you know, suit shirt, no tie, overweight.
He didn't come across like the people we see in
movies of these vicious evil arms merchants, you know, with
giant mustaches and bandoliers. I mean, he looked like a
(29:15):
business person.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
It seemed like Gorbanifard just wanted to make everyone happy.
At one point, when it turned out the hotel was
short on food, he had his mother cook the group
an elaborate Persian feast. But hospitality was not what the
Americans were worried about. As morning turned to afternoon on
their first day in Tehran, there was no sign of
any high ranking Iranian officials. Instead, at five PM, a
(29:41):
man entered the suite and introduced himself by a name
the Americans didn't recognize. He brought a disconcerting message, no
hostages could be released until after the Americans handed over
the spare weapons parts they had promised. In fact, he
said there was no certainty that Iran would be able
to get the hostages released at all, but if all
(30:01):
the weapons were delivered, they would be willing to try.
Speaker 7 (30:04):
We now understood that the Iranian government had not committed
to it, certainly not guaranteed that it was going to
bring about the release of the hostages. And yet we
had shown up and we had given them a palette
load half of the load of hawk spare parts. And
you know, we faced considerable embarrassment because you know, we
(30:24):
were not going to succeed.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Bud McFarlane was furious. It was now clear that the
Iranian emissaries who had been sent to meet the American
delegation were not nearly a senior as the officials Garbanifar
had told North to expect.
Speaker 7 (30:38):
North confronted Gorbani Phar, and he made him tell us,
he goes, well, I basically, you know, exaggerated a little
bit in order to you know, get you guys here.
And we were appalled.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
So began a standoff that would last three long days
over the course of several torturous meetings. McFarlane was uncompromising.
There would be no more weapons delivered to the Iranians
until the hostages in Beirut were free.
Speaker 7 (31:10):
Farland was just fed up and believe that the appropriate
posture to take was you guys have misled us. You
did not deliver what you said. You could say whatever
you want about what we were going to do. What
Colonel North told or Bonnie faire we were going to do,
we did it. You didn't do what we were told
you're going to do. We're out of here.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Oliver North had a different read on the situation. He
thought there was still a chance for a positive outcome
despite the false pretenses that had brought both parties to
the table. He really wanted the deal to work.
Speaker 7 (31:41):
He and where Bonnie Faarr had similar interest. Right, they
both wanted it to work. North was patient, right, he
had worked months to get to this point. You know,
it's like, let's give him a little more time.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
But McFarlane's patience was running out. We'll be right back.
After three days of negotiation in Tehran Bud, McFarlane decided
the time to cut bait. He made arrangements for the
American delegation to be taken to the airport and back
to Tel Aviv. One of the Iranian officials MacFarlane had
(32:19):
been dealing with begged him to stay and work it out,
but McFarlane was firm, it's too late. He said, you're
not keeping the agreement. We are leaving. When the Americans
landed on the tarmac and Tel Aviv, North could tell
that MacFarlane was disappointed. According to North Spmoir, he tried
(32:40):
to cheer McFarlane up. Well, Bud, it's not a total loss.
North quotes himself saying part of the money from these
transactions is going to help the Nicaraguin resistance. McFarland would
later testify that the comment left him a little startled,
but as they made their way off the plane, he
did not ask North to elaborate. It's worth pausing here
(33:03):
to talk about that offhand comment Oliver North made on
the tarmac because the idea of taking money generated by
the ear Ran weapons sales and spending it on the
Contra war would end up becoming the single most explosive
aspect of the Iran Contra scandal. In fact, without it,
there wouldn't be an Iran Contra scandal. The money was
(33:23):
the thing that joined the two operations together. It came
to be known simply as the diversion, and there are
a few conflicting accounts of when and where the idea originated,
but according to Oliver North, it happened in January of
nineteen eighty six, five months before the Tehran trip. In
North's version of the story, he was in London for
(33:46):
a meeting with Manuchair Gorbonifar aimed at getting the arms
for Hostages deal back on track. During that meeting, as
part of a private conversation in a hotel bathroom, Gorbonifar
suggested to North that he could use the profits from
the arm sales to fund the Contras. Gorbonifar made the
comment in an apparent effort to convince North that continuing
with the weapons sales would be worth the trouble, and
(34:09):
it worked. North was into it, and when he came
back to the United States he put the idea in
front of John Poindexter.
Speaker 8 (34:17):
Ali suggested, since Dick was also running the logistics pipeline
to the Contras, that Dick used those excess profits to
provide funding for the Contra support program. Would you think
I thought it was a good idea.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
You have to admit there's a certain elegance to it.
By combining their two covert operations, financially, the US would
be able to take money they weren't supposed to be
making in Iran and spend it on something they weren't
supposed to be spending it on, the Contra war.
Speaker 8 (34:51):
I knew it was going to be controversial, but I
also didn't see anything illegal about it. It was not
US government money. The Defense Department was being paid exactly
what they asked for for the weapons, so that there
was no cost to the US government, and so I
thought it It was perfectly legal on the one hand.
(35:13):
But on the other hand, I knew the Democrats, if
they found out about it, would object and claim all
sorts of wild theories, which is typical of the Democrat Party.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
Poindexter says this was why he made the decision not
to tell the President about the diversion.
Speaker 8 (35:31):
I was very convinced the President would agree that it
was the right thing to do, but I thought it
was better to keep him out of that direct loop.
It was a judgment called on my part, and I
wanted to give the President some deniability of authorizing it.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
In the end, investigators concluded that at least three point
six million dollars were diverted from the Iran weapons sales
to the Contras. It was a modest sum in the
grand scheme of things, But for Richard Seabord, who was
struggling to keep the Contra resupply operation going, it was
a welcome bit of additional funding at a time when
resources were running low. It was May of nineteen eighty six,
(36:15):
about a year had passed since Seacourt accepted the Contra
aid assignment, and he was getting fed up. One flight
to Nicaragua's southern border had ended with a plane getting
stuck in the mud. Another faltered due to unexpected fog,
which caused the pilot to clip the top of a
tree and knock out one of his plane's engines. The
operation needed more money, and soon, luckily, the Reagan White
(36:40):
House was gearing up to persuade Congress to lift the
Bowland Amendment and allow the administration to once again start
funding the Contras.
Speaker 6 (36:48):
The issue is back aid for the contrast fighting the
Nicaraguan government. President Reagan reported he has decided that the
CIA should have day to day's supervision of the renewed
and widened, undeclared war against Nicaragua.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
As John Poindexter wrote in a memo to NSC staff
in May of nineteen eighty six, the President is ready
to confront the Congress on the constitutional question of who
controlled foreign policy.
Speaker 6 (37:11):
The President has thrown himself into this battle, claiming that
a defeat will mean the establishment of a Soviet military
beachhead within the defense perimeter of the United States.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
More than a year had passed since Congress forced the
CIA to stop helping the Contras. In that time, the
situation in Nicaragua had changed. The Sandinista government had become
increasingly repressive against suspected Contra sympathizers. The Sandinistas also seemed
to be growing closer to the Soviet Union. President Don
yell Ortega had recently visited Moscow and the Nicaraguan army
(37:44):
was receiving Soviet made weapons. By the summer of nineteen
eighty six, Congress had become more receptive to the idea
of supporting the Contras. Sensing an opportunity, the administration asked
for one hundred million dollars in aid and the issue
went up for a vote.
Speaker 6 (37:59):
The President's men feel aid to the Contras as a
top priority, and in the coming congressional battle, they'll use
every advantage they can.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
The stakes for the Contras were high. If the US
pumped one hundred million dollars worth of guns, grenades, and
food to the rebels. It would be a huge boost
to the anti Sandinist to movement. Also, getting a green
light from Congress would mean the US Contra aid operation
could be taken over by the actual government again instead
(38:28):
of a network of private citizens recruited by Oliver North.
Just before Congress was set to vote, Reagan gave a
televised dress from the White House imploring Congress to back
the Contras.
Speaker 12 (38:40):
My fellow citizens, Members of the House, let us not
take the path of least resistance in Central America again.
Let us keep faith with these brave people struggling for
their freedom. Give them, give me your support. Let us
send this message to the world that America is still
a beacon of hope, still alight under the nations. Thank you, God,
(39:05):
bless you.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
On June twenty fifth, nineteen eighty six, the House voted
on the President's proposal.
Speaker 6 (39:13):
The House of Representative has approved one hundred million dollars
in additional American aid for the Contras.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
The aid package passed the House two hundred and twenty
one to two hundred and nine, with fifty one Democrats voting.
The President's way.
Speaker 6 (39:25):
The vote was a political triumph for President Reagan.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
The era of the Bowlan Amendment was coming to an end.
For Richard Seacord. That meant he could finally disentangle himself
from the mess in Central America. As soon as the
new funding was approved, sea Court started pushing for the
CIA to take over the resupply operation he had built.
How this handoff was supposed to work is a matter
of some disagreement. One of Seacord's associates testified before Congress
(39:52):
that Seacord wanted the CIA to buy his assets in
Central America. The assets were valued at around four million
dollars that consisted of five airplanes, an airstrip in Costa Rica,
and a ship. It was all stuff sea Court had
bought using money either donated to the Contract Cause or
generated through this sale of weapons to Iran. Seacord has
(40:12):
always held firm that he was desperate to hand everything
over to the CIA as soon as possible, free of charge.
Speaker 4 (40:19):
We never proposed to sell it to see. I proposed
to give it to him. The bowl And Amendment was
repealed in the summer of eighty six. Time marches on
the CIA can't get their act together to take over
my operation. They were just dilly dow ain't around. They
could have if they wanted to, they really motivated, were
(40:42):
ordered to, they could have taken over my operation in
a day or two.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
The reason Seacord sounds upset when he talks about this
is that he can still picture an alternate reality in
which the CIA did take over the contrary supply as
soon as Congress restored the AID, And in that alternate reality,
it's possible that Seacord and the White House could have
avoided what happened next.
Speaker 6 (41:06):
Who is cargo plane carrying ammunition to the anti government
countries were shot down I inside Nicaraguay yesterday.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
On the afternoon of October fifth, nineteen eighty six, a
young Sandinista soldier patrolling the jungles of southern Nicaragua looked
up at the sky and saw a plane covered in
camouflage paint. He raised his Essay seven rocket launcher, took
aim and fired. The plane went down in flames, killing
three of the four people aboard. The lone survivor was
(41:34):
taken prisoner by the Sandinistas, who quickly determined that he
was an American.
Speaker 6 (41:38):
Market camera crews were taken to the crash site. They
were shown a loan survivor who was identified as Eugene Haw.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
His name was Eugene Hasenfuss. He was forty five years
old and he was originally from Wisconsin.
Speaker 3 (41:51):
The man captured by the Sandinista is it from Marinette,
Wisconsin and apparently joined the mercenary operation this summer.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
Hassenphuss was paraded in front of reporters.
Speaker 3 (41:59):
My name is Jeen Hausenfuss.
Speaker 7 (42:02):
When I was captured.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
Yesterday, Hassenfuss said that he had been delivering weapons to
the Contras as part of an operation overseen by US
government officials.
Speaker 3 (42:12):
Eugene Hassenfuss said today he was paid three thousand dollars
a month to smuggle arms to the Nicaraguan control rebels.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
The Reagan White House categorically denied that Hastenfuss had any
connection to the government. They maintained this stance even as
the Sandinistas charged Hastenfuss with terrorism and threatened him with
a thirty year prison sentence. As American journalists scrambled to
find out anything they could about Hassenfuss, the young parachute
(42:39):
rigger Ian Crawford received a phone call in his sewing
shop in Fayetteville, North Carolina.
Speaker 9 (42:44):
I pick up the phone and the guy started asking
me all these questions about who I was, how I
had a connection to Eugene Haussenfuss, and such like that.
I ended up hanging up the phone.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
Crawford had quit working for Richard Seacord's resupply operation just
a few months earlier. Crawford says Hassenpfuss had replaced him,
and as it turned out, he'd kept Crawford's business card
in his wallet. Soon more reporters tracked Crawford down, and
he came around to sharing with them what he knew.
Speaker 9 (43:15):
I decided I was going to go ahead and tell
them my story.
Speaker 3 (43:19):
Ian Crawford is a master parachute rigger, a former member
of Delta Force, and one of the first men hired
for the covert effort to fly guns to the Contras.
Speaker 5 (43:28):
There were three individuals who I later recognized as being
Colonel North and Richard Seacourd, and a third member I
still haven't recognized.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
The shootdown of Eugene Hasenphuss's plane had exposed Ronald Reagan's
secret war in Nicaragua again, and it had happened just
days before one hundred million dollars in federal aid money
was supposed to start flowing legally to the Contras. But
before the issue could provoke yet another round of debate
in Congress, something else happened. A month after the Hassenphuss crash,
(44:03):
one of the remaining American hostages in Beirut was released.
The very next day, a Lebanese magazine called Chirau published
a stunning article. It revealed that the US had sold
missiles to Iran and that former National Security Advisor Bud
McFarlane had recently traveled to Tehran as part of a
diplomatic mission.
Speaker 3 (44:23):
In a bizarre tale worthy of a thriller, Robert McFarlane,
President Reagan's former national security advisor, recently made a secret
visit to Tayarai.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
When American newspapers picked up the al Cherral report, they
made no mention of the Contra War, because at this point,
no one had any clue the two stories were connected.
That was about to change. Up Next on Fiasco, a
(44:59):
special bonus episode featuring two journalists, Martha Honey and her
husband Tony Avrigan, who found themselves in the crossfire of
the Contra War.
Speaker 12 (45:07):
Anybody who had their mouth close that the moment of
glass went off had their ear drums punctured because of
the force.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
For a list of books, articles and documentaries we used
in our research, follow the link in the show notes.
Fiasco is a production of Prolog Projects and it's distributed
by Pushkin Industries. The show is produced by Andrew Parsons,
Madeline kaplan Ula Culpa and me Leon Mayfock. Our editor
was Camilla Hammer. Our researcher was Francis Carr, with additional
(45:37):
archival research from Caitlin Nicholas. Our music is by Nick Sylvester.
Our theme song is by Spatial Relations. Our artwork is
by Teddy Blanks at Chips and y Audio, mixed by
Rob Buyers, Michael Rayfield and Johnny Vince Evans. Copyright council
provided by Peter Yassi at Yassi Butler PLC. Thanks to
(45:58):
Malcolm Byrne, Shane Harris, Kathy Hoyt, Richard Murphy, Paul Richter,
An Rowe, as well as Sam Graham Felsen, Sireya Shockley
and Katcha kum Kova. Special thanks to Luminary and thank
you for listening. Binge. The entire season of Fiasco Iran
(46:27):
Contra AD free by subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Sign up
on the Fiasco show page on Apple Podcasts, or at
pushkin dot fm slash Plus. Pushkin Plus subscribers can access
ad free episodes, full audiobooks, exclusive binges, and bonus content
for all pushkin podcasts
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