University Of Ghent

Faculty of Arts

REAGAN AND THE IRAN-CONTRA AFFAIR: AN IMPEACHABLE SCANDAL?

Laurens De Lombaert

00706708

American History & Politics II

Postgraduate American Studies

2012-2013

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Ronald Reagan is remembered by Americans as the president who defeated the Soviet Union

and ended the Cold War. Teflon Ron is a conservative icon but the former B-movie actor’s presidency

was not without controversy. Whether or not he was a good president and deserved this icon status,

the fact remains that under his reign the presidential administration got deeply involved in a globe-

spanning scandal. The Iran-Contra affair, taking place between 1985 and 1987, was a very complex

issue. It spanned half the world and included, among others, covert operations, dealing weapons to

an enemy state, reneging on the dogma not to negotiate with terrorists, illegal diversion of funds and

supporting rebels.

At its very core Iran-Contra boils down to Reagan trading arms to Iran for the release of American

hostages held by Tehran’s allies in the Middle East, and then using the profits of the overpriced sale

to fund a Nicaraguan rebel group called the Contras (DUMBRELL, 120). Cleary several laws had been

broken during the affair so it is striking that Reagan was not impeached. Nixon, before resigning, was

faced with certain impeachment for “a third-rate burglary” and Clinton actually was impeached for

lying under oath about his sexual affair with Monica Lewinsky. The crimes of these two presidents

seem to dwarf in comparison to Iran-Contra. Therefore this paper will try to find an answer to the

question why Reagan was not impeached. In order to investigate this issue the specifics of the affair

must be understood, therefore a brief overview of the Iran-Contra affair will be given, focusing on

the (dis)continuity of Iran-Contra in light of American foreign policy tradition. Afterwards the paper

will examine and assess the illegality of the affair, discussing what parts of it actually were illegal

and/or impeachable offenses. The final part will concern itself with why, given the facts of the

scandal and the evidence of illegal actions, Reagan did not face impeachment. As an afterthought,

the current scandals faced by the Obama administration will be lightly touched upon because several

aspects of Obama’s way of handling the crises are reminiscent of Reagan’s approach.

The Iran and Contra part of the affair were not, at first, linked. As far as the Iran controversy

goes, everything started when National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane came to Reagan, claiming

that he had received information from the Israeli government that there were moderate factions in

the Iranian government of Ayatollah Khomeini. Iran was at that time at war with Iraq but could find

few Western nation states ready to support its cause and supply it with arms they were in dire need

of. McFarlane argued that these moderates had made a secret request to buy weapons from the US

and he explained that this sale of arms would not only improve US relations with Iran, but might in

turn lead to improved relations with Lebanon and an increasing influence in the troubled Middle East

(PBS). These moderates (whose very existence is doubtful, according to Pfiffner, 451) were seeking

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an approach with the US, awaiting the death of the Ayatollah to restore ties with the US. They were

open to, as a show of good faith, use their influence to try to secure the release of US citizens held

hostage in Lebanon by terrorist groups affiliated with Hezbollah and receiving most of its funding

from Iran.

Lynch argues that in the eyes of the US, the possibility of increasing its influence in Iran and the

Middle East, was an opportunity that could not be passed upon. Iran not only had a large army, it

also had ties with innumerable anti-US terrorist groups, possessed large oil reserves and had two

borders with the Soviet Union. (211) In addition, the US government feared that the Soviet Union

was also awaiting its chance to establish a close relation with Iran, a fear which Pfiffner deems

irrational since “Iran had its own security reasons for not wanting to be pulled into the Soviet orbit.”

(457)

However, while these geopolitical facts have often been reported as motive for the arms sale, more

specialized scholars point to other, more deeper-lying causes. Rubenberg claims that the reason for

the arms sales “resides in a combination of factors including the Reagan administration’s extremely

shallow understanding of the Iranian Revolution and the depth of Iranian antipathy toward the USA

after nearly thirty-five years of US domination and manipulation” and continues that it also included

“Washington’s failure to comprehend Iranian political structure, combined with the belief that the US

could manage any global situation if the correct combination of military force, economic pressure,

hostile propaganda, diplomatic isolation, divide and rule practices, and the offer of potential (or

actual) US assistance were applied.” (1477)

Lynch points to a more personal ideology of Reagan as the direct explanation behind the approach.

He claims that the possibility of freeing the hostages was of paramount importance, arguing that

“indeed, if one element of Reagan’s presidency can be singled out as the ‘cause’ of the Iran-Contra

affair, it was his [Reagan’s] single-minded insistence that the US government do more to free these

seven people.” (212) Lynch’s analysis seems to be supported by the handwritten diaries of Caspar

Weinberger, Secretary of State. According to him Reagan was heard saying that “he could answer to

charges of illegality but he couldn’t answer charge [sic] that ‘big strong President Reagan passed up a

chance to free hostages.’” In a 2011 documentary, directed by Eugene Jarecki for HBO, Ron Reagan,

President Reagan’s son, also indicates the belief that the arms sale was personally motivated with

the hope of freeing the hostages. He says his father always thought of himself as a savior. In his eyes

this drive goes all the way back to Reagan working as a life guard when he was young.

The most explosive and damaging account of the arms sale, which none of the scholars refer to, is

proposed by Barbara Honegger, a former white house policy analyst. She claims she found

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documents that prove that Reagan started the arms sale years before Iran-Contra. Supposedly

Reagan, before the 1980 presidential election, cut a deal with the Iranian government: in return for

delivering arms to them once he became President, the Iranians would postpone releasing the

American hostages then held captive at the US embassy in Iran. The fact that Iran announced the

release of the hostages on the day of Reagan’s inauguration gave rise to what is called the October

Surprise Conspiracy Theory. However, both houses of the US Congress held separate inquiries and

concluded that the allegations lacked supporting documentation.

Whatever his motivations, the weapons sale nevertheless deteriorated into an arms-for-hostages

scheme. The intricacies of how this happened exactly are unfortunately never expanded on in the

literature on the matter. The concrete results of the affair were minor: the adventure did not revive

pre-1979 closeness in US-Iranian relations and while some of the hostages held in Lebanon were

released, new ones were taken to replace them (DUMBRELL, 124). The question of illegality is a tricky

one. Iran was at that time a declared and sworn enemy of the US, the US had a policy not to

negotiate with terrorists and there existed an embargo of the selling of arms to Iran. Reagan

interpreted the promise made by the “moderates” as part of the strategic opening with Iran so in his

mind this was not negotiating with terrorists.

To circumvent the embargo Israel was approached to function as a middle man in the whole

operation. Israel would deliver the weapons (TOW anti-tank missiles and Hawk anti-aircraft missiles)

to Iran, the US would then resupply Israel with the sold arms and the US would receive the monetary

benefits of the lucrative deal (the arms were sold with a substantial profit) . Reagan was not brought

up to speed on every weapons shipment. Some were put in place and executed by Oliver North

without notifying the president, but on the whole it is safe to say that Reagan knew of the plan.

Partly because of his eagerness to be the hero and save the hostages, he agreed on its

implementation, fully knowing the hazard of it and the potential consequences.

At about the same time, the Reagan administration was involved in Nicaragua. In accordance

with the Reagan Doctrine – opposing the global influence of the Soviet Union- they supported the

Contra rebel group in their fight against the socialist Sandinista movement. The Sandinistas had

established a revolutionary government and set about to give more land to the peasants and to

spread the education and health care among the poor so they were viewed as a socialist/communist

threat. (ZINN, 548) The problem was that the Contras were a corruptible bunch, violating human

rights and kidnapping and murdering civilians. It is no surprise that US support for this group received

considerable criticism at home. In order to counter this bad press, the Reagan administration set up a

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public diplomacy program, which Parry & Kornbluh call nothing less than “what appeared to be

America’s first peacetime propaganda ministry.” (5) This office pressured journalists and discredited

and intimidated critics of US Nicaraguan policy. It also distorted the factual record by exaggerating

Sandinista offenses and obfuscating those of the Contra’s or leaking false information to favored

journalists.

Some of the media, Marshall believes, were not critical enough and too willingly taking part in such

disinformation scenarios. (230) The need for a public diplomacy office was deemed necessary

because supposedly the US was unequipped to fight a war of ideas. It was claimed that because of

the lack of a propaganda and disinformation campaign, which the Soviets and Vietnamese did have,

the Vietnam war was lost. (PARRY & KORTBLUH, 6-8) This misinformation campaign and intimidation

of US citizens, who are exercising their constitutional right of dissent, “deforms the public debate” to

a point where “deception became the coin of the realm, and irrationality, spawned by the

acceptance of propaganda as truth, dictates the most sensitive judgments of US foreign-policy

makers.” (PARRY & KORTBLUH,29)

Another problem was that Congress had, under the Boland Amendments, tried to cut off the flow of

funds to Nicaragua. The second Boland Amendment, designed to fill the loopholes in the first, read

that

“no funds available to the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense, or any other

agency or entity of the United States involved in intelligence activities may be obligated or expended

for the purpose which would have the effect of supporting directly or indirectly, military or

paramilitary operations in Nicaragua by any nation, group, organization, movement or individual.”

According to Lynch Reagan felt frustrated by the interference by Congress. In his autobiography, the

president lamented the passing of the era in which “politics stopped at the water’s edge (213) It is a

chicken-or-egg question whether Congress had retaken power because of the many schemes

concocted by presidents and their executive branch during the Cold War or whether the presidents

have engaged in covert activities because Congress gave them no option. (AMBROSE, 357) The fact

remains that after the Watergate scandal, Congress had tried to reassert its influence over and

increase its grip on presidential power. Despite Reagan’s tremendous election victory, many of his

foreign policies were unpopular in Congress. Marshall acknowledges that “the temptation, in short,

was to use the contracting out strategy to achieve total presidential supremacy in foreign policy.”

(17)

There still remained some wriggle room to bypass Boland, however, since apparently money and

funds could still be solicited from private donors or third party countries. The other back door to the

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rule was that people like North considered the NSC, the President’s principal forum for considering

national security and foreign policy matters with his senior national security advisors and cabinet

officials, exempt from these Amendments. Therefore they could use “unappropriated” money to

keep the Contras alive. (HUNTER, 9-10) Reagan also did not consider the Boland Amendment as final

and wanted to keep the Contras alive until he could persuade Congress to reverse itself. Reagan’s

insistence on keeping the Contras active and his unconcern for Congressional authority and for

constitutional restraint, which were the roots of the Contra affair according to Dumbrell (122),

created a climate of illegality and caused his national security advisors to break the law “in order to

carry out what they were sure were his wishes.” (PFIFFNER, 450) When private funds and third party

country donations remained insufficient for this goal, it’s no surprise that people inside the NSC came

up with the questionable solution of using the profits from the arms to fund the Contras. The Iran

and Nicaragua schemes came together and Reagan had a potentially explosive issue on his hands

that spanned two continents and consisted of covert options, debatable propaganda techniques,

illegal funding and more intrigues and twisted scheming and plotting than a Hollywood spy movie.

Because Iran-Contra was exposed and became a full blown presidential scandal, it’s easy to

discard it as an aberration in foreign-policy making or a mistake made by several presidential

employees. This would be wrong. Rubenberg considers the whole affair business as usual and sees

striking similarities with previous US foreign policies dating back to the early nineteenth century. She

claims that “US goals in Nicaragua and Iran illustrate the fact that foreign policy objectives are an

outgrowth of the capitalist economic system that is the basis of American society.” Foreign policy

comes down to international freedom but the US interprets this freedom as access to raw materials

and markets for exported manufactured goods. (1468) Especially in third world countries, with their

nationalist movements and socialist revolutions, creating a stable capitalist environment was

paramount to protect the US’s business interests.

To dictate his own foreign policy, the President was helped by the National Security Council, created

by the National Security Act in 1947. The NSC was created to “centralize power, concentrate foreign

policy-making in the executive branch, allow president’s freedom of action in foreign affairs that

would not be subjected to Congressional or other domestic interference, and integrate the military

and the CIA into foreign policy decision-making.” (1470) What is important is that the NSC

bureaucracy supplied the rest of the government with “a conceptual framework for thinking about

foreign policy” and that it “defined an American political culture that came to be characterized by an

obsessive concern with national security and anti-communism.” (1470) Rubenberg’s vision of this

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characterization is corroborated by Marshall when he says that it was Reagan’s contribution to “fully

develop the potential of the ultimate boogeyman: terrorism.” (209) This terrorist threat provided the

perfect rationalization for secrecy and covert operations since “responding to terrorist attacks

requires speedy intervention and absolute secrecy, not lengthy debate with Congress.” (ibid) Thus

the NSC claimed reasons of national security and promised its commitment to protect the right of

self-determination, democracy and human rights to conceal the economic motivations behind

executive foreign-policy making . They did so because they realized that “people will often die for

their country’s security” but “they are less willing to do so to increase the profits of United Fruit.”

(RUBENBERG, 1480, 1503) This need for honorable causes to intervene was also exposed by Parry &

Kornbluh. They showed that the executive branch tried to influence the public and seek their support

by demonizing the Sandinistas and portraying them as murderous criminals while Reagan himself

referred to the Contras as the “moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers.”

That laws have been broken and that several actions covered by the affair were illegal, stands

without a doubt. Poindexter may have told his deputy that Congressional authority to appropriate

funds should not be allowed “to restrict what the President can do in foreign policy” and that private

money could still be utilized to circumvent the Boland Amendment on Nicaragua, this loophole

remains a very debatable one. Secretary of Defense Weinberger warned Reagan that these were

impeachable offenses, and this was backed up by the opinion of Treasury Secretary James Baker

(DUMBRELL, 121). The weapons transaction was not very kosher as well. Secretary of State Schultz’s

legal advisor was told to investigate the legality of the sale and stated that it would not be legal

under the Arms Export Control Act of 1976 (which prohibits the sale of US arms to nations

designated as sponsors of terrorism, which Iran was since 1984. It was also a very hypocritical thing

to do since the Reagan administration had already launched a diplomatic campaign (Operation

Staunch) to stop US allies from selling arms to Iran or Iraq. (PFIFFNER, 451) Most authors claim that

the diversion of funds to the Contras had the most grounds for impeachment, but while it is clear

that it was Reagan’s direct fault that the arms sale to Iran took place, his exact role in the Contra part

of the affair remains unclear and thus his accountability in this is matter a contentious issue.

Originally published in al-Shirra, a pro-Iranian newspaper published in Lebanon, the Iran-

Contra story was picked up by the American media on November 4, 1986 (LYNCH, 225). Lynch also

describes how the White House immediately went into full damage control mode: Reagan would be

portrayed as outraged and determined to get the facts out. Proof of his determination was a special

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bipartisan committee, led by John Tower, and henceforward known as the Tower Commission. The

Democratic majority leaders in the Senate and House insisted on their own investigation, that would

become a full congressional inquiry. (LYNCH, 226) Several politicians kept bringing up the word

impeachment (a procedure started by the House of Representatives that allows formal charges

against a civil officer of government for crimes committed in office; the actual trial on those charges

and the subsequent removal of the official is a separate act that is conducted by the Senate),

however, it never came to this.

Ambrose believes that there are three simple reasons why impeachment never happened. According

to him it “hardly seemed worth the effort” since Reagan had less than two years to go. Also, the

Democrats were afraid of running against an incumbent President Bush in the 1988 presidential

elections. The third reason was that the Democratic Party was fearful of becoming known as the

party that “went around impeaching Presidents.” (352) Interestingly enough, Ambrose does not cite

intricate or complicated reasons concerning the particularities of the Iran-Contra affair itself. He

gives only mere political and timing-related motivations. Dumbrell references the fact that the press

was more interested in producing headline-grabbing elements of the unfolding story that masked the

scandal’s profundity. His unfunded statement, however, seems to be countered by a study

conducted by Brody & Shapiro, who researched the time of elite criticism that was awarded to the

affair. The previous foreign policy item to receive broad coverage, the Reykjavik summit between

Reagan and Gorbachev (which was considered a foreign-policy failure), received less than 1% elite

criticism on CBS and in the New-York Times, while Iran-Contra received around 20% or more of

criticism in the coverage. (360-361) Dumbrell also cites other reasons, which are very similar to those

of Ambrose, such as reluctance in Congress to “revive the agony of Watergate in the last phase of

Reagan’s presidency” and the unwillingness to contest the following elections against Bush.

Additionally, as opposed to the Watergate controversy, there was no equivalent of the “smoking

gun” tape recordings. (121-122) This fact was very eagerly referred to by supporters of Reagan, who

even tried to amount a counter-attack and charged that the Boland Amendment “tried to take

foreign policy power away from the president, which was clearly unconstitutional” (AMBROSE,

357).These people seemed to forget that it was Reagan himself who signed this amendment into law.

Lynch has a very unique outlook on the question of impeachment. He says that the Contra part of the

scandal actually helped Reagan. He cites Reagan biographer Lou Cannon, who states: “Americans

were much angrier about sending arms to Iran than about efforts to get money and arms to the

Contra’s.” According to Lynch all Reagan had to do in order to survive politically was insist and keep

insisting that he did not know what North had been doing. Such action would divert American’s

attention from the actions that Reagan did authorize. (CANNON in LYNCH, 226) In spite of what

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Ambrose and Dumbrell say, Lynch asserts that the Democrats were, in fact, determined from the

start to make another Watergate out of Iran-Contra. Lynch worked for the Reagan administration,

which awards this statement with some plausibility. Because they were so determined, they focused

almost entirely on the diversion of funds, since this was the part of the scandal that presented the

Democrats with the best legal grounds for impeachment. Had the Democrats focused on the arms

sale, the more emotional part of the affair, they “might very well have had Reagan’s resignation.”

(LYNCH, 226) This focus on the Contra part was cleverly exploited by the Reagan and his

administration. The report by the Tower Commission, while “blasting Reagan for his administration’s

dealings with Iran,” did exonerate the president from the “part of the scandal that was most likely to

lead to actual criminal proceedings.” (ibid, 227) Reagan skillfully admitted quickly that faults were

made by dealing arms with Iran and then stated that he did not know about the diversion of funds,

thus making finding out how this diversion happened the focus of the investigation. (ibid, 227) This

interpretation is supported by Busby, who also claims that, while portraying himself as uninformed

on the issue of the covert diversion of funds was at first detrimental to his public approval ratings,

distancing himself from the Contra affair saved him from the “associated legal implications and

potential impeachment.” (BUSBY in Salon) While it seems obvious that the Democrats should have

gotten their move on, they believed that their best chance of reaping the political rewards of the

scandal was to drag the whole affair so to have an impact on the coming presidential election.

(LYNCH, 227)

Pfiffner cites the character and popularity of the president as one of the reasons for the failure of

impeachment. He says that Reagan “did not suffer from the resentment of ‘the establishment’ that

had characterized Nixon.” (450) In line with what Ambrose and Dumbrell put forward, he declares

that the feeling in Congress was “that the country was not ready to go through another trauma so

soon after the Watergate trauma” and that there was no conclusive evidence that Reagan knew

about the diversion of funds to the Contras before it happened. As opposed to Lynch, who believes

Reagan would have been forced to resign if the Democrats had focused on the arms sale, Pfiffner

claims that “the opening of Iran, despite possible illegality” was “not serious enough for

impeachment proceedings.” (PFIFFNER, 453) “While these violations were serious” they did

“probably not rise to the level of ‘high crimes and misdemeanors.’” (ibid, 458) His final piece of

reasoning is that Reagan did not prevent or slow down the investigations or participate in a cover-up

(that we know of), as Nixon had done. (ibid, 453) He concludes very simply with the statement that

“as it was, there was no evidence that President Reagan had any knowledge of the diversion of funds

until it was discovered by the aides of the Attorney General.” Thus no impeachment actions were

taking in Congress.

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How is it that a president is not held directly accountable for crimes happening on his watch? All the

authors (especially MARSHALL, BUSBY and PFIFFNER) seem to agree on this point: in some way or

another they refer to Reagan’s famous loose management style. The president was known to outline

the broad policies of his administration but let the details and its implementation over to his staff

and their judgment. Whether this exonerates him is another question. The different Commissions

investigating the whole affair thought it did. While Reagan said that he admitted full responsibility, in

his March 4 1987 speech, he never showed any intention of resigning. Even the President’s own son,

Ron Reagan, as expressed in the Reagan documentary, was a lot harsher than the Tower

Commission. He made himself very clear on the subject, stating strongly that “It’s his responsibility.

[…] Whether he knew or didn’t know or whether he was gullible or naïve or malign, it’s still his

responsibility. […] As the President of the United States you are accountable, you have to be held

accountable.” (HBO)

In conclusion, the Iran-Contra affair, because it became a full blown scandal, is sometimes

seen as an aberration, a grave mistake that happened on Reagan’s watch. This would be a mistake.

The US has a fairly consistent history of interfering in other nation state’s affairs under the banner of

protecting national security and exporting liberty and freedom across the world. The real motives for

this meddling are economic ones. National and or local movements are detrimental to US foreign

investment objectives and tend to disturb the stable environment the US needs to secure resources

and export markets. Especially since the creation of the NSC, the executive branch has tried to

monopolize foreign policy-making in spite of Congressional authority and oversight. After Watergate

Congress tried to and in some ways succeeded in regaining some of its power over presidential

action, however, this has only encouraged covert actions run by the president’s office. Reagan found

the perfect bogeyman to rationalize covert action with the ironic threat of international terrorism.

It is also clear that several aspects of the Iran-Contra affair contain illegal actions and activities. Not

only did the US have a ‘firm policy not to capitulate to terrorist demands” (REAGAN), it was simply

illegal to sell weapons to Iran under the Arms Export Control Act. Using Israel as a middle man may

relieve the President technically of accountability, it is clear that this went against the spirit of the

law. The diversion of the profits of the overpriced arms to the Contras is generally agreed as the most

impeachable offense of Iran-Contra. The Boland Amendments clearly stated that funding the Contras

was illegal. North may have claimed that there existed a loophole, and Reagan may have assumed

this loophole was intended until Congress would overturn itself, the fact that they buried this

transaction in covert actions makes it obvious that they knew they were operating on the wrong side

of the law. Several people were convicted in the affair, but either they were able to bargain immunity

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(like North) or Bush pardoned them once he became President. The question whether Reagan was

aware of what his staff in the NSC was up to remains unclear, but as mentioned already, a lot of

people, even his own son, thought that he should have been held accountable.

There exist two big explanations as to why Reagan did not face any real impeachment challenges.

Some authors focus on the role the Democratic Party played. Democrats did not seem to bother

since Reagan’s term was almost finished, they did not want to become known as the “impeachment

party” and were fearful of running against an incumbent President Bush in the next presidential

election. Closely related to this explanation is the reasoning that the scandal came to soon after the

turmoil of Watergate and the Presidential Office need not be put through another ordeal questioning

its integrity. This explanation comes off a little too easy. Of course another resignation or an

impeachment scandal would have been damaging for the reputation of the Presidential office so

soon after Watergate. Nevertheless the Democrats saw their impeachment threat against Nixon

rewarded with a presidential victory for Carter, so history had already proven that running against

the incumbent after an impeachment threat could work. Also, Lynch claims that the Democrats did in

fact wanted to push for impeachment but that they made error of prolonging the investigation.

Knowing very well that Reagan was known for being able to avoid damage to his reputation (criticism

never seemed to stick, hence the eponymous “Teflon”), they were wrong not to have the common

sense of striking while the iron was hot.

Another, more acceptable interpretation was that the Democrats and the different investigative

commissions focused on the diversion of funds to the Nicaraguan Contras because these actions

were considered clearly illegal (under the Boland Amendments) and thus more impeachable

offenses. However, the Contra side of the story did not upset the public as much as the arms sale.

Iran had been depicted as an enemy of the state and was a sponsor of terrorism. Besides acts against

selling them weapons , the US had also imposed several economic embargo’s against them.

Therefore the public did not understand Reagan’s actions and was outraged by them. The focus on

the Contras was cleverly exploited by Reagan’s administration. They could prove that Reagan did not

know about the diversion of money. The covert operations run, among others, by North, supplied the

President with plausible deniability. In a way, while also causing the whole mess, Reagan’s known

loose management style saved his presidency and his reputation. There was no equivalent of

Watergate’s “smoking gun tape” and it could not be sufficiently proven that Reagan was ordering his

NSC staff to break the law. The fact that Reagan seemed willing to corroborate with the

investigations made it look even more like he was unaware of North’s actions. Reagan was not saved

from almost certain impeachment because it could be proven that he was innocent, but because

there was no conclusive evidence that could tie him directly to the diversion of funds. Reagan

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admitted to the selling of arms to Iran, although he denies that it was his goal to trade arms for

hostages. As the investigative and Democratic focus went to the Contras, this angle of the scandal

was left not fully exploited. Despite Reagan being a Conservative icon, there still exists considerable

sentiment that, responsible or not for the wrongdoings of the NSC, he should have been held

accountable and punished for them.

As a possible future investigation and interesting paper topic, it seems fascinating to

compare the three presidential crises Obama and his administration are currently facing with Iran-

Contra and Reagan’s handling of it. In just a couple of weeks, Obama was hit with an IRS tax scandal

(members of the IRS targeted organizations with the words “tea party” in it), a press scandal (the

Department of Justice went through the phone records of journalists from the AP press agency) and

a foreign policy situation (it was claimed that Obama’s administration kept hidden from the public

information that members of Al-Qaeda were behind the murder of a US diplomat in Benghazi

several months ago). As far as Benghazi and the editing of e-mails go, the White House released the

e-mails in question and it has been made clear that the matter did not entail any real political

interference. (WILSON & DEYOUNG) However, it does show differing visions between the State

Department and the CIA about how to present the evidence in the attack. This does point to Obama

not being able to fully control the different sections of his administration. David Brooks, Op-Ed

columnist for the New-York Times, says that is still hard to tell if the IRS scandal is political thuggery

or obliviousness. If the scandal is “just a group of tax people targeting the most antitax groups in the

country,” then “that’s just normal, run-of-the-mill partisan antipathy.” The Obama administration

explained that the IRS acted inappropriately because employees were unable to understand

inadequate guidelines. This sort of explanation reminds of the loose management style that Reagan

handled: setting broad policies but being unaware of what the persons implementing this policy are

actually doing .

When reading opinion pieces in the major US newspapers (Washington Post, New-York Times), most

of the journalists are fairly dismissive of the IRS and Benghazi situations but are (understandingly

since it happened to brothers in arms) horrified by the AP press scandal. The Justice Department

invaded the privacy of journalists from Associated Press claiming that they were investigating leaks

from federal employees under the 1917 Espionage Act and arguing that this was a matter of national

security. Brooks sees the scandal as part of a “larger cultural virus: leakophobia.” He adds that “every

administration centralizes power more tightly than the one before and is more paranoid about leaks

than the one before.” While it is not the goal of this paper, it seems that their exist parallels between

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the public diplomacy office set up under Reagan and the way the Justice Department today infringes

on journalist’s rights protected by the First Amendment. Just like the public diplomacy office and the

NSC tried to control information and justified this because it fell under national security, the current

Justice Department too claims reasons of national security for its actions (ROBINSON). Because of

these scandals several Republicans are calling for the impeachment procedure, but Harvard political

scientist Thomas Patterson, when consulted by Belgian newspaper De Standaard, does not believe

that much will come of it. According to him the accusations are not severe enough, there is no

bipartisan support and Americans don’t have a long enough memory. However, the exact results of

the scandals and possible subsequent investigations remain to be seen. It is obvious that the severity

of the current accusations does not come close to that of Iran-Contra, but an investigation of the

possible parallels between Obama’s management style and that of Reagan and Obama’s claim of

national security for violating journalists’ and that of the NSC could make for an interesting paper.

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DUMBRELL, John. American Foreign Policy From Carter to Clinton. London: Macmillan Press Ltd,

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LYNCH, Edward A. The Cold War’s Last Battlefield: Reagan, the Soviets and Central-America. Albany:

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PARRY, Robert & KORNBLUH, Peter. “Iran-Contra’s Untold Story.” Foreign Policy, No. 72 (Autumn

1988), pp. 3-30.

PFIFFNER, James P. “Three Crises of Character in Modern Presidency.” From Understanding the

Presidency, 6th Ed., edited by PFIFFNER, James P. & DAVIDSON, Roger. New-York: Pearson Longman,

2007, pp. 446-462.

RUBENBERG, Cheryl A. “US Policy toward Nicaragua and Iran and the Iran-Contra Affair: Reflections

on the Continuity of American Foreign Policy.” Third World Quarterly, Vol. 10, No. 4 (Oct., 1988), pp.

1467-1504.

ZINN, Howard. A People’s History of the United States: 1492 – present. New York: Harper Collins,

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Online material (all newspaper articles last consulted on 25/05/2013)

BROOKS, David. “When Governments Go Bad.” For The Opinion Pages of The New-York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/17/opinion/brooks-when-governments-go-bad.html?hp

14

BUSBY, Robert. “The Scandal that almost Destroyed Ronald Reagan.” For Salon.

http://www.salon.com/2011/02/04/busby_iran_contra/

DEYOUNG, Karen & WILSON, Scott. “Obama Administration Releases E-mails Detailing Agencies’

Debate over Benghazi.” For The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-

administration-releases-e-mails-detailing-agencies-debate-over-benghazi/2013/05/15/e177cc80-

bda8-11e2-9b09-1638acc3942e_story.html

Editorial Board of the New-York Times. “Scandal Machine.” For the Opinion Pages of the New-York

Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/17/opinion/the-republicans-scandal-

machine.html?hp&_r=2&

HUNTER, Reachel. Iran-Contra Overview.

http://www.brown.edu/Research/Understanding_the_Iran_Contra_Affair/iran-contra-affairs.php

KRAUTHAMMER, Charles. “Redacted Truth, subjective Outrage.” For the WP Opinions of the

Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-krauthammer-redacted-truth-

subjunctive-outrage/2013/05/16/de28aee8-be64-11e2-97d4-a479289a31f9_story.html?tid=pm_pop

NEEFS, Evita. “Aasgieren cirkelen rond Obama.” For De Standaard.

http://www.standaard.be/cnt/DMF20130516_00585838

PBS. “The Iran-Contra Affair.” http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-

article/reagan-iran/

ROBINSON, Eugene. “Obama Administration Mistakes Journalism for Espionage.” For The

Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eugene-robinson-obama-

administration-mistakes-news-for-espionage/2013/05/20/0cf398e8-c17e-11e2-8bd8-

2788030e6b44_story.html

Video material

Cover Up: Behind the Iran-Contra Affair, David KASPER & Barbara TRENT. The Empowerment Project,

1988.

Iran-Contra Speech, Ronald REAGAN. March 4, 1987.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40YNPwSf9P8

Reagan, Eugene JARECKI. HBO, 2011.