BNL AFFAIR.The Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL) affair in 1989
centered on charges that the Department of Justice and the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) covered up the channeling of military as-
sistance to Iraq by the administration of President George H. W.
Bushprior to the 1991 Persian Gulf War. BNL’s Atlanta branch was
alleged to have engineered billions of dollars in unauthorized loans
to Iraq and other nations. There were also charges that the same
branch laundered CIAmoney to enable it to finance covert actions
outside of channels. Congressional investigations and court testi-
mony showed some illegal activity by BNLmanagers but were un-
able to establish any links to the CIAor covert actions.BOARD OF NATIONAL ESTIMATES.Established on 1 December
1950, the Board of National Estimates was the first formal intelligence
entity to seek to produce coordinated national intelligence estimates
(NIEs). Specifically, the board was charged with initiating and direct-
ing the production of the national estimates, evaluating current intel-
ligence circulated by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) outside
the agency, and assisting the director of central intelligence (DCI) in
the coordination of intelligence relating to national security and in
providing for its appropriate dissemination. The board over the years
evolved into the present-day National Intelligence Council (NIC).
See alsoOFFICE OF NATIONALESTIMATES.BOLAND AMENDMENTS. The Boland amendments were a series of
congressional amendments that sought to define the relationship be-
tween the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Nicaraguan
Contra rebels. Named after Congressman Edward P. Boland (D-MA),
the first Boland Amendment was enacted in the wake of a series of
CIA-sponsored sabotage acts in 1982 against the ruling Sandinista
regime in Nicaragua, about which the Congress had no knowledge
and to which it had not given consent. The so-called Boland I amend-
ment prohibited the CIA and the Department of Defense(DOD)
from providing military support to the Contras in order to overthrow
the Sandinista regime. Boland II, enacted in October 1984, prohibited
the CIAfrom any contact with the Contra rebels. Boland III, passed in
December 1985, authorized the CIAto provide the Contra rebels with
communications equipment and to exchange intelligence. See also
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