298 a short history of the united states
in June 1982 , Reagan spoke to a joint session of the two houses of the
British Parliament—the first such speech a U.S. president had ever
given to that body—and then visited the Berlin Wall, calling on the
communists to “tear down this wall.”
So anxious were Reagan and his colleagues in the White House to
block Soviet aggression that he allowed his aides to become involved in
an attempt to overthrow the Marxist Sandinista regime in Nicaragua.
They cooked up a scheme to provide military assistance and funds to
the counterrevolutionary anti-Sandinista, or Contra, forces. Twice, in
1982 and 1983 , Congress barred assistance to the Contras, and in an
amendment (the Boland Amendment) to a spending bill, passed on
October 12 , 1984 , it forbade the Pentagon, the CIA, and other intelli-
gence agencies from furnishing “miliary equipment, military training
or advice, or other support for military activities, to any group or
individual... for the purpose of overthrowing the government of Ni-
caragua.” This amendment was renewed in 1985 and extended through
the 1986 fi scal year.
To circumvent this restriction, the administration used funds from
secret arms sales to Iran, along with other financial assistance provided
by foreign governments and private individuals, to support the Contra
effort to overthrow the Sandinistas. This ploy began in the spring of
1985 , when Israeli intelligence informed the American government that
Shiite Muslims were willing to assist the release of foreign hostages
held in Lebanon in exchange for arms to be sold to Iran. On January 17 ,
1986 , Reagan approved covert arms sales to Iran through the CIA. He
ordered the CIA Director, William J. Casey, not to tell Congress about
it, thus initiating a systematic conspiracy to deceive Congress and cover
up the activities of members of the National Security Council, an
agency first established in 1947 , who were funneling the funds to the
Contras.
What was happening was clearly a violation of the law, and an im-
peachable offense for those involved. When some of the details of this
scandal leaked out, the President, on November 2 , appointed a three-
man commission, headed by a former Texas Senator, John Tower, a
Republican, to look into the matter. The commission later identifi ed
Robert MacFarlane, former director of the National Security Council;
his successor, Rear Admiral John M. Poindexter; and his aide, Lieu-