The Nicaraguan Contras

In November of 1981, the Ronald Reagan administration began the war against the Sandinistas and authorized $19.5 million dollars for the CIA to create the Contras paramilitary forces, made up basically of former members of the National Guard of the overthrown Somoza dictatorship. The CIA, with the help of Argentinean agents, created camps in Honduras and gave food, clothes, weapons and supervision to the Contras.

In 1982, the president of the U.S. Congress’ Intelligence Committee, Edward P. Boland, introduced an amendment to the defense budget for fiscal year 1983 that limited financial assistance that the United States could give to the Contras. This amendment prohibited the CIA from using any funds “for the purpose of overthrowing the government of Nicaragua.” Nonetheless, Congress authorized aid in the amount of $24 million to the organization for the year 1984.

Staff of the National Security Council, the institution that advises the White House and whose sphere of operations had been domestic until that time, became the brains behind continuing support for the Contras. Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, assistant of the National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane, was in charge of the operation that searched to channel secret, private financing into the hands of the Contras.

In 1984 it was discovered that the CIA had participated in the mining of Nicaraguan ports without appropriately notifying the U.S. Congress. This led to the tougher Boland Amendment which prohibited the CIA, the Defense Department and any other U.S. agency involved in intelligence activities form providing any support to military and paramilitary operations in Nicaragua.

Nevertheless, North and the National Security Council continued raising and diverting private funds to the Contras, which increasingly began to turn to the U.S. requesting direction.

In 1985, several government officials, including McFarlane and North, were implicated in a plan to privately sell weapons to Iran in exchange for the release of the seven Americans held by Iranian sympathizers in Lebanon. The intent was to shift the foreign policy of Iran in a more pro-west direction. Initially, Israel acted as the middleman for the weapons shipments. Although this plan violated the Export of Arms Control Act, an arms embargo against Iran, and the American policy of not trading with governments that support international terrorism, Ronald Reagan gave his authorization so that McFarlane could proceed with the sale of the weapons. The benefits exceeded expectations, and in 1986, North developed a plan to divert millions of dollars to financing the Contras – an action approved by McFarlane’s successor, John Poindexter.

In 1986, an airplane was shot down in the Nicaraguan forest. An American passenger who parachuted to safety and fell into the hands of the Sandinistas revealed that the airplane was part from a U.S.-directed operation to supply weapons to the Contras

The U.S. president said openly that the government of United States had no connection with the downed plane. The Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs and other senior officials gave similar accounts to the Congress. One month later, the Lebanese newspaper Al-Shiraa exposed the secret weapons trade with Iran.

President Ronald Reagan recognized that he had knowledge of the missile shipments, but insisted that it was not an exchange of weapons for hostages. Soon after, the Department of Justice announced that it had discovered that part of the profits from the sale of weapons had been diverted to the Contras.

The legacy of Iran-Contra still has not been settled under the current Bush administration. Since he took office in 2001, President George W. Bush has selected several veterans of the Iran-Contra scandal to hold important positions in his administration.