This is Democracy – Episode 298: Iran-Contra and its Legacies

[00:00:00] Intro/Outro: This is Democracy, a podcast about the people of the United States, a podcast about citizenship, about engaging with politics and the world around you.

A podcast about educating yourself on today’s important issues and how to have a voice in what happens next.

[00:00:20] Jeremi Suri: Welcome to our new episode of This Is Democracy.

This week we are going to discuss a scandal from the 1980s that involved at least four countries and involved the transfer of money, weapons, and hostages. All topics and issues that seem to be in our news every day, in 2025, but they were somewhat shocking to see in the news in 1986 and 1987 when this scandal broke.

This is the Iran Contra scandal, and, we are fortunate today to be joined by a friend and a frequent guest on our show, professor Alan McPherson, who has written a wonderful. New book on this topic, a book that I encourage all of our listeners to read. It’s called The Breach, Iran Contra and the Assault on American Democracy.

As many of you probably know from prior episodes and from his other work, professor Mc Ferrison is in the Department of History at Temple University in Philadelphia, where they have a very distinguished department actually in international affairs and diplomatic history. He’s the author of numerous books on the history of US foreign relations, particularly in Latin America, but also in other parts of the world.

I’ll just mention a few of his other books that are my favorites books I often assign to students myself, the invaded how Latin Americans and their allies fought and ended us occupations. the book Alan wrote just before this book on Iran Contra ghosts of Sheridan Circle, how a Washington assassination brought Pinot.

She, and this is Augusto Pinot. She of Chile brought Pinot, she’s terror state to justice in Washington dc And then of course, as I mentioned, Alan’s most recent book on Iran Contra, the Breach, Iran Contra, and the Assault on American Democracy. Alan, thank you so much for joining us today. My pleasure.

Zachary, you have a poem to start us out as usual, don’t you? Yes. What is the title of your poem? Same Old Lies. Same Old Lies. Are these the excuses for late papers, or what are we talking about? Let’s hear

[00:02:30] Zachary Suri: it. Zachary. We like to think the lies are new. It’s a story we are sold. The truth is we only start to do only trust the lies already told.

We like to think the hate is young, that the wound is freshly torn. The truth is it’s been on our tongue, a hat and boots we’ve always worn. We like to think the crimes are more, that the law is newly broken. The truth is the truth was bruised before. And tarnished like a subway token. So don’t tell me to shut my eyes.

Don’t tell me that I ought to scream. I can see in them the same old lies and smell the same old scheme. Hmm.

[00:03:16] Jeremi Suri: Hmm.

[00:03:17] Zachary Suri: What’s your poem about? My poem is about, both the comforting and perhaps terrifying, reality that so many of the scandals, and crimes that we see at the center of our political discourse today have been committed in the past and are not necessarily new, and that they often reflect, longstanding.

kinds of behavior that have gone unpunished or, have evaded scrutiny.

[00:03:45] Jeremi Suri: And before we get into our discussion of exactly that, with with Alan McPherson Zachary, why do you think that is? Why do the lies repeat?

[00:03:53] Zachary Suri: Well, I think it has to do with, our systems failure to, punish a lot of these crimes or, or lies.

I think part of the problem is our system isn’t necessarily bad at, at bringing to light. These crimes and lies, but it’s often bad at holding the people who commit them accountable.

[00:04:10] Jeremi Suri: Yeah. Yeah. Alan, I, I can’t think of a better, introduction to your book than what Zachary just said.

[00:04:16] Dr. Alan McPherson: That’s exactly right.

There was a lot of lies, in Iran Contra, both, before God discovered and after I.

[00:04:23] Jeremi Suri: So, so maybe Alan, if you would, walk us briefly through the story here. You really covered this in great detail and you documented it in great detail. What happened that, got the Reagan administration in trouble in the 1980s?

I.

[00:04:39] Dr. Alan McPherson: Okay, thank you. Yeah. I mean, it is necessary to sort of, you know, bring up the basics of the, of the scandal because a lot of people have forgotten it. even people who were alive back then may maybe didn’t really quite understand it. It, it was complicated, but I’m gonna try to simplify it. one way I illustrate it is with sort of these, the Venn diagram, and in one circle is Iran.

The other one is, Contra or the, or Nicaragua. And in the middle is this diversion of funds, right? And so in the Iran Circle, is, the Reagan government with, the president deciding to, provide Iran, sell Iran, which was an enemy nation, thousands of missiles. Some of it through, Israel eventually, eventually directly in return, Reagan was hoping to get American hostages freed because Iran was essentially bankrolling several terrorist groups around the Middle East.

They held American hostages. Reagan, you know, perfectly legitimate thing to want to do. to sort of get these hostages back. There are problems, of course, with paying for hostages, but that’s another issue. so that’s, that’s the Iran thing. It gets discovered because essentially, Reagan has publicly pledged never to negotiate with terrorists, and yet he’s doing this exact thing.

He even forces all sort of Western allies to not negotiate with terrorists, and then he goes around and does that very thing. So that’s, that’s its own scandal. and the, the contra one is that the contras are a counter revolutionary gorilla force in Central America, and they are at this sort of relatively low level war against the socialist government in Nicaragua that has taken, power in 1979.

By the way, Iran also turns around in 1979 with the revolution. so Reagan is also dealing with essentially an enemy regime there and is funding these contras to, end that regime. The problem is that the Congress of the United States dominated by Democrats says, this is, this looks like it’s gonna turn into another Vietnam and it’s gonna suck these American forces into this proxy war.

We don’t want that. So we’re cutting off all funds, going to the Congress, all US intelligence, government funds going to the contract. It’s very clear what the purpose is. We want to end this war. Or at least if somebody else wants to continue it, that’s not our problem. But we are ending it, right? The US side of the war is over.

Reagan is very angry at this and he tells his staff, we have to obey the law, which the Congress has laid down to not fund the Congress, but somehow keep them alive, body and soul. And so what happens is that the National Security Council, essentially takes this mission over, takes it to heart, and starts doing two things.

One, it finds a lot of sort of rich nations abroad, right? The Saudis, and so on. To sort of send money to the Contras. And it also starts asking, private and Americans, usually wealthy Americans to send military supplies to the Contras. And there are many sort of problems with both of these things.

Mm-hmm. in the middle of all of this is one man, Oliver North, he’s a lieutenant colonel and he’s working for the National Security Council, and he’s sort of handling these two schemes, these two separate schemes. Both of them are secret, both of them have. Many illegal aspects to them, and eventually he hit upon the idea of taking some of the extra money he’s made with Iran and giving it to the conscious.

Right, because the Iranian sales, they make a mistake at some point. They overcharge the Iranians, they have 15, $20 million, too many and so North and others are basically thinking, let’s just give it to the contrast. So that sort of solves, that, that problem of having too much money. and that is the diversion, right?

That’s the thing that unites this Venn diagram. and those three things essentially come to light in the fall of 1986.

[00:08:52] Jeremi Suri: So, so let’s break this down just for a second, Alan. That was a, that was a really helpful, overview. and it is a complicated story, but on, in terms of its pieces, it’s not so complicated.

Reagan, as you say, is, personally committed to getting hostages who have been taken, I think in Lebanon, Americans in Lebanon, who have been taken hostage to get them released. but at the same time, he, he’s actually. As I understand it, Wright made it clear that we shouldn’t pay off the Iranians or anyone else who has taken hostages, but yet he secretly does that correct.

[00:09:31] Dr. Alan McPherson: Well, he is not paying off the hostages as much as he’s selling them weapons, right? So it’s actually the Iranians who are giving the Americans weapons. So it’s an exchange, but along with the payment comes the expectation that hostages will be freed.

[00:09:47] Jeremi Suri: Right, right. So the weapons are sold to the Iranians.

That’s the payoff to the Iranians is actually selling them weapons. Right. right. So it’s arms for hostages, right? Arms for hostages, yeah. Right. So the arms are sold to the Iranian secretly. Congress is not told, the American public is not told. So these are basically arms that were, produced by the United States, paid for by the United States for a different purpose that are instead sold to Iran.

Is that correct? That’s exactly right. Right. So this is a diversion of congressionally authorized resources from one use to another use without telling Congress, and then the money that is paid for these weapons. Congress is not told about that, and some of that money is then diverted to another group in Nicaragua.

which was the second, regime change we talked about in 1979. It’s, it’s, diverted to the Contras who are fighting the new regime in Nicaragua. And that that money that’s sent to the Contras is, is not, first of all, it’s illegal money that’s been acquired from the Iranians, but then it’s doubly illegal ’cause it violates the Boland amendment Right.

Which you discussed in depth in the book, which had prohibited the United States from actually providing any resources or help to the Contras. Is that correct? That is correct. Also.

[00:11:03] Zachary Suri: Zachary, how did this scandal come to light? and, it sort of, obviously were the three of us, or at least I am struggling to sort of wrap my head around the scope of this scandal.

how was it viewed by the American public at first, in, when, when it first came to light?

[00:11:24] Dr. Alan McPherson: Right. So it comes to light in, in several moments. in early October, 1986, a plane goes down in Nicaragua. That plane is loaded with supplies, military supplies for the Contras. the Nicaragua’s shoot it down, but the pi, one of the, not the pilot, but one of the guys on the crew survives.

And so he essentially is. You know, kidnapped by the Nicaraguans and he admits, yeah, I’m on a plane that’s essentially allied with the US government, right? I’ve got CIA connections and this is what we’re doing. We’re helping the contras. and so what had essentially been a rumor now becomes incontrovertible, right?

There’s, there’s a body there and he can speak to essentially this scheme. So, so the contra part becomes sort of a mini scandal in October, a month later, early November. A very, a a, a sort of a small newspaper in Beirut publishes the news that the Americans are negotiating at a high level with the Iranians for hostages.

and then eventually it makes its way to DC and then it’s the front page news of all the DC newspapers. So a month after that crash of the plane, then there’s the revolution, revelation of Iran. And so. It’s quickly realized that Oliver North is in the middle of all of this. And so the Department of Justice essentially sends a couple of guys to his office, and within a couple of days of looking, they find this one document that, that states that we’ve got this extra money from Iran, let’s give it to the Congress.

Right? And so that revelation becomes, makes it Iran Contra scandal, right? Puts it all together and the big question becomes. Did the president know about this? It’s clear he knew about the hostage, the, the trade for hostages. He says he understood it differently, but he certainly knew that missiles were going, we were hoping to get hostages for, for those.

He certainly knew that there was some kind of scheme to keep the Contras alive, although he thought it was. All, you know, all legal. And it’s pretty clear he didn’t know about the diversion of funds. Although we can’t prove a negative. We can’t prove he didn’t know, but we can’t prove he knew either. but that becomes the big question, the diversion of funds from one thing to the other.

As to your question about like what Americans think about this, I think the media does a good job of showing how serious this is, how. This goes against a lot of the sort of tenets of democracy, a lot of laws that are on the books. and I would say for the first sort of six months or so, the scandal, the American population is quite worried about this, right?

The, the, the, the popularity of Reagan dips in one month more than any other president up to then, right? He’s got the biggest one month loss in popularity. he’s sort of underwater in terms of his popularity. Oliver North is still essentially kind of a hidden figure. The name is out there, but nobody gets to interview him.

Nobody has really testified yet. and you know, the, the major media are spending a lot of time on this. A lot of magazine covers, a lot of time on network news. I would say everybody essentially knows about this. one measure is that by the spring of 1987, you’ve got congressional televised hearings.

They are all day. And they go on until the middle of the summer. The networks are stopping. They’re not showing all their soap operas anymore during the day. They’re showing this. So that gives you a sense of how important this is. Seven out of 10 Americans will actually watch some part of these televised hearings.

I mean, that’s almost inconceivable today that seven in 10 Americans would watch anything political. Right. Yeah. and so they’re, they’re very concerned about it. And then, you know, I, we can talk about this later, but the, the, the, the testimony itself sort of changes the dynamics.

[00:15:21] Jeremi Suri: I remember Alan as a, as a high school student, I remember, watching some of those hearings.

Actually, it’s, it, your book evoked this memory in me, the, the summer after my freshman year in high school. I went to a debate camp for I think a week or two, and I remember at lunch, at the debate camp, this was on, in the cafeteria. It was at American University. This was on, in the, the sort of lunchroom, cafeteria.

And all the staff were watching, I mean, the custodial staff and others, not, not just the, you know, the debate nerds, but the custodial staff. This was a big deal. I mean, these hearings, and, and, and I guess we should talk about them, they. I mean, they, they not only changed the narrative, they be, became kind of, celebrity moments, right.

Fawn Hall, Oliver North, various others. tell us about the hearings.

[00:16:11] Dr. Alan McPherson: Right. I mean, you know, there were very few. There’s one grainy picture of Oliver North before the hearings began. I mean, nobody really knew who this guy was. He was sort of a low level, you know, middle manager of foreign policy. He did important things, but he wasn’t a big decision maker, and all of a sudden, everybody wants to hear about him.

Right, and he’s got very low favorables going into these hearings, but most people simply don’t have an opinion of him because they’ve never seen him. They’ve never heard of him. They’re just getting a sense that this is, this is a bad scandal. This might be another Watergate. Right? And this might be the guy responsible for taking down another.

Republican president, you know, and republicans are really worried about this. and he, you know, he writes in his memoir, Oliver North, that he goes from being a household name before the testimony to a household face after the testimony. Because at this point, everybody knows what this guy looks like.

I. And I mean, he comes out and he really gives a masterful television performance. He’s really self-assured. He comes out dressed in his military uniform from the Marines. he basically seems like he’s not gonna lie to the American people because he basically says, listen, I’ve lied a lot and lying is part of my job, but right now, now that I’m being threatened with actual crimes, right, I’m gonna tell the truth.

And he says things like, everything I did, I did with the permission of people like the National Security Advisor, who is my immediate boss. Right. And he of course had the, was doing the, you know, was sort of complying with the orders of the president of the United States, his commander in chief. And so he says, I’m just the guy who’s managing all this.

I’m not really in charge. I mean, I make some minor decisions, but no longer am I gonna protect this president who’s clearly not protecting his subordinates. And so the testimony at once make a hero of Oliver North, and he’s extremely popular. People love his persona, they love the values that he stands for.

but at the same time, they start sort of setting up kind of tension with Indian administration.

[00:18:19] Jeremi Suri: And, and what is it about, the hearings and Oliver North North’s testimony in particular that lead people to see him and, and believe he did the right thing? Because a, a, a, as you say, he broke the law and, he was in a sense, a low level NSC official doing work he never should have been doing, basically running weapons to Iranians and then.

Providing aid to Contras, none of which was legal, none of which should have been his job. But yet as you say, he’s able to depict himself as a hero, as a super patriot. How does he do that? It seems to me that’s in some ways a precursor to a lot of what we see today.

[00:18:59] Dr. Alan McPherson: Right. I mean, I think the basic argument that he makes and that the people who are supporting him make is the Machiavellian one, right?

The ends justify the meats. I mean, they’re basically saying, yes, we broke the law. Yes, we lied. I. Intelligence, national security is a dirty world. We’ve gotta do terrible things. We’ve gotta deal with liars, we’ve gotta pay off terrorists. but the ends are noble. One is, you know, freeing hostages, American hostages.

Another one might be even moderating the regime in Iran, right? Making friends in Iran, which we now. Don’t have any. This is in the mid eighties. another one might be fighting communism. The spread of communism in Central America. These are, these are policy goals that even most of the Democrats agree with a hundred percent, right?

They just don’t agree on the methods. but the Republicans largely are basically saying, Hey, if the policy goals are worthwhile, then. Anything that we do, right? Any means that we have to achieve those goals are worthwhile. That’s one of the major arguments, right? Another basic arguments that you find on this sort of conservative slash Republican side is that you know, these people are.

Our loyal servants of the American government, they’ve served in Vietnam, they’ve served in the military. This is the first time they’ve broken the law, and therefore their past should excuse the things that they’ve done, you know, in, in achieving or in trying to achieve, these policy aims. and so, you know, my argument in the book in that is that in.

In sort of unfurling these arguments, they’re ignoring the fact that, these policymakers essentially have did a lot of damage to American democracy.

[00:20:53] Jeremi Suri: Right, right. And, and your book also makes the point, I think, very well, and this is contrary to a lot of the other things that are written about and remembered about Reagan, that, that Reagan, even among those who are, let’s say, favorably inclined to Oliver North and to this set of schemes, Reagan does not come across as a strong, decisive, effective president, does he?

[00:21:16] Dr. Alan McPherson: No, he really doesn’t in this. I mean, there’s no, there’s no, it’s no accident that this is the worst scandal of the Reagan administration because he comes off as, yeah, indecisive, really uninformed, uninterested in sort of contradictions or complexities. and he really refuses to see the reality that’s right in front of him.

I mean, at some point the crisis is in. Is fully blown. And you know, the, the media is up in arms and he’ll go up and he’ll say things like, we’ve ne we never traded arms for hostages. And of course what he means is that the United States asked Israel to give its weapons to Iran and then the United States would give those same weapons to Israel.

Clearly it’s still a weapons for right hostages trade. I mean, you can’t deny that. That’s essentially the whole, that’s the core of the exchange. And Reagan still denies those kinds of things. And so, I mean, and he’s not listening to key advisors when he’s, when he, when this idea of a trade of arms or hostages comes up, the Secretary of State says, do not do this.

Mr. President, this is illegal. And a terrible policy idea. The Secretary of Defense. Casper Weinberger says the same thing, right? This is clearly illegal. We’re gonna get caught. It’s gonna be a big scandal, right? It’s, it’s politically terrible. It’s PO policy. It’s also terrible. They’re just gonna take more hostages if we start buying hostages, right?

They’ll just take more of them. all these things happen. I mean these two guys, right? Schultz and Weinberger, they didn’t quite like each other. in the mid eighties. They were at odds often, but they agreed on this. And so that should have been a signal to Reagan. And Reagan would sort of listen to them.

And then after the meeting, he talked to his national security advisor and say, well see, see if you can still make it happen, right? So these guys would go behind the State Department, behind the Pentagon and just make these things happen.

[00:23:08] Jeremi Suri: Yeah, yeah. You, you quote, of course one of the most infamous speeches from Ronald Reagan.

We, we remember his eloquence in many cases, but, there’s the speech where he says, and I’m paraphrasing, but I think I’m pretty close, right? He says, in my heart and in my intentions, I never wanted to trade arms for hostages, but the evidence seems to show that this happened. I still don’t, I still don’t accept that that happened, but this is what the evidence shows.

It is quite extraordinary, right? I mean, in some ways that pre the precursor to our problems with truth today.

[00:23:40] Dr. Alan McPherson: Exactly. Exactly. And I mean, you know, I, I, I. We can still argue that Reagan had maybe noble intentions, right? He wants to bring the hostages back. He also understands that the hostage crisis in Iran of 1979 to 1981 destroyed the Carter presidency, right?

So you can say that this is something he’s following his heart and he really hates their, have the hostages, you know, be be in, in, in Beirut. But at the same time, I think he’s also fearing the political pressure. That hostages can bring, right? The more hostages you have, the more pressure you have to bring them home, the more it can destroy your next election.

and so he’s, he’s worried about all of these things.

[00:24:20] Zachary Suri: What, what effect did Iran Contra have on American foreign policy, but more specifically, how America was viewed around the world, particularly in these regions in Latin America and in the Middle East.

[00:24:33] Dr. Alan McPherson: Yeah, I mean, that’s a good question. What effect does it have on foreign policy?

I would say relatively little, and that’s why we’ve mostly forgotten it because both of these things are happening towards the end of the Cold War. I. So the, the actual end of the Cold War that comes a couple of years after this means that we kind of forget about it. Why? We just sort of think, well this is a Cold War scandal.

The administration went a little bit too far, and then Nicaragua didn’t matter by 1990, the Santa an east is lose their, lose an election, they’re out of power. It’s essentially the end of the Cold War in Central America. Iran continues. That’s another issue. but I would also say that. This changes very little.

I mean, what actually, I, I met a scholar, at Yale a couple of weeks ago, and he was in, he was, he was working on Saddam Hussein in Iraq and the first Gulf War, and he said one of the reasons that Saddam Hussein, I. thought he could attack Kuwait, is that he saw Reagan as, you know, friendly to the Iranians, but also an incompetent president, and I mean president who sort of wrapped up so much in this scandal, that he wouldn’t.

He wouldn’t counter attack. Right. and, and, and Bush, Bush, the same thing. and so it sort of emboldened people in the Middle East to think that the United States was, was weak. and so that is, that tends to be a result of, of bad decision making at the top.

[00:26:07] Jeremi Suri: It, it’s interesting because of course, George HW Bush, as you show so clearly in the book, was deeply embedded in this scandal.

And of course at the end of his presidency, this is also forgotten, George HW Bush, who we revere for his integrity. Nonetheless, he pardons, many of the convicted. perpetrators, people who had perjured themselves and committed other crimes, including Admiral Poindexter. they’re, they’re pardoned by, by President Bush.

so, so it, it, it makes sense that Saddam Hussein would see a connection between President Bush and US policy in the Middle East and Iran Contra.

[00:26:44] Dr. Alan McPherson: Oh yeah, that’s exactly right. I mean, you know, Bush is a really, he comes off in this book as a real political animal, right? I mean, he is vice president, he’s got a lot of experience in foreign policy.

It would make sense that he would be in a lot of these meetings. so he knows everything that’s gone on with the Iran trades. he’s aware, generally speaking, mostly through his foreign policy advisor that, that Ali North. Is working in Central America, right? Working against the Sanas. I don’t think he’s managing either of these situations.

He’s informed of them, especially of Iran because it’s much more high level. and then he denies this when he runs for president, a DA, he denies it. And, you know, it’s pretty clear he’s more informed than he is, but whatever, he still wins the presidency. Then in 92 he’s up against Clinton and it turns out that he, that, that his secretary, his former Secretary of Defense gets re indicted, over Iran Contra because he basically hid the fact that Bush knew more than he did.

So now there’s extra proof that Bush had been lying about this. none of this shows Bush. Control or making major decisions. It just shows that he’s sort of informed as a vice president would be of these, you know, foreign policy initiatives. But it does show him as very calculating. So one document that I found that is relatively new here, was the, the, the, the, diary that, that Bush had when he ran in 1988.

And it’s really fascinating that he’s just. Trump constantly trying to protect himself and protect his access to the presidency and his winning the presidency in 88. and so, you know, ear early in this, in this interview, you said that nine, this is a 1980s scandal, and of course it, it blows up in the 1980s, but 1992 really is the end of the scandal.

It’s one of the most scandalous parts of it. And that’s the pardon. The Christmas Eve. Pardon? Of everybody. Not just people who are already convicted, but everybody who’s still in any kind of legal jeopardy, right? And Bush says, I’m pardoning all of them. and it’s because the Democrats have been politicizing this whole thing.

[00:29:02] Jeremi Suri: It, it’s such an important point, Alan, that you make so well in the book, and I think it, it, it, it to me seems to be the real reason why you wrote this book. I mean, this is a pardon that George HW Bush issues after he’s lost reelection, when he’s a lame duck. and, and it seems to me that the central argument of your book is that, that the Iran Contra scandal has a big effect on.

Increasing presidential power, decreasing congressional oversight, and moving us toward the world we’re in now, where we have, an executive that seems to operate at times, in, in clear defiance of Congress and other branches of government. Is that an accurate reading of your book?

[00:29:43] Dr. Alan McPherson: Yes. I mean, in terms of the, you know, the sort of written rules or regulations of foreign policy, almost nothing changes, right?

I wouldn’t say there’s more freedom given to the present, but what’s clearly learned by Republicans is that I. We just need to protect ourselves in times of crisis, and then use the pardon to pardon anyone who’s been serving the presidential policy or interest, and then do it all, all over again until we get caught again and we just partner ourselves again.

And so it’s hard to imagine. Donald Trump thinking the way he does about the pardon, right? That it’s essentially a political tool for him and his friends. It’s hard to imagine him thinking about that without the precedent of George Bush in 1992. Right,

[00:30:32] Jeremi Suri: right at, at the beginning of your book, and also in the conclusion you come back to these, what you call six, standards in democracy.

Democracy in six standards, six things that you think, or values or elements of democracy that you believe were shattered by Iran Contra. I’m gonna leave it to readers to, to, to read about them all in detail. The one I just want us to close on is truth. our podcast week in and week out is among other things, trying to help us figure out what is truth and what is not truth in a world where those are difficult, decisions and judgements to make sometimes and where it’s crucial for our democracy.

I I thought you were compelling, Alan, in making the point that I ran contra, made it harder to, hold our officials to truthfulness. can you say more about that?

[00:31:26] Dr. Alan McPherson: Yeah, no, that’s very true. I mean, one thing that surprised me at the time is how much officials, you know, investigators. Journalists were sounding the alarm.

I. About the sort of pervasiveness of dishonesty around this scandal, right? And how much people had lied. And I don’t mean just sort of, you know, keep, keep, keep things from the media, but I’m talking about sort of lying to congressional investigators, lying to Congress itself, right? Lying in the courts, these lies that are also crimes.

Yet at the same time, you’ve got this discourse from the other side. It’s largely a Republican side. It’s largely a conservative side that’s basically saying, well, sometimes you just can’t tell the truth. Right. When, when you have a more important goal in mind, then you shouldn’t tell the truth. And obviously that can be true in some spying situations, some national security situations.

but essentially what the message from the Democrats is, is, hey, the Congress and the White House can conduct any foreign policy, any political. You know, collaboration, if they don’t trust each other and if they keep lying to each other as a matter of course, right? Not as an exceptional thing, but just like a matter of course, they keep lying to each other, then we have no trust.

And if you have no trust, then the only way to persuade people to do what you want them to do is through force. Right. And so that is essentially the road we’ve been walking ever since, I’d say the 1970s and eighties. And every scandal has made it worse.

[00:33:06] Jeremi Suri: Yes, yes. You make that point very well. And I think it’s essential, for those of us who are trying to understand how we came to the moment we’re in today in our, in our democracy.

what had it been different, Alan, if the independent council. Who you talk a bit about Lawrence Walsh, or if Congressional Committees had actually held the Reagan administration accountable. Walsh certainly, was a, who was a distinguished, lawyer and, former member of the Justice Department.

Walsh really did investigate the issue and did consider, as I understand it, he, he did consider actually calling. For Reagan’s impeachment, but didn’t in the end. but do you think it would’ve made a difference if Reagan had been impeached, if there had been legal action taken against the president and those close to him?

[00:33:52] Dr. Alan McPherson: Yes, at least if they would have sort of called for articles of impeachment and had that debate about the president’s responsibility for this. I mean, one of the basics, you know, tactical mistakes is for the Democrats to swallow the Republican line. That the only negative thing that happened here is a diversion of funds.

It’s the most important thing when you think of the whole thing. It’s not that important to divert funds from one scheme to another. The schemes themselves are much more important. Why the dive diversion of funds is also a crime and it doesn’t really make sense that the president wouldn’t know about that.

but they could essentially, the Republicans are pretty sure that you couldn’t blame the diversion of funds specifically on Reagan, and therefore if you couldn’t do that, you couldn’t, you couldn’t impeach him. But I mean, you could have impeached him just on the Iran sales. I mean, that was a pretty serious thing.

But the Democrats essentially were a little bit naive. they were a little bit enamored with this president. It was the end of the Cold War. He was in the middle of negotiations with Gorbachev over missiles and so on. They didn’t wanna sort of disrupt, the establishment, right? The sort of political establishment that wants.

Republicans and Democrats to get along to move policy along. I think they also didn’t want another type of Watergate that would last a couple to more years. And so, you know, they, they wanted this kind of peace, but they didn’t think that, you know, it could get much worse in the future.

[00:35:22] Jeremi Suri: Yeah. Yeah. And, and a point you, you were very light on.

But a point I remember myself from reading Lauren Walsh’s, the independent investigators, memoir is, similar to a recent President. Reagan, at the end of his term, was also an old man who was becoming frail. And there was also a sense that it was unseemly, I think Walsh says to, to go after someone like that.

[00:35:48] Dr. Alan McPherson: Yes. I mean, Walsh’s issue is not really, you know, whether the president has committed. You know, sort of a political crime if you want, right? If he’s done something unpardonable or you know, a major policy fo pa, his question is, did the president commit a crime? Right? Yeah. And is that crime punishable? And is there enough evidence to show that the president actually did this as an individual?

And so he’s thinking like a prosecutor. He’s not thinking like a member of Congress, which is exactly what he should be doing. And he basically realizes. Unless a bunch of other people give up evidence, I don’t have enough. To sort of nail this president, right? I mean, there are dozens and dozens of people who are investigated but never indicted.

And he, he lays all this out, like you say in his memoir and his report. It’s really a fascinating story. one of the things I realized is that most of the documents that he produced, are still classified, in the national archive. So it’s kind of frustrating. But one day. We’ll be able to really write the complete story of the independent council here, and I think it’s, it’s largely one of coming up against a, essentially a deep state that is very frustrating to get evidence out of.

and therefore very difficult to indict people who might have been obstructing justice or lying or committing other crimes.

[00:37:09] Jeremi Suri: Right? This is a, this is an old story that is difficult to hold, powerful people accountable. Zachary, you’ve, you’ve listened to all this, and you had some familiarity with Iran Contra before this discussion, but now I’m sure your knowledge has been greatly deepened on Iran Contra.

is this, a, his a, a historical moment? That, as Alan articulates so well in his book, is this a historical moment that you think, a new generation of citizens your generation can return to and look to for help and understanding our democracy today? Is this, is this a worthwhile area for further discussion for your generation, which largely doesn’t know about

this?

[00:37:49] Zachary Suri: Yeah, I think so. I think in particular because, So much of our politics today, I think can be explained by a frustration with, the sort of obtuseness of American foreign policy, in the 21st century, particularly after nine 11. And I think the roots of a lot of those problems and, root, the root of a lot of that dissatisfaction is in around contra and the decisions made, in the, at the end of the Cold War.

so I think. Looking at the scandal can maybe provide insight into some of the sort of deeper systemic issues or, kinds of inappropriate behavior that have gone unpunished and led to that kind of sort of fundamental mistrust of American foreign policy.

[00:38:27] Jeremi Suri: Right, right, right. Well said. Well said, Alan, to close us out, what, what is your one, lesson for Zachary’s generation, the generation that didn’t live through this and doesn’t know much about it?

What’s the one lesson they should take from Iran Contra?

[00:38:43] Dr. Alan McPherson: Yeah, I mean, I’d say the one lesson is about democracy. it’s great to get into all the sort of spying details and what, you know, Iran was doing and the who the Contras were. and, and the, the, the, the Israeli stuff is very obtuse and there’s a lot of bank accounts, the Swiss bank accounts and bank accounts and the kinds.

Try not to get too lost in that and focus on the damage that this does to democracy, because that’s the thing that. I think really went unpunished and misunderstood at the time, and that has worsened clearly since then. And that’s, that’s essentially why I wanted to write the book.

[00:39:21] Jeremi Suri: And, and I think you, you succeeded gloriously, Alan in in doing that.

I think you book articulates that point on almost every page and it’s. Exactly the theme of our podcast as well. by understanding, the, the harm caused to our democracy by a scandal like Iran Contra, those of us trying to fix our democracy today, I think we, we can use that to help us think about what we should do differently.

How we can hold, leaders in both parties accountable for law breaking, how we can, require that the truth be told by elected officials. there, there are a number of issues you bring up, separation of powers, rule of law, that are recurring issues today. They’re imperiled and hurt by the Iran Contra scandal, and by going back to that moment.

We can see alternative ways that we could rebuild and react in different ways to the misuses of, of these elements of our democracy. So I think your book is super helpful in that it’s a, a very good history and it’s instructive for our world today as all good history is. Alan, congratulations on your book.

[00:40:30] Dr. Alan McPherson: Thank you very much and thank you for your podcast.

[00:40:32] Jeremi Suri: It’s been a joy to talk with you, Zachary. Thank you for your poem. really very moving poem about the lingering nature of lies, and thank you for your questions. Thank you, most of all, to our loyal listeners and subscribers, to our Substack Democracy of Hope.

Thank you for joining us for this episode of This Is Democracy.

[00:40:58] Intro/Outro: This podcast is produced by the Liberal Arts ITS Development Studio

and the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin.

The music in this episode was written and recorded by Scott Holmes. Stay tuned for a new episode every week. You can find This is Democracy on Apple Podcast, Spotify and YouTube.

See you next time.