Download or read book Iran Contra written by Malcolm Byrne and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2017-09-11 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Everything began to unravel on October 5, 1986, when a Nicaraguan soldier downed an American plane carrying arms to “Contra” guerrillas, exposing a tightly held U.S. clandestine program. A month later, reports surfaced that Washington had been covertly selling arms to Iran (our sworn enemy and a state sponsor of terrorism), in exchange for help freeing hostages in Beirut. The profits, it turned out, were going to support the Contras, despite an explicit ban by Congress. In the firestorm that erupted, shocking details emerged, raising the prospect of impeachment, and the American public confronted a scandal as momentous as it was confusing. At its center was President Ronald Reagan amid a swirl of questions about illegal wars, consorting with terrorists, and the abuse of presidential power. Yet, despite the enormity of the issues, the affair dropped from the public radar due to media overkill, years of legal wrangling, and a vigorous campaign to forestall another Watergate. As a result, many Americans failed to grasp the scandal’s full import. Through exhaustive use of declassified documents, previously unavailable investigative materials, and wide-ranging interviews, Malcolm Byrne revisits this largely forgotten and misrepresented episode. Placing the events in their historical and political context (notably the Cold War and a sharp partisan domestic divide), he explores what made the affair possible and meticulously relates how it unfolded—including clarifying minor myths about cakes, keys, bibles, diversion memos, and shredding parties. Iran-Contra demonstrates that, far from being a “junta” against the president, the affair could not have occurred without awareness and approval at the very top of the U.S. government. Byrne reveals an unmistakable pattern of dubious behavior—including potentially illegal conduct by the president, vice president, the secretaries of state and defense, the CIA director and others—that formed the true core of the scandal. Given the lack of meaningful consequences for those involved, the volume raises critical questions about the ability of our current system of checks and balances to address presidential abuses of power, and about the possibility of similar outbreaks in the future.
Download or read book Reagan and the Iran Contra Affair written by Robert Busby and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-07-27 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Iran-Contra scandal rocked the Reagan presidency to its core in late 1986 and 1987. This text examines the efforts of the Reagan administration to recover its public credibility in the 12 months following the exposure of controversial covert operations. Via comparative analysis it explores the impact of scandal upon the presidential office, the problems which confronted President Reagan during Iran-Contra and the centrality of damage-control efforts to the well-being of the modern presidency.
Download or read book The Iran Contra Scandal written by Peter Kornbluh and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran Contra Affair written by and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 978 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran Contra Matters Investigations and prosecutions written by Lawrence E. Walsh and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 602 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Lives Lies and the Iran Contra Affair written by Ann Wroe and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the Iran-Contra affair, the trials of Poindexter and North and the testimony of Ronald Reagan as a test-case of political morality. It draws out the implications of the statements of North and his secretary, Fawn Hall, who were so convinced of the moral rightness of their actions that they were prepared to break the law, lie and destroy vital evidence. It tries to ascertain what was going on in the minds of these people and especially in that of the President who claimed not to be cognizant of the actions of his subordinates.
Download or read book A Very Thin Line written by Theodore Draper and published by Hill and Wang. This book was released on 1991-06-01 with total page 690 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Details the origins of the Iran-Contra scandal, the roles of Reagan, Bush, CIA Director Casey, and others, and argues that President Reagan clearly set the policy then feigned ignorance to escape blame
Download or read book Firewall written by Lawrence E. Walsh and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1997 with total page 600 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The independent counsel in the seven-year Iran-Contra investigation reveals the extent of the Reagan administration's deceit and the effects of the cover-up.
Download or read book The National Security Constitution written by Harold Hongju Koh and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1990-01-01 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discusses the Iran-Contra affair and its implications.
Download or read book Report of the President s Special Review Board written by United States. President's Special Review Board and published by . This book was released on 1987 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Muffled Echoes written by Amy Fried and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ten years ago the Iran-Contra affair swept the headlines as the nation watched an indignant Lt. Col. Oliver North testify before a congressional committee. Although polls showed that most Americans were critical of North's actions and ambivalent toward the man himself, media coverage left the opposite impression, with its broadcasts of "Ollie-for-president" rallies and stories of congressional aides overwhelmed by a torrent of pro-North mail. In this book, public opinion is more than the sum of a pollster's tally; instead, Amy Fried defines it as a political tool, integral to the political process, where vested interests compete to legitimize their interpretation of the public voice. Fried explores the construction, interpretation, and uses of public opinion, raising important questions about the media and the role of special interest groups in determining policy.
Download or read book Opening Arguments written by Jeffrey Toobin and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2017-11-14 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In January of 1987 Jeffrey Toobin is fresh out of Harvard Law School, and appointed the youngest lawyer on Special Prosecutor Lawrence Walsh's team to investigate and try the leading figure in the Iran-Contra affair--Oliver North. For twenty-eight thrilling months, Toobin served on Walsh's staff and came of age into his profession. Toobin's first book and immersive account of that period is the story of a young man's awakening to the realities of law and a policial, legal and moral drama on a grand stage. Through this defining case of the 1980s--which featured obstruction of justice, diversion of funds, and personal corruption--Opening Arguments shows the judicial process at work. The Congressional Iran-Contra committees granted the key figures of the trial immunity, so Toobin and his colleagues had to work in the dark, without accesss to newspapers or television for weeks at a time. The Reagan Justice Department provided difficulties too. On page after page, Toobin illuminates these battles against long odds, portraying the climactic North trial itself with the eye of a novelist. Like a morality tale with few losers and no real winners, Bill Moyers calls Opening Arguments "a valuable account of how politics and law entwined in the Iran-Contra trials... Reading it can be a citizen's education, too."
Download or read book Dark Alliance written by Gary Webb and published by Seven Stories Press. This book was released on 2011-01-04 with total page 817 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Major Motion Picture based on Dark Alliance and starring Jeremy Renner, "Kill the Messenger," to be be released in Fall 2014 In August 1996, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary Webb stunned the world with a series of articles in the San Jose Mercury News reporting the results of his year-long investigation into the roots of the crack cocaine epidemic in America, specifically in Los Angeles. The series, titled “Dark Alliance,” revealed that for the better part of a decade, a Bay Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to Los Angeles street gangs and funneled millions in drug profits to the CIA-backed Nicaraguan Contras. Gary Webb pushed his investigation even further in his book, Dark Alliance: The CIA, The Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion. Drawing from then newly declassified documents, undercover DEA audio and videotapes that had never been publicly released, federal court testimony, and interviews, Webb demonstrates how our government knowingly allowed massive amounts of drugs and money to change hands at the expense of our communities. Webb’s own stranger-than-fiction experience is also woven into the book. His excoriation by the media—not because of any wrongdoing on his part, but by an insidious process of innuendo and suggestion that in effect blamed Webb for the implications of the story—had been all but predicted. Webb was warned off doing a CIA expose by a former Associated Press journalist who lost his job when, years before, he had stumbled onto the germ of the “Dark Alliance” story. And though Internal investigations by both the CIA and the Justice Department eventually vindicated Webb, he had by then been pushed out of the Mercury News and gone to work for the California State Legislature Task Force on Government Oversight. He died in 2004.
Download or read book Saving the Reagan Presidency written by David M. Abshire and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ". . . required reading for all presidents and White House aides to come . . . "--from the foreword by Richard E. Neustadt What did the president know, and when did he know it? Once again, only a dozen years after Watergate, the nation faced these troubling questions. Would we see another president forced to resign or be impeached? Could our democracy survive another presidential scandal so soon? As the Iran-Contra affair unfolded, the nation waited tensely for answers. At this crucial moment, advisors to President Ronald Reagan called home the Ambassador to NATO, David Abshire, to serve in the cabinet as Special Counselor. His charge: to assure that a full investigation of the sale of arms to Iran in exchange for freeing American hostages and the subsequent channeling of those funds to Nicaraguan rebels be conducted expeditiously and transparently, to restore the confidence of the nation in the shaken Reagan presidency. Two decades later, David Abshire for the first time reveals the full behind-the-scenes story of his private meetings with the president, how he and his team conducted this crucial process, his alliance with Nancy Reagan, the role of the Tower Board, and how the Reagan presidency was saved. Abshire's efforts helped Reagan fill the credibility gap created by revelation of the Iran-Contra scandal and thus restored the president's power to lead the nation and its allies toward the end of the Cold War. His unique recollections show the inner workings of the Reagan White House in this critical period: the conflicts with the powerful Chief of Staff Donald Regan, the politically astute First Lady, the involvement of CIA Director William Casey, and Reagan's triumph of personal character to overcome his indiscretion, a feat unmatched by Clinton or Nixon. Abshire's story casts new light on the episode and draws important lessons about how presidents should respond to unfolding scandals to limit the threat not only to their own reputations but also to national confidence in democratic institutions.
Download or read book Perilous Statecraft written by Michael Arthur Ledeen and published by Scribner Book Company. This book was released on 1988 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author worked for Alexander Haig and was on the White House staff as a high-level messenger and consultant during the early 1980s. Based on his astute observation and interviews with some key participants, he explores the environment that made the Iran-Contra connection possible. ISBN 0-684-18994-1: $19.95.
Download or read book Lost History written by Robert Parry and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book America Held Hostage written by Don Lawson and published by Franklin Watts. This book was released on 1991 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describes how extremist groups and governments have resorted to hostage taking in recent years, and shows how both the Carter and Reagan administrations have dealt with such crises.
