Iran Contra: Episode 6 - Fault Lines

This is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. I'm Jonathan Goldstein and this spring, Heavyweight revisits some favorite episodes. Yeah, I think I want to know why she made my life so difficult, if she had some kind of thing against me. Plus, we check back in with our guests to see what's changed in the years since. How long has it been? Things have transpired. Yeah, the last 10 years, everything's changed. Listen to Heavyweight wherever you get your podcasts. Push Kim. From the day the story broke in Lebanon early November, all the possible outcomes and worsening scandal were immediately obvious, it seemed to me. And I reached the conclusion that at least if you can't turn things around, maybe you can atone. And I won't develop for you the nature of depression and how it can worsen and lead to a cycle of decline. And yet that was what was happening. One of the most important figures in the Iran Contra affair, Robert McFarland, is in a hospital tonight. The former national security advisor apparently took an overdose of Valium as an attempted suicide. It was shortly after 7 a.m. when Mrs. McFarland tried to rouse her husband and couldn't. In the months after the Iran Contra scandal broke, Bud McFarland had felt a duty to take responsibility for it. McFarland believed he was the only one in Reagan's inner circle who could have stopped the Arms for Hostages initiative, and he had failed. Still, McFarland had maintained hope that the administration could set the scandal aside and recommit itself to its foreign policy ambitions. If McFarland could help his former colleagues in the White House make that happen, maybe he could set things right. Yet I still had this foolish, I think, belief that we shouldn't close down the government with a scandal and preoccupation with it when you had other things that still needed to be done. So McFarland wrote down the policy goals he thought the administration could still pursue. The president had achieved quite a lot. That is, he had teed up opportunities that were enormous. And I wrote down what ought to be done in four areas where we would be taking in initiative of importance to our country. When he was finished, McFarland says that he submitted the memo to the president, the vice president, and the secretary of state. But I didn't even get an answer. One of the three did, I'd forgotten who it was, but I had no signal that any of it was being considered. And so to me, that was kind of a moment of truth that your best efforts have failed. You have exhausted all possible recourse for salvaging the considerable gains that could be made under President Reagan's leadership. When McFarland saw that his memo was being ignored, he became convinced that the promise of the Reagan administration had been truly squandered, and that it was partly his fault. Later, McFarland explained his decision to try to take his own life by invoking the Japanese ritual of seppuku, a form of suicide practiced by disgraced samurai who wanted to restore honor to their families. It was foolish looking back, but it has a tradition in the Far East, and it's just more a comment on how deep the depression had become. Around midnight on February 8th, 1987, Bud McFarland swallowed roughly 30 volume tablets. When his wife woke up the next morning, she saw that something was wrong and called an ambulance. Mrs. McFarland was clutching a note from her husband, which she refused to show to the medics. McFarland has come under increasing strain as the Iran affair deepens. McFarland, who was 49 years old, was taken to a nearby naval hospital to recover. News of McFarland's suicide attempt came as multiple investigations into Iran contra were lurching to life. The nation's 100th Congress convened today, clearly preoccupied with the Iran contra crisis. The House and the Senate had both formed committees to look into the matter, and they were preparing for public hearings. After a long debate, the Senate finally approved a resolution authorizing a bipartisan committee to investigate. Adopted overwhelmingly, bipartisanly, by a margin of 416 to 2, the House also established its select committee. While Congress set its inquiry in motion, prosecutors working in the office of the Independent Council were undertaking a separate investigation. Lawrence Walsh, a former judge and former Deputy Attorney General, demand to search for any criminal wrongdoing. Unlike Congress, the Independent Council was pursuing a criminal probe, intended to identify any illegal acts that may have been committed as part of Iran contra. We have a statutory basis to believe that a federal law may have been violated. And then there was the Tower Commission, a three-person panel appointed by the President that included a former National Security Advisor and two former Senators. Former Texas Senator John Tower, former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, and former Secretary of State Edmund Muskie of the other members. Their job was to find out what had gone wrong in the White House and then share their findings with the public. The Tower Commission was most focused on the National Security Council. The panel reportedly has expanded its investigation to include possible attempts to cover up the scandal. Looking back, it's no surprise McFarland's foreign policy memo didn't get more attention. Reagan was under siege, and the notion that he could just set the scandal aside and get back to business was wishful thinking. As Congress prepared to hold hearings, the American public wanted answers. But had the President known about Iran contra, when did he know it? And had he lied to cover it up? I'm Leon Nefak. From prologue projects and Pushkin Industries, this is Fiasco, Iran contra. The full story of the Iran contra affair begins to unfold for all of us to see. Colonel North, please rise. Oliver North has become the hottest ticket in town. The man's become an instant celebrity. I misled the Congress. Seepersley deception and disdain for the war. We were shocked. To this day, I'm shocked. Millions of Americans have a nagging suspicion that the truth has not yet come out. Episode 6, Fault Lines. Iran contra goes on trial, as each of its principal architects takes a turn fielding the blame. We'll be right back. It's been 10 years. Everything's changed. Listen to Heavyweight wherever you get your podcasts. The special review board has completed its work, but it might be helpful. We'll be right back. At a press conference, the Commission's chairman and namesake, John Tower, detailed the President's failings as a manager. Though most of the bad ideas had come from Reagan's subordinates, Tower said, it was his job to watch what they were doing and rein them in. Now you can say that perhaps this President holds himself a little bit too aloof from the implementation of policy. But one thing is very, very clear. That members of the system who were privy to what was going on failed the President because the President clearly didn't understand. And the President of the United States is described here generally as a man who just simply was not very much in control of the foreign policy apparatus of his administration. The Tower report would not be the final verdict on Iran contra. There were still congressional hearings ahead, as well as potential indictments coming out of the Independent Council's office. But for the time being, the report spoke loudly. Here was a panel created by the President, and the best thing they could say about him was that he was out to lunch. This is an NBCU special. President Reagan's response to the Tower Commission report. Fellow Americans, I have spoken to you from this historic office on many occasions and about many things. On March 4th, 1987, Reagan delivered a primetime speech in response to the Tower Board's findings. For the past three months, I've been silent on the revelations about Iran. And you must have been thinking, well, why doesn't he tell us what's happening? But I've had to wait as you have for the complete story. Reagan called the Tower report honest, convincing, and highly critical. Then he referred back to his first public statements about the scandal and admitted that they had been inaccurate. A few months ago, I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not. There are reasons why it happened, but no excuses. It was a mistake. But the time for candid self-reflection had passed. As much as Reagan may have wanted to move on from Iran-Contra, the scrutiny was only going to intensify as Congress prepared for televised hearings. The public and the press wanted to know what the hell happened, how high it went, who was responsible for it, and was there anything that we didn't know? This is John Niels. He's a former prosecutor who was hired by House Democrats as chief counsel to lead their investigation and question witnesses during the hearings. Our job was to tell it this story in a way that people could figure out for themselves what things were wrong, what things were arguably wrong and arguably right, and what things were fine. It's important to note that these were not impeachment hearings. Niels was convinced it was highly unlikely that Congress would ever take that step. Reagan was too popular, and his second term was almost up anyway. Also, Niels thought it was pretty clear that whatever Reagan did, his intentions had not been malevolent. There was one circumstance in which Congress might consider impeachment. According to Niels, the ranking Republican on the committee, Warren Rudman, took the view that impeachment would only be appropriate if Reagan had personally authorized the diversion. He made it the only issue on which Reagan could be impeached. You really wanted to find out as soon as possible the facts that in his mind would answer the question, is anything impeachable happen here? And this survey finds that public skepticism is now very deep, and 41% think that President Reagan should resign if it turns out he knew that money was being diverted to the Nicaraguan Contras. But as Niels saw it, the diversion, the hyphen at the center of Iran-Contra, was only a shiny object. A diversion, you might say, from everything else that was wrong with the Iran weapons program and the Contra war individually. Knowing whether the president was responsible for the diversion was probably the most exciting question that we had to deal with. I don't think it has an awful lot to do with answering the question of whether this was a shocking and really serious breakdown in the way our government functioned. That's what I thought this was about. Millions of Americans have a nagging suspicion that the truth has not yet come out. Three branches must be involved in the governing of the people of this country, and when one branch goes hog-wild without even including consultation with the other branches, that spells trouble. It's hard to overstate how huge an undertaking these hearings were. Before Congress could publicly question a single witness, Niels and his team of investigators had to obtain documents, take depositions, and figure out which leads to pursue. That meant probing multiple government agencies, including the National Security Council, the State Department, the Pentagon, the Justice Department, and the White House itself. Then there was the international angle, the Nicaraguan thread alone involved members of the Contras who were based in Honduras and Costa Rica. On the Iran side of things, the investigators would have to make contact with Middle Eastern arms dealers and Israeli diplomats. It was hard to say where the trail would take them, but even in the simplest scenario, Niels and his colleagues were going to have to trace millions of dollars moving through a maze of Swiss bank accounts, shell companies, and foreign countries. The Senate Select Committee voted today to order General Richard Seacourt to disclose records of Swiss bank accounts he holds. What happened to the money? Who set the accounts up? Who had access to the accounts? How much money was in the accounts? And where did the money go? Now, this was a set of issues that if I had been an assistant U.S. attorney, as I had been previously in my life, I would have looked at this as a one or two year investigation. Before you could say you've done your job. And it was very clear that we were only going to have a matter of months. The time crunch was the result of a compromise between Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress. As you might imagine, Republicans wanted to get the hearings over and done with as quickly as possible, while Democrats argued for letting them go on as long as they needed to. Hanging over this procedural debate was the upcoming presidential election, in which Ronald Reagan's vice president, George H. W. Bush, was expected to run. In the end, it was decided that Congress would have until August to get through the hearings. Here is Pam Naughton, who worked on the House investigation with John Niels. It did make it more difficult because when you put an end date on the investigation before you've even begun it, how in the world do you know how long it will take? It may take less than that, it may take more than that. You go where the evidence leads, you don't just stop. The team divided the case up into silos and assigned investigators to each one. Naughton, for instance, was put on the Department of Justice, which meant she was looking into the weekend fact-finding mission you heard about in our previous episode. I mean, obviously I was there to investigate what the attorney general did when this first broke, his quote-unquote investigation to get their arms around the facts, but also the broader issue of what did the Department of Justice know about the arms sale? So it was sort of a wide swath of things because it involved different divisions of the department. As the clock ticked, Niels and his team encountered an obstacle that was no less daunting than their deadline. There two would-be star witnesses, Oliver North and his supervisor, John Poindexter, were going to plead the fifth. North and Poindexter would refuse to testify at the hearings unless Congress gave them immunity. That meant guaranteeing that North and Poindexter's words would not be used against them in a criminal inquiry. The situation put Niels and his team on a collision course with the other big Iran contra probe in town. The independent counsel, Lawrence Walsh. In a strongly worded letter accompanied by a legal memo, Walsh urges the House Committee not to grant witnesses immunity until after his work is done. To do so, he writes, would quote, create serious and perhaps insurmountable barriers to the prosecution of the witnesses. Walsh's mandate was to identify any criminal wrongdoing that may have occurred as part of Iran contra. That was why North and Poindexter wanted immunity. If they could get it, nothing they said to Congress could be used against them in an indictment. And that the prosecution would have to prove its case was based on other information. As a former prosecutor, John Niels understood how much harder that would make it for Walsh to build cases. But in the end, he supported the grant of immunity. I felt conflicted. I knew that something good was going to come out of it, which was what I thought was the more important good, which is the public is going to learn everything. The congressional committees investigating the scandal formally approved a plan for a limited immunity for these two men, John Poindexter and Oliver North. And here on Capitol Hill today, after months of expectation, the full story of the Iran Contra affair begins to unfold for all of us to see. The Iran Contra hearings opened on May 5, 1987, a little more than six months after the scandal broke. They were run by a joint committee, meaning the House and the Senate were combining their investigations so that witnesses wouldn't have to testify. The joint hearings of the House Select Committee to investigate covert arms transaction with Iran and the Senate Select Committee on secret military assistance to Iran and the Nicaraguan opposition will come to order. The first witness would be retired Major General Richard Seacord, who had overseen logistics for both the Contra war and the Iran weapons program. A key figure who has not been heard from before began to tell the committees of his own involvement in sending arms to Iran and in helping the countries in Central America. Seacord did not demand immunity in exchange for his testimony. He insisted that his involvement was that of a private citizen and a businessman. He told the committee about how his operation had worked and said he thought he was just carrying out the president's policy. The president has certain rights in the foreign policy area. I never saw myself as being a foreign policy operative. You saw nothing wrong with this operation. I did not see anything wrong with it then. Seacord seemed sensitive to suggestions that he had only gotten involved in Iran Contra to make money. There was no intention of profiteering. I know that some people are tossing this word around right now and I resent it. If Seacord wasn't doing all this for profit, why wouldn't he turn over records of his Swiss bank accounts? I relied on the advice of my counsel, let's get off the subject. You're making the rulings? No sir, but I did not come here to be badgered. Seacord's testimony set the tone for the rest of the hearings. Bud McFarland testified next. Our witness this morning is Mr. Robert Carl McFarland, the former National Security Advisor to the president. When McFarland was asked about Oliver North's destruction of documents, the term shredding party was introduced into the National Exicon. Colonel North tell you in the car, I'm not sure if you're aware of that. Colonel North tell you in the car that there was going to be a shredding party that weekend. Well, just that there had to be one. At the shredding party. Would you tell the attorney? By the end of May 1987, the Iran Contra hearings were becoming a national obsession. This is a song from a late night cinema show called This Week Indoors. As the hearings continued, the witnesses just kept getting more exciting. About a month in, America met Oliver North's personal secretary, Fawn Hall. She is 27 years old. She went to high school in Virginia and then on to finishing school and of course in modeling. Hall was blonde and striking. As it turned out, she was a former model. Fawn Hall's appearance on Capitol Hill was a media event. She was surrounded by cameras and security men. Hall read an opening statement making as clear as she could that despite her looks, she is not just a pretty face. I perform my duties in exemplary manner. I can type. That last, of course, a reference to congressional sex scandals involving secretaries who admitted they could not type. Hall's looks were not the only reason people were anticipating her testimony. They also wanted to know about the so-called shredding party that she and North allegedly collaborated on after the Iran scandal broke. Fawn Hall told how she altered and shredded key documents as secretary to Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North at the White House. And as he pulled documents from each drawer and placed them on top of the shredder, I inserted them into the shredder. Hall also testified to sneaking documents out of North's office by stuffing them in her clothes. And then you proceeded to remove documents from your boots and from other parts of your clothing. Is that correct? That's correct, sir. More than anything, Fawn Hall's testimony was about defending Oliver North. She portrayed the Colonel as a patriot, a hard-working idealist whose only goal was to protect the United States. According to Hall, everything North did, including the destruction of documents, was done in the name of American interests. And did you surmise that this was a way of trying to cover up something in conjunction with the Iran initiative or the contra initiative? I don't use the word cover-up. I would use the word protect. Fawn Hall wasn't the only witness to go to bat for North. One of the contra leaders flew in to testify as well. And even though most of what he had to say implicated North in contra activities, what stuck out was the ardor with which he defended North's character and dedication to the anti-communist cause. I still have high respect for Colonel North. There was a group saying that they were going to erect a monument for Colonel North once the Miqaraba was liberated. Would it be possible to make a brief closing statement, and I will ask before I read it, it's a poem that would... Then North's assistant, Robert Owen, ended his closing statement by reading a poem. Olly, your enemies are more clever and more treacherous than ours, yet you have given all you had to give. We have so very little to give you in return, yet we want you to know that in our hearts and our prayers, you're with us daily. You're giving our children a chance to live as free individuals, and for these things we say thank you Olly North. And I can only add that I love Olly North like a brother, and I want to thank the committee for... All this fanfare around Oliver North, who had been refusing to testify, built anticipation for the moment when the man himself would finally appear before the committee and give his side of the story. Oliver North, after months of delaying and stonewalling, finally goes before Congress tomorrow. 59% of those surveyed think North will lie to Congressional committees investigating the scandal when he begins testifying Tuesday. As the summer of Iran-Contra wore on, North had everyone's attention. Not in the history of Congress have so many lawmakers been so interested in what a Lieutenant Colonel in the Marine Corps has to say. For the swashbuckling Marine who once declared without complaint that he was ready to be the fall guy, D-Day is at hand. On the morning of July 7th, 1987, Oliver North sat before the Congressional committee, waiting for his testimony to begin. He wore his Marine uniform, proudly displaying the ribbons and medals he had earned in Vietnam, including two purple hearts and a silver star. North's salt and pepper hair was neatly parted, and he sat straight up with his jaw squared. Colonel North, please rise. He looked young and almost indecently handsome. Here's Pam Noughton again. When he took the oath, all the cameras started snapping. It was like a whole flock of birds that descended upon the bone. Do you solemnly swear that in the testimony you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but your own? Remember, North's testimony was being shown live on television, and Noughton believes that the camera angles affected the way he was perceived. They had placed a third camera on the floor so that you could sort of see him sitting over the camera, and it made him much larger than he was in person. He's a rather slight man, but on TV because of the angle of the camera, he looked heroic and huge and strong. John Niels was first up to question North, and North did not waste any time telegraphing his attitude about what was going on. Colonel North, you were involved in two operations of this government of great significance to the people of this country. Is that correct? At least two, yes, sir. And these operations were carried out in secret? We hope so. Niels began with a line of questioning about why North had felt it was proper to keep his activities secret and to destroy evidence after the fact. North's response was that he couldn't risk the possibility of America's adversaries getting their hands on classified information. Niels pressed him. But it was designed to be kept a secret from the American people. I think what is important, Mr. Niels, is that we somehow arrive at some kind of an understanding right here and now as to what a covert operation is. If we could find a way to insulate with a bubble over these hearings that are being broadcast in Moscow and talk about covert operations to the American people without it getting into the hands of our adversaries, I'm sure we would do that. Niels was trying to make an argument that in retrospect he feels like he didn't quite get across in the heat of the moment. The reason this was covert was not because we were afraid, our enemies would find out about it, it was because we were afraid the American people were going to find out about it. Lots of it was unlawful and that he's going to wrap himself in God country and flag as a justification for telling lies about stuff. The contrast between North and Niels was almost cartoonish. North looked like G.I. Joe, while Niels was more like a pencil-necked, long-haired graduate student. And though North went out of his way to punctuate his comments with polite formalities, the mutual hostility between the two men was obvious. It didn't help that North's lawyer, Brendan Sullivan, was regularly interrupting Niels and raising objections. Objection, how many times do we have to have the question asked, Mr. Chairman? At this point, North and Sullivan seemed to be mocking Niels from their table. Niels was frustrated. What is your question, Councilor? Have you forgotten the question? Well, I have, and I have to make objections, so you ask it again and I'll... You did and it was overruled and the question stands. I'd like the witness to answer it if he remembers it. Could we...he obviously doesn't remember it, he just asked you to repeat it. He did. He did not. Sir, do you remember the question? My memory has been shredded if you would be so kind as to repeat the question. Pam Naughton, a congressional investigator working under Niels, was taken aback by North's demeanor. I remember after about an hour or so John Niels said, well, we're going to take a break now, but when we come back, I'm going to ask you about XYZ. And North said something in the effect of, oh, I can hardly wait. When we get back, I am going to ask you some questions relating to those transactions. That's a cliffhanger of an ending. When the committee took a short break, Naughton and some of her colleagues whispered to each other about North's performance. We were saying to ourselves behind the dice, boy, he's really coming off like a jerk. But then an ABC News reporter named Britt Hume checked in with the committee lawyers and set them straight. You know, we said, what do you think? And he goes, I think he's a jerk. He said, but he's coming off great on TV. We're getting flooded with calls. People love him. At the same time, committee members were also getting a sense of how well North was playing with the folks watching at home. The members went back to their offices and were finding that their switchboards were getting flooded with calls. A people who loved this handsome lieutenant colonel with all of his medals. Oliver North seems to have much of the nation in the palm of his hand. Over the course of his six days of testimony, North developed a true fan base. 44% of those surveyed view North as a patriot and hero. 48% believed North is being harassed by the congressional panels. And 28% say they would enthusiastically support North if he ran for public office. Journalists were happy to embrace the public affection for North, evidently relieved to have a real leading man in the Iran contract crisis. The media took to calling him by his nickname, Ali. And before long, everyone was talking about Ali Mania. Movies, lectures, million dollar book contracts. The Washington Post ran a lengthy analysis of Colonel North's face. The three major news networks cancelled regularly scheduled programming to show North's testimony gavel to gavel. A barmaid near Boston had expected to dislike Colonel North. After watching the testimony, I began to dislike the committee that was questioning him. I felt as though they were conducting a witch hunt. I think it's a witch hunt. His brush isn't that uniform. And I'm with you 100% and I'm glad he's American Marine and I'm proud of him. Ali, Ali, Ali, Ali, Ali. By the third day of North's testimony, thousands of telegrams have been sent to the White House. Very few of them critical. Flowers for North arrived daily to the Senate office building. Oliver North has become the hottest ticket in town. There are Oliver North's t-shirts. There's talk of an Oliver North doll. Barbers offered Ali North style haircuts. Ali for President Merch sprang up across the country. Ali Burger served up with shredded lettuce, shredded cheese, and of course topped with an American flag. Let's face it, love him or hate him. The man's become an instant celebrity. You think of another country where that had happened? John Niels, the long-haired lawyer for the House Democrats, remembers North's popularity rising at his expense. I found out that there were a significant portion of the world that thought Ali North was a cool guy. And that I wasn't a cool guy. But Niels got the appeal and he understood the dynamic. This was Vietnam, right? I don't know what it is now. Maybe it's immigration or something. But the left-right thing was Vietnam. And he was playing to the people who felt dissed. Their patriotism had been disrespected after Vietnam. And that the country had abandoned them in the middle of a war and left them to die and come home as anything other than heroes. And I understand that very well. I mean, I thought the Vietnam War was a big, big mistake. And so if he was trying to pitch me as one of those people, it would be truthful. Pam Naughton says that the deluge of calls and letters had an immediate effect on the committee member's line of questioning. And that's when they basically stopped asking, you know, difficult questions. Just the natural fear of a member. Whenever you put a question in front of them, the member would say, well, what's he going to say? Well, I don't know what he's going to say. That's why it's an investigation. And they wouldn't do it. Not with a witness who had that much public, powerful sway at that point. The softball North was getting from the committee members stood in stark contrast to the grilling he received from Niels. At sort of the end of his questioning, I asked him about lying to Congress. North was defiant. I think we can abbreviate this in hopes that we can move on so that I can finish this week. But almost like a proud of himself, I will tell you right now, counsel, and all the members here gathered, and all the members here gathered, that I misled the Congress. I missed at that meeting, face to face, face to face. You made false statements to them about your activities in support of the Contras. I did. I mean, it's who it's who he is. And it was he was telling the truth then. So that's I get credit for that's good. One thing that was interesting about Oliver North's testimony is that as unapologetic as he was, he didn't exactly take the blame for the scandal. In fact, he made it clear over and over again that even though he stood by everything he had done, he had also just been following orders like a good Marine. I was simply a staff member with a demonstrated ability to get the job done. I reported directly to Mr. McFarland and to Admiral Poindexter. My authority to act always flowed, I believed, from my superiors. My military training inculcated in me a strong belief in the chain of command. And so far as I can recall, I always acted on major matters with specific approval after informing my superiors of the facts as I knew them, the risks and the potential benefits. This testimony fed into the big question coursing through the Iran Contra hearings. How much had the president known? Specifically, what had he known about the diversion of funds from the Iran operation to the Contras? The person best positioned to answer this question was John Poindexter, Oliver North's boss and the National Security Advisor at the time of the 1986 arms shipments. North says he had sent Poindexter five memos seeking President Reagan's approval for the diversion. North says he doesn't know if they reached the president, so committee members will ask Poindexter. We'll be right back. I'm Jonathan Goldstein and this spring, Heavyweight revisits some favorite episodes. Yeah, I think I want to know why she made my life so difficult if she had some kind of thing against me. Plus, we check back in with our guests to see what's changed in the years since. How long has it been? Things have transpired. Yeah, the last 10 years. Everything's changed. Listen to Heavyweight wherever you get your podcasts. The committees meet this morning to hear the testimony of Admiral John Poindexter. Admiral, would you please rise to take the oath? John Poindexter, who had resigned as Reagan's National Security Advisor over Iran Contra, took the stand on July 15th, right after North. Poindexter was more subdued than North, but came across as similarly underpentant, stating flatly that he had been hoping to withhold information from Congress. It wasn't withholding it from the American people. It was that there were a lot of opponents in the Congress that would have not agreed with our interpretation of the Bowland Amendment. They wouldn't have agreed to the Iranian project. And if it came out, it was going to be a very hot political issue, and it would be used to pound on the president. Then it came time for Poindexter to answer the million dollar question. Taking intermittent puffs on his pipe, he explained that none of his superiors, including President Reagan, had been aware of the diversion of Iran weapons profits to the Contras. To drive the point home, Poindexter invoked Harry Truman's famous line about accountability. I think it's an important point here is, on this whole issue, the buck stops here with me. I made the decision. I felt that I had the authority to do it. I was convinced that the president would, in the end, think it was a good idea. But I did not want him to be associated with the decision. John Niels told me he still thinks about Poindexter's answer, and he still doesn't know what to make of it. On the one hand, Poindexter was testifying, plainly, that he did not tell Reagan about the diversion. On the other hand, he was admitting that his goal had been to give the president deniability. He was telling them, my role in life, according to my lights, is to take the blame so that the president doesn't have to. And there could be two ways of doing that. One, not tell the president, and not tell the truth here. Those are the two different ways. Well, it goes without saying. I have no idea whether he told the truth or not. And I think that's what everybody thought. What? That they didn't know whether Poindexter told the truth. After Poindexter's testimony, the three news networks began rotating coverage of the hearings and resumed their regularly scheduled programming. By eliminating the possibility that Reagan would be personally linked to the diversion, Poindexter had effectively closed the case and taken impeachment off the table. The scandal is largely over. Some committee members say this is a suspense novel which has lost its suspense. That may be one reason the committee now hopes to wrap up its work a week early by the end of July. Pam Naughton remembers thinking about how differently Oliver North and John Poindexter had approached the issue of responsibility. Poindexter had at least made a show of owning the diversion. North, on the other hand, had emphasized his status as a low-level operative, carrying out a mission handed to him from on high. To this day, I'm shocked because he is still viewed in many segments of the right as this hero, this heroic guy. The truth of the matter is he took the Fifth Amendment. He only testified with the grant of immunity with a deal. And if you listen to his testimony, he pointed the finger upward. He said he believed the President of the United States knew what he was doing. He was a snitch, essentially, in common parlance. And it was Poindexter, his boss, that took the bullet. It's Poindexter who came in a regular street suit, not in his admiral uniform. And basically said, the buck stops here. I didn't discuss it with the President. I take the bullet. After the hearings ended, the Congressional Committee wrote up their findings and published them that November in a 690-page report. Good morning. The Joint House and Senate committees which investigated the Iran-Contra affair today issue their majority report, a 690-page document that does not produce a smoking gun. The committee's conclusions were quite different than the Tower Commission's report released earlier in the year. It was, in the opinion of the majority who signed this report, the President who had set the tone allowing a cabal of zealots to seize control. The common ingredients in the Iran-Contra affair were secrecy, deception, and a disdain for law. The report was particularly critical of the White House's end runs around Congress. They conducted a secret foreign policy and concealed it through a concerted campaign of dishonesty and deception. And when the affair began to unravel, they attempted to cover up their deeds. But a group of eight Republicans who had served in the committee refused to sign on to the verdict. Included in the final report is a minority section which accuses the committees of reaching hysterical conclusions. It started out as a witch hunt, it proceeded as a witch hunt, and the final report indicates that indeed it was a witch hunt. Led by a Wyoming congressman named Dick Cheney, the Republican dissenters published their own report, making the case not only for Reagan's innocence, but for the innocence of his entire administration. They said there was no systematic disrespect for the rule of law, no grand conspiracy, and no administration-wide dishonesty or cover-up. In their opinion, the majority's conclusions were hysterical. I think what the President was guilty of was making unwise decisions such as sending arms to Iran, but I think he had the legal authority to do that. I think he had the legal authority to withhold notification from Congress. I don't think those decisions were always wise. Cheney and the other seven Republicans argued that the real fault for Iran-Contra lay with the congressman who had pushed for the restrictions on contra-funding. It was a robust defense of executive authority, one that Dick Cheney would later echo as vice president. By the time Congress wrapped up its work, there was one politician besides Ronald Reagan who remained unscathed. George H.W. Bush had been director of the CIA before becoming vice president. He had sat in on many high-level meetings involving national security during the Reagan years. But the committee report was inconclusive on what Bush knew about Iran-Contra. The committees concluded that there is no evidence that Vice President Bush knew anything about the diversion. In the fall of 1987, when the report was released, Bush was on to bigger and better things. I am here today to announce my candidacy for President of the United States. When asked about Iran-Contra in interviews, Bush insisted that he had been out of the loop. However, Bush told the Washington Post, if he were ever to find himself in Ronald Reagan's position, he would expect his staff to give him the facts. I wouldn't want somebody, he said, to protect me for myself. On the next episode of Fiasco, Iran-Contra goes to Hollywood. Olly, you can't lie to your own people. It's not a lie, it's a covert operation. Hostage lives depend on what we do here, Aaron. For a list of books, articles, and documentaries we used in our research, follow the link in the show notes. Fiasco is a production of prologue projects and it's distributed by Pushkin Industries. The show is produced by Andrew Parsons, Madeline Kaplan, Ula Kulpa, and me, Leon Nefok. Our editor was Camilla Hammer. Our researcher was Francis Carr. Additional archival research from Caitlin Nicholas. Our music is by Nick Sylvester. Our theme song is by Spatial Relations. Our artwork is by Teddy Blanks at Chips NY. Audio mix by Rob Byers, Michael Rayfield, and Johnny Vince Evans. Copyright Council provided by Peter Yasey at Yasey Butler PLLC. Thanks to Lee Hamilton, Amy Freed, Brendan Sullivan, Melissa Kaplan, Harold Coe, as well as Sam Graham Felson, Saree Shoklee, and Katya Kumkova. Special thanks to Luminary. And thank you for listening. PUSHKIN PLUSS I'm Jonathan Goldstein and this spring, Heavyweight revisits some favorite episodes. Yeah, I think I want to know why she made my life so difficult if she had some kind of thing against me. Plus, we check back in with our guests to see what's changed in the years since. How long has it been? Things have transpired. Yeah, the last 10 years. Everything's changed. Listen to Heavyweight wherever you get your podcasts. This is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.