IRAN-CONTRA AFFAIR
The Iran-Contra affair grew out of a series of covert actions in foreign policy undertaken by officials of President Ronald Reagan's National Security Council nsc in the mid-1980s. The affair surfaced in November 1986 after reports in Lebanese newspapers forced President Reagan and Attorney General Edwin Meese III to disclose secret arms deals between the United States and Iran, one of the nation's principal adversaries. Officials of the nsc joined with private arms dealers to sell (at inflated prices) weapons and replacement parts to Iran for use in its war with Iraq. The apparent purpose of these sales - although it was repeatedly denied by the president - was to obtain Iranian assistance in securing the release of Americans held hostage in Lebanon by pro-Iranian terrorist groups. The excess profits generated by these sales were diverted to fund the American-backed Contra movement in Nicaragua, which was trying to overthrow the Marxist Sandinista government of that nation.
Between 1987 and 1989, congressional, journalistic, and prosecutorial investigations unearthed a pattern of secret activities by the nsc to assist the Contras by raising financial and logistical aid from private citizens and friendly foreign governments. Critics of the Reagan administration charged that these activities violated both federal laws barring officials from aiding the Contras and the Constitution -specifically, its provisions defining the congressional power of the purse and Congress's role in making foreign policy. Defenders of the president rejected the charges of illegality and unconstitutionality, maintaining that the executive branch was forced to take these measures in the face of unwarranted congressional interference with the president's authority to conduct foreign policy.