Ollie, Iran, and the Contras
The debate still rages over whether the policies of Ronald Reagan won the Cold War or whether the Soviet Union, shackled to a financially, intellectually, and morally bankrupt system of government, simply lost the half-century contest. Another episode of unorthodox world diplomacy continues to provoke controversy as well.
In November 1986, President Ronald Reagan confirmed reports that the U.S. had secretly sold arms to its implacable enemy, Iran. The president at first denied, however, that the purpose of the sale was to obtain the release of U.S. hostages held by terrorists in perpetually war-torn Lebanon, but he later admitted an arms-for-hostages swap. Then the plot thickened—shockingly—when Attorney General Edwin Meese learned that a portion of the arms profits had been diverted to finance so-called Contra rebels fighting against the leftist Sandinista government of Nicaragua. As part of the ongoing U.S. policy of containing communism, the Reagan administration supported right-wing rebellion in Nicaragua, but Congress specifically prohibited aid to the Contras. The secret diversion of the secret arms profits was blatantly unconstitutional and illegal.
A lengthy investigation gradually revealed that, in 1985, a cabal of Israelis had approached National Security Advisor Robert MacFarlane with a scheme in which Iran would use its influence to free the U.S. hostages held in Lebanon in exchange for arms. Secretary of State George Schultz and Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger objected to the plan, but (MacFarlane testified) President Reagan agreed to it. In a bizarre twist, U.S. Marine lieutenant colonel Oliver (Ollie) North then modified the scheme in order to funnel profits from the arms sales to the Contras.
As was the case with Watergate during the 1970s, investigation and testimony implicated officials on successively lofty rungs of the White House ladder—through national security advisors John Poindexter and MacFarlane, through CIA director William J. Casey (who died in May 1987), and through Defense secretary Caspar Weinberger. Few people believed that President Reagan had been ignorant of the scheme, but even if he had been the unwitting dupe of zealots in his administration, the implications were bad enough, painting a picture of a passive chief executive blindly delegating authority to his staff.
In the end, Ollie North was convicted on three of 12 criminal counts against him, but the convictions were subsequently set aside on appeal; Poindexter was convicted on five counts of deceiving Congress, but his convictions were also set aside; CIA administrator Clair E. George was indicted for perjury, but his trial ended in mistrial; and Caspar Weinberger was indicted on five counts of lying to Congress. All of those charged were ultimately pardoned by President Reagan’s successor, George Bush. Although the 1994 report of special prosecutor Lawrence E. Walsh scathingly criticized both Reagan and Bush, neither was charged with criminal wrongdoing.
Desert Shield and Desert Storm
President Reagan’s second term, marred by the Iran-Contra affair, a bumbling performance at the 1986 summit with Mikhail Gorbachev, and the 1987 stock market crash, nevertheless saw the “Teflon president” emerge personally unscathed. Vice President George Bush sailed to easy victory in the presidential race of 1988. Where the “Great Communicator” Reagan had been charismatic, however, Bush was perceived as testy, and, with the economy faltering (the principal issue was high unemployment), his popularity rapidly slipped in the polls. Bush seemed doomed to a one-term presidency.
Then, on August 2, 1990, Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, a dictator whose florid mustache recalled Josef Stalin and whose ruthless actions summoned to mind Adolf Hitler, ordered an invasion of the small, oil-rich Arab state of Kuwait. It was the beginning of a tense and dramatic crisis, but it was also President Bush’s finest hour. His administration brilliantly used the United Nations to sanction action against Iraq, and with masterful diplomacy, the president assembled an unprecedented coalition of 31 nations to oppose the invasion. Particularly delicate was acquiring the support of the Arab countries while keeping Israel, which was even subject to attack by Iraqi SCUD missiles, out of the fray. As to the U.S. commitment, it was the largest since Vietnam: more than a half million troops, 1,800 aircraft, and some 100 ships.
Indeed, comparisons with Vietnam were plentiful, made principally by Americans who objected to trading “blood for oil” and who feared that the nation would become mired in another hopeless conflict. The fact was that Middle East oil had become essential to the Western economy, But the issues also went far beyond this commodity. President Bush was one of the last of the generation of U.S. leaders who had fought in World War Il. He well knew what can happen when an international bully like Saddam Hussein, in command of the fifth largest army in the world, is allowed to operate unchecked.
In early August 1990, King Fahd of Saudi Arabia invited American troops into his country to protect the kingdom against possible Iraqi aggression. Called Operation Desert Shield, this was a massive, orderly buildup of U.S. forces. In January 1991, the U.S. Congress voted to support military operations against Iraq in accordance with a U.N. Security Council resolution, which set a deadline of January 15, 199 1, for the withdrawal of Iraqi forces from Kuwait. When Saddam Hussein failed to heed the deadline, Operation Desert Shield became Operation Desert Storm, a massively coordinated lightning campaign against Iraq from the air, the sea, and on land. After continuous air attack beginning January 17, the ground war was launched at 8:00 p.m. on February 23 and lasted exactly 100 hours before Iraqi resistance collapsed and Kuwait was liberated.
New World Order
Bush, who consistently earned high marks from the American public for his conduct of foreign relations, now enjoyed overwhelming popular approval in the wake of the successful outcome of the Persian Gulf War. But Bush did not bask alone in the war’s afterglow. Military success in the Gulf seemed to exorcise the demons of failure born in the Vietnam War, and with the liberalization and ultimate collapse of the Soviet Union, Americans felt that their nation was in the vanguard of what President Bush called a “new world order.” Not only had the long ideological struggle between communism and democracy ended in a victory for democracy, but a bully from the Third World, Saddam Hussein, had been defeated—and he was defeated with the cooperation of many nations and to the applause of most of the world.
The Least You Need to Know
President Reagan started a conservative revolution in America, introducing supplyside economics and undoing much of the welfare state that had begun with FDR.
The Reagan-Bush years saw victory in the 50-year Cold War (as well as victory in the brief but dangerous Persian Gulf War) but at the cost of quadrupling an already staggering national debt and sidelining such domestic issues as welfare and the AIDS crisis.
Main Event
President Reagan had been in office only two months when he exited the Washington Hilton Hotel on March 30, 1981, after delivering a speech. Six shots rang out, fired from a .22-caliber revolver loaded with explosive “Devastator” bullets. Secret Service agent Timothy J. McCarthy and Washington police officer James Delahanty were hit, as was White House press secretary James S. Brady, who suffered a severe head wound.