The Iran-Contra Scandal

Description

The Iran-Contra Affair emerged as the most serious scandal to rock the Reagan and Bush administrations in the 1980s, and was arguably the greatest constitutional scandal of modern times. New evidence of the extent of the involvement of key figures in US political life kept emerging at the many Congressional hearings that took place over months and years. Bringing together all the available facts and documentary evidence from the entire period, this reader provides a tool for understanding the complexities of the Iran-Contra Affair: the actual top-secret documents generated by the foreign policy decisions and covert operations in Central America and Iran, the arms-for-hostages swaps, the Contra war, the quid pro quos, the orchestrated official deception, and the Bush pardons of December 1992. Among the most significant documents included are the top-secret, codeword White House records and the diaries of Lt Col Oliver North. A complete chronology of key events, a glossary of all those involved in the scandal and a full bibliography make this a reference book for any student of US politics or international relations.

Peter Kornbluh directs the Chile Documentation Project at the National Security Archive. He is the author of Bay of Pigs Declassified: The Secret CIA Report on the Invasion of Cuba and The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability and a co-author (with Laurence Chang) of Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962: A National Security Archive Documents Reader and (with Malcolm Byrne) of The Iran-Contra Scandal: The Declassified History, all published by The New Press. He lives in Washington, D.C. Malcolm Byrne is the director of analysis at the National Security Archive. He coedited the Archive's first book on the Iran-Contra scandal, The Chronology: The Documented Day-by-Day Account of the Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Contras, and is the author of numerous articles on the scandal.

"The work of the National Security Archive has helped prevent this issue from being swept under the rug, The Iran-Contra Scandal. . . is a history we must not forget." -Village Voice