Fiasco (2021–…): Season 1, Episode 6 - The Fall Guy - full transcript

Up till now,
I have been telling you

the part
of the Iran-Contra story

that was hidden
from the American public.

But when a U.S. cargo plane
went down in Central America

and a Lebanese magazine
reported on a secret trip

to Iran
by senior Reagan officials,

the contours of a strange
scheme became visible.

And all of a sudden,

the walls of Oliver North's
room 392 were breached.

The country had
a lot of questions.

And it wasn't just
North's destiny



that would hang
in the balance,

but also the legacy

of the president
he had served.

The brewing scandal
felt eerily familiar

to one the country had been
through a decade before.

Everybody remembered
Watergate as, like,

this television event.

So a lot of people
just wanted to write

about the television event

and about the people
involved in it,

you know,
some of these real characters,

when that wasn't
the story at all.

It was far more sophisticated,

complex and frankly scarier
than Watergate...



far scarier than Watergate.

I'm Leon Neyfakh.

This isFiasco...

the Story of Iran-Contra.

Before we look at the public
face of Iran-Contra,

let's take a moment
to remember how it all began.

Place your left hand
on the Bible

and raise your right hand
and repeat...

In January of 1981,
Reagan became president

of the United States
in a landslide.

The American people were
giving up on Jimmy Carter,

a president
who had been crippled

by the 1979 hostage crisis.

Reagan's promise
that he would be tough

on terror struck a chord.

The United States
gives terrorists no rewards

and no guarantees.

We make no concessions.
We make no deals.

Ronald Reagan set
Americans' expectations

and the world's expectations

that this would be the toughest

anti-terrorist
American administration

that anyone had ever seen.

But halfway
through Reagan's second term,

the United States still
had hostages in Lebanon.

While some had been freed,

even more had been
taken captive

amid ongoing negotiations
with Iran.

In his interactions
with the press, Ronald Reagan,

the one-time great
communicator, began to falter.

It seemed the president
now found himself trapped

in a situation he couldn't
talk his way out of.

If your arms shipments
had no effect

on the release of the hostages,

then how do you explain
the release of the hostages

at the same time that
the shipments were coming in?

The... it's a strange situation.
As I say, we...

Publicly,
the president was issuing

firm denials of wrongdoing...

There was no deception
intended by us.

We had to have it limited

to only the barest number
of people that had to know.

I was not breaking any law
in doing that.

...while privately the
administration was scrambling

to manage the fallout of the
arms-for-hostages scandal.

The public had yet
to find out

that that was just one half
of a convoluted plot

that connected it to another
brewing controversy:

America's secret support
for the Contra War in Nicaragua.

It's going to be very
hard indeed for the president

to regain a tactical
advantage on this.

Tonight, they called
on Attorney General Meese

to set up
an independent investigation

of both the arms deal
and the Contra connection.

Ed Meese,
the attorney general,

had long been a close confidant
of Ronald Reagan,

dating back to when Reagan
was governor of California

and Meese was
his chief of staff.

Mutual friends would say
that theirs was a relationship

based on fierce loyalty.

Look, is that...
is that something

that you shouldn't have
with an attorney general?

That doesn't necessarily
have to be the case.

I mean, I think you could have
a close relationship

with the attorney general

as long as
the attorney general understands

that his first responsibility
is to protect the Constitution

and protect and enforce
the laws of this country.

So help me God.

- Congratulations, sir.
- Thank you.

His first responsibility

is not to the president,
but to the country.

I will try to carry out the job

in a way that will merit
your confidence.

I appreciate it.

I've got a problem with
a neighbor out around...

When the Reagan White House
needed help,

they called in Meese
to provide the guidance

he had always loyally given.

In this case,
they wanted Meese

to put the facts together
to help them understand

what had actually happened.

My name is Chuck Cooper.

I was
the assistant attorney general

for the Office of Legal Counsel
in the Department of Justice

during the second term
of the Reagan administration.

My office had been
very much involved

with Ed Meese,
the attorney general,

in trying to identify
the sweep of legal issues

that had been raised
by these events.

Reagan instructed Ed Meese
to take control

and that everybody
in the administration,

in these agencies,
were to cooperate with Ed

and his effort to get
to the bottom of the facts.

There was a meeting
in Admiral Poindexter's office

in the White House,

and Ed Meese asked me
to come along to this meeting.

And we were going over
prepared testimony

that CIA Director Casey

was going to deliver
the following day.

And while we were
going through this,

the person in the room,

who was clearly the person
in possession of the facts,

was Colonel North who,
at that time, I didn't know.

As we were going over it,
line by line,

Casey's written
prepared statement,

I remember very well
that Oliver North insisted

that a particular
factual change be made

in that prepared testimony.

The CIA director, Bill Casey,

planned to testify
that his department

hadn't known
about their aircraft

carrying shipments
of Hawk missiles to Iran

until after the fact.

Col. North insisted that
that be revised to say no one

in the United States government
knew that that had happened.

Ed Meese and I certainly
didn't have any reason at all

to question Oliver North's
understanding of the facts,

and we didn't.

And, as far as we could tell,
no one else in the room

had any reason
to question Oliver North.

As I was leaving,

Peter Wallison
saw me in the hall.

He asked me to join him
in his office.

While Chuck Cooper
was in my office,

we were going over
some testimony

that Bill Casey
was going to make.

The counsel to the State
Department called me

and said that
Secretary of State Shultz

had heard someone
tell the president

that some Hawk missiles
had been sent to Iran

and the hostages
would be released.

And that was directly contrary

to what we had just
agreed upon

was the fact that no one

in the United States
government knew

about these 85 arms shipments.

But we had to find out
what the actual facts were.

And the trouble is
the facts kept changing.

That, to us,
was a very serious problem.

Too many people
inside the administration

were saying different things

that didn't jibe
with each other.

And the president
was getting a little bit

too close to the fire here.

He could get burned from this.

And so Meese's goal for himself

was to make the case

that Reagan
knew nothing about it.

And so he went
about interviewing

most of the key players.

As word of Meese's
investigation spread,

Reagan's national
security advisor,

John Poindexter, called
Oliver North to tell him

that investigators would be
coming to search his office.

North had been taking notes
and writing memos

for years at this point,
and the call from Poindexter

set off a frenzy
in North's office.

Ollie North knew that

Ed Meese's investigators

were on the trail
that could expose the diversion

and who knows what else.

So he told his secretary,
Fawn Hall, "We're in trouble.

We've got to get rid
of some of these documents."

North needed to get rid
of any evidence

that would expose
the diversion of funds

from the sale of weapons in Iran

to support the Contras
in Nicaragua.

He was determined
to protect the president.

Where they could,
Oliver North and Fawn Hall

altered the documents to align

with North's altered
chronology of events.

But with investigators
making the rounds,

they finally took stacks
of documents

and began to shred them.

At one point,
North and Hall had stuffed

so many documents
into one of his shredders

that it jammed.

Meanwhile, across the street
at the White House,

John Poindexter
was also cleaning house.

The only thing that I know
that was destroyed

was the preliminary draft
of the covert finding,

which I destroyed.

The so-called finding

that Poindexter destroyed

was a document
signed by Reagan

stating that the purpose
of the arms sales

was to rescue
American hostages.

I decided that

the first version
of the finding

was not a complete explanation
of what we were doing,

was not important,

and so I personally
destroyed it.

I brought it home
and put it in a can

and lit a match to it.

So that took care
of that at least.

But there was also the matter

of something called
the PROFS system,

an early version of email

that John Poindexter,
Bud McFarlane,

and Oliver North had used

to communicate
about the arms deals.

As Meese's investigators
began combing

the National Security Council
files,

Poindexter deleted thousands
of notes from his computer.

When Ed Meese sent

two of his
very senior aides

to Oliver North's office
to look for files,

North was still there.

He happened to be
shredding documents

as they were investigating.

Meese's
investigators were looking

for a couple of things, one:

whether this had been
truly an exchange of weapons

for the release of hostages.

At the same time, they wanted
to know, was it authorized?

If so, was it disclosed
to Congress?

The two investigators

were trying to be quiet

so as not to tip off
Oliver North

to anything they might find.

Then, suddenly,

one of them stumbled
upon something amazing...

a document that tied
the illegal weapons deal

with Iran explicitly

to another covert
operation entirely.

And one of
the investigators remembers

kicking the other
under the table

and showing him the memo
that raised the idea

of diverting
arms sales revenues

from the Iran deals
to the Nicaraguan Contras.

But they didn't want
North to know

that they had found this item.

Meese's aides, Brad
Reynolds and John Richardson,

read the memo,
slipped it back into the file,

quietly put everything
back in its place,

and left to meet with Meese.

Meanwhile, North was still
at work next door.

Oliver North
and Fawn Hall tried to destroy

everything they could,

but by the time they knew
they had to leave,

they hadn't
shredded everything.

So Fawn Hall,
North's loyal secretary,

stuffed some documents
in her boots

and in the back of her blouse

and turned around
and asked North,

"Does this look all right?"

And she marched out of the
Old Executive Office Building,

next to the White House,

with documents
inside her blouse.

We met
at the Old Ebbitt Grill,

in a booth, the four of us...

Ed Meese, me, Brad Reynolds,
and John Richardson,

and we're kind
of reporting to Ed

what we had learned.

Brad said, "Ed,
I've come across something."

He reported that it said

$12 million
from the transfer of arms

to the Iranians
would be placed

in an account controlled
by the Contras,

or for the benefit
of the Contras.

And that, obviously,
stunned everybody.

Nobody even remotely suspected
anything like that

would be connected with this
arms-for-hostages scenario.

And Ed, for the only time
in my... now, what...

almost 40-year relationship,

heard him use
a four-letter word.

And he just looked
and he said, "Oh, shit."

And that discovery,

of the fact that
the diversion had occurred

was what turned

an Iran scandal
and a Contra scandal

into the Iran-Contra scandal.

The diversion
memo was discovered.

Here was something that
everybody was going to agree

was a terrible thing.

The immediate question was...

what were the implications
of that revelation?

That diversion was a misuse
of federal funds,

had not been authorized
by Congress,

and, at least insofar
as those of us at the...

in the booth
at the Old Ebbitt Grill knew,

it had had no authorization
by the president.

And so it was a diversion
that was completely unauthorized

by any lawful authority.

The investigators
went to confront North

about the document.

They hoped
that he would tell them

that the so-called
diversion of funds

had just been an idea,

that they could just forget
about it and move on.

Instead, North told them
that it had really happened.

That meant they would need
to tell the president.

Ed made clear
to the president his advice,

that these facts, and
in particular the diversion,

would need to be disclosed
to Congress

and to the American people
very soon.

When Ed Meese
briefed Reagan

about the diversion
of funds,

Reagan was just
absolutely blown away.

He was totally unaware of it.

The next morning,

President Reagan agreed
to hold a press conference.

Though he didn't
fully understand

the scandal just yet,

he knew one thing...
heads would have to roll.

Yesterday, Secretary Meese

provided me and the White House
chief of staff

with a report
on his preliminary findings.

They found the diversion
of funds,

and they decided that
they would focus on that issue

because they could
reasonably portray it

as something the president
did not know about,

and that was known
to so few people

that they could just sweep
those guys out the front door,

sacrifice them,
and make this thing go away.

Vice Admiral John Poindexter

has asked to be relieved
of his assignment

as assistant to the president
for National Security Affairs

and return to another
assignment in the Navy.

Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North
has been relieved of his duties

on the National Security
Council staff.

So I was in the White House
press room.

I'm going to ask Attorney
General Meese to brief you

on what we presently know
of what he has found out.

Is anyone else gonna
be let go, sir?

And it was at that point
that Ed Meese said...

Certain monies,
which were received

in the transaction between
representatives of Israel

and representatives of Iran,

were taken
and made available

to the forces in Central America

which are opposing

the Sandinista
government there.

Our estimate is that
it is somewhere

between $10 million
and $30 million.

And I can
remember that moment.

There was a gasp
by the reporters in the room.

It was as if time had
sort of skipped a moment.

It was a,
"Wait, what did he just say?"

Ed Meese's
press conference

shocked the leaders of Israel
and the Contras,

both of whom he had just
implicated in the operation.

Immediately,
Meese fielded a call

from Israel's prime minister,
Shimon Peres,

who stated plainly
that he would not

be taking responsibility
for the diversion.

In Miami,
another denial was coming

from the leaders
of the Contras,

who were now being asked to
account for $30 million

said to have been
funneled into their war.

There has been
no secret bank account

and there has been
no arrangements by Colonel North

to such effect.

And in Nicaragua,

the president of
the Sandinista government

now had his suspicions
confirmed.

It appears clear to us

that this is
a scandalous situation

in which President Reagan
is involved,

in which he is really
sacrificing Poindexter

and that other one
to find a way

to save face
in this situation.

Back in Washington,
Congress was in an uproar.

It's gonna be a cold day
in Washington, D.C.

before any more money
goes into Nicaragua.

This thing has boiled down
into the darndest charade

I ever heard of.

Nothing could have happened
of this sort

without the president
knowing it.

The attorney general
said later

former National Security
Advisor McFarlane

had also been aware
of the scheme.

Bud McFarlane
called North

to see what had happened
with the diversion memo.

North replied,
"I missed one."

With the scandal now
out in the open,

the former
national security advisor

struggled to cope
with his role

in the decision-making
that had led up to it.

Remorse doesn't quite
capture it.

I...

I'd failed my country
and allowed it

to incur an enormous
embarrassment internationally.

And I had exercised
bad judgment

in allowing it
to go as far as it did.

Even with North
and Poindexter fired,

the administration
couldn't save Reagan

from public scrutiny.

His approval ratings,
which had been at 67 percent

before the announcement,
plummeted immediately.

The public didn't think they
were getting the full story.

41 percent say
they don't think

the president
was telling the truth

when he said
he was not fully informed.

It's kinda hard to imagine

him not knowing
what's going on,

seeing as how
he's the president.

It's my opinion...
making it look

like our president
is pretty dumb.

If Reagan didn't know
about it, he should have.

It seemed to me like
that he's dealing

a little bit above the law.

I think he should step down.

I think his credibility is

totally, totally shot
at this point.

I really never trusted
any of the governments

when they're in power.

Now, it just
reaffirms my thoughts.

I feel that I moved to Maui,
and I don't have to deal

with all this political stuff.

On November 26, 1986,

the day after his bombshell

press conference
with Ed Meese,

President Reagan appeared
at the White House's

annual Thanksgiving ceremony.

Mr. President,
what did you know

about money going
to the Contras?

All I know is this is just
going to taste wonderful,

and I'm looking forward
to tomorrow.

But a warm smile
and a one-liner

weren't going to get
Reagan through this.

Three separate investigations
were announced.

First, there was
the Tower Commission,

a three-person panel
focused on finding out

what went wrong
in the White House.

Also, a team of prosecutors

in the Office
of the Independent Counsel

began a criminal probe.

At the same time, Congress
prepared for public hearings.

I'm Pamela Naughton,
and I was assistant counsel

to the Select House Committee
on Iran-Contra.

When I was growing up,

we watched
the Watergate hearings.

Once the administration admitted

that there had been
a diversion to the Contras,

I just had a feeling
I would be part of it.

We actually worked in the attic
of the U.S. Capitol building.

The attic allowed Naughton

and the other investigators
to set up a temporary SCIF,

a restricted area designed

to keep classified
information secret.

The SCIF
was like working in a cave.

And I have to confess,
once in a while,

we'd sneak up to the roof
and sunbathe.

And now I imagine
you can't do that anymore.

The committees
quickly ran into a roadblock

when key people
in the investigation

began pleading the Fifth.

Oliver North and John
Poindexter, among others,

refused to cooperate

without being
granted immunity,

which would make
anything they said

in the congressional
investigation off-limits

in the criminal proceedings.

There are about 13 charges

of obstruction of investigation

and false statements.

Ultimately, Congress
did grant the men immunity

in exchange
for their testimony.

The agreement meant
they would fully cooperate

and also that they would turn
over any documentation

or recordings they had,

including whatever remained
of Oliver North's notes.

He was
a prodigious note-taker.

When the notebooks arrived,
that was a very, very big deal.

And we made copies
immediately,

and everybody started
reading them.

Although the three
investigations ran separately,

each one produced reams
of evidence

that together pointed
to a very different reality

than what the White House

had been selling
to the American public.

The big bombshell

that the Tower Commission
came up with

was the discovery

of John Poindexter's
deleted email files...

over 5,000 emails deleted.

And you can see
the records nowadays

where, you know,
let's say, November 25th,

at 1:00 in the morning,
he had 5,200 emails.

November 25th, later in the day,

after the press conference,
zero emails.

And that broke
the scandal wide open.

The messages
showed that Oliver North

had communicated
with Poindexter at every step.

That brought the whole fiasco
one step closer to Reagan.

Because John Poindexter
and Oliver North

had pleaded the Fifth,
the Tower Commission

wasn't able to meet
with them for interviews.

But on several occasions,
the commission did meet

with the president himself.

This proved
to be a turning point also

because Reagan's story
changed over time.

He said, basically,

"I was aware of
and I authorized the Israelis

to participate in this...
in these arms deals."

Later on,
just a couple weeks later,

he claimed that
he didn't know anything

about what had happened.

So, how do you resolve this?

Last month,

the president's statement
to the board agreed

with McFarlane's,
but after a number of meetings

with Chief of Staff
Donald Regan,

the president told the board
he was mistaken

and hadn't given approval
until much later.

We knew it was
going to scar Reagan,

that he would have
this indelible

Iran-Contra scar forever.

It was something
that I was very upset about,

knowing that it hurt him,
that it set him back.

Questions
increasingly focused

on whether Reagan knew
about North

diverting proceeds
from the Iran deal

to the Contras in Nicaragua.

There were people in Congress
talking about impeachment

if it had been found that
Ronald Reagan's fingerprints

were on that
flagrantly illegal deal.

He's caught
between that dilemma

of either being accused
of having known

or being accused
of having not known.

Whichever it was is bound
to lead to some criticism.

Bud McFarlane
struggled with the accusations.

McFarlane was
under intense pressure

as the scandal unfolded.

He was a lifelong servant
of the government,

in the military, the Congress,
and the executive branch,

suddenly being vilified

as someone who might
bring down the president.

This was how
everything was cast.

What we had done

could cost Ronald Reagan
his presidency.

I reached the conclusion

that, at least,
if you can't turn things around,

maybe you can atone
for what's happened here

by acknowledging
your own role in it

and your failure in it.

Before he was to meet

with the Tower Commission
for his third interview,

McFarlane grew
increasingly desperate.

He drafted letters
to his wife, to his lawyer,

and to members of the House

and Senate
Intelligence Committees.

Then he swallowed
at least 20 pills of Valium.

One of the most
important figures

in the Iran-Contra affair,

Robert McFarlane,
is in a hospital tonight.

The former
national security advisor

apparently took
an overdose of Valium,

a tranquilizer often prescribed
to ease stress and anxiety.

It was foolish,
looking back,

but it's just
more a comment

on how deep
the depression had become.

And I won't develop for you
the nature of depression

and how it develops
and how it can worsen

and lead to a cycle
of decline.

And yet, that was
what was happening.

It was very, very,
very hard for him.

And as some people say,
there are some people

who bend under pressure
and some who break.

And at a certain point,
Bud broke,

and it led him
to try to commit suicide.

And I understand that.

Those
who were involved, sure,

they all bear a measure
of responsibility.

But they weren't
decision-makers.

I was, effectively.

Everything that got done
in that administration

on national security affairs,

it did so because
I had approved it,

I had recommended it,

and the president had approved
what I had urged.

I could only atone
from here on out

by being honest
and telling the truth

and not taking the Fifth.

On February 28, 1987,

Reagan's long-time
speechwriter, Landon Parvin,

drove through the back gates
of the White House

towards the East Wing.

In his briefcase,
he had secreted

a thickly bound packet,

covered with his own
underlines and notes

from interviews he had done
with Reagan's staff.

My name is Landon Parvin,

and I was
a Reagan speechwriter.

Parvin had
the reputation of someone

who could write a politician
out of any tough bind.

Iran-Contra was a job
for Landon Parvin.

I definitely felt
it was a crisis.

You could feel it on the news.

You could feel it
in the building.

I felt it...
the people I talked to.

The Tower Report,
as it came to be called,

had just been released.

Please be seated.

Yes, the president
made mistakes.

I think that's
very plain English.

The president
did make mistakes.

Nancy Reagan
had set up a secret meeting

in the White House residence

to craft her husband's
public response.

Going into that Friday meeting,
he looked upset.

He looked shaken.

You know, he usually had
an ebullience about him,

but I didn't detect that.

He was dressed very casually.

He was in a... he was
in a running suit, I think.

The casualness of his dress

belied, I think,
how seriously he was taking it.

John Tower was very direct,

and the big question

was whether
the president could admit

he traded arms for hostages.

Everyone said he had...
he had to.

I mean, there was
talk of impeachment.

So this was not something
that could be dismissed.

It had to be addressed.

In 300 sobering pages,

the Tower Report
sharply criticized

the Reagan administration.

The president's aides
were accused

of hiding information
from Congress

and failing
to adequately convey

to the president the risks
of what they were doing.

The report saved
its harshest critique

for President Reagan himself,

saying that, as a leader,
he had been out to lunch.

Everyone at the meeting agreed

that he would now
need to come out

and admit to the arms deals.

Everyone, that is,
except for Ronald Reagan.

I go home,
and I start writing.

What I was most worried about

was how the president
would react

to admitting he traded arms
for hostages.

And I had been in a dilemma

how to say it
so he would accept it.

I figured out the psychology
of how to get him

to accept something
he didn't want to accept.

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.

We had a window there,

while he was shaken up by it,

that he could say
what needed to be said.

That window soon closed.

In the coming months,

practically everyone
on Reagan's team

would lay out their version
of events under oath.

It would be up
to the public to decipher

if what they were
saying was true.

Good evening. Throughout
the Iran-Contra affair,

a central question has been...

what did President Reagan know
and when did he know it?

29 remotely controlled
still cameras

will record the scene

as will every television
network in America.

In May of 1987,
the world tuned in to watch

the joint House
and Senate hearings.

By now, interest
in the scandal

was at a fever pitch.

The line to get

into the Senate Russell
Building Caucus Room

was early and long.

This is an historic moment.
It's like Watergate.

The Senate hearings were

in the big Caucus Room.

People will recognize it

because it has the big
high-back chairs in the back.

Very ornate.

It was a spectacle.

The joint hearings of
the House Select Committee

to investigate covert
arms transactions

with Iran will come to order.

Normally, in a courtroom,

you're within ten feet
of the witness box.

You can have a dialogue
with the witness,

and it's unobstructed.

When you're in Congress,
you're up on this dais,

the witness is down
in the well,

and there's 50 photographers
between you,

and they're constantly
snapping like little birds.

They're crawling around
and walking around,

and people are going in and out
of the hearing room.

We had demonstrators.
We had people holding signs.

Why don't you ask him
about how many noncombatants

have been killed
by this putrid...?

It's an almost
impossible forum

in which to find the facts.

Mr. Secord,
will you please rise?

First to testify
was Richard Secord.

Remember him?

He had managed the logistics
of the Iran arms sales

and the resupply operation
to the Contras.

Do you swear to tell
the truth,

the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth,

- so help you God?
- I do.

Secord agreed
to testify without immunity,

which meant that
anything he said

could be used against him
in the criminal investigation.

My lawyer thought
I was insane

for insisting on doing that.

Am I correct, Mr. Secord,
that you were engaged

in selling arms
to the Contras for profit?

That's correct.

My position was

if we allow the others
to go first,

after they grant immunity,
the storyline will be set,

and we'll never
recover from it.

Did you testify yesterday

that you directed your
secretary to shred documents?

Didn't you tell us
also you had wanted

to talk to the president
of the United States?

Was it ever contemplated

that you would obtain profits

or any other kind
of remuneration

in connection
with the Iranian initiative?

No. None.

I have no idea, sir.
I don't remember.

There are some deeply
troubling aspects

to your testimony,
and I guess that's the point

of the hard questions
that have been posed.

A couple of the attorneys
harassed me

until I thought
I couldn't stand it.

But I'm glad we did it that way.

We got a special prosecutor
over here across the street

that's trying to throw
all of us in jail

for performing our duty
as we saw it.

I haven't focused
on some technical issue

like you're bringing up here.
This is crazy.

Secord's defiant,
unapologetic testimony

set the tone
for what was to come...

testy exchanges with counsel
and bombshell revelations.

The following week,
Bud McFarlane took the stand.

- I do.
- Thank you.

And he too spoke
without immunity.

To have done nothing,
while safe,

would have been
irresponsible.

That there are many other
issues that are of great...

- Senate House Committee...
- Democracy.

More than
the legal argument...

Their policies with...

Is this the first
you ever heard

of a November 1985
Hawk shipment?

I do believe it was.

I was the lead interrogator

at the hearings
for Chuck Cooper.

I had to prepare
the testimony,

and in order
that I could concentrate,

the chairman
of the Judiciary Committee

let me use his private office.

I wanted to do a good job,
and he's trying to buck me up,

and he says, "You know,
I just wanna tell you,"

he says, "You're gonna be
the first woman lawyer ever

"to ask a question

"at any congressional...
major congressional hearing.

Think about that.
I know you can do it."

Well, that wasn't
exactly helping.

Our first witness
this morning

will be Mr. Charles Cooper.

When we got to the testimony

and Chairman Inouye called
on me to start the questioning,

he referred to me
as Mr. Naughton.

Mr. Naughton?

Oh, Ms. Naughton.
I'm sorry.

I almost wanted to say,
"Thank you, Ms. Chairman,"

but I decided not to do that.

- Good morning, Mr. Cooper.
- Good morning.

Mr. Cooper, did you have
any knowledge of U.S. sales

of military equipment to Iran
prior to November 1986?

I did not.

In a congressional
investigation,

there are essentially
no rules.

There's no judge who's gonna
discipline the witness

and/or his lawyer
because nobody hit the gavel

and said that
you're out of order.

Once you ask your question,

they can go talk
about the moon

or the sun and the stars,
and you have no control.

Did anyone else in the room
during that meeting

mention CIA involvement
in the 1985 Hawk shipment?

Uh, I am drawing a blank
from my memory.

If I could consult the notes
I took at that meeting...

It's very frustrating.

Thank you very much,
Mr. Cooper.

Mr. Chairman, that ends
my examination of the witness.

The hearing will please
come to order.

While the hearings
dominated the airwaves,

the president himself
ignored the coverage.

We were in Italy in 1987

for the economic summit,
the G7.

We had a break,
and we went back to our hotel,

said,
"Hey, we've got some time.

You want to put
the hearings on?"

He said, "Sure.
Let's see what's going on."

He was probably everybody's...

every secretary's
dream of a boss.

Fawn Hall was testifying,

and Reagan's looking at her,
and I'm looking at her.

And Reagan said to me...
he looked at me and he said,

"Jim," he said,
"So that's who Fawn Hall is."

And I said, "Yeah."

I said, "I wouldn't
have known her either."

It's the eve
of the Oliver North testimony,

and there is
great anticipation,

but no advance word
on what he will say.

North's four days
of testimony

should be a climactic moment,

when the committee begins
getting answers

to some of the key questions.

North's long-awaited
public testimony

begins tomorrow morning.

The hearing will
please come to order.

Once Oliver North
was granted criminal immunity,

he finally appeared
before the committee.

The world was eager to hear

whether he had received
approval from the president,

whether he had personally
profited from the deals,

and how he had carried out
the cover-up.

Colonel North, please rise.

Oliver North took hold
of that proceeding

and made it his own.

He came dressed
in his full uniform

with his medals.

Do you solemnly swear...

He just looked like this
red-blooded American hero.

- I do.
- Please be seated.

Usually,
congressional investigators

expect a witness before them

to be contrite
or perhaps evasive.

But Ollie North
turned the tables on them

by going on the offense.

I believe that this is
a strange process

that you are putting me
and others through.

Thousands of hours
of testimony.

You make the rulings
as to what is proper

and what is not proper.

From where I sit,
it is not the fairest process.

Plain and simple,
the Congress is to blame

because of the fickle,
vacillating,

unpredictable,
on-again-off-again policy

toward the Nicaraguan
Democratic Resistance.

And the poor members

of the congressional committee

didn't quite know
what they were up against.

- Lieutenant...
- First of all,

I'm a Lieutenant Colonel.

I have been
a Lieutenant Colonel

for a couple of years now.

The government of the United
States gave me a shredder.

I mean, I didn't buy it myself.

I did not discuss this

with the attorney general
until January.

It wasn't some
secret Ollie North

in the middle of the night,
flying off on his own hook.

Ollie North didn't do that.

You're misunderstanding
what I said.

With the Vietnam War

still a recent memory,

the former marine
facing a majority

Democrat congress
reignited old tensions.

Would that have made
a difference?

You're the person
who surfaced it.

Don't get angry, counsel.

I'm gonna answer
your question.

That came off even better

when you put him across

from the House lead counsel,
John Nields,

who was this kind
of hippy-looking guy,

with hair down
to his shoulders.

This is the culture wars,

you know,
embodied in these two people.

- Where are these memoranda?
- Which memoranda?

The memoranda that you sent up

seeking
the president's approval.

I think I shredded
most of that.

Did I... did I get them all?

He was guilty as sin.

They had him dead to rights.

But by the time he testified,

much of that
didn't seem to matter

for a large part of the country

because Ollie North was such

a terrifically effective
communicator at saying,

in effect, "I did it all
for love of country,

"to protect American lives,

and I would do it all again."

I saw that idea

of using
the Ayatollah Khomeini's money

to support the Nicaraguan
freedom fighters

as a good one.

I still do.

North seemed to inspire

a kind of fever dream
on the right...

Ollie! Ollie! Ollie!

Setting off a craze

that came to be known
as "Olliemania."

The appeal
of Oliver North, the man,

swept the country
as the week went along.

North has dominated
the front page

of theDenver Post all week.

He's definitely
winning the hearts of America.

He doesn't seem
like a crazed patriot,

which I think is
what I expected.

Seemed like
an all-American boy.

They feel Ollie North
is a hero.

But North's testimony

was not the final word
on the scandal.

The joint hearings of
the House and Senate committees

will come to order.

And although Reagan
reportedly did not tune in

to much of the hearings,

there was one witness
he was eager to hear from.

Admiral Poindexter, would you
stand to take the oath, please?

That of
his national security adviser,

John Poindexter,

who had overseen
much of North's activity.

We were on Air Force One.

Reagan and I were just
talking about the day.

And he took his hand,
and he crossed his fingers,

and he said, "This is the day

"that John Poindexter
will clear me once and for all.

"He will tell Congress,

"and at the same time
will be telling the world,

that I did not know
about the diversion of funds."

I made
a very deliberate decision

not to ask the president

so that I could insulate him
from the decision.

You know, the buck
stops here with me.

I made the decision.

I felt that I had
the authority to do it.

I thought it was a good idea.

But I did not want him to be
associated with the decision.

Once Poindexter
told the world

that Reagan had not known
about the diversion,

the air kind of left
the Iran-Contra scandal.

Nevertheless,
towards the end of the year,

the congressional
committees delivered

their final report
on the affair.

In it,
they identified malfeasance

from within the administration's
top ranks.

The common ingredients
in the Iran-Contra affair

were secrecy, deception,
and a disdain for law.

But there was only
so much responsibility

that men like Poindexter, North,
and McFarlane could hold.

"The ultimate responsibility
for Iran-Contra,"

the report said,
"rested with the president."

We believe that
the president is responsible

for the actions
and attitudes of his staff.

If the president did not know,
he should have.

Iran-Contra
is unusual as a scandal

because there is so much
on the public record

about what happened.

So we actually know a lot more

about the covert world
from Iran-Contra

than we do from almost any
other story of that generation.

But we still don't know
for a fact

whether Ronald Reagan
knew about

or approved
the diversion of funds.

Ultimately, Congress
found President Reagan

to be a negligent leader.

But without the full story
of what he knew

and when he knew it,
and without public support,

they decided against
trying to impeach him.

In those days,
impeachment was not something

that the Congress
talked a lot about.

And it was a very
unusual weapon to use.

Even though it was used
against President Nixon,

I think the sense was

it was not something
that should be abused.

With impeachment
off the table,

Reagan was free and clear
to finish his second term.

You know,
Reagan was always focused

on the positiveness
of any situation.

When he had his major surgery
to get the tumor out,

immediately thereafter, the head
of the National Cancer Institute

held a press conference
and made the broad statement,

"President Reagan has cancer."

But Reagan...

In interviews
following his surgery,

Reagan said over and over again
that he never had cancer.

And people would pause,
"Well, what do you mean?"

And he said,
"Well, I didn't have cancer.

This tumor, it had cancer,
but I didn't have cancer."

And that was Reagan's way
of rationalizing,

always taking the bright side,
the sunny side.

He was the eternal optimist.

By 1988,

Reagan's final year
in the White House,

criminal charges
were being filed

against many of the people
involved in Iran-Contra.

But by that point,
the majority of the country

seemed to have simply moved on.

The show was over.

There was
a large chunk of society

that was sitting there going,

"How is he getting away
with this?"

But there was another chunk
of society going,

"Move on.
We've got other things to do."

And, in fact,
big events were happening.

Gorbachev was in power.

Reagan was meeting
with him in Reykjavik,

and they were starting
to dismantle

the nuclear machinery.

It is my impression

that we can deal
with President Reagan.

We can continue dialogue
with him.

We can continue
searching for solutions.

And the Cold War
was about to end.

All sorts of things were going
on that overtook Iran-Contra

and put it
on the sidelines of history.

Nine days before
he left the White House,

there was one subject
nagging Reagan's presidency.

There were still
several hostages

being held captive in Beirut.

Some of them had been abducted
during his time in office.

What about the American
hostages in Lebanon?

Do you think there is
any chance

that they may be released
as you're leaving office?

I can only pray and continue
what we've... We've been exploring

every channel possible
for their release.

And they've never been
out of my mind

since they were
so unfairly seized.

When Reagan
finished his second term,

he held the highest approval
rating of any president

since Franklin Roosevelt.

Smile.

And his vice president,

George H.W. Bush,

was voted in as his successor.

That I will faithfully execute

the office of president
of the United States.

Meanwhile,
Bush and the rest

of the administration continued

to face scrutiny
from criminal investigators.

The independent counsel probe,
initiated back in 1986,

revealed wrongdoing

at the highest levels
of the White House,

leading to felony
and misdemeanor charges

against multiple members
of Reagan's administration.

That included Oliver North
and John Poindexter.

In the end, there were
plenty of convictions,

but most of them
were ultimately undone.

Happy Thanksgiving.

On George H.W. Bush's

first Thanksgiving as president,

he instituted the turkey pardon
as a permanent annual tradition.

Let me assure you,
and this fine tom turkey,

that he will not end up
on anyone's dinner table.

Not this guy.

He is granted a presidential
pardon as of right now.

For Bush, it turned
out to be good practice.

On Christmas Eve,
a few years later,

he held another
pardoning ceremony,

this time granting clemency
to several top officials

implicated
in the Iran-Contra scandal.

Mr. Bush granted
executive clemency

to six public officials

involved
in the Iran-Contra affair.

The Constitution is quite clear
on the powers of the president,

and sometimes the president has
to make a very difficult call,

and that's what I have done.

Independent counsel
Lawrence Walsh

says the lesson is clear.

Is the message here,
if you work for the government,

you're above the law?

That depends on the president
you work for.

Lawrence Walsh,
the independent counsel,

famously said
of the Bush pardons

that they completed
the cover-up.

He was exactly right.

The Bush pardons
basically shut the door

on further investigation
and accountability

in the Iran-Contra scandal.

Most all of the key officials

who authorized
and implemented

those operations
got off scot-free.

Yes, their lives
were disrupted for a while.

Arguably, their legacies
weren't even really dented.

They went on to lead
the rest of their lives.

But the lesson
was really not learned,

and the safeguards
against preventing

these extra-constitutionally
illegal abuses of power

from happening again
were really not put in place.

And it is just a matter of time

before we have other scandals
of similar magnitude.

To me, one of the big lessons

of this entire affair

is how enormous
the discretionary powers

of the president
of the United States are.

Congress,
or the American public,

can try and limit
a president with laws,

with regulations, with norms.

But we and the Congress
have granted

so many discretionary powers
to a president,

whether it's
by how he can use funds,

how he can use the CIA,

how he or she can simply
pick up the telephone

and call a foreign leader
and ask for a favor.

It may eventually turn
into a scandal.

It may eventually damage
that president's standing,

but there is no effective way
from stopping a president

from doing it
in the first place.

It certainly showed
a management failure

of the National
Security Council

during the Reagan
administration.

I think that there were people
who were so committed

to continuing to oppose
the Soviets

that, you know, they did things

that they thought were
in the gray area.

While, ultimately,
when you're president,

the buck stops at your desk,

and Ronald Reagan has
to accept responsibility

for everything that happened
on his watch.

He clearly had
no knowledge of it.

He would not have
approved of it.

I also think that the stand
that he took against Communism

has been vindicated by history

and by our ultimate victory
in the Cold War

by defeating the Soviet Union

without ever having to fire
a single shot.

Ultimately, Reagan did prevail,

and his policies
were vindicated.

I think he's been vindicated
by history.

In his speech
welcoming home

the Tehran hostages
back in 1981,

Reagan had depicted an America
so respected and so feared

that there was no limit to what
it would do for its citizens.

As it turned out, it would be

almost three years
after Reagan left office

that the last of
the American hostages in Beirut

would be released.

Although Reagan himself
sidestepped any lasting damage,

Iran-Contra has continued
to reverberate

in every corner of the world
the scheme touched.

Americans
sometimes don't understand

the resentment in which
American foreign policy

is held in weaker countries.

Don't understand
that Iranians, for example,

carry within them the story
of the CIA's intervention

against an earlier
democratic regime

that overthrew the regime
and restored the Shah to power.

Most of us never heard
that story in school.

We often don't understand
that Latin Americans,

much as they admire
the United States,

also bear the burden of this
enormously powerful neighbor

that, throughout its history,

has asserted the power to
intervene in their countries

to determine who ought
to be in charge.

In 1990, after more
than a decade of civil war,

a political neophyte
named Violeta Chamorro

was elected president
of Nicaragua.

She was a pro-Contra activist
whose campaign

had the full backing
of the United States.

My high school
and college years,

I was living
in the United States

knowing full well
that... you know,

that our tax dollars
were supporting a war

that theoretically was
about stopping Communism.

But the end result

was two percent
of the population dead.

A war that is based,
again, right,

on profoundly racist views

that agency is not allowed
for Nicaraguans.

People in the U.S. can elect
whoever they want to elect,

but that will not be allowed
for Nicaraguans,

as if there are limits
being placed

on the humanity
of Nicaraguans

by people who will never,

ever, ever, you know,
suffer the consequences.

If it's true that
most of the real consequences

of the Iran-Contra scandal
were suffered

by people far away
from Washington, D.C.,

it still remains the case
that Reagan came closer

to the fate of his
predecessor, Jimmy Carter,

than anyone remembers.

In a very real sense,

a series of decisions
made Reagan

the hostage
he never thought he would be.

And maybe that's
the great warning buried

in all of this...

how quickly and quietly
a country

often seen as the most
powerful on Earth

can become trapped inside
a cage of its own making

and how easily it could
all happen again.

Ultimately, many of those
involved in Iran-Contra

went free.

In a speech in 1988,

the founder
of the Moral Majority,

Jerry Falwell,

introduced Oliver North
as a true American hero

and compared him
to Jesus Christ.

The first question's
always asked,

"Why are you having
an indicted man

to speak to the students
at Liberty University?"

I said, "Well, we serve
a savior who was indicted."

From my first time

in the Naval Academy,
I mean,

it's in your bones.

You know what your job is.

Serve the country.

And don't blame somebody else.

Don't make up excuse,
circumstances,

this kind of blarney.

You can at least stand up,

tell the truth,

take responsibility.

Sure, if I had to do it again,
I would not have let it go on.

But I did.

And there is
no changing the facts.