Central Intelligence Agency

On November 3, 1986, the Lebanese magazine Shiraa reported that Robert McFarland, U.S. national security adviser, had come to Iran with a shipment of arms from the United States. This revelation spurred what was ultimately termed the Iran-Contra affair and spoiled an otherwise secret operation.

The CIA had involved itself in a covert action in which arms were shipped to Iran in exchange for the release of hostages. The payments that were received from the Iranians were, in turn, diverted to the Nicaraguan Contra rebels who were fighting the Communist Sandanista regime, at a time when U.S. military aid to the Contras was prohibited by federal law. All of this was done without the knowledge of Congress; the CIA informed neither the House Intelligence Committee nor the Senate Intelligence Committee of its actions. President RONALD REAGAN had not approved the agency's covert activity.

One year after the arms had been sold, WILLIAM J. CASEY, director of central intelligence and a cabinet member, asked the president to approve the transaction retroactively. Reagan signed an agreement to that effect, which specified that Congress was not to be told of the approval. John Poindexter, the national security adviser at the time, later testified that he destroyed the only copy of the agreement in order to save President Reagan from political embarrassment.

Despite great media attention and congressional finger-pointing, actual punishments for the Iran-Contra affair were few and lenient. Casey was never indicted in the scandal. McFarland and Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger were brought up on criminal charges, but both were pardoned on Christmas Eve 1992 by president GEORGE H.W. BUSH. All other persons linked to the scandal either were also pardoned by Bush or were punished with small fines, PROBATION, or both, or had their convictions overturned on appeal.