Iran-Contra
US political scandal over arms sales to Iran and the diversion of the proceeds to the Nicaraguan Contras
The Iran-Contra scandal became public on 3 November 1986, when the Lebanese newspaper Al Shiraa revealed details of US arms sales to Iran in an "arms for hostages" deal.[1] It emerged shortly afterwards that proceeds from the arms sales had been illegaly diverted by Col. Oliver North to get round Congressional restrictions on funding for the Nicaraguan Contras.[2]
People connected to the affair
Roy Godson
Roy Godson, of the National Strategy Information Center, was head of the International Youth Year Commission when it came under congressional scrutiny in 1987.[3] The independent counsel's final report recorded that on two occasions in 1985 he helped solicit private donations for the Contras: a $100,000 gift paid to the Heritage Foundation and forwarded to the Institute for North-South Issues, and a $60,000 gift paid directly to that organisation.[4] Tom Easton wrote in Lobster that Godson "had a big hand in the Iran Contra scandal".[5]
Joseph Godson
Walter Raymond Jr. told congressional investigators in a deposition that his assistant Steven Steiner had met Joseph Godson, and that the subject was American image in Europe and the debate over intermediate-range nuclear forces rather than Central America.[6]
External Resources
- Report of the congressional committees investigating the Iran-Contra Affair with supplemental, minority, and additional views, U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran, U.S. Senate Select Committee on Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaraguan Opposition, 1987, archived at openlibrary.org
Notes
- ↑ Lawrence E. Walsh, Firewall: The Iran-Contra Conspiracy and Cover-Up, W.W. Norton, 1997, p.7.
- ↑ Lawrence E. Walsh, Firewall: The Iran-Contra Conspiracy and Cover-Up, W.W. Norton, 1997, p.13.
- ↑ House probes link between Contras and youth commission, by Pat O'Brien, United Press International, 23 March 1987.
- ↑ Private Fundraising: The Guilty Pleas of Channell and Miller, Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters, Lawrence E. Walsh, Chapter 13.
- ↑ Tom Easton, Who were they travelling with? SDP: The Birth, Life and Death of the Social Democratic Party, Lobster, issue 31, June 1996, accessed 5 November 2026.
- ↑ Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair, Appendix B: Volume 22, Depositions, 17 November 1987, pp.369-370.