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#IranContra

70 entries tagged IranContra.

People (52)

  • Adnan Khashoggi Adnan Khashoggi (1935-2017) was a Saudi billionaire arms dealer and key Iran-Contra middleman who bridged financing for the Reagan administration's arms sales to Iran through BCCI, and was named alongside Manucher Ghorbanifar and Richard Armitage in the May 1985 Reynolds letter as a broker for the covert distribution of PROMIS software.
  • Alan Fiers Former CIA official who ran the Contra program for several years and explained how arms brokers used fraudulent end-user certificates from intermediary countries to divert weapons to the Contras.
  • Albert Hakim Iranian-American businessman who co-directed the Iran-Contra Enterprise with Richard Secord, managing its finances and negotiating with Iranian officials before pleading guilty in 1989 to supplementing Oliver North's salary.
  • Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was a senior Iranian cleric and politician who served as Speaker of Parliament during the Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages negotiations, where he is identified as the principal Iranian official who publicly broke the story in November 1986; he later served as President of Iran 1989-1997 and is a central figure in the October Surprise and Iran-Contra subjects.
  • Amiram Nir Nir resigned from his TV job to work as a public relations adviser for Peres during the 1981 elections.
  • Ari Ben-Menashe Ari Ben-Menashe is an Iranian-born Israeli-Canadian who describes himself as a former military-intelligence official and became a recurring source for claims about U.S.-Israeli arms dealing, the October Surprise, PROMIS, Robert Maxwell, and Jeffrey Epstein, claims repeatedly found uncorroborated and, by a congressional task force, not credible.
  • Avi Pazner Spokesman and national security adviser to Israeli PM Yitzhak Shamir, involved in covert operations including arms sales and Iraq-related intelligence.
  • Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was the Shia cleric who led Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, overthrew Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and served as the Islamic Republic's first Supreme Leader until his death in 1989; his government's hostage-taking and arms dealings made him a central figure in the Iran-Contra and October Surprise controversies.
  • Barbara Honegger Barbara Honegger was a Reagan White House policy analyst who resigned in 1983 and subsequently published the 1989 book October Surprise, one of the first detailed published accounts alleging that the Reagan campaign secretly negotiated with Iran in 1980 to delay the release of American hostages.
  • Barry Seal Adler Berriman 'Barry' Seal (1939-1986) was a Baton Rouge, Louisiana pilot and the Medellín Cartel's chief U.S. cocaine distributor, who flew an estimated 56 tons of cocaine worth $3-5 billion before flipping as a DEA informant in 1984, providing photographic evidence of Sandinista officials loading cocaine at a Nicaraguan airfield; he was assassinated by cartel hitmen in February 1986, and his C-123K cargo plane was subsequently used in the Oliver North Contra supply network before being shot down over Nicaragua with Eugene Hasenfus aboard.
  • Carlos Cardoen Cardoen later resigned and became a private contractor, securing a deal to supply all blasting equipment to the Chilean Mining Corporation.
  • Cyrus Hashemi Iranian exile involved in secret arms sales and hostage negotiations during Iran-Contra who became a U.S. Customs informant before being found dead in London under suspicious circumstances.
  • Danny Casolaro Joseph Daniel Casolaro (1947-1991) was a freelance journalist whose investigation into the PROMIS software scandal expanded into a unified theory of an intelligence-criminal network he called 'The Octopus,' found dead in a Martinsburg, West Virginia hotel room on August 10, 1991, with both wrists slashed twelve times in a death officially ruled suicide.
  • David Kimche David Kimche was a senior Mossad officer who became director-general of Israel's Foreign Ministry and served as the primary Israeli architect of the arms-for-hostages initiative that became the Iran-Contra affair, pressing the Reagan administration in mid-1985 to approve weapons transfers to Iran.
  • Donald Gregg Donald Gregg (1927-2021) was a CIA career officer who served as National Security Adviser to Vice President George H.W. Bush (1982-1989), was accused by Richard Brenneke of attending October Surprise Paris meetings (which he denied), and whose aide Felix Rodriguez ran Contra resupply from El Salvador.
  • Earl Brian Earl Brian was a California physician, businessman, and Reagan cabinet official who served alongside Edwin Meese and was named by INSLAW, Michael Riconosciuto, and the House Judiciary Committee as the alleged central figure in the theft and international distribution of the PROMIS software.
  • Edwin Wilson Edwin P. Wilson was a CIA and DIA officer who supplied weapons, explosives, and training to Libya's Qaddafi, was convicted in 1983 and sentenced to 52 years, and had his conviction overturned in 2003 after the government acknowledged falsely representing his CIA status at trial.
  • Fawn Hall Secretary to Oliver North during the Iran-Contra Affair and daughter of Robert McFarlane's secretary Wilma Hall.
  • George Cave In February 1989, Cave was spotted in Paraguay with Earl Brian, visiting Gen.
  • Gunther Karl Russbacher Wilcher was working daily for Russbacher and wanted to ask Janet Reno, the new Attorney General, to grant immunity from prosecution to Russbacher so that he might testify to the government about activities inside the CIA.
  • Hashemi brothers The Hashemi brothers were a trio of Iranian brothers living in the West who claimed to have connections in Iran with Ahmed Khomeini, the son of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
  • Henry Grunwald Editor-in-chief of Time magazine who vetoed publication of the North-Nir story that later became known as the Iran-Contra Affair.
  • Jack Brooks Jack Brooks (1922-2012) was a Texas Democrat who represented the Beaumont area in Congress for 42 years, chaired the House Judiciary Committee from 1989 to 1995, and presided over the three-year INSLAW investigation that produced House Report 102-857 (September 1992), which found that the Department of Justice had stolen PROMIS software and named Edwin Meese and Richard Thornburgh as having obstructed the inquiry.
  • Jamshid Hashemi One of the Hashemi brothers, involved in secret arms sales to Iran and later became an informant for U.S. Customs.
  • John Poindexter Vice Admiral John Poindexter served as Reagan's National Security Adviser from December 1985 to November 1986, authorized the Iran-Contra diversion without informing the president, was convicted on five counts before reversal on immunized-testimony grounds, and later directed DARPA's Total Information Awareness program until Congress terminated it in 2003.
  • John Tower After the Iran-Contra Affair scandal broke, Tower was appointed to head a presidential commission of inquiry into the affair.
  • Lawrence Walsh Lawrence E. Walsh (1912-2014) served as Iran-Contra Independent Counsel from December 1986 to August 1993, producing 14 criminal cases, 11 convictions, and a final report documenting Reagan administration Iran arms sales and Contra funding, before President Bush pardoned six defendants three weeks before Walsh's release of key findings.
  • Margaret Thatcher Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990, the longest-serving British PM of the twentieth century; her government cooperated closely with the Reagan administration on Cold War intelligence operations, including support for the Afghan mujahideen, while the Arms-to-Iraq and Matrix Churchill affairs implicated British officials and contractors in the same illicit arms networks examined by the Iran-Contra investigations.
  • Mark Thatcher In 1983, Thatcher introduced Gerald Bull to Gen.
  • Mehdi Bazargan First prime minister of revolutionary Iran under Khomeini who sought to normalize relations with the U.S. before being ousted by extremists.
  • Menachem Schneerson Large amounts of money were funneled through his institutions to Drexel Burnham, a brokerage house where Michael Milken built his junk-bond fortune.
  • Michael Milken Large amounts of money from the arms sales to Iran were funneled through American banks and held at Drexel Burnham, contributing to Milken's firm's stature and its ability to underwrite huge quantities of junk bonds.
  • Miles Copeland Retired CIA officer who helped restore the Shah in 1953 and later gathered anti-Carter CIA veterans during the Iranian hostage crisis.
  • Mohammed Radi Abdullah Colonel Mohammed Radi Abdullah was a former colonel in the Jordanian Army.
  • Monzer Al-Kassar Monzer al-Kassar was a Syrian arms dealer who received $1.2 million from Richard Secord during Iran-Contra to facilitate weapons transfers to the Contras, operated from Marbella Spain with connections to Syrian intelligence and multiple intelligence services, and was convicted in 2008 in US federal court on charges of conspiring to provide material support to FARC terrorists.
  • Nicholas Davies Nicholas Davies was the foreign editor of the Daily Mirror under Robert Maxwell, accused by Seymour Hersh in 1991 of operating as a Mossad intelligence asset, passing Mordechai Vanunu's location to the Mossad, and co-directing an arms-dealing firm with Ari Ben-Menashe.
  • Oliver North Marine lieutenant colonel and National Security Council staff member who ran the illegal Contra resupply operation from the White House, central figure in the Iran-Contra Affair implicated in drug trafficking, arms dealing, and obstruction of justice.
  • Ora Ben-Shalom After the deaths of Freddie and Herut (Ari Ben-Menashe's daughter), Ora and Ari Ben-Menashe began a relationship in late 1986, eventually living together in Jerusalem.
  • Reza Hashemi Iranian arms dealer and one of the Hashemi brothers involved in secret arms sales and hostage negotiations related to Iran-Contra.
  • Richard Brenneke Portland-based arms dealer and self-described CIA contract agent who claimed to have attended the October 1980 October Surprise Paris meetings, was indicted for perjury in 1989 and acquitted in 1990, and served as a document source for Danny Casolaro’s Octopus investigation.
  • Richard Secord Major General who co-directed the Iran-Contra Enterprise with Albert Hakim, purchasing weapons for Iran through Israeli intermediaries and channeling profits to fund the Nicaraguan Contras outside congressional appropriations before pleading guilty in 1989 to making false statements to Congress.
  • Robert McFarlane Ronald Reagan's national security adviser who in January 1985 advised FDN leader Adolfo Calero that it might be time to consider cutting losses on the Contra project.
  • Ronald Reagan 40th President of the United States who authorized CIA operations in Nicaragua, oversaw the Contra war and the secret drug-crimes reporting exemption, while simultaneously prosecuting the War on Drugs.
  • Spencer Oliver Chief counsel for the House Foreign Relations Committee involved in Iran-Contra hearings, later admitting the hearings were a cover-up.
  • Ted Shackley Ted Shackley (1927-2002), ‘The Blond Ghost,’ was a CIA operations officer who served as station chief at JMWAVE, Laos, and Saigon, rose to Associate Deputy Director for Operations, was forced out by DCI Turner in 1979, and became a central node in the Safari Club and Iran-Contra private network.
  • Timothy Phelps Middle East correspondent for Newsday who received early details of the Iran-Contra story from Ari Ben-Menashe.
  • Tom Clines CIA career officer who served under Ted Shackley at JMWAVE, Laos, and the Western Hemisphere Division, joined the private Safari Club and Iran-Contra Enterprise network after Shackley's 1979 departure, and was convicted in 1993 of underreporting Iran-Contra income.
  • Uri Simchoni Brigadier General Uri Simchoni was a member of the Iran-Israel Joint Committee.
  • William French Smith William French Smith (1917-1990) served as U.S. Attorney General from 1981 to 1985 under President Reagan, and as the first Reagan AG signed the secret 1982 Memorandum of Understanding with CIA director William J. Casey that removed drug offenses from the list of crimes CIA assets were required to report to the Department of Justice.
  • William J. Casey William J. Casey was Reagan's 1980 campaign manager and CIA Director from 1981 to 1987 who, among other disputed roles, is alleged to have secretly negotiated with Iranian representatives in Madrid and Paris in 1980 to delay the release of American hostages past Election Day -- the core allegation of the October Surprise -- and who died of a brain tumor in May 1987 as the Iran-Contra scandal unfolded.
  • Wilma Hall Secretary to Robert McFarlane at the NSC and mother of Fawn Hall who helped expose McFarlane's contacts with Rafi Eitan.
  • Yaacov Nimrodi Yaacov Nimrodi was an Israeli arms dealer and former military intelligence attache in Iran who served alongside David Kimche and Al Schwimmer as part of the 'troika' that managed the first three Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages transfers in 1985.

Organizations (4)

  • Bank of Credit and Commerce International The Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) was a Pakistani-founded offshore bank that operated across 78 countries before its 1991 collapse exposed a decade-long conspiracy involving money laundering for drug cartels and intelligence agencies, illegal acquisition of U.S. banks, bribery, fraud, and arms trafficking, in what regulators called the largest bank fraud in history.
  • The Enterprise (Iran-Contra) Private covert network assembled by Richard Secord and Albert Hakim to conduct both sides of Iran-Contra, generating approximately $48 million in revenues between 1984 and 1986 through arms sales to Iran and Contra resupply.
  • Tower Commission The Tower Commission was the 1986-1987 presidential commission chaired by former Senator John Tower that investigated the Iran-Contra Affair and produced the first public account of NSC staff involvement in the arms-for-hostages scheme.
  • Wackenhut Corporation Wackenhut Corporation was a major private security and investigative firm founded in 1954 by former FBI agents whose board included former CIA, FBI, and NSA directors, and which was alleged to have hosted CIA front operations and the PROMIS software modification at its joint venture with the Cabazon Indian Reservation.

Events (4)

  • Arms-to-Iraq The Arms-to-Iraq affair was the British corollary to the same illicit Iraq weapons procurement networks examined in the Iran-Contra and BNL scandal investigations: British companies, licensed by the government, supplied precision machinery and military-relevant technology to Saddam Hussein's government during the Iran-Iraq War; the collapse of the Matrix Churchill prosecution in 1992 and the subsequent Scott Inquiry (1992-1996) documented government deception of Parliament.
  • BNL Scandal The BNL scandal involved the Atlanta branch of Italy's Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, whose manager Christopher Drogoul extended approximately $5 billion in unauthorized loans to Saddam Hussein's Iraq between 1987 and 1989; subsequent investigations found CIA awareness of or involvement in the scheme, and the Justice Department's handling of the prosecution was criticized as protecting intelligence equities over criminal accountability.
  • Hashemi Sting The Hashemi Sting was a 1986 U.S. Customs undercover operation targeting illegal arms sales to Iran, prosecuted by U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani's Southern District of New York office, which resulted in indictments of arms dealers including former Israeli general Avraham Bar-Am; it intersected directly with the Iran-Contra network and the October Surprise investigations, and its key informant Cyrus Hashemi died in London under disputed circumstances shortly after the sting concluded.
  • Iran-Iraq War The Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) was an eight-year conflict in which Western powers, the CIA, and Gulf states covertly supported Saddam Hussein's Iraq while the Reagan administration simultaneously ran secret arms to Iran; the war produced massive casualties, extensive use of chemical weapons against Iranian and Kurdish populations, and the arms procurement networks at the center of the Iran-Contra affair.

Concepts (1)

  • The Octopus The Octopus is a term used by investigative journalist Danny Casolaro to describe a sprawling alleged criminal network linking the PROMIS software theft, Iran-Contra, the October Surprise, BCCI, and intelligence-connected drug trafficking under a single self-perpetuating criminal enterprise.

Places (9)

  • Baghdad Baghdad is the capital of Iraq and the seat of Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist government; it was the destination of Donald Rumsfeld's 1983 envoy visit during the Iran-Iraq War, the primary recipient of the BNL scandal's Iraqi arms procurement financing, and the city whose fall in April 2003 ended three decades of Ba'athist rule.
  • Cayman Islands The Cayman Islands is a British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean that served as the nominal registration point for BCCI and dozens of other offshore entities used in Iran-Contra financial flows, CIA front company structures, and the money-laundering infrastructure documented throughout this vault.
  • Iraq Iraq is a country in the Middle East whose modern history intersects extensively with Cold War covert operations: CIA support for the 1963 Ba'ath coup, weapons transfers to Saddam Hussein's regime during the Iran-Iraq War, the BNL financial scandal, PROMIS software distribution to Iraqi intelligence, and the 2003 invasion on falsified WMD pretexts.
  • Lebanon Lebanon is a country in the Middle East that became a focal point for intelligence operations, drug trafficking, and international arms dealing during the 1980s civil war period.
  • Libya Libya under Muammar Gaddafi was a CIA target for covert destabilization operations throughout the 1980s, a state that financed and trained international terrorist networks, the perpetrator of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, and a node in illicit arms procurement networks that intersect with Iran-Contra and PROMIS subjects in this vault.
  • Paris Paris is the capital of France and a key geographic node in this vault: the claimed site of October Surprise meetings between Reagan campaign officials and Iranian representatives in 1980, a hub for Middle Eastern arms brokering and intelligence back-channels, and the city where Ayatollah Khomeini spent his final months of exile before the Iranian Revolution.
  • Tehran Tehran is the capital of Iran and the site of the November 4, 1979 seizure of the U.S. Embassy, triggering the 444-day hostage crisis that anchors the October Surprise allegations, as well as the political center from which the Islamic Republic directed the arms-for-hostages negotiations that became the Iran-Contra affair.
  • Tel Aviv Tel Aviv is Israel's largest metropolitan area and de facto commercial and intelligence capital; it served as a key node in the Iran-Contra arms pipeline and the Israel-South Africa arms relationship, and is home to institutions central to the vault's Israeli intelligence subjects including Mossad headquarters.
  • United Kingdom The United Kingdom is a Five Eyes intelligence partner of the United States whose security services (MI5, MI6, GCHQ) are extensively cross-referenced in this vault; the UK hosted BCCI's global headquarters, was the base of Robert Maxwell's operations, was implicated in the Arms-to-Iraq affair, and was the home of the Paedophile Information Exchange.