The Iran-Contra Affair

The Reagan-era Iran-Contra affair lit up the political skies over Washington for well over a year in the late 1980s.  The biggest scandal since Watergate, it dominated the news starting in late 1986, when word broke about the administration’s illegal backing of Contra rebels in Nicaragua and illicit sales of high-tech weapons to the Islamic Republic of Iran.  When President Ronald Reagan acknowledged that the two operations were connected it raised the stakes even higher, including rumblings for impeachment.

The scandal eventually blew over, in large part thanks to dramatic world events such as the fall of the Berlin Wall and collapse of the Soviet Union.  But the Constitutional issues it raised about presidential authority and the role of Congress in foreign policy, as well as its lessons about the practical limits of legal accountability when it comes to national security affairs and holders of high public office remain deeply relevant. 

Over the years, the National Security Archive became the most authoritative independent source of documentation and analysis of the affair.  The following books, major declassified document compilations, and Web postings are gathered together to provide interested readers with a wide assortment of useful primary and secondary materials.

BOOKS

Iran-Contra: Reagan’s Scandal and the Unchecked Abuse of Presidential Power
Sep 15, 2014
By Malcolm Byrne (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2014, 464 pp.)

Becoming Enemies: U.S-Iran Relations During the Iran-Iraq War, 1979-1988
Oct 12, 2012
By James Blight, janet Lang, Hussein Banai, Malcolm Byrne and John Tirman (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2012, 408 pp.)

Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA
Feb 16, 2009
By John Prados (Chicago, Illinois: Ivan R. Dee, 2006, 696 pp.)

Presidents' Secret Wars: CIA and Pentagon Covert Operations from World War II Through the Persian Gulf War
Feb 1, 1996
by John Prados (Ivan R. Dee, 1996, 576 pp.)

White House E-Mail: The Top-Secret Computer Messages the Reagan/Bush White House Tried to Destroy
Nov 1, 1995
by Tom Blanton (New York: The New Press, 254 pp. and 1.4 MB computer disk)

The Iran-Contra Scandal: The Declassified History
Jan 1, 1993
by Malcolm Byrne and Peter Kornbluh (New York: The New Press, 314 pp.)

Keepers of the Keys: A History of the National Security Council from Truman to Bush
Apr 1, 1991
by John Prados (William Morrow & Co., 1991, 632 pp.)

The Chronology: The Documented Day-by-Day Account of Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Contras
Jun 1, 1987
by Scott Armstrong, Malcolm Byrne, Tom Blanton, and the National Security Archive (New York: Warner Books, 678 pp.)