Selects: Iran-Contra Affair: Shady in the 80s, Part 2

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1:59Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

2:09Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. There's Jerry over there, and this is Stuff You Should Know, Iran Contra, Part 2, starting now. Go! Maybe we should do a quick catch-up. Oh, okay. Well, we're still going. You act like I just went to sleep. No, it's true. So what's going on here is the United States is, Congress has decided that we cannot fund the Contras

2:39to fight the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. Right. Shut off funding, so the Reagan administration makes a deep covert push to continue doing so through a bunch of fun and shady ways. Right. They're fundraising. They're directly arming the Contras. They're training them, doing all sorts of crazy stuff. Yes, but if you know that this is about Iran Contra and you're like, what about Iran? What's going on here? I haven't heard anything about Iran. Keep your socks on. Well, here we go.

3:11This is where Iran enters the picture. Right. You can take your socks off. All right, go. Are your socks on? I've got on little footie socks, yeah. I do, too. Cool. Oh, Jerry does, too. Sweet. It's the way to go. Jerry has those true footies where you can't even see them at all. I can see them. Mine peek out just a little, which I'm not a huge fan of. Well, check out mine. Yeah, no-see-ums. No-see-ums. Okay, enter Iran. We really, that was a great intro

3:41and it just went away. That's right. So, on the other side of the world, from Nicaragua, there was another foreign policy disaster simmering that Reagan had going, and it was in the form of Iran. And specifically, it wasn't even in the form of Iran. It was in the form of a problem that America had. It doesn't really have much these days, but it definitely did in the 70s and 80s, where Americans would be taken hostage around the world, but specifically, almost exclusively,

4:12by Lebanese terrorists who were, if not working on behalf of Iran, were definitely sponsored by Iran. And regardless of who was president, the fact that there were hostages being held by another country and there wasn't anything we could do about it, that was a real blemish on the presidency. It was not a very proud thing to think about for America, but that was a reality for a while there. Yeah, so Iran at the time, this is the early 80s. This is just a few years removed from the Iranian revolution of 1979.

4:44And this is where we've talked about it before. Go look up photos of Iran in the mid-70s, pre-revolution. Right. And it looks like London in the swinging 60s and 70s. Yeah. Very kind of hip place to be. Iranian revolution happens.

4:59Fundamentalists take control of the government. There was previously the Shah of Iran who was friendly to the West. Sure. Friendly to America, generally. Mm-hmm. And the Ayatollah Khomeini. Khomeini? I've always heard Khomeini. Khomeini. Installed an Islamic theocracy and bad things started happening pretty quickly. Yeah. It was about as quick a turn about face politically and socially as you could imagine. Yeah, for a whole country.

5:30Yeah, yeah. But not everyone in the country as we'll learn. Like the whole country didn't just change overnight. No, but the Islamic theocracy was in power. Sure. Very much so. Yeah. One of the things that happened was they were not very fond of America or Americans and the American embassy was famously stormed and 66 Americans working there were taken hostage. Yeah. And held for more than a year. Man, that was... I think it was like... This is stuff I really remember. Like 440 days or something.

6:02Yeah, 444 days. Man. The Iranian hostage crisis. I remember this as a nine-year-old very clearly. Really? Oh, yeah. I have no recollection of it. Yeah, it was a big deal. Yellow ribbons and it was on the news constantly. I remember entering the room and being like, what does this have to do with Rainbow Bright? Turn this newscast. I even remember... So, what happened was Jimmy Carter did not get these hostages freed during his... I was about to say rain,

6:32but sort of the opposite of who Jimmy Carter was. That's what everybody thinks of. During his administration... His iron-fisted reign. The days of terror.

6:41But within a few days... And that may have cost him the election, but within a few days of... Or hours even of Reagan's inauguration, the hostages were freed. And I remember as a nine-year-old hearing kids parroting their parents' conversations. Like, it was really Carter that had him freed. Oh, yeah. All the work he did up until then. And then other kids saying, are you kidding me? As soon as Reagan got in office, they knew that they were toast. Right. And that Reagan wasn't going to be a patsy like Carter. Right. And I was like, what's a patsy?

7:12Who are these dudes? No, but I remember very distinctly, it's weird, like on the playground hearing this stuff. That's funny. Yeah. Like little nine-year-olds. I definitely didn't hear this when I was a kid, but I remember hearing later on as a grown-up, still in a rainbow bright, that it was, Reagan's campaign was somehow in touch with Iran. Yeah. And that they brokered this. It also got them to wait to release the hostages until after Reagan was in office.

7:42The timing was not at all... Hours after his inauguration, there was no accident. It's a little fishy, you know what I mean? But whether it was... That's funny. I'm sure somebody's parents were like, yeah, it's because they were so scared of Reagan, they knew that they better release these guys. That's totally not the case because there were other hostages taken by other... by actual Lebanese terrorists who were probably sponsored by Iran and that they were held throughout Reagan's presidency. Yeah, and that's sort of a big part of this, the second half of this story. Right. Was the fact that

8:13that was very embarrassing for Reagan. He didn't like hostages being held on his watch. No, but he had campaigned against negotiating with terrorists under any circumstances. So he's stuck now. Yeah, because he's basically saying if you get taken hostage, I mean, you're on your own. We'll use our rhetoric and whatever we can to influence you being released, but we're not going to negotiate for your release. Yeah. That's just the way it is. And that's a long-standing American policy. Right. And it makes sense because if you negotiate with terrorists,

8:44then that's just going to lead to more kidnappings. Yeah. Because they know that you're open for business. Like anywhere in the world. Yeah. There was a kidnapping of TWA flight 847, very, very famous one. You know the picture of like the pilot leaning out of the cockpit and the guy's in the picture with the gun behind him? That was 847. Right. And that was, I mean, that was, I remember that one. That was probably 9 then. And that was just scary because they were flying all over the place. You had no idea what was going to happen.

9:14People were being beaten on the plane. One Navy guy was beaten in, shot, and his body thrown out on the tarmac. Yeah, the 80s, like it seems comparatively tame now in a lot of ways compared to the things that used to go on. Thank McDonald's. Hijackings and kidnappings and hostages. It's like, the 80s were nuts. They were nuts, but, Pac-Man. Right. You know, Pac-Man fever. Ms. Pac-Man. Rapping Rodney. It was crazy. Right. Rapping, like, is that Rodney Piper? No, Rapping Rodney Dangerfield,

9:45his big hit. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Rapping Rodney. Yeah. No respect. No respect. What about the icky shuffle? That was a little crazy. Was that 80s? Sure. Late 80s. I guess so. Okay, I got one for you. Okay. The Bears, what was their thing? Oh, the Super Bowl shuffle. The Super Bowl shuffle, right. Yeah. That was pretty 80s. I think they were 84. Yeah, we're putting, you know, my band every year plays for sure one gig at Decatur's Porch Fest, and every year we try to do a theme, and this year we're doing 80s sort of new wave. Nice.

10:16And I jokingly suggested Pac-Man fever and Rapping Rodney. Are you guys going to do it? No. Those songs are terrible. Do you have a synth player playing with you? I bought Emily a keyboard and she's learning. Awesome. Yeah. She's going to be like, wait, hold on, hold on. I hope not. That's cool, man. No, she's practicing. I've heard her do that. I mean, she played piano when she was a kid, so it's not the biggest stretch. I've heard her do that one Blondie song that she just brought the house down. Yeah, one way or another? Yes. We might bring that back because that's 80s. Yeah. Or was that 70s?

10:47It was so close on the cusp. I seriously doubt anybody's going to throw a beer can at you for it. Anyway, Porch Fest to everyone. I'll publicize it in October. Nice. So Reagan's hands are tied in every way possible because he can't negotiate with terrorists. The only option is to send in a covert Delta Force team. Which Carter tried that and it didn't work. it doesn't always work. You could lose your own men and I think that's what happened in Carter's case, right? Yeah, for sure. So what he can do

11:18though, without anyone knowing, is totally negotiate with terrorists. Yeah, just as long as the American public doesn't know, sure. Yeah, and that's what happened. And he followed that Reagan playbook where it's like, okay, I said this, well, if I just change this one little part, it makes it all fine. That's right. Again, as long as the American public doesn't know. So, while Reagan said America will never negotiate with hostages, they didn't say Israel will never negotiate with terrorists for hostages.

11:48Right. Yeah. So, actually, Israel had a long-standing policy of negotiating with terrorists. They would kidnap people from the other side and then they'd be like, all right, I'll give you five guys. I've only got two. Let me kidnap a few people. Okay, now I have five. Like, there would be negotiations for hostage exchanges all the time. Yeah, between Israel and Palestine. Right. They just knew what they were doing. So, they said, okay, well, if Israel goes to Iran and says, hey, you know this American over there, why don't you get them released?

12:19We can help you out with some stuff. What do you think about this? Yeah, so, earlier when I mentioned the fact that Iran as whole cloth did not change overnight as a country, the government did, but there were still some, plenty of people there that were a little more moderate in their views and the Reagan administration had a channel to them. Right. So, he was talking to them, these more moderate factions, and making a little headway, and they were like, by the way,

12:49we'll totally give you these hostages if you give us arms. Yeah, because Iran was fighting the Iran-Iraq war, at least half of it. Yeah, and this is just where stuff is just totally crazy, because we were funding both sides. At the very least, we were advising both sides. Well, I mean, we directly gave money to Iraq. Oh, yeah, you're right. No, you're right. We sold them weapons, and we provided training and intelligence. Right. And this wasn't secret. This was like a real deal thing. We were publicly supporting Iraq, but then we were

13:20secretly arming Iran. Yeah, I think what they never proved beyond a doubt was that we went to Saddam Hussein and said, hey, why don't you go in there and overthrow Iran? Oh, really? Yeah, there was never... Like we started it? I don't think that was ever... There was a lot of circumstantial evidence that that was the case, but never like the smoking gun that we actually encouraged Saddam Hussein to do so. Gotcha. But it's just, man, when you look at how all this played out over the years, it's just maddening.

13:50Yeah, it's an S show. Yeah, so Iraq and Iran are fighting. We're supplying both, playing both sides of the coin. Right. And we offered arms to Iran and who are you going to call? Israel. Not Ghostbusters. Oh, Gorbanifar. Well, you're going to call Ali North. Oh, yeah, okay. I would have gotten there eventually. Yeah, because, okay, so remember, Ali North is this total novice when it comes to covert operations, but by this time, not anymore, yeah. Yeah, he's been running the Nicaragua op

14:21for years now. Yeah. Just doing a bang up job of it. So they're like, well, sure, we'll have him do this incredibly illegal, super sensitive arms sale to Iran too. Why don't you come on over here, Ali? And Ali said, well, okay, that's fine, but I need to go get the lay of the land. And he actually traveled to Iran with a fake passport under an assumed name, William P. Good, with an E. and when he went, it was dangerous enough that William Casey,

14:51supposedly, Oliver North later testified, gave him cyanide pills so that he could take his own life rather than be tortured by the Iranians if this were in fact like some sort of setup. Again, right out of a movie. Yeah. But Oliver North went to Iran with cyanide pills. And a fake passport. Billy Good. Yeah. So, everything went great though. It did. He didn't need the cyanide pills after all. He did not. He dealt with, like you mentioned earlier, this Iranian businessman named Ghorbanifar.

15:21And this guy was ten shades of shady, so much so that the CIA wouldn't even deal with him. No, they issued a burn notice on him in 1983. Which is, I don't even know what that is. That means just he's dead to us. It's basically stay away. Okay. It's putting him on blast to all the other intelligence agencies in the world. Gotcha. Persona non brought it. The CIA won't even deal with this guy. And so Ollie North is like, yeah, I'll deal with this guy. All right. So, with his help, Oliver North set up a deal where,

15:52and it's so simple to look at, like Israel, you give them your missiles, and then we'll just replace those missiles for you with our missiles. Yep. So, we're not giving them missiles. You are. And because no American explicitly said to Iran, hey, we're doing this so that you guys will get these hostages released, it wasn't an arms for hostages deal, and so Reagan's vow to never negotiate with terrorists remained intact. That's right. 508 TOW

16:23tow missiles. What does that stand for? Tube-launched optically tracked wireless guided missile, which is like, it's like a, the tube-launched, there's a tube, and it can be, like, mounted on the ground, mounted on a Jeep. It's super portable, but they are, they'll blow some stuff up. I think I've seen these. You have. So, 508 of these made it from Israel to Iran, and then in very short order, a couple of days later, one of the hostages, Benjamin Weir, a minister, who was held by Lebanese terrorists

16:54for 16 months, was released. So, it worked. It did work, huzzah. It was a big deal around the White House, too. But they said, let's try it again. But this time, it seemed a little messy to get Israel involved. Let's just do this ourselves. Ali, you think you can handle this? And he said, sure, me and Gurbanifor have this. So, rather than Israel giving arms to Iran, Richard Secord got brought in, just like with Nicaragua. And again, this isn't like years after Nicaragua. Nicaragua's at full bore and

17:26full swing. Oh, it's still going, yeah. And Ali North is running both operations simultaneously. And so, the new setup was the Department of Defense would sell the CIA missiles for $3,700 a pop. Yeah. The CIA would sell them to Richard Secord at cost. And then Secord would sell them to Gurbanifor for $10,000 a piece. And then Gurbanifor would go sell them to Iran for whatever he charged Iran for. Can you imagine? I can't. I guarantee it was more than the $10,000.

17:56Yeah. And this happened multiple times over the course of a little over a year. America secretly transferred 2,000 missiles and missile parts to Iran in eight shipments. Yeah, for the release of hostages. Yeah, ultimately there were three hostages that got released out of seven that had been taken hostage total. Yeah, and didn't he say ultimately there were three more hostages taken, so they netted out at zero.

18:27At zero. Yeah. So, but that was the whole Iran operation. Yeah, but here's the deal. This price markup means that that shell company and those Swiss bank accounts were making a lot of money, and so much so that I think one of them had $3 million made in interest alone. Yeah. So, at some point, someone's like, hey, this is a money-making operation now, why don't we tie a little bow on all this and use some of that money to fund

18:58the Contras, because you guys are doing both of these things, and you need money, Congress won't give it to you, forget the fundraising omelets, we'll just use the money from these illegal arms sales to fund the Contras. Yep, and that's exactly what happened. So, to put it in plain terms, America illegally and secretly sold missiles to Iran, used the proceeds from those missile sales to secretly and illegally fund the Contras to help them overthrow their government down in Nicaragua.

19:29That's what the Reagan administration did. That's right. That's why it's called Iran Contra. That's where they came together. There was a diversion of funds. Yeah, and the, I think it was by 1986, Congress finally got back on board because of this drum beat from Reagan over the years of how much we need to really do this officially. And keep in mind, Congress still didn't know any of this is going on secretly. And then Congress said, all right, we'll give you $100 million to aid this cause.

19:59And Reagan said, hot diggity dog. You would think that was the end of all the covert stuff. It wasn't though. No. No, it still continued on, but now it was legitimized and had even better funding. But that was not the end of the whole thing. Everybody didn't just get to walk away and say, that was close. Because the whole thing started to come apart actually. And I say that we take an ad break and come back and talk about it. Great. After this. Well, now, when you're on the road, driving in your truck,

20:29why not learn a thing or two from Josh and Chuck? It's Stuff You Should Know. Stuff You Should Know. All right.

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