Word: contra
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...have on only one occasion asked my congressional representatives to vote in a particular way, and that was on the issue of aid to the contras. When aid was indeed denied, I had the exhilarating sense that I had effectively contributed to our democratic system. My faith in this process has been shaken by the revelations of the Iran-contra affair. Despite the sincerity and eloquence of Lieut. Colonel Oliver North, I agree with Indiana Representative Lee Hamilton's assessment that our own democratic principles have been subverted in the effort to secure a democracy in Nicaragua...
...original Kuwaiti request, which came late last year, was considered and endorsed by the State Department and the Pentagon. Following a National Security Planning Group meeting in early March, President Reagan approved the plan. But many involved say that top officials were too distracted by the Iran-contra controversy to examine its implications fully. Ironically, the scandal provided an impetus to the reflagging proposal. Moderate Arab states reacted angrily last fall to news that the U.S. had secretly dealt with Iran. Kuwait then requested Soviet protection for its tankers. Administration officials concede that granting assistance to Kuwait...
That was, of course, a reference to one of the more memorable lines uttered during the Iran-contra hearings: Attorney Brendan Sullivan's notable "I am not a potted plant" response when Senator Daniel Inouye grew impatient with the lawyer's frequent objections and suggested that his client, Oliver North, should be the one to speak up. The fact that the President would remind his audiences even obliquely of the scandal that has seriously impaired his effectiveness signaled his rising optimism. Although the Wisconsin demonstrations had been carefully stage-managed, they reinforced Reagan's recovery from the doldrums inflicted...
North's testimony may have marginally aided the contra cause and enhanced his own can-do image (though there are already signs that Olliemania is fading), but it did not help his Commander in Chief, who professed not to know what his National Security Council staff aide had been up to. National Security Adviser John Poindexter's insistence that "the buck stops here with me" on the diversion of profits from the Iran arms sales to the contras meant that investigators had not found a "smoking gun" in the President's hand. But many Americans found the admiral's tale...
Worse yet, there was no way to avoid harsh bottom-line judgments of what Reagan had actually done, or failed to do, in the Iran-contra fiasco...