Word: contra
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...really explains Ollie's rise to prominence." Watching the gung-ho Marine employ such methods made at least some of his colleagues uneasy. "Oliver North is going to get the President in real trouble," an NSC aide told a friend two years ago. Last year, before the Iran-contra scandal became public, the aide repeated the warning: "Just remember -- it's going to happen...
...Shackley denies any wrongdoing in the Iran-contra affair. "I have had nothing to do with what Secord has chosen to call 'the enterprise,' " Shackley told TIME last week. "I have had nothing to do with North." Nonetheless, North's projects freely used private operators. Secord, for example, retained the services of American National Management Corp. to fly supplies to the contras in Nicaragua. That company was founded and run by Colonel Richard Gadd, a retired Air Force cargo-plane pilot who was a longtime associate of Secord's. Gadd had also worked for the U.S. Army Special Operations Forces...
COVER: Oliver North prepares for a star turn at the Iran- contra hearings...
Viet Nam shaped North in lasting ways, and the account of his nighttime assault on North Viet Nam reveals some of the same traits and patterns that have put this much decorated war hero at the heart of the Iran-contra affair. For North, the U.S. defeat abroad and the revulsion with the war at home were searing, bitter experiences. Never again would something like that happen -- if he could help it. He was a man of action, frustrated by red tape, timid bureaucrats and waffling politicians. If you needed to get something done, do it yourself...
...magnetic, often generous man has been his own best mythologizer, telling reporters and acquaintances stories about himself that bent the truth. Blissfully free of self-doubt, he could be a victim of self- delusion. At the National Security Council, he exaggerated his closeness to the President. In running the contra supply network and the arms-for-hostages swap, he seemed to shuttle between fantasy and reality, as he devised the most bizarre schemes to reach his goals. He spoke often of duty and what was right, yet he carelessly used money from the profits of the arms sales...