Word: contra
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...cavernous Senate Caucus Room two years ago, a misty-eyed Marine Lieut. Colonel Oliver North dazzled millions of TV viewers. Imposing in his sharply creased uniform and Viet Nam combat ribbons, he confidently minimized his role in the Iran-contra scandal, insisting, "I was authorized to do everything that I did." Last week in a Washington federal courtroom, a more subdued North, now a blue-suited civilian with graying hair, took the witness stand and tried to convince twelve jurors that he had been merely a gofer, dutifully carrying out policy set higher in the White House. Surprisingly, the Government...
...courtroom to testify on his behalf, North took the burden of his criminal defense upon himself. A risky move, it exposes him to cross-examination by the federal prosecutors and leaves him liable to a possible perjury charge if he contradicts his earlier testimony before the Iran-contra committees. Soft- spoken and earnest, he admitted lying to Congress as well as altering documents. But always, he insisted, he was following the orders of his White House superiors. In yet another melodramatic but memorable statement, he declared, "I felt like a pawn in a chess game being played by giants...
Throughout last year's presidential campaign, Bush insisted that he had no personal involvement in efforts to aid the Contra rebels. In written response to reporters' questions last year, Bush asserted that he "knew nothing of the shipments by the so-called private network of arms dealers to the Contras." Indeed, Bush premised much of his campaign on the United States's resurgence to a position of global strength during the 1980s...
...also appears that Reagan was not as befuddled a president as his advisers and the media had us believe. From the time the Iran-Contra scandal broke in the fall of 1986 until Reagan left office in January. the Reagan Administration insisted that the president had no knowledge of the diversion of taxpayer funds to the Contras. The fault, said the Tower Commission, lay not in the president, but in his hands-off "management style," thereby absolving him of personal responsibility for the scandal...
Wright declined to field questions after his statement. After his impassioned public defense, Wright returned to the business of the House, appearing in the chamber to push for a vote on a $49.7 million Contra aid package...