Word: contra
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...question that dominated foreign ministries in capitals around the world last week, as the Iran-contra scandal continued to explode, was whether it would have the same kind of disabling effect on Ronald Reagan's presidency as Watergate had on Richard Nixon's. That was a matter of great concern to both friends and foes, but particularly to U.S. allies. "There is a basic given within the NATO alliance," said a French official. "This is that we rely on the solidity of the American regime." His unspoken point was that, temporarily at least, this basic stability has come into question...
Despite the atmosphere of normality in Geneva, there were signs that the Iran-contra affair could indeed affect superpower relations. Coming on top of Reagan's decision to violate the unratified SALT II arms treaty, the scandal has evidently prompted the Kremlin to allow Soviet commentators to attack Reagan personally, something that was avoided in the recent past. Georgi Arbatov, head of the Institute of U.S. and Canadian Studies, called the scandal "a truly cinematic story out of second-rate Hollywood films, in which Ronald Reagan has been featured for years...
...came under little criticism domestically for dealing with Iran. The Jewish state has tried for years to maintain good relations with non-Arab nations in the Middle East. But Jerusalem was dismayed at the Administration's allegation that Israel was also involved in the transfer of funds for the contras. Fearful that any association with the contra scheme could undermine Israel's strong support in Congress, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir last week took the unusual step of publicly disputing a high U.S. official and denied that Jerusalem was in any way involved in that part of the operation...
Nowhere was the scandal played as such unabashedly good news as in Nicaragua, whose Marxist-led Sandinista government hoped it would be a major blow to the chances of continued U.S. support of the contra guerrillas. President Daniel Ortega claimed the Sandinistas had known all along that the U.S. was conducting a campaign to keep antigovernment forces supplied in defiance of congressional prohibition. The Sandinistas hope the prohibition, lifted in October after Congress voted to send $100 million in U.S. aid over the next year, will be clamped back...
...office are like. And this White House can only envy the final trajectory of Clinton's presidency--in a trough with two years to go and then celebrated as he ran up surpluses and pulled all-nighters negotiating Middle East peace. President Ronald Reagan, stung by the Iran-contra scandal, plunged in polls 23 months before he moved out of the White House. But he overhauled his staff and went on to give his "tear down this wall" speech and sign a missile-reduction treaty with the Soviets...