1987 – Iran–Contra affair: The Tower Commission rebukes President Ronald Reagan for not controlling his national security staff. The Iran–Contra affair, also referred to as the Iran–Contra scandal, the Contragate, Iran Initiative, or simply Iran–Contra, was a political scandal in the United States that centered on arms trafficking to Iran between 1981 and 1986, facilitated by senior officials of the Reagan administration. The administration hoped to use the proceeds of the arms sale to fund the Contras, an anti-Sandinista rebel group in Nicaragua. Under the Boland Amendments, a series of laws passed by Congress and signed by Ronald Reagan, further funding of the Contras by legislative appropriations was prohibited by Congress, but the Reagan administration continued funding them secretly using non-appropriated funds. The administration's justification for the arms shipments was that they were part of an attempt to free seven U.S. hostages being held in Lebanon by Hezbollah, an Islamist paramilitary group connected to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The idea to exchange arms for hostages was proposed by Manucher Ghorbanifar, an expatriate Iranian arms dealer. Some within the Reagan administration hoped the sales would influence Iran to get Hezbollah to release the hostages. After the Lebanese magazine
Ash-Shiraa reported on the weapon dealings in November 1986, it broke international news, prompting Reagan to appear on national television. He claimed that while the weapons transfers had indeed occurred, the U.S. did not trade arms for hostages. The investigation was impeded when large volumes of documents relating to the affair were destroyed or withheld from investigators by Reagan administration officials. In March 1987, Reagan made a further nationally televised address, saying he was taking full responsibility for the affair and stating that "what began as a strategic opening to Iran deteriorated, in its implementation, into trading arms for hostages." The affair was investigated by Congress and by the three-person, Reagan-appointed Tower Commission. Neither investigation found evidence that President Reagan himself knew of the extent of the multiple programs.
