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xvi, [2], 446 pages. Illustrations. Cast of Characters. Appendix. Index. Bookplate signed by the author on fep. DJ has slight wear and soiling. Oliver Laurence North (born October 7, 1943) is an American political commentator and television host, military historian, New York Times best-selling author, and former United States Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel. He was convicted in the Iran-Contra affair of the late 1980s but his convictions were vacated and reversed, and all charges against him dismissed in 1991. North is primarily remembered for his term as a National Security Council staff member during the Iran-Contra affair, a political scandal of the late 1980s. The scandal involved the illegal sale of weapons to Iran to encourage the release of U.S. hostages then held in Lebanon. North formulated the second part of the plan, which was to divert proceeds from the arms sales to support the Contra rebel groups in Nicaragua, which had been specifically prohibited under the Boland Amendment. From 2001 to 2016, North hosted War Stories with Oliver North on Fox News Channel. When did the Irangate scandal start? The official answer is late 1985. The Tower Commission report starts its story in that year. Col. Oliver North, the man who thought up the idea of selling arms to secure the release of American hostages in Beirut, tells us: 'My own operational involvement began...on the afternoon of 17 November 1985. ' The BBC's Panorama journalist Gavin Hewitt, who is not an admirer of the Colonel, seems to back him up at least in this important detail. 'Oliver North, ' he assures us, 'hadn't been party initially to the arms deals with the Iranians. ' So there were 'arms deals with the Iranians' even before North was involved. Or were there? A closer reading of North's work gets us a little closer to the truth. The Iran-Contra affair was a political scandal in the United States that occurred during the second term of the Reagan Administration. Senior administration officials secretly facilitated the sale of arms to Iran, which was the subject of an arms embargo. They hoped, thereby, to fund the Contras in Nicaragua while at the same time negotiating the release of several U.S. hostages. Under the Boland Amendment, further funding of the Contras by the government had been prohibited by Congress. The scandal began as an operation to free seven American hostages being held in Lebanon by Hezbollah, a paramilitary group with Iranian ties connected to the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution. It was planned that Israel would ship weapons to Iran, and then the United States would resupply Israel and receive the Israeli payment. The Iranian recipients promised to do everything in their power to achieve the release of the hostages. Large modifications to the plan were devised by Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North of the National Security Council in late 1985, in which a portion of the proceeds from the weapon sales was diverted to fund anti-Sandinista, or Contras, in Nicaragua. While President Ronald Reagan was a supporter of the Contra cause, the evidence is disputed as to whether he authorized the diversion of the money raised by the Iranian arms sales to the Contras. Handwritten notes taken by Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger on December 7, 1985, indicate that Reagan was aware of potential hostage transfers with Iran, as well as the sale of Hawk and TOW missiles to "moderate elements" within that country. After the weapon sales were revealed in November 1986, Reagan appeared on national television and stated that the weapons transfers had indeed occurred, but that the United States did not trade arms for hostages. The investigation was impeded when large volumes of documents relating to the scandal were destroyed or withheld from investigators by Reagan administration officials. On March 4, 1987, Reagan returned to the airwaves in a nationally televised address, taking full responsibility, and saying that...

Size: 102x27x151; New. In shrink wrap. Looks like an interesting title!