Stuff You Should Know - Selects: Iran-Contra Affair: Shady in the 80s, Part 2

Episode Date: August 8, 2026

As the operation expands it also begins to unravel. Word starts to leak out of the illegal stuff the Reagan administration was up to, Congress and the press investigate and people start to point fingers. Spoiler alert – they all got off scot free. Find out how it all wraps up in part 2 of this classic story.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles Debbie Took, Brian, there's Jerry over there, and this is Stuff You Should Know, Aron Contra, Part 2, starting now. Go. Uh, maybe we should do a quick catch-up. Oh, okay. Well, we're still going. You acted like I just went to sleep.

No, it's true. So what's going on here is the United States, Congress has decided that we cannot fund the Contras to fight the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. Right. Shut off funding. So the Reagan administration makes a deep covert push to continue doing so through a bunch of fun and shady ways. Right. They're fundraising. They're directly arming the Contras. They're training them. Doing all sorts of crazy stuff. Yes. But if you know that this is about Iran-Contra and you're like, what about Iran? What's going on here?

I haven't heard anything about Iran. Keep your socks on. Well, here we go. This is where Iran enters the picture. Right. You can take your socks off. All right. Go. Are your socks on? I've got on little footy socks, yeah. I do, too. Cool.

Oh, Jerry does too, sweet. It's the way to go. Jerry has those true footies where you can't even see them at all. I can see them. Mine peek out just a little, which I'm not a huge fan of. Well, check out of mine. Yeah, no see-hams. No see-ums.

Okay, enter Iran. We really, that was a great intro, and it just went away. That's right. So on the other side of the world from Nicaragua, there was another foreign policy disaster simmering that Reagan had going. And it was in the form of Iran. And specifically, it wasn't even in the form of Iran. It was in the form of a problem that America had.

It doesn't really have much these days, but definitely did in the 70s and 80s, where Americans would be taken hostage around the world. But specifically, almost exclusively by Lebanese terrorists who were, if not working on behalf of Iran, were definitely sponsored by Iran. And regardless of who is president, the fact that they were hostages being held by another country and there wasn't anything we could do about it, that was a real blemish on the presidency.

It was not a very proud thing to think about for America, but that was this reality for a while there. Yeah, so Iran at the time, this is the early 80s. This is just a few years removed from the Iranian Revolution of 1979. And this is where we've talked about it before. Go look up photos of Iran in the mid-70s pre-revolution. Right. And it looks like London and the swing in 60s and 70s.

Yeah. Very kind of hip place to be. Iranian revolution happens. Fundamentalists take control of the government. There was previously the Shah of Iran who was friendly to the West. Sure. Friendly to America generally. And the Ayatollah Komini.

Comani? I've always heard Komani. Komani. Installed an Islamic theocracy and bad things started. happening pretty quickly. Yeah, there was a, it was a about as quick a turn about face politically and socially as you could imagine. Yeah, for a whole country. Yeah, yeah. But not everyone in the country, as we'll learn. Like, the whole country didn't just change overnight. No, but the, the Islamic Theocracy was in power. Sure. Very much so. One of the things that happened was

they were not very fond of America or Americans, and the American embassy was famously stormed. and 66 Americans working there were taken hostage and held for more than a year. Man, that was like... This is stuff I really remember. Like 440 days or something. Yeah, 444 days. Man.

The Iranian hostage crisis. I remember this as a 9-year-old very clearly. Really? Oh, yeah. I have no recollection of it. Yeah, it was a big deal. Yellow ribbons and it was on the news constantly. I remember entering the room and being like,

what does this have to do with Rainbow Bright? Turn this newscast. I even remember, so what happened was, Jimmy Carter did not get these hostages free during his, his, I was about to say rain, but sort of the opposite of who Jimmy Carter was. That's what everybody thinks of. During his administration, his iron-fisted rain.

The days of terror. But within a few days, and that may have cost him the election, but within a few days of, or hours even of Reagan's inauguration, and the hostages were freed. And I remember as a nine-year-old hearing kids parroting their parents' conversations. Like, it was really Carter that had him freed. Oh, yeah.

All the work he did up until then. And then other kids saying, are you kidding me? As soon as Reagan got in an office, they knew that they were toast. Right. And that Reagan wasn't going to be a patsy like Carter. Right.

And I was like, what's a patsy? Who are these dudes? No, but I remember very distinctly it's weird, like on the playground hearing the stuff. That's funny. Yeah, like a little nine-year-olds. I definitely didn't hear this when I was a kid, but I remember hearing later on as a grown-up,

still in a Rainbow Bright, that it was Reagan's campaign was somehow in touch with Iran. Yeah. And that they brokered this. It also got them to wait to release the hostages until after Reagan was in office.

The timing was not at all. Hours after its inauguration, there was no accident. It's a little fishy, you know what I mean? But whether it was, that's funny that I'm sure somebody's parents were like, yeah, it's because they were so scared of Reagan. They knew that they better release these guys. That's totally not the case because there were other hostages taken by other, by actual Lebanese terrorists who were probably sponsored by Iran.

And they were held throughout Reagan's presidency. Yeah, and that's sort of a big part of this, the second half of this story. Right. Was the fact that that was very embarrassing for Reagan. He didn't like hostages being held on his wife. No, but he had campaigned against negotiating with terrorists under any circumstances. So he's stuck now. Yeah, because he's basically saying if you get taken hostage, I mean, you're on your own.

We'll use our rhetoric and whatever we can to influence you being released, but we're not going to negotiate for your release. That's just the way it is. And that's a longstanding American policy. Right. And it makes sense because if you negotiate with terrorists, then that's just going to lead to more kidnappings. Yeah. Because they know that you're open for business. Like anywhere in the world.

Yeah. There was a kidnapping of TWA Flight 847, very, very famous one. You know, the picture of like the pilot leaning out of the cockpit and the guys in the picture with the gun behind him? That was 847. Right. And that was, I remember that one. That was probably nine then.

And that was just scary because they were flying all over the place. You had no idea what was going to happen. People were being beaten on the plane. One Navy guy was. was beaten in, shot, and throw his body thrown on the tarmac. Yeah, the 80s, like, it seems comparatively tame now in a lot of ways compared to the things that used to go on. Thank McDonald's.

Hijackings and kidnappings and hostages. It's like, the 80s were nuts. They were nuts. Pac-Man. Right. You know, Pac-Man fever? Miss Pac-Man? Rap and Rodney?

It was crazy. Right. Rap, like, is that Roddy Piper? No, rapping Rodney Dangerfield, his big hit. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. No respect. What about the icky shuffle?

That was a little crazy. Was that 80s? Sure. Late 80s. I guess so. Okay, I got one for you. Okay. The Bears, what was their thing?

Oh, the Super Bowl shuffle. The Super Bowl shuffle, right? Yeah. That was pretty 80s. I think they were 84. Yeah, we're putting, you know, my band every year plays, for sure, one gig at Decatur's Porch Fest. And every year we try to do a theme, and this year we're doing 80s sort of new wave. Nice.

And I jokingly suggested Pac-Man Fever The end rap in Rodney Are you guys gonna do it? No, those songs are terrible Do you have a synth player Playing with you? I bought Emily a keyboard and she's learning Awesome

Yeah She's gonna be like wait, hold on, huh? I hope not That's cool, man No, she's practicing I've heard her do that I mean she played piano when she was a kid So it's not the biggest stretch

I've heard that one That her do that one blondeie song She just brought the house to out Yeah, we might one way or another Yes We might bring that back Because that's 80s Yeah

Or was that 70s? It was so close on the cusp. I seriously doubt anybody's going to throw a beer can at you for it. Anyway, Porch Fest to everyone. I'll publicize it in October. Nice. So Reagan's hands are tied in every way possible because he can't negotiate with terrorists.

The only option is to send in a covert Delta Force team. Which Carter tried that and it didn't work. It doesn't always work. You could lose your own men. And I think that's what happened in Carter's case, right? Yeah, for sure. So what he can do, though, without anyone knowing, is totally negotiate with terrorists. Yeah, just as long as the American public doesn't know, sure.

Yeah, and that's what happened. And he followed that Reagan playbook where it's like, okay, I said this. Well, if I just change this one little part, it makes it all fine. That's right. Again, as long as the American public doesn't know. So while Reagan said America will never negotiate with hostages, they didn't say Israel. will never negotiate with terrorists for hostages. Right.

Yeah. So actually Israel had a longstanding policy of negotiating with terrorists. They would kidnap people from the other side, and then they'd be like, all right, I'll give you five guys. I've only got two. Let me kidnap a few of people. Okay, now I have five. Like there would be negotiations for hostage exchanges all the time. Yeah, between Israel and Palestine.

Right. They just knew what they were doing. So they said, okay, well, if Israel goes to Iran, and says, hey, you know this American over there? Why don't you get them released? We can help you out with some stuff. What do you think about this? Yeah, so earlier when I mentioned the fact that Iran,

as whole cloth, did not change overnight as a country, the government did. But there were still plenty of people there that were a little more moderate in their views, and the Reagan administration had a channel to them. Right. So he was talking to them, these more moderate factions, and making a little headway,

and they were like, by the way, we'll totally give you these hostages if you give us arms. Yeah, because Iran was fighting the Iran-Iraq war, at least half of it. Yeah, and this is just where stuff is just totally crazy, because we were funding both sides.

At the very least, we were advising both sides. Well, I mean, we directly gave money to Iraq. No, you're right. We sold them weapons, and we provided training and intelligence. Right, I knew. And this wasn't seriously. secret. This was like a real deal thing. We were publicly supporting Iraq, but then we were secretly arming Iran.

Yeah, I think what they never proved beyond a doubt was that we went to Saddam Hussein and said, hey, why don't you go in there and overthrow Iran? Oh, really? Yeah, there was never... Like we started it? I don't think that was ever... There was a lot of circumstantial evidence that that was the case, but never like the smoking gun that we actually encourage Saddam Hussein to do so.

Gotcha. But it's just, man, when you look at how all this played out over the years, it's just maddening. Yeah. You know? Yeah, it's a S show. Yeah, so Iraq and Iran are fighting. We're supplying both, playing both sides of the coin. Right.

And we offered arms to Iran and who are you going to call? Israel. Not Ghostbusters. Oh, Gorbonafar. Well, you're going to call Ali North. Oh, yeah, okay. Yeah. I would have gotten there eventually.

Yeah, because, okay, so remember, Ollie North is this total novice when it comes to covert operations. Well, not anymore, yeah. Yeah, he's been running the Nicaragua op for years now. Yeah. Just doing a bang-up job of it. So they're like, well, sure, we'll have him do this incredibly illegal, super-sensitive arm sale to Iran, too. Why don't you come on over here, Ollie? And Ollie said, well, okay, that's fine.

But I need to go get the lay of the land. And he actually traveled to Iran with a fake passport under an assumed name, William P. Good was an E. And when he went, it was dangerous enough that William Casey, supposedly Oliver North later testified, gave him cyanide pills so that he could take his own life rather to be tortured by the Iranians if this were, in fact, like some sort of setup. Again, right out of a movie. Yeah.

But Oliver North went to Iran with cyanide pills. And a fake passport. Yeah. Billy Good. So everything went great, though. It did. He didn't need the cyanide pills after all. He did not. He dealt with, like you mentioned earlier, this Iranian businessman name Gorbanifar.

And this guy was ten shades of shady, so much so that the CIA wouldn't even deal with them. No, they issued a burn notice on him in 1983. Which is, I don't even know what that is. That means just he's a TV show. He's dead to us? It's basically stay away. Okay. It's putting him on blast to all the other intelligence agencies in the world.

Gotcha. persona non grata. CIA won't even deal with this guy. And so Ollie North is like, yeah, I'll deal with this guy. All right. So with his help, Oliver North set up a deal where, and it's so simple to look at, like, Israel, you give them your missiles, and then we'll just replace those missiles for you with our missiles. So we're not giving the missiles. No.

And because no American explicitly said to Iran, hey, we're doing this so that you guys will get these. hostages released, it wasn't in arms for hostages deal. And so Reagan's vowed to never negotiate with terrorists remained intact. That's right. 508 TOW tow missiles. What does that stand for? Tube launched, optically tracked, wireless guided missile, which is like, it's like a, the tube launched, there's a tube, and it can be, like, mounted on the ground,

mounted on a Jeep. It's super portable, but they are, they'll blow some stuff up. I think I've seen these. You have. So 508 of these made it from Israel to Iran. And then in very short order, a couple of days later, one of the hostages, Benjamin Weir, minister, who was held by Lebanese terrorists for 16 months, was released.

So it worked. It did work, because ah. It was a big deal around the White House, too. But they said, let's try it again. But this time, it seemed a little messy to get Israel involved. Let's just do this ourselves. Ali, you think you can handle this? And he said, sure.

Me and Gerbanafore have this. So rather than Israel giving arms to Iran, Richard Seacord got brought in, just like with Nicaragua. And again, this isn't like years after Nicaragua. Right. Nicaragua's at full bore and full swing. Oh, it's still going, yeah. And Ollie North is running both operations simultaneously.

And so the new setup was the Department of Defense would sell the CIA missiles for $3,700 bucks a budget. pop. Yeah. The CIA would sell them to Richard Seacord at cost, and then Seacord

would sell them to Gorbonifar for 10 grand a piece, and then Gorbanifar would go sell him to Iran for whatever he charged Iran. Can you imagine?

I can't. I guarantee it it was more than the 10 grand. Yeah. And this happened multiple times. Over the course of a little over a year,

America secretly transferred 2,000 missiles and missile parts to Iran in eight shipments. Yeah, for the release of hostages. Yeah, ultimately there were three hostages that got released. Out of seven that had been taken hostage total.

Yeah, and didn't you say ultimately there were three more hostages taken, so they netted out at zero? At zero. Yeah. So, but that was the whole Iran operation. Yeah, but here's the deal. This price markup means that that shell company and those Swiss Bank accounts, accounts, we're making a lot of money and so much so that I think one of them had three million

dollars made an interest alone. So at some point, someone's like, hey, this is a money-making operation now. Why don't we tie a little bow on all this and use some of that money to fund the Contras, because you guys are doing both of these things. And you need money. Congress won't give it to you. Forget the fundraising omelets. We'll just use the money from these ill. legal arms sales to fund the Contras. Yeah, and that's exactly what happened. So to put it in plain terms, America illegally and secretly sold missiles to Iran, use the proceeds from those missile sales to secretly and illegally fund the Contras to help them overthrow their government down in Nicaragua. That's what the Reagan administration did.

That's right. That's why it's called Iran Contra. That's where they came together. There was a diversion of funds. Yeah. And I think it was by 1986, Congress finally got back on board because of this drum beat from Reagan over the years of how much we need to really do this officially. And keep in mind, Congress still didn't know any of this is going on secretly. And then Congress said, all right, we'll give you $100 million to aid this cause.

And Reagan said, hot-thag-dy-dog. You would think that was the end of all the covert stuff. It wasn't, though. No. No, it still continued on, but now it was legitimized and had even better funding. But that was not the end of the whole thing. Like, everybody didn't just get to walk away and say, that was close. Because the whole thing started to come apart, actually.

And I say that we take an ad break and come back and talk about it. Great. After this. Well, now, when you're on the road, driving in your truck, why not learn a thing or two from Josh and Chuck? It's stuff you should know. All right. There's no shortcut for saving time, but saving money is simple.

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Our hometown is not a test tube. They feel like they're standing in opposition to an entire administration. Guess you didn't move in on a bunch of dumb hillbillies now, did you? Listen to Our Town on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, this is Hayes Davenport. And Sean Clements. We host the podcast, Hollywood Handbook. Every episode we're trying to help our guests improve their careers by mainly focusing on how they can help us improve our careers.

The show is famously super accessible so you can easily. jump into any of our 650 episodes and understand what's going on. We recommend some of our recent episodes with Ben Stillard. The definition of what is a movie has kind of changed anywhere too, right? What do you think it is now? It's images and words being spoken, captured by some sort of technology.

Danny McBride. He loves Calvin. Oh, that's fantastic. And you make it on, you make your own. That's great. I call them Terro Reed. It's a good name. They're all named after cast members of American Pie.

I call, I don't, I never looked up if she was in this, but I call him Leachy Sobieski. Yeah, I don't think she was an American pie, but I still like that. Haven't looked it up. She was prominent around the same time. Yeah. Then Mary Steenbergin. Why are you guys talking to me, look? I'm worried.

Why are you talking so down to me that you think I don't understand your little play, play game? I just really, I get it. I'm trying to set you up for success here. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcast. or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, Chuck. So 1986, Congress is back on board. I think it's worth pointing out

that that's exactly four years after the Democrats took control of the House in 1982. So I wonder if the Republicans took control back in 86, and that's why the funding got turned back onto the Contras. I mean, you could solve this. I like to speculate instead. So this all might have, who knows if this ever would have even been found out, had it not been for the sharpshooting of a young Sandinistan soldier named Jose Fernando Canales Alman.

Nice. In October 5, 1986, it was a cargo plane, a C-123 called the provider, flying 70 Soviet Kalishnikovs, 100,000 rounds of ammo, rocket grenades and other supplies. And this is one of those things where you said they would fly things over and kick them out the back of the plane. Sure. This is one of those runs.

Yeah. The problem with this particular run, though, is that they did this at 2,500 feet in broad daylight. Yeah, they got a little lazy. A tad bit. Or maybe cocky. I don't even know if it was that. I think it was more like this was just work.

It was an everyday job by this time. They've been doing it for years. Yeah. You know, and the operation was just humming along so nicely that it was almost on autopilot. Yeah. So, yeah, they did this one supply drop on October 5, 1986 in broad daylight. And there were four crew aboard, William J. Cooper, Wallace, Buzz Sawyer, Freddie Vilchus,

and a guy named Eugene Hassenfuss, who, and again, this sliding doors thing, Hassanfuss is the only guy who had a parachute. He borrowed it from his brother, a skydiver, because, you know, he thought it might be smart to take a parachute. Right. No one else had parachutes. No. Had he not had a parachute, this may have turned up. differently. It may have for sure. He was the only one that survived this plane crash because he was the

only one who borrowed the parachute from his brother and he jumped out, landed, made it safely into the jungle. And I think he actually survived and evaded the Sandinistas for maybe a day or something like that before he was captured. And when he was captured, they let him out of the jungle like with a rope around his neck, just about as big of a prisoner as you can imagine. Super publicized. There were billboards of him being led around by San Anistas, and they started asking him questions. And he was like, what do you want to know? Yeah, he sang like a canary.

He really did. He said, this is my 10th supply mission. I presume that the CIA is running this. I don't know. And he would know, this would be something that he could legitimately guess at, at least, because he had actually worked on CIA air drops over Vietnam. or Cambodia for Air America back in the Vietnam War. Yeah, but he wasn't like, he sings like a canary

because he's not very high up on the totem pole. Like his job was to get up there and shove this stuff out of the back of the plane for three grand a month. Right. He wasn't even a CIA operator. He's just a former Marine who had a background working with Air America years before.

But by this time, by the time he joins on doing this for the Contras, he was like working as a construction worker part-time in Wisconsin back home. So this is like pretty good money. I think he was getting $7,000 in today's dollars a month for basically kicking AK-47 crates out the back of a plane over Nicaragua. Yeah, so he's not the kind of guy that's going to take the fall for anyone. So he's singing like a canary.

Even if he had kept his mouth shut, it wouldn't have mattered, it sounds like, right? Yeah, because all the other guys, including Hassanfuzz, had their wallets on the plane. They had all their employee ID cards. And in fact, I don't think we mentioned in episode one, the company that was set up to do these drops was set up called Southern Air Transport out of, I guess, Miami. So they all had their Southern Air Transport ID cards,

which was the CIA front. Like everybody knew Southern Air Transport was the CIA Front. So they might as well have had like CIA Junior badges or something. Right. Or like Michael Keats. Keaton and out-of-sight when he has the big FBI t-shirt. I haven't seen that one. Oh, you haven't seen Out of Sight?

No, is that the one where he... That's George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez. Is he a bad guy in it? No, he's a good guy, but he walks in. He plays Ray Nicolette, who played... Same character in Jackie Brown, FBI guy. Okay. But it's funny because he walks in with an FBI t-shirt on

and Dennis Farina is Jennifer Lopez's dad. And he's a former cop and he goes, hey, Ray, let me ask it. He got one that says undercover? Dennis Farina, man, class that. I mean, you got to see out of sight. That's classic. All right, I'll check it out. Like, one of the better movies.

I mean, I know exactly the movie you're talking about. I avoided it like the plague. It's so good. Okay. You would love it. All right. So, Southern Air Transport, CAA Front. There's also a log book that connected this flight and all the other flights.

And then Hassanfuss, in his wallet, had a business card to Robert W. Owen. This is a big one. Who was working with Oliver North in Washington. Right, which, so that provided a direct line between all over North and some guys who were kicking Kalashnikovs out of the back of a plane over Nicaragua. Yeah. So that was a really big deal that when this guy got captured and, you know, told the San Anistas as much as he knew, because the San Anistas were like, attention world.

Yeah. Listen to what we just found out. The CIA has totally been funding these contra rebels who are trying to overthrow the sovereign government. And we think you guys should know. about it. Yeah, and it was, it wasn't like you could totally discount that, even though it was from the Sandinistas, like Congress and the American media were like, what? I'm sure Congress was like, wait a minute.

Right. This reeks of like something that had been happening that we tried to shut down. Yeah, because remember, even if the CIA was briefing Congress, it was either Bill Casey or Dewey Clarege, and they were doing a really obtuse job of this, keeping Congress at ArmsLink, So any time something like this came out, almost none of Congress knew the full extent of this, and it was always in flagrant violation of whatever Congress wanted or whatever Congress had agreed to. Yeah, and this wasn't, like, this was sort of the straw that broke it all open, or that broke the camel's back. Broke the camel's back wide open.

Oh, God, that's gross. Poor camel. Things had been unraveling for a bit. There was a party in 1985 in Virginia thrown. I can't wait. Thrown by Soldier of Fortune magazine. Can you imagine? No.

What's that party like? I don't want to know. I can't imagine. I used to read Soldier of Fortune when I was in my ninja training as like a 10-year-old boy. And even then I was like, this magazine makes my stomach hurt.

And it's in 1985. Can you imagine the amount of, like, blow being secretly done in the bathroom at that party? Sure, but also they were making snuff movies in the living room. There's no telling what was going on as Soldier of Fortune. We can tell you, at the very least, there was a lot of boasting going on openly about this

contra operation. And again, this is the time when people don't know about this stuff. Yeah, but you know what happens is like you get enough people and enough years and people start talking, people start bragging. And all of a sudden you have a couple of gin and tonics at a soldier of fortune party. Sure. You're like, hey, guess what? And that's what happened.

Somebody goes, what? Yeah. And you go, here it comes. Yeah, and they drop the bomb that what's been going on, a concerned citizen hears this. I guess he must have been mistakenly invited to this old report. I don't know how that guy got invited or they just happened to talk to the wrong guy or whatever. Probably that.

He was like, I am really fearful of my life for saying something about this, but I feel like somebody should know. So he went to a lawyer, a human rights lawyer named David Sheehan, and he said, you go tell everybody. You put your life on the line. And he did. He submitted an affidavit to federal court, started doing interviews, talking to journalists, drumming up support. White House was like, we don't know what you're talking about. You're a crazy man. Like, this is all 100% made up. And finally, it took a Lebanese newspaper, Al Shira, that reported on this deal, this arms for hostage deal, like in a legitimate newspaper. Right. So now both stories have been blown open. You've got Eugene Hassanfuss capture.

and the contra operation is blown open. And now Al-Sheera is reporting on the Iran Arms for Hostage Deal. And really crazily enough, these two separate arms of this one scandal came out within a month of each other. Yeah. Which is, it's bizarre. But that's what happened. And now it was like, it's on the table. America's media knows about it.

Congress knows about it. Heads are about to roll. All right. We'll take our final break, and we'll come back and talk about the aftermath of Irman Kondra. Well, now, when you're on the road, driving in your truck, why not learn a thing or two from Josh and Chuck? It's stuff you should know. Stuff you should know. All right.

There's no shortcut for saving time, but saving money is simple. Just combine your car and home insurance with Belair Direct and save. Get a quote at bellair direct.com. as small taters by most standards, right? But to the people who grew up here, it's everything. What happens when a quiet Tennessee town becomes the front line in a battle over the future of America? Developers with right-wing ties have purchased hundreds of acres of land in the area. The first thing you see when it pops up is pioneers in Appalachia.

But they weren't just planning houses. We need cities on a shining hill that exemplify and embody the Christian way of life. Stop right there. Is that normal? A podcast about what happens when a small town becomes the site of a social experiment. God need men to rule. Great. And decides to fight back. Do not use my hard work to sell your bull-boh.

They're not just opposing what's being planned for here. Our hometown is not a test tube. They feel like they're standing in opposition to an entire administration. Guess you didn't move in on a bunch of dumb hillbillies now, did you? Listen to our town on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcast. Hey, this is Hayes Davenport. And Sean Clements.

We host the podcast, Hollywood Handbook. Every episode we're trying to help our guests improve their careers by mainly focusing on how they can help us improve our careers. The show is famously super accessible so you can easily jump into any of our 650 episodes and understand what's going on. We recommend some of our recent episodes with Ben Stiller. The definition of what is a movie has kind of changed anywhere too, right? What do you think it is now?

It's images and words being spoken, captioned. by some sort of technology. Danny McBride. He loves Mouthins. Oh, that's fantastic. And you make it on, you make your own. That's great. I call him Terro Reed.

It's a good name. They're all named after cast members of American Pie. Yeah. Oh, gotcha. I call, I don't, I never looked up if she was in this, but I call him Leachie Sobieski. Yeah, I don't think she was an American Pie, but I still like that. Haven't looked it up.

She was prominent around the same time. Yeah. Then Mary Steenbergin. Why are you going? I'm worried. I'm worried. Why are you talking so down to me that you think I don't understand your little play game? I just really, I get it.

I'm trying to set you up for success here. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, Chuck, you promised after your math. Let's hear it. All right. So, everything is exposed. Oliver North was no longer in business doing his thing. No, he shut down and shop real quick.

He did, but not before, very famously, he and his very 80s-haired secretary, Fawn Hall. I forgot, I looked, I was like, Fawn Hall. I looked her up, and as soon as I saw her, I was like, right. Fon Hall. Sure. Who can forget that hair. she could barely walk through a door No, it was ginormous for sure

It's so great I would be fearful around a shredder If I were her But she was not fearful at all She and Oliver North spent a day They called it a shredding party I mean we will never know The full truth behind this

Because of all the evidence That they shredded Yep, as far as anyone knows Oliver North decided on his own To shred every document he had on it That's right And yeah, that's it's it's Now it's the official narrative that has been written into the history book,

which you can just guarantee is not anywhere near the full story. Right. So it all comes out. The Reagan administration start looking around, and they're like, well, who's going to be the Patsy for this one? And Oliver North could not escape it. No. But they were like, he's small potatoes. He'll go down.

Well, I think he was even willing to take the fall. Like he knew he was going to be the fall. ball guy and was like, okay, that's part of the job. Right, but they knew that it had to, the American public, and certainly Congress, wasn't going to be satisfied with just Oliver North. Right. So who did they land on? So the official line became this.

Poindexter, and I guess McFarland would have started it, became fully aware of just how badly Reagan wanted to help the Contras and said, I'm going to do something about this, and tapped Dolly North and said, we need to help the Contras out. Go help him out. Figure it out. And North went off and basically went rogue on his own and set up this whole operation, created this entire network with Seacord, decided to do the Iranian arms deal, all this stuff basically on his own. Right. Like Reagan and Bush knew nothing about it. Nothing about it. And that the buck stopped at Poindexter ultimately. It didn't go any further. William Casey being CIA, he was basically out of the loop. That was the official story they came out with.

That's right. And America went, you're kidding, right? This is a joke? Yeah, I mean, I remember these hearings, even as a little kid, like, watching these and then watching the news coverage of it. And like we mentioned, Oliver North strolling in there with his dress uniform. And, you know, by all accounts being a pretty stand-up guy. Like, he didn't rat anyone out. He didn't, but he also, he was like, there's no way the president didn't know about this.

He said, I don't have any direct evidence that the president did know about it, but it's my understanding that the president was fully aware of what was going on. Yeah, what was the deal with this missile supply shipment, though? That's the one thing I didn't quite get. So there was, North got rid of all the documents that he could, right? Right. Well, North didn't have any control over CIA documents. And at that first missile resupply where they were resupplying Israel, he had a CIA, he basically said, hey, CIA, do you know anybody I can use? used to ship these things. I've got an emergency here. I need to get these to Israel fast.

Yeah. And the CIA, being the CIA, is still a bureaucracy, they had to document this event. Right. So there was a document out there now. Right. That was not shredded. Right, that he couldn't get his hands on, that he couldn't shred. And so this led to Reagan taking responsibility or saying, okay, I was aware of this Iran missile deal by backdating an order to William Casey saying, I order you not to tell Congress about this, even though you're supposed to. So Reagan basically said, on paper, I know about this Iran, this one missile transferred to Iran, had no idea about the Contras. Right, okay. And at first they started out denying everything.

Oh, yeah, like after this Al Shira story that we talked about, he went on television, Reagan did, and denied everything. He said all this is just total BS. Yeah, exactly. Now let's stop talking about it, everybody. Ten days after that, Reagan had another press conference where he talked about the Iran operation and he acknowledged it but said what we're really doing here is just trying to sort of send a signal to Iran

that we want friendlier relations. Right. And it was not arms for hostage. Exactly. And then, so that was 10 days after the first denied. Right. And then four months after that, because the reporting would not stop,

he basically said, okay, yeah, whatever it started out as I admit that it devolved into an arms for hostage deal. That's right. Which even that, even that admission, which is the closest he ever came to admitting you know, responsibility for it.

Yeah. Even that's just total BS and fantasy. It was from the outset in arms for hostages deal. Right. The whole thing was set up to get hostages released and that was it. So there was no other way to put it. Yeah.

But that's he denied that to his dying day. As far as fallout, Poindexter resign, Oliver Norr, was fired. Casey died in a hospital not too long after this whole thing was exposed. I mean like weeks. Yeah. So the press was all over the president. He appointed the Tower Commission to look into this. The president appointed a commission to investigate. Yeah. The president's own administration's wrongdoing. That's right. And it was determined that Reagan's disengagement from the management of

his White House created conditions such that it was possible that he did not know about this. Which, that is the absolute best official finding he could have hoped for because it basically says Reagan didn't know. He had a rogue guy working for him, a true believer, a patriot, but Reagan didn't know about this. And yeah, he should have had a closer watch on his executive branch, but he didn't. What are you going to do? Let's get Mr. T in here for a photo op with Nancy. There was a criminal investigation, and what they were really honing in on was the $18 million in profits that were made. And what happened to that money where it went, 14 people were charged. Oliver North was tried and found guilty on three counts.

Yeah. One of the counts was for getting a $16,000 security system installed in his home, courtesy of Seacord with that money. There was a rumor that there was a bounty on his head from terrorists. Right. And... Seahort hooked him up. Right. Now, that was a big problem for North because North's whole bag was I was following orders

that I assumed were coming from the president, ultimately, and I was doing it out of my patriotic duty and a sense of, you know, I was a true believer that we need to get rid of communism. And the American public loved it. They were like, great, make this man a saint. Right. Congress started to love it too, and he got off, but that was a real problem because it's saying, well, you took this gift from funds from this illicit arms sales. Right, but it was a gift of a security system to help protect his family, so it's not like, you know, it was a gift of 10 pounds of blow and like... Right. And a Nicaraguan sex worker from the Sandin Eastern government.

Exactly. Seacord was convicted of one count of lying to Congress and the investigators. he basically denied that North received any funds from any of this, so it still kind of hinged on that security system, I guess. Right. So everybody went to jail forever after that point, right? No, that's not true at all. What?

Hakeem got two years probation, a $5,000 fine. Secur got two years probation. Is that what he got? Two years probation? So the two guys who were actually running the company that ran this whole thing, each got two years probation. North's conviction was overturned on a technical case. and President Bush, the senior Bush, on Christmas Eve,

and this was Christmas Eve as he was leaving office, right? Yep. He issued six pardons, basically let everyone off the hook, including Casper Weinberger, who hadn't even gone to trial yet. No, and neither had Duane Clarege. Dewey Clarege was going to stay in trial, too. Both of them received preemptive pardons. And a lot of people are like,

that was about the shadiest set of pardons anyone's ever issued. because there's a lot of people out there who say Bush really walked away from this, Scott Free, but there is no way he wasn't even more involved in this than Reagan was. Yeah, I mean, George Bush withheld his subpoenaed diary entries that basically indicated that he had full knowledge of this the entire time. Eventually in 1992, Independent Council Lawrence Walsh asked for these again, and Bush, like said, I asked you for these diary entries, and Bush was like, I didn't, you did?

I didn't fully understand. It was inadvertent. Like, you asked me for a lot of stuff. I didn't know you asked me for the diary entries. And Walsh was really upset, and he said the Iran-Contra cover-up has now been completed. And George Bush is a president who has such a contempt for honesty and arrogant disregard for the rule of law. Yeah. And, I mean, the force stalling that the Reagan White House has,

And then later on the Bush White House did in allowing these investigations to go forward and trying to keep Congress at arm's length after everything came out, it worked because there were articles of impeachment introduced in the House against Ronald Reagan. And they managed to stave him off to where it was like, well, he's leaving office anyway, forget about it. This investigation took years and years and years. And then finally, when Bush pardoned everybody, that was it. There was nothing else to do. everybody who was involved was off scot-free.

And then the fact that Oliver North had shredded all those documents, they were all lost to history. Like the actual truth is lost to history. Yeah, Reagan, his reputation took a hit, a temporary hit. For a while there, he went from 63% in the span of a couple of months to 43 to 47%, depending on which poll you looked at on his approval rating. And he would get it back, though. despite in the 1990 deposition, the very, very famous deposition where Ronald Reagan said,

I don't remember or I don't recall 88 times. That was a very big deal. It was all over the news. Yeah, it was. Almost as famous or just as famous as Bill Clinton's very famous. Depends what your definition of is, is. Right, exactly. But Reagan rebounded.

He did, man, to the most popular presidency since FDR, right? Yeah. Upon his exit, his approval rating had bounced all the way back up to the early 60s. Mr. T famously carried him out of the White House on his shoulders on his last day in office. Oh, man. So that's a Ron Contra, man. What a story. A heck of a story.

Where's this movie? I don't know. Hopefully we'll get some rights to it after this episode. I want to play Fawn Hall. Awesome. That's great. You get Jerry to play Fawn Hall. That would be great, Jerry.

Well, in the meantime, while we find a suitable wig for Jerry, you can find out more about Iran-Contra by going and reading contemporary articles on it. I'm telling you, it's really awesome. And since I said that, it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this follow-up on the moon landing thing. Hey, guys, in my opinion, the Apollo missions and moon landings are the most significant events in the history of life on Earth. On the question, why the command module and lunar lander were launched separated,

I think the reason was to allow the command module to be ejected in case of an emergency. The very top of the Apollo stack was the launch escape system, like an ejector seat on steroids. I imagine they had to keep things as light and nimble as possible for the LES to be effective. I don't think you mentioned something that's really significant. The Apollo 8 mission was the very first time humans went to the moon, on top of being the first time we broke free of Earth's gravity. Like 11, the stakes were incredibly high. they had to first insert the correct trajectory to make it to the moon,

then do a burn to enter the orbit around the moon, then perform another burn to break free of the moon's gravity and head back toward Earth. If any piece was not in place, those astronauts would have spent the rest of their lives, either orbiting the sun or orbiting the moon. Apollo 8 also gave us the Earthrise photo. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I've been hearing a lot about Apollo 8 lately, too,

so this person is hats off to you. Jim Luttle was on both Apollo 8 and Apollo 13. He traveled to the moon twice, but never had the opportunity to land. That is so sad. Signed a space geek Noah Alloy. Nice work, Noah Alloy. Alloy, Loy, Loy. Great name, too.

Thanks a lot for getting in touch with us. We love space geeks. We love to put you guys in headlocks and rub your heads with our knuckles until you go, stop. It's called a Nogie here on Earth. That's right. If you want a nougie from me and Chuck, send us a space geeky or any kind of geeky thing. We love that kind of stuff. You can go on to Stuff You Should Know.com and follow our social links,

and you can send us a good old-fashioned email. Wrap it up, spank it on the bottom, and send it off to Stuff Podcast at iHeartRadio.com. Stuff You Should Know is a production of IHeartRadio. For more podcasts to My Heart Radio, visit the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. On Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman. Your duolingo is not going to come back to you when a man is inside of you. Oh, no.

I'm Julie Pinero, and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word Solita, trading the pity for possibility. Listen to Solita on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, this is Hayes Davenport. And Sean Clements. We host the podcast Hollywood Handbook. Every episode we're trying to help our guests improve their careers by mainly focusing on how they can help us improve our careers. The show's famously super accessible so you can easily jump into any of our 650 episodes and understand what's going on.

We recommend some of our recent episodes with Ben Stiller, Danny McBride, Riz Ahmed, and Mary Steenberg. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Nick Tutro. You probably know me from NYPD Blue, the longest yard, or Spike Lease Black Klansman. And on my new podcast, Delivering Happiness with Nick Tatoro, I deliver pizza to a new guest. I've shared a slice with everyone from Seth Rollins. What are you doing my belt? To Bill Burr.

I don't think I've ever met somebody so exactly out of their mind as I am. And now, we even have more great guests coming up, including the great John Tuturo. It's called Happiness, Delivering Happiness. And many, many more. Open your free high heart radio app. Search Delivering Happiness with Nick Tuttle. And listen now. This is an IHeart podcast.

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