Yep. Flying for CIA while dealing drugs to fund Contras (or something close to that).

Tom

I believe the story was that Hassenfuss plane crashed and he fell into the hands of the Nicaraguans, along with a whole pile of documents that he neglected to destroy... if memory serves me correctly.

You know the interesting thing about Iran-Contra? The American media wouldn't touch it at first.

The story was originally broken, I believe, by a Lebanese newspaper, gained currency in Europe, and eventually, after American congressmen were investigating, the American media were dragged kicking and screaming into the whole thing.

What was unveiled was a secret government inside the White House, and a cabal of malevolent but not very bright stuffed shirts and stuffed panties who wandered around muttering 'Sometimes you have to go beyond the Constitution.'

Let me see. If I recall correctly, the acknowledged story goes like this:

- There were American hostages being taken prisoner in Lebanon.

- The United States opened covert channels to Iran to see if the Lebanese hostages could be released.

- Iran said, 'hey, we need arms, spare parts and satellite info to fight our war with Saddam.'

- The United States said 'no problem, coming right up', and supplied arms, spare parts and satellite info, notwithstanding that the US was already supporting Saddam with arms and satellite info.

- This playing off both sides against the middle might have had something to do with an 'accidental' Iraqi jet fighter strike on an American destroyer. Who knows. It was a long time ago, and I don't remember so well.

- Meanwhile, Congress cut off funding for Reagan's beloved Contra Army, on the grounds that cutting women's breasts off and smashing babies heads open on walls wasn't really 'freedom fighting' per se.

- The operation then continued with Iran, with the US then selling large quantities of Arms to Iran in order to covertly fund the Contra operation.

- This resulted in a rather idiotic diplomatic mission by Reagan's man, McFarlane, I think, who went to Tehran with an antique bible and a cake shaped like a key. His ostensible mission was to build a relationship with Iranian 'moderates.'

- Eventually, the whole thing came out in Congressional hearings. Reagan dummied up and pretended not to know what was going on in the White House. He said 'I don't remember' about 150 times. A bunch of Iran Contra posers got convicted. Some of them escaped on technicalities. George H.W. Bush pardoned the lot of them.

There's a couple of other interesting wrinkles that keep floating around, but aren't part of the official story.

One is the Treason Angle. In this angle, the relationship between the Republicans and Iran did not begin in the 80's, but dated back to 79, and covert negotiations by the Republicans to make sure that the hostages were not released, in order to sway the election. This seems to be generally acknowledged as the historical record, everywhere but the United States, for obvious reasons.

The other is the Drug Angle. In this angle, part of the financial relationship in Oliver North's operation was drug trafficking of marijuana, cocaine and crack from Latin America into the United States, which profits were used to fund the contras and buy weapons, which weapons were sold to the Iranians for more money for drugs, weapons and contra funding. Did it actually happen like this? I don't know. But the links between the CIA, drug traffickers and Contras (often the same individuals wore several different hats) are well documented. Again, its one of those things that, for obvious reasons, Americans won't even look at.

So, Zionista, how'd I do?