Although Watergate culminated with a dramatic “smoking gun” tape that exposed the guilt of the president in obstructing justice, with a bipartisan consensus quickly forming that President Nixon needed to step down, the Iran-Contra scandal, which involved illegally selling arms to Iran to finance right-wing militias in Nicaragua, fizzled despite shocking revelations about the conduct of the Reagan administration.
Iran Contra unfolded shortly after the midterm elections of 1986, when Democrats retook control of the Senate, and news reports started to reveal a secret shadow operation that had been conducted by high-level officials in the administration to free hostages in Lebanon by selling arms to Iran. The investigations that followed were conducted on several fronts. The conservative Republican Senator from Texas, John Tower, headed a presidentially-appointed commission that looked into how the administration handled its national security decisions. Congress set up a joint House and Senate committee, chaired by Hawaii Democratic Senator Daniel Inouye and Indiana Democratic Congressman Lee Hamilton, that drew massive television ratings in the summer of 1987 when they dragged Reagan officials before the cameras. Hamilton offered…
