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Selects: Iran-Contra Affair: Shady in the 80s, Part 2
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The Secret Arms-for-Hostages Deal Is Born
At 13:15 · chapter starts 11:20
The Reagan administration's solution to its hostage problem was elegant in its dishonesty. Because Israel had a longstanding practice of negotiating hostage exchanges — including kidnapping adversaries to have enough people to trade — the plan was to have Israel transfer arms to Iran, with America simply replacing Israel's stockpile afterward. Since no American explicitly told Iran 'we're doing this for the hostages,' the arms-for-hostages label could technically be avoided. The contact point on the Iranian side was a set of more moderate factions within Iran who hadn't fully embraced the revolution's hardest edges, and through them the Reagan team began making progress. The Iranians were fighting the Iran-Iraq War and desperately needed weapons — a need the Americans, who were simultaneously and publicly supplying Iraq, were uniquely positioned to fill.
During the Iran-Iraq War, the US openly supplied Iraq with weapons, training, and intelligence. At the same time, Oliver North was secretly funneling missiles to Iran. The US was playing both sides of a shooting war.
Oliver North traveled to Iran under the alias 'William P. Goode' with a fake passport. CIA Director William Casey allegedly gave him cyanide pills so he could kill himself rather than be tortured if captured. He returned safely and the deal moved forward.
