I'm willing to give people the benefit of the doubt including you. I am interested in the vast amount of people you say were not only involved but convicted of wrong doing though. A credible source that even eludes to that number would be appreciated.
Well the Iran-Contra affair centered around the executive branch trying to bypass the democratic congress which had passed a law specifically banning the use of government funds to aid the counter-revolutionaries in Nicaragua or "Contras". William Kasey, the C.I.A. director and N.S.C. official Oliver North repurposed a pre-existing intelligence and diplomatic network in the middle east which was started during the Carter administration to negotiate the release of hostages. This complicated communications apparatus began to trade US built missiles to the Iranian government and to various terrorist groups in exchange for U.S. hostages, some leftover from the Carter era, others from all sorts of individual situations.
The C.I.A. and a whole host of various arms of the executive branch began an elaborate illegal operation further taking the "arms for hostages" network to sell weapons to various factions in the middle east and funneling the money to the anti- communist rebel "Contras" in Nicaragua. I can't run down the complete list of the people interrogated, indicted, and convicted because that list goes on for fucking ages. As I said, though, Reagan's involvement here is a little easier to summarize.
Kasey died of a brain tumor before things hit the fan, and Oliver North the N.S.C. official who was at the center of most of this mess spent, by his own admission around 4 or 5 days in the pentagon and in his office shredding thousands of documents. Despite this, Congressional investigations and a series of independent councilors managed to indict, and in many cases convict intelligence agents and lackeys to top Reagan aides who were also indicted and sometimes convicted. People like:
John Poindexter and Robert McFarlane (national security advisors) were convicted of crimes related to the Iran-contra affair, and so bleak was their situation that one of them attempted suicide (I don't remember which)
Oliver North (NSC advisor) was convicted
Assistant secretary of state Elliot Abrams was also convicted (if that name already sounds familiar, he was in the George W. Bush administration)
Caspar Weinburger (Defense Secretary) was at least indicted, but i don't remember if he was convicted.
Most of these high-level advisors were pardoned by George H.W. Bush, which is troublesome since he was under investigation himself. After the public lost interest and I believe after he was elected president (I don't remember if it was during or after his Presidential Campaign) Bush was forced to release his private diary (which he started to chronicle his time as Vice President). After years of denying any knowledge of the Iran-Contra Fiasco his diary should have led to his impeachment as president. I read it directly and i still remember the exact wording in one of the later entries: "...I am one of the few people that fully know the details..." (this was at the end of a long entry about Iran-Contra)
Reagan was never directly connected to these events himself, it's simply that everyone around him was.So the problem with Reagan being a "Great President" is undercut by Iran-Contra because either:
A) He was aware of Iran-Contra and at a minimum did nothing to stop it, but quite possibly participated it actively and had Oliver North shred the documents during his shred-fest
OR
B) He was completely unaware of what almost all of the people working for him were up to. Which makes him kind of a shitty leader wouldn't you say?
Most of the people convicted, indicted, interviewed, etc. were low-level intelligence operatives or government officals, its the high-level involvement of basically everyone involved with Reagan's Intelligence gathering apparatus that is troubling.
EDIT: Describing the number as "hundreds" was an exaggeration on my part. I don't know the total number convicted but the final indicted number was something like 130 some odd people if i remember right
