Timeline of the Iran-Contra Affair
The events leading to the Reagan administration’s illegal deals to sell weapons to Iran in order to fund the Contras in Nicaragua unfolded over several years. The Contras were a paramilitary group fighting against the fairly elected leftist Sandinista government. The U.S had imposed an embargo against Iran after Islamic fundamentalists had taken American hostages in Tehran in 1979. The ensuing scandal engulfed the Reagan administration.
July 1979 Sandinista guerillas overthrow a right-wing dictatorship in Nicaragua
November 1979 Islamic militants take 52 Americans hostage inside the U.S. embassy in Iran U.S. passes an embargo against selling weapons to Iran
January 1981 President Ronald Reagan assumes office; Iranian hostages released the same day
December 1981 Reagan signs an executive order to authorize a covert C.I.A. operation to support the Contras, a right-wing rebel group who seek to overthrow the leftist Sandinista government of Nicaragua
August 1982 U.S. Marines land in Lebanon to stabilize the government following an Israeli invasion to oust the Palestinian Liberation Organization headquartered in Lebanon
1982 – 1984 Evidence of U.S. efforts to overthrow the Sandinistas leaks out in the press, including C.I.A. sabotage manuals Congress passes Boland Amendments, barring the use of federal money to overthrow the Nicaraguan government
1983 Hezbollah, a political paramilitary group backed by Iran, begins taking hostages in Lebanon to protest the imprisonment by American-backed governments of their allies in
other parts of the Middle East
November 1984 Sandinista candidates win national elections in Nicaragua
February 1985 Reagan approves National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane’s idea to negotiate with Iran for the release of Hezbollah’s hostages
September 1985 Reagan administration officials secretly negotiate to sell weapons to Iran in exchange for help securing the release of American hostages in Lebanon
April 1986 Oliver North, now National Security Adviser, proposes diverting $12 million from the sale of weapons to Iran to fund the Contras in Nicaragua
May 1986 McFarlane, now a private consultant to the White House, and North secretly fly to Iran with spare parts for missiles
November 1986 The Attorney General discloses the Iran-Contra connection Reagan announces the firing of North and the resignation of other officials involved in the
scandal
1987 – 1992 Congress holds a series of investigations, brings down indictments and hears appeals In December 1992, President George H. W. Bush pardons six people involved in the scandal, including McFarlane Source: American Social history Project/Center for Media and Learning, 2010