i think it is very important for the american people to understand that this is a dangerous world, that we live at risk and that this nation is at risk in a dangerous world, and

that they ought not to be led to believe as a conflict. once of these hearings that this nation cannot or should not conduct covert operations. and thanks for joining us for american history. tv's congress investigate series, which looks back at significant congressional investigations. this week, the iran-contra investigation. of 1987. joining us, jim townsend, director of the levin center for oversight and democracy. mr. townsend, in a nutshell. what was the iran-contra affair and how did it begin? well, the iran-contra affair was a scandal that erupted in 1986, 87. under the reagan administration involving and really com collects web of activity centered around an effort by the reagan administration to provide aid to the nicaraguan contras

who were rebels, who were trying to overthrow a socialist government in nicaragua. the reagan ministration was devoted to trying to concern about what they thought would be soviet influence coming in to central america because of a socialist government in nicaragua. they were devoted to trying to overthrow that government. i'm fortunately for them, the congress did not agree and had passed several laws to prohibit the us government from aiding the contras. so the reagan administration, some senior officials in the reagan administration went about a an enterprise to raise private funds and channel those funds to the contras to support their effort to overthrow the nicaraguan government and the way they raised those monies was to sell arms to iran and also raise money and get money from

other countries and private sources. this was in contradiction to the reagan administration stated policy of not negotiating with terrorist regimes or regimes that supported terrorism. and in the case of iran, of course, in the early eighties, iran had been, as it still does, sponsoring terrorist organizations in the middle east. and one of them was called in is called hezbollah. and it had taken hostage --, american hostages in beirut. so this complex scheme where the reagan administration officials were negotiating with iran, agreeing to sell them arms in exchange for the release of these hostages, some of the funds from those sales and other fundraising activities would then translate to the support of the contras. so this that's that's that's what the iran contra scheme was.

and the reagan administration had kept this secret. but then it became known and we can get into how that all occurred and what occurred afterwards, when when investigations ensued. well, how was it discovered? how was this plan discovered? well, it was sort of two phase is the what had been occurring with the funds that were being raised is that arms were being shipped and delivered to the contras in the nicaraguan countryside or in honduras, neighboring honduras and what members of the administration were doing was to work with retired military people to orchestrate these shipments, and they were delivered by airplane. one of those airplanes was shot down. in 1985 and a and it was found. and one of the people on that plane survived the crash and was

taken hostage. and then his name was eugene hayes infamous. and he admitted publicly that he had been delivering arms to the contras at the behest of the u.s. government. well, it was in november of. 1986 that president reagan and then attorney general edwin meese held a news conference in the white house about this. here's a little bit of what they had to say. last friday, after becoming concerned whether my national security apparatus had provided me with a security or a complete factual record with respect to the implementation of my policy toward iran, i directed the attorney general to undertake a undertake a review of this matter over the weekend and report to me on monday and yesterday, secretary meese provided me and the white house chief of staff with the report on his preliminary findings. and this report led me to conclude that i was not fully

informed on the nature of one of the activities undertaken in connection with this initiative. this action raises serious questions of propriety. i've just met with my national security advisers and congressional leaders to inform them of the actions that i'm taking today, determination of the full details of this action will require further review and investigation by the department of justice. looking to the future, i will appoint a special review board to conduct a comprehensive review of the role and procedures of the national security council staff in the conduct of foreign and national security policy. i anticipate receiving the reports from the attorney general and the special review board at the earliest possible date upon the completion of these reports. and i will share their findings and conclusions with the congress and the american people. although not directly involved, vice admiral john poindexter has asked to be relieved of his assignment as assistant to the president for national security affairs and to return to another

assignment, the navy lieutenant colonel oliver north has been relieved of his duties on the national security council staff. i am deeply troubled that the implementation of a policy aimed at resolving a truly tragic situation in the middle east has resulted in such controversy. as i've stated previously, i believe our policy goals toward iran were well founded. however, the information brought to my attention yesterday convinced me that in one aspect, implementation of that policy was seriously flawed. while i cannot reverse what has happened, i am initiating steps, including those i've announced today, to assure that the implementation of all future foreign and national security policy initiatives will proceed only in accordance with my authorization. over the past six years, we've realized many foreign policy goals. i believe we can yet achieve and i intend to pursue the objectives on which we all agree

a safer, more secure and stable world. and now i'm going to ask attorney general meese to brief you. you still may make a mistake, mr. holder. did you make a mistake in sending arms to tehran, sir? no, and i'm not taking any more questions. so in just a second, i'm going to ask attorney general meese to brief you on what we presently know of what he has found out. is anyone else going to be like the secretary? no one was let go. they chose to go. what about mr. secretary? secretary, can you give secretary shultz a vote of confidence if you feel that way? may i give you that? and the general. what about that? with the slide. well, that's what i going to say, which is what it's all about. why? why not? why don't i tell you what? what is the situation? and then i'll take your questions on friday afternoon or friday at noon, the president asked me to look into and bring together the facts concerning

the particularly the implements portion of the strategic initiative in iran and more precisely. anything pertaining to the transfer of arms over the weekend. this inquiry was conducted this yesterday evening i reported to the president. we continued our inquiry and this morning the president directed that we make this information immediately available to the congress and to the public through this medium at this noon. let me say that all of the information is not yet in. we are still continuing our inquiry. but he did want me to make available immediately what we know at the present time. what is involved is that in the course of the arms transfers, which involved the united states providing the arms to israel and israel in turn transferring the

arms. in effect, selling the arms to representatives of iran, certain moneys which were received in the transaction between representatives of israel and representatives of iran were taken and made available to the forces in central america, which are opposing the sandinista government there. so, jim townsend, how significant was that news conference and did that spur the congress to create a joint committee that news conference was a bombshell because at once the attorney general and the reagan administration admitted to doing both things to violate federal law by channeling support to the contras and

contradicting it stated policy of not negotiating with terrorists and in fact going even further and providing arms to the iranian government, which of course was viewed as a terrorist state. so it was a a massive the public outcry was was was extraordinary. and the congress leapt into action. the administration was very keen. the reagan ministration was very keen to not have a replay of watergate. and so they wanted to reassure the public that they were not trying to cover this up. and so president reagan appointed a special commission, led by a former senator named john tower to investigate the attorney general, edwin meese, who is the one who held the press conference shortly thereafter, appointed an independent counsel. his name was lawrence walsh, and

walsh's charge was to go investigate the iran contra affair and explore whether there were any civil or whether there should be any charges brought against anyone, either civilly or criminally. now, this was a joint congressional committee that was formed along with the independent commission. the independent counsel. how frequent were joint committees formed of both senate and house members on this? this was quite unusual. there certainly have been joint committees, bicameral efforts in some instances, but this was pretty unusual. they were to select committees, one created in the house, one created in the senate, and what they agreed to do was to hold joint hearings. so they would pursue their investigations, collaborate with each other.

but then hold joint hearings and so that so that the, you know, the sort of the public record they were creating and the way they were informing the public would be a little more efficient, a little more coherent in one joint hearing or a series of hearings rather than having separate hearings. jim townsend a few weeks ago, we had you on to talk about the mccarthy hearings, and we looked at the members of the committee and several of them were freshmen. now, here's the senate members of the iran-contra joint committee, the annual in a way, george mitchell, sam nunn, paul sarbanes, how heflin and david boren were the democrats? warren rudman. jim mcclure, orrin hatch, bill cohen and paul trible were the republicans from the senate in the house. lee hamilton was the chair democrat. dante purcell the future speaker. tom foley.

peter rodino. jack brooks. future secretary of defense. les aspin. ed boland. ed jenkins. louis stokes of ohio. on the republican side in the house. -- cheney. future vice president. william broomfield of michigan. henry hyde of illinois. jim quarter of new jersey. bill mccollum of florida and mike dewine. future governor of ohio, were on the committee. the difference i wanted to note was that this seems like a lot of senior leadership were serving on the iran-contra joint committee. that's that's certainly the case really on both sides, but particularly on the democratic side, you had very prominent members who went on to be even more prominent. george mitchell, of course, became the senate majority leader. sam nunn became chair of the armed services committee. i could go on and on about all of their roles, but danny, when you weigh really, really unusual and exceptional american, he is

somebody who won that the congressional medal of honor for his service in world war two. he you know, was somebody who had been and played a pretty prominent role in the watergate investigation. you know, in 1973. so here we are 15 years later and he's chairing the senate select committee. warren rudman was a highly respected moderate republican from new hampshire and, you know, really, really prominent members on the republican side in the senate. and then lee hamilton was chairman, chairman of the foreign affairs committee. so these were people in prominent positions. so it suggests, i think in part that the stakes were were considered to be very, very high in this circumstance. since and and this was a these were select committees.

so the leadership of the house and senate in the democratic and republican parties basically picked their some of their strongest and most prominent leaders to serve. whereas in, you know, in the mccarthy instance, you had you had a standing committee and a standing subcommittee. and so the members that just happened to be on that subcommittee were the ones who who played the role in the investigation. mr. townsend, you mentioned that eugene hassan foose was shot down and discovered in 1986. this is may of 1987, when the hearings are kicking off. that's a that's a pretty fast timeline for washington, isn't it? that's right. yes. i think i said 85 before. but but but it is the case that he was shot down in 86. yes. the wheels turned quite quickly, both in terms of congress, you know, putting together these two select committees and commencing an investigation and then getting to hearings fairly quickly. also, the tower you know, the

tower commission that was convened by president reagan acted within a mter of months, issuing a report that was very critic of the reagan administration and none of the president personally. so that so things move very quickly. and then, of course, lawrence walsh, the third kind of light of the school, was engaging in a wide ranging civil and crimina investigation all at the same time. all right. politics in the mood and washing written in 1987, year before presidential election, a second term republican president and congress controlled by the democrats. right. so what you started to see and one of the reasons why maybe this was a more politically fraught a partizan, not not that it was a partizan investigation, but the politics and the divisions in the country were were falling a little more on partizan lines.

is that president reagan as powerful as he was, as potent a political players, he was by the middle of his second term, his power and his influence were starting to ebb. the 1986 election had given the democrats control of the u.s. senate. so in 1987, the you know, the democrats were in charge of the senate. they already had the house. so president reaga was was in a weaker position than he had been earlier in his term. well, let's show a little bit of the initial hearing. this is from may five, 1987. senator daniel inoue, who is the chair on the senate side, kind of an icon of the senate, lost his arm in world war two. here's a little bit of what he had to say. ladies and gentlemen, 200 years ago, the framers of our constitution provided for a more perfect union by establishing a

strong national government built on a system of checks and balances. the founding fathers did not believe that effective government and checks and balances were inconsistent. on the contrary. it was their premise that no branch had such a monopoly on truth that it should be free to act with total independence. the unique genius of the american system was that by dividing power, it promoted sound policy based on reasoned and open discourse, a mutual trust between the branches. these hearings, this morning and for the days to follow will examine what happens when the trust, which is the lubricant of our system, is breached by high officials of our government. the story is not a pretty one as it unfolds in these proceedings.

the american people will have every right to ask, how could this have happened here? and as we answer that question, the american people will have every right to demand that it will never happen again. indeed, it should never have happened at all. the constitutionally mandated relationship between the executive and legislative branches of this nation has stood the test of time. it has survived the shock of civil war, outlasted the mightiest monarchs and dictatorships, and seen us successfully through the turbulence of world wars. there's no reason the same carefully calibrated system could not have guided us through the difficult choices we face in central america and iran. the formulation of american foreign policy has always been a

matter of discourse between the president and congress without detracting from their own primary responsibility. presidents have understood the congress as an indispensable role in foreign policy. we must ratify the treaties, confirm the major foreign policy officials authorize and appropriate the funds and exercise the oversight. bipartisanship in the execution of foreign policy requires prior consultation in the development of foreign policy. in short, it is a working relationship. the president may be the senior partner in foreign policy, but he is not the sole proprietor of indeed this fact was seemingly recognized by this administration in 1984. the administration pledged this complete cooperation with congress.

it entered into an unambiguous agreement with the senate intelligence committee promising advance notification of anticipated covert activities. as recently as the summer of 1986, the director of central intelligence reaffirmed this agreement and lauded the successful partnership that our developing tween the executive and the intelligence committee. but at the very moment, these promises of cooperation, notification and partnership were being made and reaffirmed the secret chain of events which would explode in the iran-contra affair was well in motion. the story is one not of covert activity alone, but of covert foreign policy, not secret diplomacy, which congress has always accepted, but secret policymaking, which the constitution has always rejected.

it is a tale of working outside the system and of utilizing irregular channels and private parties accountable to no one on matters of national security, while ignoring the congress and even the traditional agencies of executive foreign policy making. and we're joined by jim townsend, director of the levin center for oversight and democracy. mr. townsend, did senator in a ways i hate to use this word, but gravitas help establish the committee as a important, legitimate committee? no question. the way he approached his his position as chair of the his commitment to being bipartisan. by all accounts, the work that was done by the staff and by the members behind the scenes in the

investigation that led up to the hearings and during the hearings, it was really a very credible effort. and that all began with, in a ways, as i mentioned before, his stature as a war hero and his just demeanor and his strong and close relationships with many of his colleagues in the senate, including some very prominent republicans. he was very close to senator dole, who ultimately, of course, ran ran for president. that kind of those kind of relationships gave him the ability to to work closely. and that, i think, was the public recognize that because of the way these senators operated with each other in public and behind the scenes, applicants on the committee in both the house and senate feel that there was a bipartisan effort as well. i think so. during during the investigation and during the hearings, the bipartisan consensus started to break down during hearings and

afterwards, as and when they ultimately went to when the committee issued a nearly 700 page report, the republicans on the committee, not all of them signed that report. and there was a minority report that was issued that took issue and disagree with with some of the findings. members in the house were much less republican, members in the house were more. upset. i guess you would you have to say. or more or less less. part of that consensus. and so they took a different view. at the end of the day, in terms of what the findings were and what the implications were of what the reagan administration had done. daniel in a way, warren rudman, lee hamilton and -- cheney were the four chair and ranking members of this committee where the house and senate treated the same. well, i would say. so, i mean, they were they were on an equal footing when it came

to their institutional role here. but the house and the senate have very different cultures. and in many instances, the polity x and in the house tend to be, you know, obviously as the people's house, as the house that is up for reelection every two years. ten, you know, the the thinking is usually in the house is a little bit more sensitive to the political currents. and so that's often reflected in their being a bit more of a, you know, a visceral partizanship. and i think that was reflected. but in terms of their standing and their and their their role, they were really on equal footing and and pursuing this investigation and then coming together in these hearings during the summer of 1987, what were some of the committee's challenges? well, it was really difficult to operate in this situation where they were not the only entity conducting investigations.

you had the tower commission, which had conducted the investigation, issued a report on the findings of that report, were actually helpful to the committee and they built on a lot of those findings and dug deeper. but meanwhile, you had lawrence wallis, the independent counsel, conducting his own investigation. and, you know, one of the challenges was that some of the witnesses that the the congressional panel that house and senate joint select committees were we're talking to we're also the subject of criminal and civil investigation. and in a couple of instances, the committee, the congressional folks granted limited immunity in exchange for testimony from some of those witnesses. lieutenant colonel oliver north and the national security adviser, john poindexter, were two of the most prominent witnesses who were granted limited immunity and that led to

some difficulty. one of the challenges, particularly with oliver north, was that because he was being granted immunity, the committee decided not to conduct a deposition with him before he testified in open public. in the public hearing. so they didn't know what oliver north was going to say and how he was going to behave. and when the when he did turn up in the hearing, he was very combative and very, you can only say, political, which is not what they had expected. and had they deposed him, they would have known and been perhaps better prepared to deal with him. he he generated a tremendous amount of support for the reagan administration and for himself personally in the way that he came and appeared. he showed up wearing his military uniform. he was he was a, you know, retired u.s. military, very decorated u.s. military.

and so he looked the part of a war hero. and yet he had been engaging in illegal activity and and and doing some things that, you know, were quite unethical. he had a few covered up the evidence of this illegal activity, but he wasn't really on the defensive. he was on the offensive. and so that put the committee on the back foot. and it also created a real firestorm of public controversy. some people really supporting oliver north and then some people really, really angry about what he'd done. well, it was july 7th, 1987, that oliver north became well known in the united states. here's some of his testimony. i never personally discussed the use of the residuals or profits from the sale of u.s. weapons to iran for the purpose of supporting the nicaragua and resistance with the president. i never raised it with him, and he never raised it with me

during my entire tenure at the national security council. staff. throughout the conduct of my entire tenure at the national security council. i assumed that the president was aware of what i was doing and had through my superiors approved it. i saw the approval of my superiors for every one of my actions and it is well documented. i assumed when i had approval to proceed from either judge clark, bud mcfarlane or admiral poindexter that they had indeed solicited and obtained the approval of the president. to my recollection, admiral point, dexter never told me that he met with the president on the issue of using residuals from the iranian sales or to support the nicaraguan resistance, or

that he discussed the residuals or profits for use by the contras with the president, or that he got the president's specific approval, nor did he tell me that the president had approved such a transaction. but again, i wish to reiterate that throughout. i believe that the president had indeed authorized such activity. no other person with whom i was in contact with during my tenure at the white house told me that he or she ever discussed the issue of the residuals or profits with the president. in late november, two other things occurred which relate to this issue honor about friday, november 21st, i asked admiral poindexter, director. does the president know?

he told me he did not. and on november 25th, the day i was reassigned back to the united states marine corps for service, the president of the united states called me. in the course of that call, the president said to me words to the effect that i just didn't know. those are the facts as i know them. mr. shields. i was glad that when you introduced this, you said that you wanted to hear the truth. i came here to tell you the truth, the good, the bad, and the ugly. i'm here to tell it all pleasant and unpleasant. and i'm here to accept responsibility for that, which i did. i will not accept responsibility for that which i did not do. jim townsend of the levin center. oliver north testimony. did it move the needle in the investigation.

well, it certainly heightened the level of of controversy and drama around the investi gation. as i mentioned before, he was a very, you know, kind of colorful figure who, you know, we already had millions of people watching these hearings, millions of people really following every every movement of this. you know, this was sort of in the early days of the 24 hour news cycle. and the you know, there was a media feeding frenzy and when he came forward, he really upped sort of the level of intensity. and the revelation is, you know, that the evidence around him that to some degree he had to admit to indicated that he and some of his associates had shredded documents, had deleted emails, had done a great deal to to obscure the truth, to

basically hide what was going on, hide an illegal activity that the congress had explicitly forbidden. so a lot was learned in the course of investigating oliver north and also john poindexter, the national security adviser and both of them were also prosecuted and ultimately convicted, although their convictions were overturned because of the immunity grants that they received. but but but they it was a you know, they they did face consequences for their actions. and it did move forward to investigate significantly when their evidence was revealed. and you've mentioned national security adviser john poindexter. here's a little bit of his testimony before iran contra joint committee. now, colonel north, as you undoubtedly know, has testified

about what he said during that face to face meeting. i understand. and he said this at page 225 of the transcript of last wednesday. and i'll read it to you. he said, and this is his testimony. i will tell you right now, counsel and all the members here gathered that i misled i misled. and then there's a question at that meeting. and the answer at that meeting. question face to face. answer face to face. question did you made false statements to them about your activities in support of the contras? answer i did. now my question to you is, did you authorize colonel north to do that? i did not authorize him to make false statements. i did think that he would withhold information and be

evasive, frankly, in answering questions. my objective all along was to withhold from the congress exactly what the next f was doing and carrying out the president's policy. i felt that that as i've testified before, that the boland amendment did not apply to the nsc staff. the government, the u.s. government was complying with the letter and spirit of boland. and i thought that was sufficient. i don't misunderstand me. i thought that colonel north would withhold information. there was no doubt about that in my mind. there were a lot of stories in the press that had appeared that i had talked to colonel north about periodic. most of the stories were patently false, and and in error. i thought most of the questions would be about these rather outrageous stories in the press.

and i felt that colonel north could knock those stories down by answering the questions truthfully. my question to you is, didn't you put colonel north in absolutely impossible position? how could he answer the questions raised by the resolution of inquiry truthfully, and this is american history. tv's congress investigates series looking at significant congressional style investigations over our history. this week, we're looking at the 1987 iran-contra joint committee hearings. and our guest is jim townsend of the levin center for oversight and democracy. mr. townsend was john poindexter considered a credible witness? i think a lot of people did not think he was a credible witness because of his behavior. the record was that when he

learned that the justice department was starting to investigate iran-contra, he tipped oliver north and oliver north then destroyed documents, documents and deleted emails. fortunately, he was unable to eliminate all the evidence, but essentially poindexter engaged in obstruction of congress. so that evidence had come out at that point. and i don't believe he was a very credible witness. and he was, as i mentioned before, ultimately prosecuted and convict did, although his conviction was overturned. but he was somebody who a lot of people, i think, felt had to see the american people. was it rare for congressional hearings like this to create eight mini celebrity eyes like oliver north and fawn hall, etc.? well, i think it's rare in in

the bigger scheme of things, it's rare for a congressional hearing to generate that kind of attention that does not happen too often. but we certainly have over the years, instances, people have gotten to be quite a famous or notorious for their behavior in hearings. and think about the watergate investigation, the watergate hearings that were held. you know, john dean, who was the counsel to the president, testified in very dramatic fashion about what he saw and what he did. you know, he became a household name because of that. you know, we've talked about it. you know, previously about mccarthy and and the way that somebody like joseph welch became very famous for standing up to joe mccarthy in a public hearing. so it occurs. but not too often. in the summer of 1987, seven weeks of hearings, 500 witnesses, 1 million documents in a 690 page report. who are some of the significant

others who testified? mr. townsend. well, you had a whole range of of operatives, people involved with this scandal, people like robert mcfarland, who had been the national security adviser, who was deeply involved in these orchestrated efforts to channel well, to go to the iranians to try to secure the release of hostages in exchange for the sale of these weapons systems. and then the money being channeled and used to support the contras. so mcfarland was a very, very important part of the of the the proceeding. fine. paul who was the assistant to oliver north who helped him destroy documents? she was, you know, a young woman who was kind of got lot of attention because she was she was attractive and the whole thing sort of played to the media's feeding frenzy on this overall situation.

so, you know, there were many people who who appeared before this these proceedings who became quite prominent and gave important and ultimately the iran contra hearings and investigation revealed a great deal about the way the executive branch was operating, the way the reagan administration felt it had the power to circumvent the will of congress and and pursue a what really became a secret foreign policy. and a lot of people when that was revealed by these witnesses and by the evidence, shocked by that. and here's a quote from the final committee report, the constitution of the united states gives important powers to both the president and the congress in the making of foreign policy. the president is the principal

architect of foreign policy in consultation with the congress. the policies of the u.s. cannot succeed unless the president and the congress work together. yet in the iran contra affair, administration officials holding no elected repeatedly evidenced disrespect for congress efforts to perform its constitu additional oversight role in foreign policy. what other conclusions did the committee reach? well, the committee to from as i mentioned, you know, we talked about poindexter and mcfarland and north and fall, but others, senior ranking officials like the secretary of defense, caspar weinberger, and other people, secretary of state george shultz. i mean, the really top people in the reagan administration ation were brought before this committee to give evidence because this scandal and really

conspiracy c wound its way. many parts of of the executive branch and of the administration. and so it really it revealed a fundamental challenge that that was a growing problem and continues to be something that we have not resolved. and that is how do you balance the authority of the executive branch and the president to conduct foreign policy and to be the commander in chief of the armed forces with congress's constitutional role, to check and oversee the behavior of the administration in the execution of the law and ensure that the law is executed as specified by congress, and also to fund all of these operations. it's the congress that's that that authorizes the spending of not one dime can be spent unless congress appropriates the money for that activity. so congress has to have a role

in foreign policy and in defense, and yet we've had president after president resisting congress's efforts to insert itself into decision making and to resist giving a full accounting and, being fully cooperative with oversight efforts. so you know that the iran-contra scandal and the investigations that followed were really a dramatic laying out of this conflict. and it's rare that public gets such a window into these machinations and these conflicts. did the public share the media's obsession with the iran contra affair? well, certainly for a while in the summer of 1987, i can just be personally, i was i was a college student and i had been been backpacking through europe and having, you know, pretty

good time explore in a place i'd never been before. and i came back home in in june of 87, and these hearings were beginning. and i was like a lot of other people just wrapped, you know, with with these hearings and the revelations that were coming from them, the public. no. tends to move on pretty quickly from from things like this. and, you know, as much as it did damage the credibility of the president reagan and the reagan administration, his vice president, george bush, ran for election in the following year in 1988, and he won one handily. so the political outcome, the political sort of consequences of the whole scandal, i were were maybe not as dramatic and large as the as as as the obsession. and media and public focus suggested they might be.

mr. townsend, can you say that anything changed in washington because of these hearings or because of lawrence walsh's investigation or john tower's investigation? well, i don't know that a lot changed. i think what what you observed was a continue when we were on a path of a a couple of major themes, a couple of major sort of developments that occurred in our politics and in our public life. one of those is a continuing decline of the public's trust in government, the public's faith that the government is telling it the truth that the public believes and that the government is is being honest. watergate and vietnam contributed heavily to damaging that. but by the time of the iran-contra scandal, the public still had a fairly strong belief in the federal government's

credibility. iran-contra damaged it further. and then we've had subsequent scandals and problems that have gone even farther. so a damaging credibility of the federal government is one thing or government general. and then another thing is of our politics. it's important to remember in 1987 that that was just a year after the the very, very polarizing confirmation battle where robert works nomination to the supreme court. there was incredible levels of conflict and partizan battling going on around that nomination which which was really the most intense partizan battle around a supreme court nominee perhaps ever, or certainly in many, many years. so that we were already on this path toward much greater polarization. and so the iran-contra scandal

was sort of one more instance where we got more polarized because there was a breakdown. people there were people on oliver north side, and then there were people who were really by what he did, and they were they were very much polarized and in conflict with each other. and so we're moving in a direction that, you know, looks very familiar to where we are in our polarized politics today. well, arthur malcolm byrne has written a book called iran-contra. here he is talking about president reagan's role in the affair. i see reagan as being the driving force behind the scandal and both elements of the scandal on the iran side. he was a guided primarily by his concern for the hostages. he was widely acknowledged to have been emotional and very moved by his meetings with the hostage. in 1985, especially.

and this this really drove him. he wanted for personal reasons, but also for political reasons. this is one of the great politicians of the 20th century. there's no doubting that he had political motivations to he was intent on finding a solution to the hostage on the contra side of things. he was less aware of what was happening on the part of his staff and aides from other agencies. but there seems, in my view, there's no doubt that he provided the the guidance and the created the atmosphere in which people like robert mcfarlane, his national security advisor, followed by john poindexter oliver north and all the others took their inspiration and took their instructions. you remember the famous phrase back in the during the congressional hearings, mcfarlane said that in 1984,

president reagan took him aside and said, it's up to you to keep the countries together, body and soul. this was in anticipation of very stringent restrictions on government aid to the countries that were about to take place, that the infamous boland amendment. and it was, as you look back at the record, at least as i saw it, it was clear to everybody, including reagan, what was about to happen, that this was seen as a virtual a complete shutdown of official u.s. assistance to the contras. but reagan was not about to let them go. he was as emotional about the the freedom fighters as he was about the hostages. and he was intent on finding ways to get around congressional prohibitions, whether he understood everything that was to happen was legal or illegal. we can get into those details,

but the basic point is that he was at the top of the pyramid and without him, i don't think any of this would have happened. so jim townsend of the levin center, did anyone go to prison? did anyone get pardoned? were there punishments meted out in any way? well, there were. there were some punishments in the sense that the independent counsel, lawrence walsh, eventually charged 14 people with misconduct. several people were convicted. i mentioned at john poindexter you're and oliver north were both convicted of obstructing congress and a number of other instances of misconduct, but their convictions were overturned on appeal because they had been granted limited immunity by congress. it was the appeals court ruled that that their convictions would not stand because they were based in part on testimony that in testimony that was immune and it influenced people in the in the trial of those two

president george herbert walker bush, when he was about to leave office, pardoned seven of the reagan administration officials who were either prosecuted or convicted. and so the general outcome was very little in the way of accountability or sort of punishment and consequences for the individuals involved. john poindexter or, you know, got a demotion from being a assistant admiral to a rear admiral. that was about the the extent of the of the sort of harm to at least his formal career. oliver north tried to parlay his notoriety into a u.s. senate seat. he ran for the united states senate unsuccessfully. he ran. virginia was not elected. but but it gives you an idea of

of sort of the the the celebrity that he had generated, you know, how famous he had become and how much political support he had, at least in some quarters in our politics. and i'm trying to think, has this joint senate house committee setup been used since? can you think of any. yes. the 911, when following 911, there were two major investigations. one was was was conducted by an independent commission that was appointed. and then there was a joint 911 committee that was established by congress to delve into all this, all the issues around how 911 occurred, why it occurred, and what needs to be done, what needed to be done to to prevent it from happening again. so that's that's a really good example of of of congress realizing that sometimes it really makes sense to to create

a bicameral body that can tackle an issue, consolidate resources, and also communicate a bit more, more coherently than than an investigation. you have to two houses conducting their own investigations. in general, though, congress conducts investigations in the house and the senate that may feel or seem to a lot of people as redundancy, but is there is some scholarships and some analysis that suggests that that you get a better result when you have multiple points of view, multiple institutional. pathways to examine important issues, complex issues. it's a little bit like having, you know, more than one set of eyes examining something. so there is something to be said for having both houses do their own investigations. but then there's also a good case to be made in some instances of consolidate it, especially when maybe you've got

a really important opportunity to share those findings with the public. and jim townsend is a director of the levin center for oversight and democracy, which is what. mr. townsend well, the levin center is a an institute that's headquartered at wayne state university law school in detroit. we also have staff in washington, d.c. and new york, and we were founded by senator carl levin in 2015 when he retired from the senate. and our mission is to advance bipartisan fact based oversight and in other words, to teach and train lawmakers and staff people working in congress and in state legislatures around the country, and even overseas parliaments in how to do good investigations, but also to understand scholarship and study how congress and the legislative branches work in gathering facts

and sharing them with the public. what effect that has on our democracy, we think. and it's the supreme court has said the same thinghat the legislature here, whether that's congress or state legislature, really has an obligation to be the eyes and voice of the people they represent and oversight is the is the central way that lawmakers fulfilled that responsibility. and so our work involves making sure that they do a as good a job as possible that the public can understand and follow and lawmakers accountable for being good stewards of the facts and doing investigations. and we appreciate you being part of congress investigates and american history tv series. thank you, sir peter. thank you so much. this is a really important series and we're so appreciative that you all have