This is an "I Heart" podcast. Guaranteed Human. If you're bookshelf and you're for you page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks pride and prejudice and love island deserve the same level of discourse. Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture. With your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions. Yeah, I'm obsessed, I'm obsessed. Listen to Pro Society on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, this is Hayes Davenport, and Sean Clements. We host the podcast, Hollywood Handbook. Each week, we talk to someone in show business and try to help them with their careers and see what they have to offer us. Everyone has a good time and no one gets mad at their publicists for letting them do our show. We've had a lot of great guests like Sarah Sherman, Adam Scott, Danny McBride, Ben Stillert, and a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are without us. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. - On the new podcast, Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman. I can wait four hours for the next bus, or this random dude is offering the ride on his motorcycle. I choose Option B. I'm Julie Pinero, and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word Solita, trading the pity for possibility. Listen to Solita on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. - Hey guys, it's me Josh, and for this week's Select, I've chosen our 2019 episode on the Iran Contra Affair. We called it Shady in the 80s for two good reasons. One, it took place in the 80s, and two, it was probably the shadiest thing the US government has ever done, and that's really saying something. Anyway, if you like your stuff, you should know episodes eye-popping, then prepare for this one. - Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. - Hey, and welcome to the podcast, I'm Josh Clark, there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. We're Jerry over there eating with Chopstick as a matter of fact. - You know, we're Jerry pulls out the Chopsticks. - It's time to record. - That's right, yeah. - Scott, she's got Facebook open, and she's sitting there with her Chopstick, so we're recording now. - Jerry's been fork-free since '83. - Speaking of '83. - Your shirt? - I guess it's kind of '83-ish. - It looks very Thomas Magnum. - It does, Chuck, it does. Not just the shirt, the whole outfit. Look at the jeans, the shoes. - Yeah. - Yeah. - You got the Ferrari out back? - Thank you for noticing, man. I look like a chubby, Thomas Magnum. - It's funny because I just finished Stranger Things 3, and I saw that there was a, have you seen it yet? Are you into that? - No, I like the first season. I never really got back into it after that. - No offense to anybody. - Sure. - The main, the Sheriff guy, hopper, wears a shirt kind of like that through most of the season. - Is that right? - And so someone did a cut of a like a Magnum PI intro and had him running around and shooting things and jumping into cars all set to the Magnum thing. - Very cool. - And it really fits. I gotta do this though that song. (humming) - With a guy with a shirt like that, and it's Magnum. - Yep. - Of course he has the mustache too. - Well, I'm a mustache-less chubby Magnum. - You should wear a mustache. That look interesting. - I don't know. - It do solve a lot of mysteries though. - Nothing can change a look like Mustaches. - Oh, dude. - Especially if-- - It's instantaneously. - Right, especially if fake mustache because you just put it on and bam, you're done. - That's right. - So I tried, I'm gonna go back to the 83 segue. - Yeah, we're here, right? We're right in the middle of the 80s. - Yeah, like this was super 80s. This is as 80s as it gets. - Yeah. - With a Ron Contrafare. That's what we're talking about. Some people call it a Ron Gate. I poo poo that name. - Ron Contra. - Sure. I remember this going on at the time. - Me too. - I remember watching all over North Tessify. - Me too. - And my sister was like, he's so dreamy. Look at how much poison he has. - He got his dress greens on. - Right, exactly. - All those metals. - He had his Boy Scout three fingers up, like swearing. I really think he did do that. But even as an adult, like everything I knew about Ron Contra, like until researching this, it was just the glossiest version. - Well, I mean, I was like 10 and 11. So you were like seven and eight. - Sure, sure. But I mean, like still, over time as you age, you're like, oh, that's what was going on. Or, oh, I understand that. Even as an adult, my conception of it was not very thorough at all. And as I dug into, I'm like, this is one of the shadiest things I've ever done, ever. - Yeah, and it was really great to do this. And like, now I know it. Now I have a full understanding of what happened. And if it ever comes up at a party. - Right. - And people are like, oh, what was that all about anyway? I'm gonna be like, well, please sit down for an hour. - And I'll just pull up my smartphone and play our episodes. - Right. Actually, maybe an hour and a half. We'll see how this goes. - Yeah, by the way, everyone, this is a two-parter. - Yeah, buckle up. - And so, this is part one. I figured we'd start with the beginning. - I think that's a really good idea. That reminds me of my friend in college watched the movie, oh, which one was it? - We kind of burned short cuts. - We kind of burned the movie that was on two video cassettes. - What? - It was so long, you know, they had to split them up. Was it magnolia? - The bridge too far. - I can't remember. My friend in college, very, very famously among our friends, watched the second tape first and then watched the first tape second and didn't really put it together. She was just like, I thought it was a little confusing. - Really, oh, so it was accidental. - Oh, yeah. - And then she showed up in the second part, and I was like, she's already dead. She was kind of country. - This is kind of funny. - This movie's one of them inachronisms. - Yeah. - Well, this is not an anachronism 'cause we're gonna be normal smart, singing people and start at the beginning. - That's right. - And there's really no better place to start than the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. Ronald Reagan, if you weren't familiar with him already, when he was president, he had already been governor in California, but even before that, he had a pretty extensive career in Hollywood. - Yeah. - And while he was a pretty big star in Hollywood, at least B-plus list, if not A-list actor. - Yeah, I mean, he was a medium-sized star. - Sure, but definitely way more famous as president than he ever was as a movie star. - Sure. - He learned to detest communism. - Yeah. - And at the time, communism was a really big thing in Hollywood. Like, it was very fashionable, especially among the intellectuals of Hollywood. - Yeah. - And he learned to hate it. So much so that by the time he got to be president, he had this idea that there was, it was impossible for capitalist democracy and communism to coexist even peacefully on earth. You couldn't have both. You had to have one or the other. And by God, Ronald Reagan was gonna see to it that the one that we had was a capitalist democracy. - Yeah, he wanted to stamp out communism wherever it reared its head. And it was rearing its head close to home, which we'll see here in a second. But all over the world. - Oh yeah, for sure. It was called the Reagan. - Yeah, bits and pieces of it were. - Right. And he came up with the Reagan doctrine. And the Reagan doctrine was we will aid any opposition to communism wherever it sprouts. Like if you're fighting against a communist revolution, we'll support your country. If you're a rebel fighting against a leftist communist government, we'll help you overthrow. That's the Reagan doctrine. - Yeah, via money, via arms, via training, via covert operations that we carried out ourselves, there were all kinds of ways that we could and did help stem the flow of communism. - Yeah, so there was, as you were saying, there was a place pretty close to home where communism had sprouted up. And that was Nicaragua, down in Central America. And in Central America in the '30s, the Sandinista government had taken power and had held on to power well into the '70s and by this time the early '80s. And it drove Ronald Reagan nuts that there was a communist power right there that was being supported by the Soviet Union through Cuba, ostensibly. I've never gotten the impression that this was ever conclusively proven. They definitely got support from Cuba, but whether it was the Soviet Union who was really calling the shots in Nicaragua or not, I don't know. - Yeah, and I think to go even further back and draw the lines a little even more clear, the Sandinistans were named for Augusto Sandino who led the nationalist rebellion against what? The U.S. occupation of Central America. - Oh, that's where it started, huh? - That's where it all started. From the U.S. occupied, this is all part of the banana wars. So we occupied Nicaragua from 1912 to 1933 for a lot of reasons, but one was like, hey, no one's gonna build a canal here unless it's us. That was sort of one of the main reasons. And that all ceased in 1933 with Roosevelt's good neighbor policy, which is basically like we're gonna pull out of Nicaragua. - Oh, really? - Yeah. So, but we have.
our fingers all over Central America for many, many, many years. And that's why when people forget or choose not to remember when people flee horrible situations in Central America to come to the United States now, like kind of where all these horrible situations started years and years ago because of things that we did. Right. Well, when Reagan became president, intervening in Nicaragua, man, I'm going to have a hard time if I can't say Nicaragua. But intervening in Nicaragua became like a, like first and foremost priority for them. Yeah, for sure. Almost immediately they started funding the Contras. The Contra Rebels are the groups who were fighting against the San Anista government. They were right-wing groups and they were funding them. They were training them like you were saying and they were doing all this secretly. There was an operation called Operation Black Eagle. Hmm, man, that one. That was something else. Yeah. We were already funding them and at the time Congress was on board. Congress was on board, especially at first, because the Republicans controlled the House. Well, you know how when somebody comes in and just steam rolls over the other party, usually in a presidential election, very frequently there's in the midterms, the congressional midterms, there's like a backlash against that. Yeah, like a House flip. Believe it or not, that happened to Ronald Reagan in 1982. And the House did flip. They flipped over to the Democrats and that Democrat-controlled House combined with the newsweek cover story that came out kind of turned the tide against Reagan's policy on helping out in Nicaragua. Yeah, there was a CIA director named William Casey who was, he was kind of telling Congress what they needed to hear here and there. You have in here vague briefings that was probably a generous way to say it. Sometimes Casey would send another guy though named Dwayne Dewey Clarege. And this is where things really went south because Clarege did not present well to Congress. And anytime Congress feels like they're being subverted or ignored or like kept out of the loop or like not able to offer their checks and balances on the executive branch, they really get mad. They do. Like we're seeing that today. This is like history just repeats itself over and over again. Exactly. Yeah. And in this particular case, the place where the administration, the Reagan administration in Congress just started budding heads over Nicaragua, it was Dwayne Clarege. You know, he just, that's how poor a job he did. But in his defense, he was coming from a place where he was a CIA man through and through. And this is less than 10 years after Congress had just basically rooted out the CIA held public hearings. Yeah. That's when like the MK Ultra came out and the fact that they've been dozing on unsuspecting Americans with LSD. Yeah. So in this defense, he was mad because they uncovered all the awful things that he'd been doing. Right. Right. True compassion, Chuck. Yeah. That's true compassion. So, so Congress is starting to get a little unhappy with this. And there was one congressman in particular named Edward Boland, I believe, and he was from Massachusetts. And he said, Hey, I just read about this cover story in Newsweek. Has a title, America's Secret War colon Nicaragua seems like they should have flip flopped that, you know? Nicaragua colon America's Secret War. Hmm. I think they both had the same end goal. I think it's fine. Right. But he was like, wait, why am I reading about this in a magazine? Yes. I'm a member of Congress. Right. Because at this time, like, Congress is like, well, okay, we think we're just kind of funding things. We're maybe helping out a little bit. This Newsweek magazine was like, no, no, no, it's way more than that. Yeah. Like, there is way more American involvement down in Nicaragua than you've been led to believe Congress. Like actual covert CIA ops, like blowing up bridges and blowing up buildings and, you know, direct saboteur type ops. Yeah, not just, here's some arms. Yeah. And then, you know, you, you close this one, I believe this I open when you're shooting. There was way more involved than that. Like, or we could just do the shooting. Right. Basically, yeah, here, just let me do it. So Congress in the guise of Edward Bolin said, nope, we're not doing that. And they passed the Bolin Amendment, which basically said, if you cannot use CIA funds or defense department funds to aid the Contras in Nicaragua, it's done good night. That's right. And so that should have been the, that's the end of it, right? Does Congress pass a, what was it a law? No, pass an amendment. Inact. Inact. Yeah. And so everyone just stopped, right? That's how it works. All right. What's part two going to be about? We're just going to see here quietly. So this did not stop anything. Here's what happened in 1983. The CIA had this one operation where they went into the commercial shipping harbors of Nicaragua. Oh, boy. I know. It's contagious. I said it right in my head all morning. Nicaragua. There you go. And they put mines there, you know, I was about to say land mines, but they were sea mines. Yeah, mines. Floating mines. Right. But the idea here was we're going to plant these mines that we're going to whip up our own press releases for the contras where they take credit for it. Like, we didn't even trust them to write a good press release. Right. The CIA wrote the press release for it. So where the contras are saying that they did it and the overall effect it's going to have is they're not going to be able to ship arms via the seaport at least into Nicaragua. Plus it also makes the contras look way more together. Sure. And with it, then they actually were. Right. Just giving some money and they got it covered. Right. So the CIA does this and they're thinking, okay, so mine or shipping in the Nicaraguan harbors is going to stop. It does not stop. No. As a matter of fact, there were, there was damage. So they used a little firecracker mines, which make a big blast in a lot of water everywhere. But if the big ship is not going to hurt the ship, well, it's sunk a lot of small fishing vessels. Right. But it also damaged ships from the Netherlands, Great Britain, Japan, and the USSR. Small ships. So the Wall Street Journal broke this story and said, hey, you guys, you Congress, you remember how you passed us a amendment saying there could be no CIA involvement in Nicaragua, well, they mined the harbor of the sovereign nation. And it blew up a bunch of other other country ships. And Congress, once again, it's like, man, you keep doing secret things behind your back. Right. That really makes us mad. Right. So we take a break. All right. Let's take a break. If your bookshelf and your four-year page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Pros Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks pride and prejudice and love island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story, I'm obsessed, I'm obsessed. From bestselling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table. It's like, if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, and that is a Trojan horse, whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to Pros Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. Hey, this is Ace Davenport. And Sean Clements. We host the podcast Hollywood Handbook on the Big Money Players Network. Our show is extremely accessible to first-time listeners. Each week we talk to someone in show business, aka The Biz, and try to help them with their careers and see what they have to offer us. It has a good time, and no one gets mad at their publicists for letting them do our show. We've had a lot of great guests like Sarah Sherman, not that great. Can you help me shape this? How about we flip it on his head? How about we flip this around? What is the surprise one, man? Actually, you think it's the straight man, it's actually the one who's acting weird. Adam Scott, this entire time you've been expecting Adam Sandler to come to visit the show. I would never let go of that, I would never set expectations for something like that. If the universe allows for something like that to happen, I am open to it. I'm always going to accept, you know, Danny McBride, fine. Yeah, it's all this fragile masculinity, exuding. I could smell it walking on the hallway, to be honest with you. I was like, is that what you need? Nope, it's fragile masculinity. Ben Stiller, no. I think there's a lot of times out of context, people don't get it or even know what a circle is. You know what I mean? Like, you're like, oh, it's just so stupid. Everyone's so dumb. And fake. Right, fake and also not interested or just like, oh, I've got my life, I don't care about your life. And a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are without us. Oh, and by the way, Will Ferrell told us personally he loves the show and he wants to be a guest on every episode, but he's just so busy. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts on the new podcast, Solita. We share the messy reality.
of traveling alone as a woman. - I can wait four hours for the next bus or this random dude is offering me a ride on his motorcycle. I choose option B. I'm Julie Piñero and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. - Every time I tried to be alone, I kept meeting people and they were like, "You smile good, that's not a lot of people smile around here." - It's when you're alone that you're most receptive to the world as it is and not the lies you're sold about it. It can be a time where you push your limits, change your mind or wake up to a new version of yourself. So whether you're a solo travel veteran or you're too nervous to book your first trip, I hope you listen to solita on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Stuff you should know. (upbeat music) - Okay, let's keep going. So what does Congress do? They're like, "All right, they're mad." We passed one bowling amendment, which I don't think we said Chuck, that first bowling amendment was passed 411 to zero. You anonymously saying, "Do not mess around "in Nicaragua anymore." - That's when you know Congress is mad. - Right. - When they unanimously agree on something. And then the Wall Street Journal breaks the story about the harbor mining long after the bowling amendment was passed and now Congress is even madder. - Right, so they passed two more amendments, bowling amendments, 'cause there were loopholes basically that allowed, you know, the US to sort of do these things semi-legally. So it was like, "Well, here's a loopholes "so it wasn't really fully illegal "that we did this stuff." - Yeah, that's like the Reagan administration's way. - All right. - They closed these loopholes and now this was like, it was pretty ironclad, I don't know about ironclad, but it was pretty tight, amendment wise. - At the very least, Congress walked away thinking, it's done, it's settled. We made ourselves quite clear. - Right. - Ronald Reagan signed these into law. - Yeah, he didn't. - He didn't be told. - Nope, he accepted these things. I think he even said, yeah, this is a good idea. Great way to go Congress and signed it. I'm not gonna do a Reagan impression. But so Congress thought that the matter was settled, but it wasn't settled. Like this is how laser-focused Reagan was on overthrowing the Sandinista government down in Nicaragua. He just took a CIA operation and took it even further underground than it had been before. Basically, he was like, okay, if you guys are gonna outlaw this stuff, we're just gonna have to get even more illegal. - Yeah, so there were a couple of factions here at work. One was this continued operation underground, deep underground now. And then there was Reagan's public, like he still wanted to get real money from Congress. So he didn't have to do this stuff. So he kept up this public PR campaign, beating this drum about communism at her doorstep. He said that the contras were the moral equals of our founding fathers. - That's a big one to pull out. - Like that's a direct quote of our founding fathers. - Yeah. - And started in with the, and again, you see this stuff kind of repeating itself. The campaign of fear, where he basically said, unless we do something tough here, then there will be a tidal wave of feet people. - I don't even know what that means, but that just seems super offensive. - Swarming into our country, he meant refugees, feet people seeking a safe haven. - It was one word even, I think. - One word, it's funny 'cause I looked up feet people and that's a company that I think makes shoe laces. - And they're like, can't say it again, say.com. (laughing) - So this is all going on, and on the down low, all the operations are going on, and on the public-facing side, Reagan's just continuing this PR push. - Right, basically saying like, Congress, look at these heartless old gas bags, turning off the funding to these founding father, moral equivalent to our founding fathers. Go vote these guys out of office and vote in some people who will turn the funding back on. - Yeah, and while the Contras may have been fighting communism, they were doing so through means that the founding fathers probably would not have approved of. Like murder and torture and rape and mutilation, kidnapping, and not, you know, I mean, it wasn't so widespread that it was like that's all they were doing, but they would resort to those tactics. - Right. - And that's not founding father stuff. - No, it's definitely not as far as I've ever learned. - No, I don't think so. - And I mean, it's had a few hundred, couple hundred years to come out, and it still hasn't, so yeah. - I read some of the stuff to you, like some of the affidavits were just brutal. - Oh yeah, dude, the war down in Nicaragua, the Civil War, that the US basically fomented and supported. It went on for a decade. Like it was, it went on into the '90s, and it was like not just like countrymen against countrymen, like civilians were getting murdered by the scores. And just they would get kidnapped and tortured and killed, and like it was a really brutal time in Nicaragua, and the regular administration's right in the middle of this, like providing as much aid as they can to one side. - Yeah, and it was, one of the big problems was that the contras, back then were a bunch of different factions, and they didn't answer to a single leader. And the one thing I got out of the affidavits, one of which this woman described them, taking her children and her finding their mutilated bodies the next day, it was brutal. One of the leaders said that there's no disciplinary system at all within the contra groups. - Oh yeah? - Yeah, like there's no accountability. So you could do anything you wanted, and there's no discipline set up. So it was just, they were fractured, and no one was talking to each other, and it was just a big mess. - Right, but Reagan was doing his best to paint everything in black and white. Contra's good, St. Anista's bad. So anything that Contra's did was good, and stuff that couldn't be painted as good would just be denied or glossed over, not reported on. - That's right. - So while Reagan's out running around, trying to drum up public support for the Contras, and thus congressional aid being turned back on. - And also saying, don't do drugs. - Yeah, that was a big one. Even though we're shipping a lot of drugs back and forth, it's awfully rich. Now that you know all that stuff, you know? He's also secretly supporting them, going in flagrant violation of what Congress has said that America can do. He tells his people, he wants the Contra's movement to be kept alive, body and soul is how he put it. Which, and he basically said do it. This is what history has told us is that, Reagan basically said, keep the Contra movement alive, body and soul, I'm gonna go work on Congress, I'm putting my hands over my ears from now on. Whether that's true or not, we will probably never know. - Right, 'cause it's all been trusted. - As far as the history books is concerned, that's what happened. - Right, so here's what they did. They said the CIA has a bad rap for a lot of reasons and Congress is not super friendly with them. - Well they expressly forbade the CIA from operating them. - Right, so he said, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna use the National Security Council. And the CIA chief William Casey, he's around, he's gonna just like advise here and there. And William Casey was like, oh no, I really gotta be involved, 'cause this is really good stuff. - They're like, no, no, no, no, we're talking like officially here. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So at first, a National Security Adviser was Robert McFarland and then he was succeeded by John Pointexter, very important, you remember that name. And then Casey's still there, like you said, doing his thing on the download, unofficially. - Right, I think even in some cases kind of stepping on toes or whatever, he was like an additional boss to the main guy, the guy everybody's heard of, the guy whose name jumps to mine, we hear about this Lieutenant Colonel all over North. - Alley North. - And in retrospect, especially if you lived through the Iran contra hearings and you're familiar with Alley North, like you would guess that when Alley North was tapped to head up this extraordinarily difficult secret operation to go against Congress and keep the contra movement alive and kicking, that Alley North was a bad, a covert operator to the ninth degree, right? That is not at all correct. - No, career marine, very highly decorated marine, served in Vietnam, won silver stars and purple hearts, devout Catholic, and by all accounts, a stand up guy and to many, many Americans, he is still like a top notch American hero. - Sure, well, he was like the president of the NRA until I think recently, I think there's some scandal that just happened where it came out that he like tried to depose Wayne Loppier or something like that, I don't know either. But even beyond that, like even beyond whether he's a stand up guy or not as far as, you know, patriotism is concerned. - Sure. - Just job experience, he had like none. - Yeah. - He had no experience whatsoever as far as I could ever tell in covert operations. - He did a pretty good job for a while. - He did an amazing job. He was basically the White House's operations and intel arm of the show.
Shady's stuff that was doing, stuff that was so shady, the CIA was even kept in the dark about it. That's how Shady, the stuff all in North was doing, and he had no experience, he was learning as he went. Just making it up as he went along. And he really did do a pretty good job of it if you look at it from that angle. - Just as far as getting or done. - Right. (laughs) So what they basically decided was, all right, if we can't get the real taxpayer money and like official funds, we'll just go and raise funds on the side and secret through business people that we can have these big parties and dinners and say, hey, listen, communism is knocking at a door. This wouldn't be good for America, it wouldn't be good for your company, and why don't you give us some money, open up the checkbook, Reagan's here, you want a photo? - Yeah, sometimes he would show up to these secret fundraisers. - And it was, it really worked. Like they raised a ton of money from the business elite of America to stop the send an instance in Nicaragua. - So they actually forget this. They founded, they had two private citizens found a non-profit, the national endowment for the preservation of liberty. Its sole purpose was to get these illicit funds to send to the Contras, which means that the people who are donating to the president's illegal secret proxy war could write their donations off on their taxes. - That's right. It's just mind boggling, hilarious in some senses. - Yeah, but they were not the most standup non-profit because as you point out, they raised $6.3 million through that organization during 85/86, about $3.3 million made it to the Contras. And so that means a 52% program expense rate. - That's pretty bad. - Yeah, that's not good at all. - No, $3 million it took supposedly to run, to run that non-profit. It was fundraising breakfast for a year. Yeah, pretty bad. - Good omelettes though. - So yeah, oh yeah, the baths hot nights. So from this idea like, okay, this is probably kind of legal. We're just fundraising. We're not giving any American taxpayer funds. We're just getting other people to donate. Private citizens, Saudi Arabia was a big one. - And it was all the stop communism. So like, I think their intentions were that. - Oh, definitely. - There's were. - Yeah, but there was a definite and justifies the means. - Sure. - Kind of thing. - And really, isn't the president really the most powerful person in the world? - Right. - Can Congress really tell the president what to do as far as foreign policy goes? Nah, that was kind of the idea, I think. So Saudi Arabia donated a bunch of money. There's all these private citizens donating money. And here's the thing. The Contras found themselves flush with cash. - Yeah, many millions of dollars. - Over just two years. - Saudi Arabia alone donated 32 million to the Contras. This is a couple of loosely affiliated factions fighting in two spots of Nicaragua that suddenly have 30 plus million dollars at their disposal. The problem is they don't have the contacts in the international arms trade to buy arms with this money. They said a bunch of money and they're like, who wants this? - Right. - And they were getting crickets and bombs. - Right, you know, the cartoonish black kind, the round ones that are shining. - It'll take 15 of those. - This is before Craigslist too. - Right. - So their only avenue was to go back to the Americans and Oliver North. And he began working with a guy named Richard C.Cord. He was a retired, forced retired. We'll get into that in a minute. Air Force Major General. And he had a lot of experience. There was this group of dudes in the 1970s and 80s that were former CIA or current CIA, former CIA, former and current American military who were all had their fingers in the illegal arms trade. - Right. So exactly what you can imagine a Hollywood writer would come up with. - Yeah. - This is the real life version of them. - Yeah, for sure. - So they would, they would, you could farm out assassinations to them. They could wrestle up mercenaries. They could carry out sabotage operations. They could find whatever gun, bomb, anything you need - You want some money laundered? - Yeah. - Right. Anything that is extraordinarily illegal and deals in death like these guys could get their hands on. - You want some poison? - Done. - Sure. A bomb disguised as a briefcase, we got it, buddy. And they would, here's the other thing too. They were in a legal black market arms ring. But they were also even more illegal than that they would sell to whoever. Whether you were an enemy or a friend to America, it didn't matter. These guys were operating well above any sort of national loyalty or anything like that. - Yeah, this was about making money. - Sure. - Like many millions of dollars. Yeah, you're right. So especially got like Seekord. He wasn't, he was in it to make dough. - Definitely. - Whereas Anali North was seemingly in it to stop the communism. - Right, so that's an important point. But the fact that they, that they contract with Seekord to kind of swoop in and help hook the contrast up with arms means that the Reagan administration is contracting with this extraordinarily illegal black market arms ring. - Yeah, one of which, they took down some of these dudes over the years. One of them, one of the founders of this group was a CIA op named Edwin Wilson. He was sentenced, he served 22 years, 12 of which were in solitary confinement. But was sentenced to 52 years for illegally arming Libya with 10,000 machine guns and 20 tons of Seekord. That he hid in barrels of mud and flew on a charter jet to Libya. - Right, himself. - It's like Hollywood stuff. - I know, it really is. Like this really happened. It's crazy. - And it wasn't just Libya. This guy was funding or outfitting Momar Khaddafi. Edia Mean was another customer like whoever, if you need to keep a stranglehold on power in your country, where are the people to help you do that? - Yeah, and when I teased earlier about Richard Seekord, being forced into retirement, that was due to his connection with Edwin Wilson. - Right. - So he was forced to retire from the Air Force. They couldn't pin anything on him, but there was enough of a connection there where he had to step down. - Yeah, they're like, you can do this. The hardware, the easy way we're gonna give you the option. And he took the easy way. - And then he went on to make a lot of money. - Right, he was like, okay, well, I'll just do the arm-sealing thing full time now. - Right. - He did, so when they brought him in at first, Seekord was basically acting as like a very laissez-faire intermediary. He was basically the guy who, on behalf of Ollie North, was like, yeah, I can introduce the Contras to my friends in the arms ring. - Yeah. - In Canada of all places. - Yeah, he introduced the Contras to some Canadian arms dealer. So now the setup was this. - The friendliest arms dealer. - Right, they're like, oh, these bullets will really put a hole in somebody, eh? - Yeah, oh, sorry, I meant to include rocket launchers on that order. - Sorry, sorry, that was pretty good. So Seekord was just there to make some introductions, make sure things went smoothly. And then it was up to the Contras to use these funds that were coming in from other people and to buy weapons from the Canadians. Easy peasy, right? You'd think, okay, that's fine, that's done. It still has like a slight veneer of arms-length legality as far as America's concerned. - Yeah, and we should mention too that he, to do this, he set up a shell company, the Stanford Technology Trading Group with an Iranian-American businessman named Albert Hakim, who knew how to get around certain official procedures and stuff like that. He's another guy who could get things done. So he set up Swiss bank accounts, untraceable accounts, 'cause that's what you do, to run the funds through. And this became known as the Enterprise. - Yeah, the Stanford Technology Trading Company or Group. - Trading Group, aka the Enterprise. - Yeah, that was like everybody called it that, 'cause they're like, this sounds way cooler, the Enterprise, right? - All right, but like you were alluding to, you'd think it would have been going great. But the Contras in the North, who was the FDN, they were the largest by far, the largest group. - They were the better organized from what I understand. - Yeah, they were doing a pretty good job, but in the South, they were not doing a very good job. - No, somehow they were like, we don't have the arms and equipment. They're like, what are you talking about? You have the same amount of money, you have the same contacts. Just buy the weapons, they're like, oh no. So Ollie North is like, okay. All right, here's what we're gonna do. He called the leaders of the FDN and the FSLN to Miami to meet with them. And he said, here's how it's gonna be from now on. - Yeah. - Any veneer of legality is going out the window. From now on, I'd like you to meet your new boss, Richard Seacord, not only is he gonna make sure you have arms, he's going to take the funneled money himself, buy the arms himself, and then he's going to have it kicked out of a plane over your camps, right? So now America is directly involved in supporting and arming and training the Contra Rebels in the North and the South of Nicaragua. And if there was any again, if there's any kind of legality, it's totally gone at this point. - Yeah, and in the meantime, Seacord and Akim were marking up their stuff as much as like 300%. - Dude, they made a lot of money off of this. - Yeah, they made a ton. - But they put it up, they put a lot back into the enterprise. I mean, they took this job very seriously. - That was a company. - If you were Ollie North, you were quite happy with the work you were getting from Richard Seacord and Albert Hykim because the shipments went out on time, They got everything they needed.
And they had so much money, they had it left over, but they were also investing it into the enterprise. They bought planes, they rented airstrips, they hired employees, they contracted with other like airlines, like a CIA front, I can't remember the name of it right now, but they were doing the work for sure. Great healthcare. Yeah. The best benefits. All of the countries had really nice teeth after Richard C. Cord took over. Work from home. All right, so let's take another break here, and we'll come back and bring it home for part one with a little bit about the propaganda machine that was set up. Stuff you should know, loss and shock. Hey, this is A's Davenport and Sean Clements. We host the podcast, Hollywood Handbook, on the big money players network. Our show is extremely accessible to first time listeners. Each week, we talk to someone in show business, aka The Biz, and try to help them with their careers and see what they have to offer us. Everyone has a good time, and no one gets mad at their publicists for letting them do our show. Actually, can you help me, can you, can you help me shape this? Yeah. No. All right, how about we flip this around? Okay. What if the surprise woman, who actually you think is the straight man, is actually the one who's acting weird? Adam Scott, this entire time, you've been expecting Adam Sandler to come to visit the show. I would never let go of that. I have. I would never set expectations for something like that. It sounds like if the universe allows for something like that to happen, I am open to it. I'm always going to accept. Okay. All right. Fine. Yeah. It's all this fragile masculinity. Exuding. I could smell it walking on the hallway to be honest with you. I was like, smell that. I was like, exactly. No. No. It's fragile masculinity. Yeah. Ben stiller. No. I think there's a lot of times out of context, people don't get it, or even know what a circle is. Like, you're like, oh, it's so stupid. It's crap. Everyone's so dumb. And fake. Right. And also not interested or just like, oh, I've got my life, I don't care about your life. Oh. And by the way, Will Ferrell told us personally he loves the show and he wants to be a guest on every episode. But he's just so busy. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. On the new podcast, Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman. I can wait four hours for the next bus or this random dude is offering me a ride on his motorcycle. I choose option B. I'm Julie Beniero and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. Every time I tried to be alone, I kept meeting people and they were like, you smile good us. Not a lot of people smile around here. But when you're alone, that you're most receptive to the world as it is and not the lies your soul about it, it can be a time where you push your limits, change your mind or wake up to a new version of yourself. So whether you're a solo travel veteran or you're too nervous to book your first trip, I hope you listen to Solita on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. If your bookshelf and your for you page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. I'm Eli Rallo and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story, I'm obsessed, so obsessed. I'm bestselling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters and that is the Trojan horse, whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to Pros Society on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's see you between the pages. All right, Chuck. So things are in full swing. America is unknowingly totally hooking up the country. Now basically running this proxy war that the contras are fighting against the San Anista government. Right. The price is working full bore and if it couldn't get any more illegal, if you thought it couldn't get any more illegal, prepare to just be knocked right over. Yeah, so here on the home front, it was decided that there needed to be a pretty massive and dense propaganda campaign. And we're not talking about Reagan just going on the news, talking about communism being at a doorstep. We're talking about a real deal propaganda campaign. And they even set up an office, the office of public diplomacy for Latin America and the Caribbean that was founded and managed by a Cuban-American named Otto Reich. Okay. And this was all exposed later on by the Mimee Harold, by the reporting of a guy named Alfonso Chardi. Yeah, I just want to interject here real quick. So do you remember when we've done, you know, historic stuff in the past and I'm like, go read the contemporary articles? These are so good. Really good reporting going on because the story was so huge and multifaceted. Oh, yeah. I mean, Newsweek broke it before Congress knew. Yeah, right. The Washington Post broke it. Yeah. And then Wall Street Journal. Yeah, Wall Street Journal and then the Mimee Harold. Yeah. Hellay Times did a lot of really good recording. It was cool and fun. Like in Miami's backyard. But it was back when it wasn't like, oh, think piece, think piece, think piece, actual article, think piece, think piece, you know, it was like real reporting. Yeah. And even then, it still wasn't up to snuff in the end. Yeah. Sexual journalists like actually paying attention and writing about this stuff and informing the public about it. And this is when you and I were kids and I think like maybe even the seeds of us because we both kind of had desires to be real deal journalists in our lives at one point. Yeah. Yeah. What got us now? Speaking of what a joke. RIP. Mad magazine. Oh, yeah. What a shame. Yeah. They tried that reboot. Didn't work. Yeah. Stuff. It is, it's tough business these days and I got friends that worked for him too. Like in this recent re iteration. Oh, really? Yeah. Or iteration, I guess. I know one of their illustrators is stuff you should know fan from years back. Yeah. Yeah. It's very sad to see it go. Yeah. So it was. It was. It was. It was an uptrack. Yeah. So. All right. This is going on. They set up this office. Run by auto. Right. Right. And this whole thing was designed and orchestrated by the CIA. But here's the deal. The CIA wasn't supposed to be doing this. They were barred from doing this. Yeah. There was a long standing like prohibition on the CIA from operating in the US. Basically like, we know who you are and we know you're so good. You can't use that stuff on us. You can only use it overseas. It's fine if you go overthrow other countries on your mind tricks. Yeah. Use those on other groups. But you can't use them here in the States. And actually Reagan himself also had his own executive order explicitly banning the CIA from, let's see, doing any activity that was intended to influence United States political processes, public opinion, or media. This is Reagan's executive order, 12333. And he, at least his administration was like, forget about that. We'll just get around that. Yeah. It says here that they, the CIA's like biggest, foremost psychological warfare expert retired from the agency officially and then was hired as a consultant, I guess, to this office of public diplomacy. Was that auto-rike? Was that someone else? I don't know. I don't know. That's the whole point. Right, yeah. But that was how, that's why I was saying earlier, like Reagan, that's the Reagan administration way. Here's the letter of the law. Well, let's change this letter in our sentence and now we're following the letter of the law. Right. And that's what they did. So the CIA's psychological warfare guy retired, came on as a consultant and said, oh, here's what you do. You need to basically start setting up some sting operations because the point of this is to, I can't remember who said this, but to paint or to glue black hats on the Sandinistas and white hats on the Contras in the public mind. Right. So when you say, uh, sting operations, we mean literally the United States and all over North smuggling cocaine into Nicaragua, right, photographing, uh, Sandin Eastern officials with this shipment, right. And then smuggling the cocaine back to the United States, back to Florida, back to Florida. They're like, we told you we bring it back, chill, man, unbelievable. Have a third driver's license is back. So this photo was published. This is during the middle of, uh, the just say no movement, um, championed by Nancy Reagan. Yeah. So it all, uh, it all fit on the surface. But what was going on behind the scenes is just inconscionable. It is inconscionable.
unconscionable. - It was both, but this gave Reagan this photograph that got published all over the place. - Yeah, and he's like, look what's going on. Look what these guys are doing. They're bringing this stuff into America. - Killin' our kids. - Exactly, right? So these are the people that were fighting or the contras are fighting. How can you keep the funding turned off for the Contras Congress? - Jerks. - And that was the only evidence, too. - Yeah, the D.A.s. - In that case. Somehow came out and said, by the way, I don't know if anybody cares or not, but we have no evidence whatsoever that this San Aniston official has ever engaged in drug trafficking aside from this photograph. But this was a follow-up, probably weeks after the big splash of the original photograph came out. So that was one sting operation. There's another one that involved Manuel Noriega, the dictator of Panama, who actually was selling drugs to America's youth, but he was also a friend of the CIA. - Exactly. So much so that he was a CIA operative for a very long time. - Yeah, I don't know about a friend, but he was at least an asset. - Right. So this sting operation was they were going to, through Panama, have Panama arranged for a shipment of arms to be seized in Honduras. - El Salvador. - El Salvador. - Yeah. - On its way to Honduras, or maybe just in El Salvador, ostensibly arms from Nicaragua. - Yeah, basically saying you're arming Salvadorians, you're arming Hondurans. - You're exporting your evolution. - Exactly. - This is exactly the kind of thing that Ronald Reagan has been saying. We need to contain, we need to pluck this sprout of communism out from Nicaragua, because they're trying to spread out of the region. Totally made up, complete sting operation, and it didn't even work, because Manuel Noriega was like, "I didn't like that New York Times piece, you guys just published about me. I'm going to keep this shipment of arms from myself." - Yeah, but I love it first. He was like, "I can do that." - Oh, yeah. - So sure. Send me the arms. - Yeah. - And then we were like, "Oh, okay." There would be a, I think it's from the Iran Contra investigation. The description of Manuel Noriega was that he ran a narco kleptocracy. That was the government that he ran. He was about to - Just break down that word. - He was as shady as they come. - That just means drugs. Favourite. - Yeah, exactly. - Yeah. So this is what's going on in the United States in the mid-80s. - Yeah, and here's the deal. If you were a reporter at the time, and you were reporting on this stuff, the NSC didn't like that very much. So they would meet with editors and reporters themselves. - Right. - And be like, "Hey, can you report on the Sandinies since that they're really not good people? Can you help us out a little bit?" - Right. - Well, but here's the thing. If you didn't play ball, then didn't they cook up some story that they would send Sandinies and sex workers there to pleasure the reporters? - That was the rumor was that if you were a journalist who reported favorably on the Sandinies to government, the reason you reported favorably on them was because the Sandinies to government was furnishing you with sex workers. - Right. That was directly from the office of public diplomacy. - Right. - And I read the thing about it, and they said the guy was like, "And we're not just talking women either. If they were gay men, then we would send gay sex workers." - Right. So totally discredit them. It's like a complete page right out of the Edward Bernay's playbook. It's orchestrated by the CIA's foremost expert on psychological warfare. And this was the state of America in the mid '80s. But that was just one dimension of this whole thing. And I say, this is the end of part one. What do you think? - I think that's great. - And we're going to make this a cliff. That's right. And as per tradition, we are not going to do a listener mail, but instead we'll do a call which we rarely do. A little just a little marketing call, everyone. If you like stuff, you should know. We've been doing this so long. We're so bad at this. Yet we've managed to grow anyway. - It's crazy. - Tell a friend, share an episode with a friend. Now that you don't have to explain what a podcast is. It's like cleaner now. - Maybe start with a good one like ballpoint pens or something. - Yeah, tell a friend about the show, leave a nice review, or just any kind of review at all on iTunes. That would help us out. - Yeah, yeah. That's how classy Chuck and I are. He even corrected himself from good review to just any review. Whatever you want to leave, we're not going to try to influence you. - No. - Like the Reagan White House? That's right. So yeah, we'd really appreciate it. Spread a little love, try and turn one person on to our podcast this week and that really helps us out. - Nice. Chuck. How about that? - That sounds like a good pyramid. - We like to do this once every five or six years. Well, thank you for joining us this week. If you want to get in touch with us, you can go on to stuffyshadow.com and check out our social links. You can also send us an email to
[email protected]. - Stuffyshadow is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. If you're a bookshelf and you're a four-year page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture, with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions. Listen to pro society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, this is Hayes Davenport and Sean Clements. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I choose option B. Listen to Solita on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.
PodcastTranscript AI