Welcome Letter
Delegates,
Welcome to the Reagan Administration. For one day you will be
thrown back to President Reagan’s National Security Council between 1985 and
1989 to deal with one major issue: the Iran Contra Affair. Congratulations, you’re
here to rebuild history. My name is Elizabeth Breeze and I am beyond excited to
serve as your chair for Reagan’s National Security Council 1985-1989. I’m a
sophomore in the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, pursuing a double major
in Political Science and Classical Studies (and yes, that involves trying to learn
Ancient Latin). I’m an active member of the International Affairs Society, which
sponsors GWCIA, and the GW Model UN Team
I’ve been involved with Model UN since I was 15 years old and starting my
freshman year of high school. At the end of today, I will have participated in eleven
conferences, eight as a delegate and three as a staff member. It goes without saying
that I adore Model UN. As a delegate, I participated in six crisis committees, and will
be staffing my third with you. As such, I’m very excited to be chairing this
committee. I hope you’re all just as excited as I am!
As a history enthusiast, the topic we’re exploring today is a personal
favourite of mine. The Iran Contra Affair, also known as IranGate or ContraGate, was
a major scandal in the terms of Reagan’s NSC. In our background guide, I give you a
brief overview of the situation from 1985-1987, but I leave it up to you to discover
the most pertinent information. It is up to you, as the National Security Council,
those tasked with advising and assisting the President on matters of national
security and foreign policy, to quickly and efficiently deal with the hidden fall out in
the Middle East that has been inflamed by the Iran Contra Affair. Not acting is no
longer an option. While all information leading up to 1987 is factual, the events that
may (or may not!) occur during committee are, of course, designed specifically for
this conference.
As is the Policy of GWCIA, position papers are required for award
consideration. Please submit your position paper to me via email
(ebreeze@gwmail.gwu.edu) with the email headline reading “GWCIA Reagan NSC
Position Paper – (Your name / Position).” If you have any questions or concerns, you
may submit them to be via email (as seen above), with the emails headlined “GWCIA
Reagan NSC.” Please feel free to use me as a resource as you prepare for the
conference!
Looking forward to meeting each of you in November,
Elizabeth Breeze
Chair, Reagan NSC 1985-1989
ebreeze@gwmail.gwu.edu
Overview of Topic
Reagan’s National Security Council
1985-1989
Iran-Contra Affair
The Iran Contra Affair, also
known as Irangate, Contragate or the
Iran-Contra scandal, was one of many
scandals that rocked the Reagan
White House. The scandal, which
began as an elaborate operation to
free seven American hostages being
held by an Iranian group with ties to
the Army of the Guardians of the
Islamic Revolution, quickly became
one of the most well-known and
politically damaging of the Reagan
scandals.
The scandal came to light in
November of 1986, though it had been
running for a year previously, and
would continue to run until March
1987. By the end of the investigations,
fourteen administration officials were
indicted, with eleven convictions. The
rest indicted or convicted were all
pardoned at the end of George H. W.
Bush’s presidency.
The Iran Contra Affair didn’t
actually begin with Iran. It began with
Contra militants in Honduras who
were attempting to topple the Marxist
Nicaraguan government. The Contras
engaged in violent, bloody abuse and
completely ignored basic human
rights as they fought. In a Human
Rights Watch report, the Contras were
deemed guilty of targeting health care
clinics and health care workers for
assassination; kidnapping, torturing,
and executing civilians, including
children, who were captured during
combat; indiscriminately attacking
civlians and civilian
property;
pillaging towns; and raping women.
It is likely because of the
barbaric tactics of the Contras that
direct funding to them was made
illegal
through
the
Boland
Amendment. The Boland Agreement
refers to a series of three legislative
amendments passed in 1982 and
1984, which limited US, government
assistance to the Contras militants,
despite Reagan’s support for them.
Despite the Boland Amendment,
senior officials continued to arm and
train the Contras and provide arms to
Iran, which was under an arms
embargo.
The Iran Contra Affair came in
the midst of the Iran-Iraq War, and
while the United States supplied Iraq
with both biological and manpowered
weaponry, they made a secret deal
with Iran that would, if successful, not
only improve US-Iranian relations, but
also might lead to improved relations
with Lebanon, and the safe return of
the seven American hostages being
held in Lebanon.
Initially, it was planned that
Israel would ship arms to Iran, and
then the US would resupply Israel
with arms and receive payment, while
the Iranians promised to do
everything they could to encourage
the release of the US hostages.
Quickly, the plan deteriorated into an
arms-for-hostages scheme, in which
arms were sold directly to Iran in
exchange for the release of the
hostages. Lieutenant Colonel Oliver
North devised large modifications in
late 1985, which led to large portions
of the proceeds from the deal being
diverted to fund the Contras.
In exchange for the weaponry,
quiet
relationships
would
be
established with some key Iranians,
with formal relationships coming to
light after the death of the antiAmerican Ayatollah. President Reagan
claimed that the sale of arms were to a
group of “moderate” Iranians, while
the Walsh Iran/Contra Report stated
that arms sales were to “Iran itself,”
and the Ayatollah.
Between 1985 and 1986, the
US supplied Iran with approximately
2,500 TOW anti-tank missiles, 18
Hawk anti-aircraft missiles, and more
than 250 Hawk spare parts. Three
Americans were released after the
first few arms sales, but three more
were abducted, leading to what one
official referred to as a ‘hostage
bazaar.’
In late 1986, an Iranian official,
Mehdi Hashemi, who did not appear to
agree with Iran’s dealings with the
Untied States, leaked the details of the
arms arrangement to a Lebanese
magazine. The first public report of
the arms deal came on November 3rd,
1986. President Reagan initially
denied that any arms sales had taken
place, but just ten days after the
article was printed, he appeared on
national television stating that the
‘purpose [of the arms deal] was
to…send a signal that the United
States was prepared to…[start] a new
relationship [between the US and
Iran].” He insisted that the sale of
weapons had not been an arms-forhostages deal, though polls showed
that only 14 percent of Americans
believed him.
The scandal was further
inflamed by Oliver North destroying
or hiding documents important to the
case between November 21st and
November 25th. The destruction of
these documents, compounded by the
unwillingness
of
Reagan
administration officials to cooperate
fully with Congress and the Tower
Commission, who were investigating
the scandal, further damaged Reagan’s
reputation.
In 1987, President Reagan
went on the air to take full
responsibility for the actions taken
during the Iran-Contra Affair, and
noted that his previous assertion that
arms-for-hostages deals did not take
place were, in fact, incorrect.
We begin our committee in
1987, while the country is still reeling
from the aftermath and indictments
are in progress, and 500 weapons are
still missing and unaccounted for.
Iran-Israel relations have hit an all
time low.
United States – Iran Diplomatic
Relations (1856-1986)
The first diplomatic interaction
that the United States and Iran (then
Persia) had was in 1856, fostered by
the signing of the Treaty of Commerce
and Navigations, which survived until
1928. The United States had little
interest or active policy with or with
reference to Iran until at least the
Second World War. The limited
interaction of the United States and
Iran actually came in the form of
Presbyterian mission trips; Howard
Baskerville, an American teacher on a
mission trip in Tabriz, dies fighting
Royalists and the forces of the Qajar
King
after
joining
the
Constitutionalists
during
the
Constitutional Revolution of 19051911. He is immediately revered as an
Iranian national hero, and is best
remembered for his comments on the
difference between the Iranians an
himself,
“[t]he
only difference
between me and these people is my
place of birth, and that is not a big
difference.”1
Overall,
friendly
relations
between the United States and Iran
lasted until the 1950s. In 1953, the
CIA, with the help and encouragement
of the British, orchestrated a
successful coup d’état (an overthrow
of a regime) from the American
embassy in Tehran. They deposed the
democratically elected Prime Minister
Mossadegh and replaced him with the
America-friendly Shah Pahlavi. In
essence, the United States overthrew
the democratically elected Prime
Minister of Iran and replaced him with
a Pro-U.S. dictator. The CIA also
helped train the Organisation of
Intelligence and National Security
(SAVAK),
Iran’s
secret
police,
intelligence service, and domestic
security agency. SAVAK, which ran
from 1957 to 1979, was “Iran’s most
feared and hated institution”2 until the
Iranian Revolution that dissolved the
agency. SAVAK was best known for its
penchant for hanging and torturing
political dissidents (in this case,
opponents of the Pahlavi regime).
The American government
stepped up to rebuild the Shah’s
regime in Iran post-1953 coup. In the
first three weeks after the coup, the
United States sent $68 million in
emergency aid, and in the next decade
they poured as much as $1.2 billion
(by some estimates) into Iran in
attempts to build and secure the
Shah’s government. The Shah received
frequent support from the United
1
2
MIT Timeline
ibid
States, and made frequent state visits
to the White House. However, these
close ties to D.C. and his policies of
westernization
angered
many
Iranians, particularly stanch Islamic
conservatives. The cultural relations
between the two countries, however,
remained cordial. Three of Iran’s top
academic universities were modeled
after American institutions, and the
Shah was very generous in awarding
financial
gifts
to
American
universities. In particular, a one
million dollar donation was given to
the George Washington University to
create their Iranian Studies program.
By 1977, the Shah’s regime had
garnered unpopular opinions in the
West, however, because of its human
rights record. That same year,
however, the Shah responded to
President Carter’s “polite reminder”
by granting amnesty to some
prisoners and by allowing the Red
Cross to visit Iranian prisons.
However, the Carter administrations
constant support of the Shah and his
actions may have actually led to the
anti-American “last –resort” coup that
was staged in 1979 by the Iranian
military and Islamic revolutionaries.
Since 1979, the United States’
relationship with Iran has been
strained. The 1979 Iranian Revolution,
which ousted the Pro-America Shah
and replaced him with the antiAmerica
Ayatollah
Khomeini,
surprised the US government.
Ironically, six months before the
revolution, the CIA had reported that
Iran was “not in revolutionary or even
a prerevolutionary situation.” In the
months after the Iranian Revolution,
President Carter allowed the ousted
Shah medical asylum in the United
States for cancer treatment, though
they refused to provide him further
support or help him return to power.
This move by Carter was used by the
new Iranian government to back their
claims that the former Shah was an
American puppet, and instigated the
storming of the American embassy in
Tehran by radical Khomeini-faction
students.
That November, a revolutionary
group angry that the ousted Shah had
been allowed into the United States, took
over the America embassy in Tehran and
took fifty-two (52) American diplomats
hostage for 444 days. The liberalmoderate Prime Minister, who had
opposed the hostage, resigned soon after.
Eight military men were killed in an
aborted rescue attempt in April 1980,
and the crisis ended, and hostages
released, in January 1981, with the
signing of the Algiers Accords. In April
of 1980, the United States officially
broke all diplomatic relations with Iran.
In 1981, the Swiss Government assumed
representation of American interests in
Tehran via an “interests section” (a third
party country with which both countries
have diplomatic relations, in this case
Switzerland, who will protect one parties
interests in the host country) in their
embassy. Iran also has no embassy in the
United States, but are represented in a
‘interests section’ in the Pakistani
embassy in Washington, D.C.
In 1980s, with the advent of the
Reagan Administration, the United
States threw its support behind Iraq in
the bloody, eight-year Iran-Iraq War.
The support of the United States for Iraq
further damaged relations with Iran,
particularly
after
the
Reagan
administration provided the Iraqis with
weaponry and dual use items, like
poisonous chemicals and deadly
biological viruses (such as anthrax and
the bubonic plague, better known as the
Black Death). The war ended in a
stalemate, but not without massive losses
on both sides (with Iran having almost
double the losses that Iraq sustained).
In 1985, the Iran-Contra Affair
began.
Ministers List
Secretary of State
George P. Shutlz
Secretary of Defense
Frank Charles Carlucci III
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Admiral William J. Crowe, USN
Director of Central Intelligence
William H. Webster
(please note: the DCI is
not the same as the D/CIA or
DNI, the current positions in the
NSC. Current positions were
established in 2005 and are not
applicable in our committee.)
National Security Advisor
LTG Colin L. Powell
Deputy National Security Advisor
John Negroponte
White House Chief of Staff
Howard Baker
Ambassador to the UN
Vernon A. Walters
Attorney General of the United States
Edwin Meese
Assistant Secretary of State for Near
Eastern Affairs
Richard W. Murphy
09/online/us-iran-2.pdf>

Ambassador from Israel
Moshe Arad
Ambassador from Pakistan
Jamsheed Marker
(please note: Because Iran and
the United States do not have any
diplomatic
relations,
Ambassador
Marker will be representing Iranian
interests)

Secretary of the Army
John O. Marsh, Jr.
Secretary of the Navy
Jim Webb

Secretary of the Air Force
Edward C. Aldridge, Jr.

Resources
In an effort to make your
research progress just a little easier,
we have provided the following links
for your usage. Please note that these
are not the only sources, simply ones
that we found.

Shoamanesh, Sam Sasan.
"History Brief: Timeline of USIran relations until the Obama
Administration; Key Facts &
Catalysts."
Massachusetts
Institute
of
Technology
International
Review.
Powerpoint. 2009. 22 Sep
2012.
<http://web.mit.edu/mitir/20

Porter, Keith. "Timeline of U.S.Iranian Relations; 1953present." About.com US Foreign
Policy. about.com, 2008. Web.
22 Sep 2012.
<http://usforeignpolicy.about.co
m/od/middleeast/a/timelineusir
an.htm>.
“Iran-United States relations.”
Wikipedia: The Free
Encyclopedia. Wikimedia
Foundation, Inc. Web. 22 Sep
2012.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ira
n-_States_relations
Timeline of US-Iran relations.
Film. 22 Sep 2012.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch
?v=c_IIaw11Jlo>
“Iran-Contra Affair.” Wikipedia:
The Free Encyclopedia.
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
Web. 22 Sep 2012.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ira
n_Contra_Affair
"The Iran-Contra Affair: Reagan.
WGHB American
Experience." The Iran-Contra
Affair. PBS, n.d. Web. 22 Sep
2012.
<http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/ameri
canexperience/features/generalarticle/reagan-iran/>.