Selects: Iran-Contra Affair: Shady in the 80s, Part 1

6:38Josh Clark:That's right.

6:38Chuck Bryant: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 of 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. He learned to detest communism. Yeah. And at the time, communism was a really big thing in Hollywood.

7:18Chuck Bryant: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 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 going to see to it that the one that we had was a capitalist democracy.

7:48Josh Clark: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.

8:02Chuck Bryant: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.

8:26Josh Clark:Yeah, via money, via arms, via training, via covert operations that we carried out ourselves. Yeah. There were all kinds of ways that we could and did help stem the flow of communism. Yeah.

8:40Chuck Bryant: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 of Nicaragua or not, I don't know.

9:21Yeah, and I think, you know, to go even further back and draw the lines a little even more clear,

9:27Josh Clark: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. And from 19—you know, 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 going to build a canal here unless it's us.

9:54Chuck Bryant:Right.

9:54Josh Clark: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 going to pull out of Nicaragua.

10:05Chuck Bryant:Oh, really?

10:05Josh Clark:Yeah. Okay. So— But we had 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.

10:26Chuck Bryant:Right. Well, when Reagan became president, intervening in Nicaragua— Man, I'm going to have a hard time if I can't say Nicaragua. So intervening in Nicaragua became like a first and foremost priority for them.

10:43Josh Clark:Yeah, for sure.

10:44Chuck Bryant:Almost immediately they started funding the Contras. The Contra rebels are the groups who were fighting against the Sandinista 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.

11:01Josh Clark:Man, that one.

11:03Chuck Bryant:That was something else.

11:04Josh Clark:Yeah.

11:04Chuck Bryant:So 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 steamrolls over the other party, usually in a presidential election?

11:19Josh Clark:Yeah.

11:19Chuck Bryant:Very frequently, there's in the midterms, the congressional midterms, there's like a backlash against that.

11:25Josh Clark:Yeah, like a House flip.

11:26Chuck Bryant:Believe it or not, that happened to Ronald Reagan in 1982.

11:29Josh Clark:Yeah.

11:29Chuck Bryant:And the House did flip. They flipped over to the Democrats. and that Democrat-controlled House combined with a Newsweek cover story that came out kind of turned the tide against Reagan's policy on helping out in Nicaragua.

11:48Josh Clark:Yeah, there was a CIA director named William Casey who 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 Claridge. And this is where things really went south because Claridge 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.

12:28Josh Clark:This is like history just repeats itself over and over again.

12:31Chuck Bryant:Exactly. Yeah. And in this particular case, the place where the administration, the Reagan administration and Congress just started butting heads over Nicaragua, it was Dwayne Claridge.

12:43Josh Clark:Yeah.

12:43Chuck Bryant: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. That's when like the MKUltra came out and the fact that they've been dosing unsuspecting Americans with LSD.

13:07Josh Clark:Yeah, so in his defense, he was mad because they uncovered all the awful things that he'd been doing.

13:11Chuck Bryant:Right, right. True compassion, Chuck. Yeah. It's true compassion. 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. It 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. I think they both had the same end goal. It's fine.

13:47Josh Clark:Right. But he was like, wait, why am I reading about this in a magazine? Yes. And I'm a member of Congress. Right.

13:53Chuck Bryant:Because at this time, like Congress was 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.

14:09Josh Clark:Like actual covert CIA ops, like blowing up bridges and blowing up buildings and, you know, direct saboteur type ops.

14:21Chuck Bryant:Yeah. Not just here's some arms. And then, you know, you close this one eye but leave this eye open when you're shooting. There was way more involved than that.

14:29Josh Clark:Or we could just do the shooting.

14:32Chuck Bryant:Basically, yeah. That might make it easier. Here, just let me do it. So Congress, in the guise of Edward Boland, said, nope, we're not doing that. And they passed the Boland Amendment, which basically said you cannot use CIA funds or Defense Department funds to aid the Contras in Nicaragua. It's done. Good night. That's right. And Congress went to sleep.

14:55Josh Clark:And so that should have been the—that's the end of it, right? Because Congress passed a—was it a law? No, passed an amendment. An act. An act. 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 sit 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. I was about to say landmines, but they were sea mines.

15:34Josh Clark:Yeah, mines. Floating mines. Right. And 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 don't even trust them to write a good press release.

15:48Chuck Bryant:Right, the CIA wrote the press release for them.

15:50Josh Clark: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.

16:00Chuck Bryant:Plus, it also makes the Contras look way more together and with it than they actually were.

16:05Josh Clark:Right. Like all we need to do is give them some money and they got it covered.

16:08Chuck Bryant:Right. So the CIA does this and they're thinking, okay, so shipping in the Nicaraguan harbors is going to stop. It does not stop. No. As a matter of fact, there was damage. So they used little firecracker mines, which make a big blast and a lot of water everywhere. But if it's a big ship, it's not going to hurt the ship. Well, it sunk a lot of small fishing vessels. Right. But it also damaged ships from the Netherlands, Great Britain, Japan, and the USSR, commercial ships. So the Wall Street Journal broke this story and said, hey, you guys, Congress, you remember how you passed this amendment saying there could be no CIA involvement in Nicaragua?

16:46Well, they mined the harbor of the sovereign nation, and it blew up a bunch of other countries' ships.

16:54Josh Clark:And Congress, once again, was like, man, you keep doing secret things behind our back. Right. That really makes us mad.

17:01Chuck Bryant:Right.

17:02Josh Clark:Should we take a break?

17:03Chuck Bryant:All right. Let's take a break.

17:07Chuck Bryant:Stuff you should know.

17:09Josh Clark:Josh and Chuck. Woo!

17:15Chuck Bryant:Stuff you should know. Your home is always a work in progress, isn't it? There's always something that needs updating. and even if you somehow finished every room, eventually you'd start all over again.

17:28Josh Clark:That's right, and that's why Wayfair is so amazing, because you'll find furniture and decor that's built to last and looks great too. Plus, when you shop Wayfair Verified, every item has been hand-vetted by product specialists using a 10-point quality inspection so you can feel confident in what you're buying.

17:43Chuck Bryant:And the best part, there are amazing options for every budget. But don't just take our word for it. Wayfair has more than 20 million verified five-star reviews from real shoppers. Yeah, 20 million. Join Wayfair Rewards today to get 5 % back on every purchase and start saving on your next home upgrade. Head to Wayfair.com to shop all things home. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R dot com. Wayfair. Every style, every home.

18:16Josh Clark:You know, friend, for a long time, I thought that if you had a home security system, And that meant you had some like huge alarm that was really loud after someone broke in. And it always seemed to me like that was like too late. And an intruder could just grab what they want and get the heck out of there before cops came.

18:31Chuck Bryant:Right. Well, you're kind of right. But SimpliSafe has come along and said, hey, you know what? Let's try something different. And they did that with their U.S.-based live agents that identify threats on your property and help deter them so that they can stop crime before it even starts.

18:47Josh Clark:Another great thing is they have no long-term contracts. And that's pretty great to not be locked in because what if you have a life change or something?

18:53Chuck Bryant:Yeah. Another great benefit that SimpliSafe has that other guys don't is that you don't have to wait around for a tech to come install it. I have SimpliSafe at my house and I set mine up in no time flat. That's great. That means I could probably do it too. You can get the peace of mind that SimpliSafe offers and a pretty sweet discount too. Right now, SimpliSafe is offering 50 % off your new system. Just visit simplisafe.com slash stuff. That's half off at simplisafe.com slash stuff. There's no safe like SimpliSafe.

19:28Chuck Bryant:Hey, everybody. We have a mnemonic device that's going to blow your mind. If your skin squeaks, your barrier is weak. CeraVe Facial Cleansers don't strip the skin. They work to give you a stronger skin barrier from day one, so your skin will never squeak.

19:42Josh Clark:That's right. CeraVe facial cleansers gently cleanse the skin of dirt, oil, and makeup without disrupting the skin barrier. They're fragrance-free and won't clog pores. And get this, they were developed with dermatologists.

19:55Chuck Bryant:Yep, and they have different products depending on what you need. There's the Foaming Facial Cleanser, which gently removes excess oil, dirt, and makeup, formulated with three essential ceramides, hyaluronic acid, and niacinamide to provide long-lasting hydration and 12-hour oil control. They also have a hydrating facial cleanser, which cleanses without disrupting the skin's protective barrier, for 94 % less dryness and a stronger skin barrier from day one. No matter your skin type or concern, CeraVe has facial cleansers perfect for you and your skin barrier. CeraVe is the number one dermatologist-recommended cleanser brand and offers a range of facial cleansers for all types.

20:32Chuck Bryant:Find yours.

20:38Chuck Bryant:Stuff you should know.

20:53Chuck Bryant:Okay, let's keep going. So what does Congress do? They're like, all right. They're mad. We passed one Boland Amendment, which I don't think we said, Chuck, that first Boland Amendment was passed 411 to zero. Unanimously saying, do not mess around in Nicaragua anymore.

21:09Josh Clark:That's when you know Congress is mad.

21:10Chuck Bryant:Right. When they unanimously agree on something. And then the Wall Street Journal breaks the story about the harbor mining long after the Boland Amendment was passed. And now Congress is even madder.

21:21Josh Clark:Right. So they passed two more amendments, Boland Amendments, because there were loopholes basically that allowed, you know, the U.S. to sort of do these things semi-legally. So it was like, well, here's a loophole. So it wasn't really fully illegal that we did this stuff.

21:37Chuck Bryant:Yeah, that's like the Reagan administration's way.

21:41Josh Clark: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.

21:52Chuck Bryant: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.

22:00Josh Clark:Yeah, he didn't veto them.

22:02Chuck Bryant:Nope. He accepted these things. I think he even said, like, yeah, this is a good idea, great way to go, Congress, and signed it. I'm not going to do a Reagan impression. 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 going to outlaw this stuff, we're just going to have to get even more illegal. Yeah.

22:41Josh Clark:So there were a couple of factions here at work. One was this continued operation underground, deep, deep underground now. And then there was Reagan's public. Like he still wanted to get real money from Congress.

22:53Chuck Bryant:Right.

22:53Josh Clark:So he didn't have to do this stuff.

22:55Chuck Bryant:Right. So he kept up this public PR campaign beating this drum about communism at our doorstep.

23:02Josh Clark: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. Yeah. 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, you know, refugees. Feet people. Seeking a safe haven.

23:34Chuck Bryant:It was one word even, I think.

23:36Josh Clark:One word. It's funny because I looked up feet people, and that's a company that, like, I think makes shoelaces.

23:41Chuck Bryant:And they're like, yes, say it again. Say.com.

23:47Josh Clark: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.

23:57Chuck Bryant:Right, basically saying like, Congress, look at these heartless old, you know, 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.

24:11Josh Clark: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.

24:36Chuck Bryant: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.

24:42Josh Clark:Yeah.

24:42Chuck Bryant:And it still hasn't. So, yeah.

24:44Josh Clark:I read some of the stuff too. Like some of the affidavits were like just brutal.

24:49Chuck Bryant:Oh, yeah, dude. The war down in Nicaragua, the civil war that the U.S. 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. Yeah. And just they would get kidnapped and tortured and killed. And like it was a really brutal time in Nicaragua. And the Reagan administration is right in the middle of this, like providing as much aid as they can to one side.

25:20Josh Clark: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. Right. 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. Right. So it was just they were fractured, and no one was talking to each other, and it was just a big mess.

26:00Chuck Bryant:Right. But Reagan was doing his best to paint everything in black and white. Right. Contra's good. Sandinista's bad. So anything the Contras did was good, and stuff that couldn't be painted as good would just be denied or glossed over, not reported on.

26:15Josh Clark:That's right.

26:16Chuck Bryant:So while Reagan's out running around trying to drum up public support for the Contras and thus congressional aid being turned back on.

26:24Josh Clark:And also saying, don't do drugs. Yeah, that was a big one.

26:27Chuck Bryant: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. Yeah. 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. 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 going to 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.

27:05Josh Clark:Right, because it's all been shredded.

27:07Chuck Bryant:As far as the history books is concerned, that's what happened.

27:10Josh Clark: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.

27:20Chuck Bryant:Well, they expressly forbade the CIA from operating there.

27:23Josh Clark:Right. So he said, here's what we're going to do. We're going to use the National Security Council. And the CIA chief, William Casey, he's around. He's going to just, like, advise here and there. And William Casey was like, oh, no, I really got to be involved because this is really good stuff.

27:37Chuck Bryant:They're like, no, no, no, we're talking, like, officially here. Oh, yeah, yeah, okay. Exactly.

27:41Josh Clark:So at first, a national security advisor was Robert McFarlane, and then he was succeeded by John Poindexter. Very important you remember that name. And then Casey's still there, like you said, doing his thing on the down low, unofficially.

27:55Chuck Bryant: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 mind when you hear about this, Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North.

28:11Josh Clark:Ollie North.

28:12Chuck Bryant:And in retrospect, especially if you lived through the Iran-Contra hearings and you were familiar with Ollie North, you would guess that when Ollie North was tapped to head up this extraordinarily difficult secret operation to go against Congress and keep the Contra movement alive and kicking, that Ollie North was a bad A covert operator to the ninth degree, right? That is not at all correct.

28:43Josh Clark:No. Career Marine, very highly decorated Marine, served in Vietnam, won Silver Stars and Purple Hearts. Yeah. a devout Catholic, and by all accounts, a stand-up guy. And to many, many Americans, he is still like a top-notch American hero.

29:04Chuck Bryant:Sure. Well, he was like the president of the NRA until I think recently.

29:07Josh Clark:Yeah.

29:07Chuck Bryant:I think there's some scandal that just happened where it came out that he like tried to depose Wayne LaPierre or something like that. I don't know. I don't 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 shadiest stuff it was doing. Stuff that was so shady, the CIA was even kept in the dark about it.

29:47Chuck Bryant:That's how shady the stuff Ollie North was doing. And he had no experience. He's learning as he went. Yeah. 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.

29:57Josh Clark:Just as far as like getting her done. Right. 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 in secret through business people that, you know, we can have these big parties and dinners and say, hey, listen, communism is knocking at our door. This wouldn't be good for America. It wouldn't be good for your company. Right. And why don't you give us some money? Open up the checkbook. Right. Reagan's here. You want a photo?

30:30Chuck Bryant:Yeah, sometimes he would show up to these secret fundraisers.

30:33Josh Clark:And it really worked. Like they raised a ton of money from the business elite of America to stop the Sandinistans in Nicaragua.

30:43Chuck Bryant:So they actually, forget this, they founded, they had two private citizens found a nonprofit, 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 and hilarious in some senses.

31:12Josh Clark:Yeah, but they were not the most stand-up nonprofit 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.

31:29Chuck Bryant:That's pretty bad.

31:30Josh Clark:Yeah.

31:31Chuck Bryant:That's not good at all.

31:32Josh Clark:No,$3 million it took supposedly to run that nonprofit.

31:37Chuck Bryant:Those fundraising breakfasts for a year. Yeah. Pretty bad.

31:40Josh Clark:Good omelets, though.

31:41Chuck Bryant:So, yeah, oh, yeah, the best. Top notch. Yeah. So from this idea like, okay, this is probably kind of legal. We're just fundraising.

31:50Josh Clark:Right.

31:50Chuck Bryant:We're not giving any American taxpayer funds. We're just getting other people to donate, private citizens. Saudi Arabia was a big one.

31:57Josh Clark:And it was all to stop communism. So, like, I think their intentions were that. Oh, definitely. Theirs were.

32:04Chuck Bryant:Yeah. But there was a definite and justifies the means 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.

32:18Josh Clark:Yeah.

32:18Chuck Bryant: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 at their disposal. The problem is they don't have the contacts in the international arms trade to buy arms with this money. They just had a bunch of money, and they're like, who wants this?

32:58Chuck Bryant:Right. And they were getting crickets in return. Who's got some bombs. Right. You know, the cartoonish black kind, the round ones that are shiny? It would take 15 of those.

33:07Josh Clark:It was 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 Secord. 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.

33:42Chuck Bryant:Right. So exactly what you can imagine a Hollywood writer would come up with.

33:49Josh Clark:Yeah.

33:49Chuck Bryant:This is the real life version of it.

33:51Josh Clark:Yeah, for sure.

33:52Chuck Bryant:So they would, you could farm out assassinations to them. They could rustle up mercenaries. They could carry out sabotage operations. They could find whatever gun, bomb, anything you needed. You want some money laundered? Done. 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. Yeah. And they would, here's the other thing too. They were an illegal black market arms ring, but they were also even more illegal in that they would sell to whoever. Whether you were an enemy or a friend to America, it didn't matter.

34:31Chuck Bryant:These guys were operating well above any sort of national loyalty or anything like that.

34:36Josh Clark:Yeah, this was about making money. Sure. Like many millions of dollars. Yeah, you're right. So especially a guy like Secord, he was in it to make dough. Definitely. Whereas Inali North was seemingly in it to stop communism. Right.

34:50Chuck Bryant:So that's an important point. But the fact that they contract with Secord to kind of swoop in and help hook the Contras up with arms means that the Reagan administration is contracting with this extraordinarily illegal black market arms ring.

35:09Josh Clark: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 C4 that he hid in barrels of mud and flew on a charter jet to Libya.

35:36Chuck Bryant: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 Muammar Gaddafi.

35:46Josh Clark:Oh, yeah.

35:46Chuck Bryant:Idi Amin was another customer. Like, whoever, if you need to keep a stranglehold on power in your country, we're the people to help you do that.

35:53Josh Clark:Yeah, and when I teased earlier about Richard Secord being forced into retirement, that was due to his connection with Edwin Wilson.

36:03Chuck Bryant:Right.

36:03Josh Clark: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.

36:10Chuck Bryant:Yeah. They're like, you can do this the hard way or the easy way. We're going to 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 stealing thing full time now. Right. And he did. So when they brought him in, at first, C-Cord 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.

36:36Josh Clark:Yeah, in Canada of all places.

36:38Chuck Bryant:Yeah, he introduced the Contras to some Canadian arms dealers. So now the setup was this. The friendliest arms dealers. Right. They're like, oh, these bullets will really put a hole in somebody, eh?

36:48Josh Clark:Yeah, oh, sorry. I meant to include rocket launchers on that order. Sorry, sorry.

36:53Chuck Bryant:That's pretty good. So Secord 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 arm's length legality as far as America is concerned.

37:19Josh Clark:Yeah. Yeah, and we should mention, too, that 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. Yeah. So he set up Swiss bank accounts, untraceable accounts, because that's what you do. Right. To run the funds through. And this became known as the enterprise.

37:46Chuck Bryant:Yeah, the Stanford Technology Trading Company. or group, sorry.

37:51Josh Clark:Trading group, a.k.a. the Enterprise.

37:53Chuck Bryant:Yeah, that was like everybody called it that because they're like, this sounds way cooler, the Enterprise. Right?

37:58Josh Clark: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.

38:09Chuck Bryant:They were the better organized from what I understand.

38:11Josh Clark:Yeah, they were doing a pretty good job, but in the south, they were not doing a very good job.

38:16Chuck Bryant: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. Yeah. Just buy the weapons. They're like, I don't know. So Ollie North is like, okay, all right, here's what we're going to 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 going to 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 Secord. Not only is he going to 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.

38:59Chuck Bryant: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.

39:15Josh Clark:Yeah, and in the meantime, Secord and Akeem 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.

39:26Chuck Bryant:But they put a lot back into the enterprise. I mean, they took this job very seriously. Oh, yeah, it was a company. If you were Ollie North, you were quite happy with the work you were getting from Richard Secord and Albert Akeem because the shipments went out on time. They got everything they needed. 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.

40:00Chuck Bryant:Great health care. Yeah, the best benefits. All of the Contras had really nice teeth after Richard Secord took over. Work from home.

40:08Josh Clark:Yeah. 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. Dosh and Chuck.

40:29Josh Clark:Stuff you should know. You know, friend, for a long time, I thought that if you had a home security system, that meant you had some like huge alarm that was really loud after someone broke in. And it always seemed to me like that was like too late. And an intruder could just grab what they want and get the heck out of there before cops came.

40:47Chuck Bryant:Right. Well, you're kind of right. But SimpliSafe has come along and said, hey, you know what? Let's try something different. And they did that with their U.S.-based live agents that identify threats on your property and help deter them so that they can stop crime before it even starts.

41:03Josh Clark:Another great thing is they have no long-term contracts, and that's pretty great to not be locked in because what if you have a life change or something?

41:09Chuck Bryant:Yeah, another great benefit that SimpliSafe has that other guys don't is that you don't have to wait around for a tech to come install it. I have SimpliSafe at my house, and I set mine up in no time flat. That's great. That means I could probably do it too. You can get the peace of mind that SimpliSafe offers and a pretty sweet discount too. Right now, SimpliSafe is offering 50 % off your new system. Just visit simplisafe.com slash stuff. That's half off at simplisafe.com slash stuff. There's no safe like SimpliSafe.

41:43Hey, everybody.

41:44Chuck Bryant:We have a mnemonic device that's going to blow your mind. If your skin squeaks, your barrier is weak. CeraVe facial cleansers don't strip the skin. They work to give you a stronger skin barrier from day one. so your skin will never squeak.

41:58Josh Clark:That's right. CeraVe Facial Cleansers gently cleanse the skin of dirt, oil, and makeup without disrupting the skin barrier. They're fragrance-free and won't clog pores. And get this, they were developed with dermatologists.

42:10Chuck Bryant:Yep, and they have different products depending on what you need. There's the Foaming Facial Cleanser, which gently removes excess oil, dirt, and makeup, formulated with three essential ceramides, hyaluronic acid, and niacinamide to provide long-lasting hydration and 12-hour oil control. They also have a hydrating facial cleanser, which cleanses without disrupting the skin's protective barrier, for 94 % less dryness and a stronger skin barrier from day one. No matter your skin type or concern, CeraVe has facial cleansers perfect for you and your skin barrier. CeraVe is the number one dermatologist-recommended cleanser brand and offers a range of facial cleansers for all types.

42:48Chuck Bryant:Find yours.

42:55Chuck Bryant:In business, there's no room for guesswork. Every shipment matters. Every deadline counts. When you're trying to keep operations running smoothly, the last thing you need is uncertainty.

43:06Josh Clark:That's right. That's why reliability is the core of USPS Ground Advantage. From the moment your package is first scanned in, it moves through a secure, nationwide network, aiding in a timely and accurate delivery.

43:17Chuck Bryant:You get near real-time tracking so you can keep up with your shipments. And with affordable upfront pricing, there are no hidden fees or surprise surcharges to throw off your cost sheets.

43:27Josh Clark:That's right. And that all adds up to predictable deliveries that you can depend on. Because knowing your logistics are handled lets you focus on everything else. Your customers, your team, and the future that you're building. Just visit usps.com slash ground advantage to start shipping with confidence. USPS Ground Advantage.

43:48Chuck Bryant:Stuff you should know.

44:01Chuck Bryant:All right, Chuck. So things are in full swing. America is unknowingly totally hooking up the Contras. Now, basically running this proxy war that the Contras are fighting against the Sandinista government. Right. The enterprise 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.

44:27Josh Clark: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 our 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 Miami Herald, by the reporting of a guy named Alfonso Chardi.

45:03Chuck Bryant: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.

45:18Josh Clark:Oh, yeah. I mean, Newsweek broke it before Congress knew. Yeah, right. The Washington Post broke it. Yeah. Wall Street Journal. Yeah, Wall Street Journal and then the Miami Herald. Yeah. L.A.

45:27Chuck Bryant:Times did a lot of really good reporting.

45:28Josh Clark:It was going on like in Miami's backyard.

45:30Chuck Bryant: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. And even then it still wasn't up to snuff in the end. Yeah. But there were actual journalists like actually paying attention and writing about this stuff and informing the public about it.

45:47Josh Clark: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.

45:56Chuck Bryant:Yeah.

45:56Josh Clark:What got us now?

45:57Chuck Bryant:Speaking of. What a joke. R.I.P. Mad Magazine.

46:01Josh Clark:Oh, yeah.

46:03Chuck Bryant:What a shame.

46:04Josh Clark:Yeah, they tried. That reboot didn't work. Yeah. It's tough.

46:09Chuck Bryant:It is. It's tough biz these days.

46:11Josh Clark:And I got friends that worked for him, too. Like in this recent reiteration.

46:16Chuck Bryant:Oh, really?

46:16Josh Clark:Yeah, or iteration, I guess.

46:18Chuck Bryant:Well, I know one of their illustrators is a Stuff You Should Know fan from years back.

46:21Josh Clark:Yeah.

46:22Chuck Bryant:Yeah.

46:22Josh Clark:It's very sad to see it go. Yeah. So, it was a very 80s reference, though. It was. It really wasn't off track. So, all right, this is going on. They set up this office run by Otto Reich. 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.

46:47Chuck Bryant:Yeah, there was a longstanding prohibition on the CIA from operating in the U.S. 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.

47:26Chuck Bryant:And he, at least his administration, was like, forget about that. We'll just get around that.

47:33Josh Clark:Yeah. And who was this? It says here that the CIA's 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 Otto Reich? Was that someone else?

47:51Chuck Bryant:I don't know.

47:51Josh Clark:Oh, well, maybe that's the whole point.

47:53Chuck Bryant:Right, yeah. But that's why I was saying earlier, like Reagan, that's the Reagan administration way. just like, 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. You know? And that's what they did. So the CIA's psychological warfare guy, retired, came on as a consultant. He 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.

48:29Josh Clark:Right. So when you say sting operations, we mean literally the United States and all over north smuggling cocaine into Nicaragua. Right. Photographing Sandinistan officials with this shipment. Right. And then smuggling the cocaine back to the United States. Back to Florida. Back to Florida.

48:50Chuck Bryant:They're like, we told you we'd bring it back. Chill, man.

48:53Josh Clark:Unbelievable.

48:54Chuck Bryant:Give us our driver's licenses back.

48:56Josh Clark:So this photo was published. This is during the middle of the Just Say No movement, championed by Nancy Reagan. Yeah. So it all fit on the surface. But what was going on behind the scenes is just unconscionable. It is unconscionable. Unconscionable.

49:14Chuck Bryant:It was both. But this gave Reagan this photograph that got published all over the place. Oh, yeah.

49:21Josh Clark:And he's like, look what's going on. Look what these guys are doing.

49:23Chuck Bryant:They're bringing this stuff into America, killing 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, you jerks?

49:36Josh Clark:And that was the only evidence, too, in that case.

49:39Chuck Bryant: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 Sandinistan 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 was another one that involved Manuel Noriega, the dictator of Panama, who actually was selling drugs to America's youth.

50:08Josh Clark:Yeah, but he was also a friend of the CIA.

50:11Chuck Bryant:Exactly. So much so that he was a CIA operative for a very long time.

50:15Josh Clark:Yeah, I don't know about a friend, but he was at least an asset.

50:17Chuck Bryant:Right. Yeah. So this seeing operation was they were going to, through Panama, have Panama arrange for a shipment of arms to be seized in Honduras.

50:28Josh Clark:El Salvador.

50:29Chuck Bryant:El Salvador. Yeah. On its way to Honduras or maybe just in El Salvador, ostensibly arms from Nicaragua.

50:36Josh Clark:Yeah, basically saying you're arming Salvadorians, you're arming Hondurans.

50:40Chuck Bryant:You're exporting your revolution. 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 for myself.

51:05Josh Clark:Yeah, but I love at first he was like, I can do that. Oh, yeah. He's like, sure, send me the arms. Yeah. And then we were like, oh, okay.

51:12Chuck Bryant:There would be a, I think it's from the Iran-Contra investigation, the description of Manuel Noriega was that he ran a narco-cleptocracy. That was the government that he ran. Yeah, just break down that word.

51:28Josh Clark:He was as shady as they come. That just means drugs, thievery. Yeah, exactly.

51:34Chuck Bryant:Yeah. So this is what's going on in the United States in the mid-'80s.

51:40Josh Clark: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 and be like, hey, can you report on the Sandinists since they're really not good people? Can you help us out a little bit? Well, but here's the thing. If you didn't play ball, then didn't they cook up some story that they would send, like, Sandinistan sex workers there to, like, pleasure the reporters?

52:10Chuck Bryant:That was the rumor was that if you were a journalist who reported favorably on the Sandinista government, the reason you reported favorably on them was because the Sandinista government was furnishing you with sex workers.

52:21Josh Clark:Right. That was directly from the Office of Public Diplomacy. Right. And I read the thing about it, and 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.

52:33Chuck Bryant:So totally discredit them. It's like a complete page right out of the Edward Bernays 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?

52:54Josh Clark:I think that's great.

52:55Chuck Bryant:And we're going to make this a cliffhanger. Yeah.

52:59Josh Clark: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 marketing call, everyone. If you like stuff, you should know. Right. 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. Right. Now that you don't have to explain what a podcast is. Right. It's a lot cleaner now.

53:23Chuck Bryant:Maybe start with a good one, like ballpoint pens or something.

53:26Josh Clark: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.

53:33Chuck Bryant: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.

53:46Josh Clark: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.

53:52Chuck Bryant:Nice, Chuck. How about that? That sounds like a good pyramid scheme.

53:54Josh Clark:We like to do this once every five or six years.

53:56Chuck Bryant:Well, thank you for joining us this week. If you want to get in touch with us, you can go on to stuffyoushouldknow.com and check out our social links. You can also send us an email to stuffpodcast at iheartradio.com.

54:11Josh Clark:Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

54:27Josh Clark:Saturday, August 22nd in Tampa. Witness an MMA legend's final fight. Chris Cyborg, one of the greatest in history. She's an absolute pioneer in the sport. Defends her PFL world title one last time.

54:44Chuck Bryant:Unforgettable end to an unforgettable career.

54:48Josh Clark:And still! Saturday, August 22nd live from Benchmark International Arena. For tickets, visit pfl.info slash Tampa.

55:23Josh Clark:Head Agree. Good then, better now.

55:53Josh Clark:Presented by iHeart. A yay yay? This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.