Fiasco (TV series)

This episode looks at the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the ensuing hostage crisis. Leon Neyfakh narrates that while the Iran-Contra affair was known as "Ronald Reagan's scandal" the stage was set by President Jimmy Carter. The 1979 oil crisis causes frustration among American citizens because of empty gas pumps. In July 1979, Carter delivered his "Crisis of Confidence" speech.

When Mohammad Reza Shah arrives in the United States for cancer treatment, some Iranian pro-Khomeini protesters claims that the Iranian king is malingering to plot a return to Iran to stage a counter-revolution.

Abbas Milani says that while the Iranian king suppressed and arrested the communists, he allowed the Islamic clergy to organize and mobilize to "fight communism."

ABC News's Nightline was started to give broadcast time on national television to the families of the 1979 American hostages held in Tehran. In April 1980, eight American service members die when their helicopter crashes in Iranian desert (Operation Eagle Claw).

Ralph Reed says,"Even though he [Ronald Reagan] was divorced[2] and came out of Hollywood," the Evangelical Christians welcomed him.

Modern interviews and archival footages are shown.

• Cast members of interviews include Leon Panetta, Ralph Reed (Christian Coalition), John Limbert, Alan Golacinski, Doyle McManus, Abbas Milani, Mohsen Sazegara, Gary Sick.
• Cast members of archival footages include Robert MacNeil, Jerry Falwell Sr. (The Old-Time Gospel Hour), Paul Weyrich (Moral Majority), Kermit Roosevelt Jr., Mohammad Beheshti, Ted Koppel, Tom Brokaw.

This episode looks at the Iran–Contra affair. The Reagan administration illegally used money made from weapons sale to Iran to arm anti-Sandinista rebels in Nicaragua.[3]

Reagan saw the President of Nicaragua Anastasio Somoza as a "good guy." In the 1970s, the small Central American country was rocked by the Nicaraguan Revolution. Reagan describes the conflict as a clash between the Soviet-backed Sandinistas and the Contras. Nicaraguans had grown weary of the Somoza family. The 1972 Nicaragua earthquake caused massive damage in Managua.

The Sandinistas took their name from the 1920s leader Augusto Sandino.

Edén Pastora and his Sandinista followers seized the National Palace in 1978. They took 2,000 government officials as hostages. Somoza resigned in 1979 whereupon the Sandinistas took over the country. The Boland Amendment prohibited overthrowing the Sandinistas.

The Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN) was formed by a group of leaders to overthrow the Sandinistas in the 1980s. Edgar Chamorro starts broadcasting radio messages in Nicaragua from the neighboring Honduras.

Modern interviews and archival footages are shown.

• Cast members of interviews include Charles J. Cooper, Victoria González-Rivera, Edgar Chamorro (former Contras leader), Peter Kornbluh, Leon Panetta, Richard Secord.
• Cast members of archival footages include Oliver North, William J. Casey.

In October 1983, a gunman named Charles R. Harris takes two government staff as hostages at the Augusta National Golf Club to speak with Ronald Reagan.[4][5] This incident "resolved itself pretty easily" according to the narrator Leon Neyfakh. This story didn't gain traction in the media because the headlines were being dominated with the 1983 Beirut barracks bombings in Lebanon that killed hundreds of US Marines.

The small country of Lebanon is peaceful from the 1950s to the 1970s. American troops go on a multi-national peacekeeping force in the midst of the Lebanese Civil War in the 1980s. In February 1984, Reagan withdrew American forces from Lebanon. Shortly afterwards, seven American are taken as hostages between 1984 and 1985. William Francis Buckley was a key hostage taken into captivity in March 1984. Reagan's talking point became "We make no deals" with "terrorists."

The family of Benjamin Weir meet with the previous President Jimmy Carter who tells them that U.S. National Security Advisor Bud McFarlane may have the clout needed to secure their release of Benjamin Weir.

Philip Habib goes to Lebanon to negotiate a ceasefire.

In June 1985, TWA Flight 847 hijacking and the hostages taken received wall-to-wall media coverage. Two Shiite militant take control of the plane as it was flying from Athens to Rome. The hijackers directed the flight to Beirut, Lebanon. Robert Stethem was shot dead in the head by the hijackers in Beirut. The 145 American airplane hostages are released in July 1985 while the seven American hostages captured in Lebanon in 1984 and 1985 remain detained.

Manucher Ghorbanifar ("Gorba") emerges as a figure to trade 100 American missiles in exchange for the release of the seven American hostages in Lebanon held by captors who were simpatico with the Shiite government officials in Iran. To avoid direct sale of missiles to Iran, Israeli officials sell the weapons to Gorba.

Modern interviews and archival footages are shown.

• Cast members of interviews include Howard Teicher, Leon Panetta, Nora Boustany.
• Cast members of archival footages include Ronald Reagan, Robert McFarlane, Newt Gingrich, David Kimche.

The White House believed that Hezbollah had kidnapped the seven Americans in Lebanon in 1984-1985. Moreover, Bud McFarlane believed that these hostages could be released if Khomeini gave the order. McFarlane said, "There is sufficient evidence that radical Shia terrorists are responsive to Iranian guidance."

The Reagan administration didn't want to directly sell weapons to a country that it had itself designated as a State Sponsor of Terrorism in 1984. In September 1985, Benjamin Weir was released after the drop-off of two shipments of American missiles into Iran by way of Israel.

Afterwards, Iran started asking for 150 HAWK missiles, 200 Sidewinder missiles, and 30 to 50 Phoenix missiles.

In February 1986, 500 TOW missiles were delivered to Iran. However, no hostages were released. After two weeks, 500 more TOW missiles were delivered to Iran without any hostages released once again. Richard Secord had received as much as $20 million (equivalent to $47,219,000 in 2020) in Credit Suisse from Iran through Gorba.

Reagan calls the retired McFarlane to travel to Iran. McFarlane personally visits Tehran in May 1986. He is accompanied to Iran with George W. Cave, Howard Teicher, and Oliver North.

• Modern interviews and archival footages are shown.

• • Cast members of interviews include Leon Panetta, Doyle McManus, Christian Caryl, Jane Mayer.
  • Cast members of archival footages include Bud McFarlane, John Poindexter.

Ronald Reagan was rallying support for Republicans in the 1986 United States elections.

Tony Avirgan and Martha Honey discover that the US is supplying mortars and artillery pieces to the Contras in Costa Rica, south of Nicaragua. They also find out that some Contras are smuggling drugs into the United States.

Pilot Eugene Hasenfus is "shot out of the sky," but he survives the plane crash in Nicaragua.

Howard Teicher who was part of the McFarlane delegation that traveled to Tehran in May 1986 says in this Epix documentary,

You could be clever with your words and say, "Yeah, we weren't really negotiating with terrorists," but, effectively, we were.

On November 13, 1986, Reagan delivered a scripted televised address saying, "The charge has been made that the United States has shipped weapons to Iran as ransom payment for the release of American hostages in Lebanon, that the United States undercut its allies and secretly violated American policy against trafficking with terrorists. Those charges are utterly false."[6]

• Modern interviews and archival footages are shown.

• • Cast members of interviews include Hassan Sabra (editor of Ash-Shiraa magazine in Lebanon), Ken Khachigian, Tony Avirgan and Martha Honey, Luis Carrión Cruz.
  • Cast members of archival footages include Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Bernard Shaw (journalist), Eugene Hasenfus, Tom Harkin, John Kerry, Alejandro Bendaña, Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, David Durenberger, Tip O'Neill (D-House Speaker), George Shultz, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Dante Fascell.

This episode focuses on Oliver North. Fawn Hall was North's secretary.

PROFS (PRofessional OFfice System) was a 1980s version of e-mail that John Poindexter, Bud McFarlane, and Oliver North had used to communicate about the arms sales to Iran. National Security Advisor John Poindexter destroyed evidence to stonewall the Tower Commission investigation.

Additionally, The Select House Committee on Iran Contra conducts an investigation. The congressional staff set up a SCIF. At the end, Congress decides not to impeach Reagan.

Lawrence Walsh served as in independent counsel.

• Modern interviews and archival footages are shown.

• • Cast members of interviews include Leon Panetta, Chuck Cooper (United States Assistant Attorney General of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) in the Justice Department), Landon Parvin (Reagan speechwriter).
  • Cast members of archival footages include Ed Meese, Dick Cheney.