| The Iran-Contra document collection provides a contemporary record of the political, military and paramilitary operations -- overt, covert and extra-official -- which served as the foundation for the most significant American scandal since Watergate. The collection consists of 4,635 documents totaling approximately 14,000 pages. The bulk of the documentation was produced between the fall of 1983, when Congress first put significant limits on official U.S. assistance to the Nicaraguan Contras, and the end of 1986, when the Iran initiative and the Contra resupply operations were publicly exposed, and official investigations began. Relevant legal papers, including the March 1988 indictment of National Security Council (NSC) officials John Poindexter and Lt. Col. Oliver North, and private operators Richard Secord and Albert Hakim, round out the set. The collection provides documents germane to the immediate scandal as well as to the decisionmaking process, the policies, and operations from which the Iran-Contra Affair evolved. |