ABSTRACT
The Iran-contra scandals of late 1986-1987 were part and parcel of national security policy doctrine. As Lieutenant Colonel North told the congressional inquiry, the illegal and even unconstitutional actions he carried out were done in the name of freedom and anticommunism—that is, national security. Congress discovered information that linked national security officials to a variety of terrorists, drug traffickers, and other unsavory characters. The labyrinth of shady business activities and the "businessmen" that arranged for loans and Swiss bank accounts, and who, of course, made "fair" profits, also occupied Congress. The United States has controlled directly or indirectly the politics, economics, and defenses of scores of other nations, a global position that has required an executive with powers well beyond what the Constitution offered the president. The national security mentality, the foreign policy doctrine that grew from it, and the larger culture that developed from the politics of the cold war no longer coincide even remotely with reality.
