Armstrong, Scott. The
Chronology: The Documented Day-to-Day Account of the Secret Military Assistance
to Iran and the Contras. New York: Warner, 1987. Armstrong, Scott. The
Chronology: The Documented Day-to-Day Account of the Secret Military Assistance
to Iran and the Contras. New York: Warner, 1987.
See National Security Archive, The Chronology: The Documented Day-by-Day Account of the Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Contras (New York: Warner Books, 1987).
NameBase: "The Chronology draws on some government documents, but this is mostly a compilation of Iran-contra tidbits from the media, beginning in 1980 and getting progressively more detailed through 1986 -- a year that takes 400 pages of the book. It is valuable for researchers who need to understand how specific events may have fit into a larger pattern. There is a complete index and no conclusion."
Bradlee, Ben, Jr. Guts
and Glory: The Rise and Fall of Oliver North. New York: Donald I. Fine,
1988.
Published before the resurrection of North as political candidate and frontperson for "Christian" right-wing causes.
Bruemmer,
Russell J., and Marshall H. Silverberg. "The Impact of the Iran-Contra
Matter on Congressional Oversight of the CIA." Houston Journal of
International Law 11, no. 1 (1988): 219-243.
Bruemmer was CIA General Counsel from 1988 to 1990; Silverberg served as CIA Assistant General Counsel.
Cinquegrana, Americo
R. "Dancing in the Dark: Accepting the Invitation to Struggle in the
Context of 'Covert Action,' The Iran-Contra Affair and the Intelligence
Oversight Process." Houston Journal of International Law 11,
no. 1 (Fall 1988): 177-209.
Petersen: "Analysis of oversight legislation and executive orders 1976-1988."
Clarridge, Duane R.
("Dewey"), with Digby Diehl. A Spy for All Seasons: My Life
in the CIA. New York: Scribner's, 1997.
Clark comment: These are the memoirs of a long-time, senior CIA officer whose personal and sartorial eccentricities are known to all who came into contact with him. Clarridge's close association with running the Reagan administration's anti-Sandinista war, as well as with other major operations in his lengthy career, makes this book interesting reading. Click for reviews of Clarridge's memoirs.
Cohen, William S. [Sen.]
and George J. Mitchell [Sen.] Men of Zeal: A Candid Inside Story of the
Iran-Contra Hearings. New York: Viking Penguin, 1988.
Petersen notes that this book is "based on Congressional hearings" and "discusses CIA involvement." See also, Johnson, IJI&C 2.4 (1988).
Currie, James T. "Iran-Contra
and Congressional Oversight of the CIA." International Journal of
Intelligence and Counterintelligence 11, no. 2 (Summer 1998): 185-210.
This is a quick and opinionated overview of Congressional oversight of the CIA before, during, and after the Iran-Contra affair.
Draper, Theodore. A
Very Thin Line: The Iran-Contra Affair. New York: Hill and Wang, 1991.
In Lowenthal's view, Draper "does not achieve his goal of complete objectivity, but this is a very useful account of the complex series of operations." Luxenberg, WPNWE, 17-23 Jun. 1991, says that the book contains "nothing much that is new or startling about either the Iran arms sale or the Reagan administration's secret resupply of the contras in defiance of Congress." Nevertheless, Draper "has written a readable and detailed narrative that ... may be the standard reference for anyone who does not wish to go to the source documents."
Feldman, Daniel L.
"Constitutional Dimensions of the Iran-Contra Affair." International
Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 2, no. 3 (Fall 1988):
381-397.
"The balance between security concerns, reflected in executive secrecy, and the free flow of information, necessary for informed dissent and debate, has shifted too far toward secrecy, and should be shifted back to a balance between the two."
Fisher, Louis. "Review
Essay: How to Avoid Iran-Contras." California Law Review 76
(1993): 919-929.
Hershberg, James G. "The War in Afghanistan and the Iran-Contra Affair: Missing Links?" Cold War History 3, no. 3 (Apr. 2003): 23-48.
From Abstract: This article "draws together declassified evidence to trace previously ignored connections" between the Soviet war in Afghanistan and the Iran-Contra affair. It demonstrates that "the secret arms dealings with Iran carried out by the Reagan administration's National Security Council staff included provisions for Tehran to transfer some of the American weapons it received to pro-Iranian mujaheddin in Afghanistan, and that covert cooperation against the Soviets in Afghanistan constituted an important dimension of the clandestine dialogue carried on by US and Iranian representatives."
Koh, Harold Hongju.
The National Security Constitution: Sharing Power After the Iran-Contra
Affair. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990. KF4651/.K64
According to Valcourt, IJI&C 4.2, Koh is a Yale law professor and former adviser in the Office of Legal Counsel of the Department of Justice. "The Iran-Contra affair constituted a 'fundamental interbranch dispute over what the rule of law governing national security should be.'... Congress perhaps did not 'so much misdefine its institutional task as leave it unfinished." The National Security Constitution "consists of the U.S. Constitution and several legislative enactments pertaining to foreign policy.... [M]ost presidents have misused this [military and intelligence] power by committing U.S. forces to overt or covert action without having obtained sufficient consensus from Congress and the public." This is a "thoughtful book on the current state of the relationship between the executive and the legislative branches."
Kornbluh, Peter, and
Malcolm Byrne, eds. The Iran-Contra Scandal: The Declassified History,
A National Security Archive Documents Reader. New York: The New Press,
1993.
Surveillant 3.2/3: "101 documents."
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