Out of Control: The Story of the Reagan Administration's Secret War in Nicaragua, the Illegal Arms Pipeline & the Contra Drug Connection

by Leslie Cockburn

For two years the author had been investigating the secret funding of the Contras by the White House. Here, she identifies the network of National Security Council staff (led by Colonel Oliver North), CIA operatives & ex-agents who set up this illegal support system, after the passage of the Boland Amendment in 10/1984 which made it illegal for the US government to give direct or indirect aid to the Contras. There is a detailed account of how mercenaries were recruited from all over the world & sent to CIA-run training bases in Costa Rica; how money was obtained thru various means, ranging from the Iran arms deal to an arrangement with cocaine smugglers bringing drugs into Florida in return for quarterly payments into Contra bank accounts; how guns were procured, flown to US-controlled military bases in Central America & then delivered into the hands of the Contras. The author, a British journalist, worked for CBS News beginning in 1978.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, Theory, War, American

303 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Leslie Cockburn has a Master’s from the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University. While in London she began working for NBC News. Among her early reports was an interview with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

In 1978, Cockburn moved to CBS. Her 1984 report, ‘The Dirty War’, revealed the Contras' horrifying record of routine atrocities against the civilian population.

Following the overthrow of the Duvalier regime in Haiti in 1986, Cockburn’s ‘Haiti’s Nightmare’ (1987) led to an outcry in Congress and the suspension of all US military aid to Haiti.

In 1987, Cockburn began producing and reporting documentaries for PBS Frontline, in collaboration with her husband, Andrew Cockburn. This included ‘From the Killing Fields’ for ABC News.

During the 1991 Gulf War, Cockburn reported from Israel on the Iraqi Scud attacks against Tel Aviv. Her 1991 PBS Frontline documentary, ‘The War We Left Behind’, exposed the disastrous impact of economic sanctions on ordinary Iraqis.

In 1997, Cockburn conceived and co-produced The Peacemaker, starring George Clooney and Nicole Kidman, a thriller about a terrorist attack on New York City with a stolen nuclear weapon.

In 1998, Cockburn served as Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University. After teaching for a semester, she returned to full-time journalism, producing a number of pieces for 60 Minutes, including ‘America’s Worst Nightmare’ (2000), a 60 Minutes report on political instability in a nuclear-armed Pakistan and the growing power of fundamentalist groups linked to the Taliban.

In 2009, Cockburn directed and co-produced her first feature documentary for theatrical release. ‘American Casino’ relates the story of the origins, progress and consequences of the subprime mortgage disaster that led to the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression. The film premiered at New York's Tribeca Film Festival in April 2009.

‘Baghdad Solitaire’ is her first novel.

Reviews

[Simon Wood · Rating 5 out of 5]

"IM A CONTRA TOO" - RONALD REGAN (PRINTED ON CONTRA FUNDRAISING T-SHIRTS)

Leslie Cockburns "Out of Control" was one of the earliest books written about the Iran-Contra scandal of 1986 which she played a part in bringing to the light of day. The essence of the story told is the efforts by the Regan administration to side step the legislation passed by Congress to curtail funding for the Contra movement, the decision to fund it through the illegal sales of arms to the Islamic Republic of Iran (at times through an Israeli conduit no less) and the turning of official heads the other way to the importation of Cocaine into the United States. All this was run by National Security Council Advisor Lt. Col. Oliver North.

Cockburn, having reported on the Contra activities in Nicaragua, is well aware of what the Contra movements modus operanda were. Ronald Regan described them as heirs to the French Resistance, compared them to the founding fathers of the United States and regarded them as "freedom fighters". Beyond the rhetorical, public relations tinged White House verbiage the reality was a movement formed from the debris of the Somoza regime that had lorded it over Nicaragua since their installation by the Marines in the 1930's to their overthrow by the Sandinistas in 1979. The Contras rarely engaged the Nicaraguan Armed Forces instead attacking remote and isolated workers on Farms, government Health Centres, Schools and other, to quote an approving U.S. general, "soft targets". In a series of chapters she puts together the pieces of the arming and funding of Regan's "freedom fighters" in a murky and sordid tale of Drugs and Gun running (to and from Central America), trading arms to Iran, lying and murder (well maybe the witness did give himself an overdose by injecting himself just above the elbow on the back of his arm). Journalists are harassed and indeed killed during an attempt to assassinate an uncooperative Contra commander. An American rancher (God fearing Conservative) is at the centre of the operations in Costa Rica. Others who feature include a variety of Cuban exiles, old hands from CIA operations in Laos and Vietnam, a Christian public interest lawyer and a variety of other colourful characters.

At the end of the book Cockburn makes a convincing case that the congressional hearings never got to the bottom of the issues raised by the whole scandal. In particular the allegations of Cocaine importation were kept of the agenda for reasons that were never - well - reasonable. Oliver North, an astonishingly inept and almost cretinous chap, became a uber-patriot and hero for the Conservative right. A number of others such as Richard Armitage, Elliot Abraham and John Negroponte (not featured in the book but central to the Regan administrations Central American Policy) all figured in the Bush II administration.

An interesting account of the illegal activities of the Regan Administration that is well recommended. Other books that cover the material, and later developments, include Gary Webbs "Dark Alliance: CIA, the Contras and the Crack Cocaine Explosion" and Alexander Cockburns (Leslies brother in law) "White-out: CIA, Drugs and the Press".

[Lorena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clear, clean writing. It's packed with material but she goes over most of it more than once from a different angle so you get to know the cast of characters. I did have some background on this material which probably helped, but to date I have read no better account of the salient facts: that this "old boys network" was formed by participants in the Bay of Pigs, nurtured and protected by the conservative Cuban community in Miami, and then moved on to Vietnam, Africa, the Middle East, and then to El Salvador and Nicaragua. These men are still out there, as an extra-legal force that assassinates people, deposes governments, and does pretty much what it wants to do without informing Congress. Congress! What a joke! If we don't know this information like the back of our hand, and know who the players are, we will be suckered by the media time and again to do nothing. This book is a really good place to cure ignorance, and I am grateful for it.

As an aside, if you like detective and mystery books, this will satisfy that craving x 10. There is nothing stranger than the truth, especially in Central America.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

ronald reagan has become somewhat of a hero to many people, but i remembered when i was a kid, there was a period of time when all the news channels were filled with boring senate hearings (that prevented my normal after-school cartoon watching!) about some "iran-contra" thing. and there was some guy called oliver north who lots of women loved and seemed really patriotic.

well, i ran into this book at the library, written when the scandal was fresh by a cbs reporter who spent years investigating it and decided to inform myself on what really happened back then.

it's shocking--and that what made it into the public senate hearings was only the tip of the iceberg. i think it's also really informative to understand the mindset of the current administration: bush senior and bush junior continued to recruit people directly implicated in iran-contra, and those people were recruited from their dirty work in vietnam and before. you start to get a feeling of the cold-war culture that has been a dark under-side to our foreign policy, and how it hasn't gone away. funnily, reagan made terrorism the center of his foreign policy as well, and made similar statements about "not negotiating with terrorists" etc.

[Jeff Carpenter · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant exposé of the Reagan CIA and there scandalous operations in backing the Contras including smuggling cocaine into the U.S.

[Tom B · Rating 3 out of 5]

The CIA in this narrative is a rogue organization whose operatives pretend to be patriotically motivated but are essentially in it for their own financial gain, mainly through the sale of narcotics. They will burn anyone who gets caught. Politicians who are supposed to hold them accountable refuse to do so under the guise of 'communism is bad and the CIA is good'. Utterly cynical was this example: The Carter administration negotiated the release of an American POW who had been tortured by the Irian regime, but the CIA (whose leadership was hostile to Carter) delayed that release to help Reagan in his effort to become the next President. When the Raegan admin defiantly stated it never negotiated with terrorists, it was secretly, through the CIA, selling the Iranians weapons in exchange for not releasing the torture-induced confessions by said POW.

One negative about the books is the high number of names of people, companies, and organizations involved, which makes the whole a bit hard to follow. A diagram of who is connected to whom would have been great.

[John Marricco · Rating 4 out of 5]

The information in this book is incredible. Unfortunately that made it a little harder to read, a lot of re-reading to make sure I understood what was going on. Here is another example of the crazy things that go on with the US government and the rest of the world. Way too much corruption, really sad.

[Cd]

"We take off from Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and we leave."

"To?"

"South Florida."

"Where in south Florida?"

"We landed at Homestead."

"Homestead?"

"Air Force Base."

"You brought twenty-five thousand pounds of pot and landed at Homestead Air Force Base?"

"That's correct."

[Ike · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s amazing they just got away with Iran-Contra

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cockburn is to be applauded for the research, much of it fieldwork, behind this study of what is commonly referred to as "Iran-Contra", the Reagan administration's illegal drugs-for-guns sponsorship of terrorism against the Nicaraguan government and population during the eighties. For this she deserves five stars. However, so densely packed is this book with facts--with names, aliases, places, dates, actions etc.--that it was impossible to fully absorb at a normal reading rate. Rather than one short book, there is material here sufficient for several.

[Peter Pecksen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every account of history both current and long past is influenced by the background and beliefs of the author. But even if half of what is recounted in this book is true it leaves this reader with a feeling of disgust at the influence that some in positions of authority feel they have the right to impart over others.