JAY: Your point being?
WILKERSON: --it makes it so much easier for the president to go to war. And we have a Congress that's as pusillanimous as the day is long, that Nixon -- Nixon, not understanding what was happening, actually vetoed it, and they passed it over his veto. The War Powers Resolution, the public law that implements it now, is an abdication by Congress of its constitutional responsibility vis-a-vis war.
PARRY: But it became also very difficult for people to criticize US foreign policy. You were not just treated as some kind of an honest person trying to, you know, make your country better; you were treated as disloyal. There was the famous line from Jeane Kirkpatrick at the '84 convention in Dallas, where she says people who criticize the US government blame America first. And that became a refrain: you blame America first. So you weren't just someone saying, hold it, the US government makes mistakes, we do things wrong, we need to try to fix that; you were some kind -- almost a traitor. And so that demonization of people who were becoming critics of some aspects of the foreign policy of the United States were marginalized during this era, and that included people in journalism and in politics.
WILKERSON: So much so that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel became patriotism is the first refuge of a scoundrel.
JAY: Now, you can't talk about President Reagan foreign policy without
talking about Iran, Contragate. Quickly remind people and some of our younger
viewers who don't know the story.
PARRY: Well, I was working on that for the Associated Press, and mostly our focus was on the Contra side. We were looking at Oliver North and his secret operations, which were being lied about by the White House at the time. He was like--.
JAY: Start really quickly from the very beginning for people that don't know the story.
PARRY: Basically, the Congress of the United States, when it was actually showing a little bit more spine, said that the policy in Nicaragua was something that they could not stand for, which was the idea of overthrowing a government that was recognized by the United Nations and the international community, the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua.
JAY: And what year are we in?
PARRY: This was the early 1980s. The effort by the CIA was to support a group called the Contras who'd been actually organized by the Argentines, but the CIA took them over, in Honduras mostly. And they were starting to attack, engaging in acts considered terrorism by many people, violent attacks on civilians, as a way to sort of destabilize the Nicaraguan government.
JAY: Which was a left-wing government, the Sandinistas.
PARRY: Which was a left-wing government. Right. And which had alliances with Moscow. They were trying to get aid from Moscow. So the US -- so the Reagan administration intervened there. Congress said, you can't do it that way; you can't try to use violence in supporting an insurgent military force in that way. So they basically banned US assistance to the Contras, military assistance.
JAY: And said, we ain't going to pay for this.
PARRY: Right. Then Reagan -- and this is the beginning also of the return of the imperial presidency, which we saw a lot of under George W. Bush, the idea that the president cannot be constrained by Congress, that his foreign policy can be whatever he wants it to be. What Reagan did is he signed the law saying, okay, we won't give any aid to the Contras, and then just ignored them. He set up this secret sub rosa operation run by one of his aides, Oliver North from the National Security Council, and they worked with people in the CIA and elsewhere to bring weapons to the Contras fighting the Sandinistas. Now, that paralleled an operation that was also going on in secret, where Reagan was negotiating with the Islamic regime in Iran, providing them weapons for their war with Iraq, supposedly to get them to help out with some American hostages in Lebanon. And some of the profits from those sales, which were mostly going through Israel -- not to make this too complicated, but they did their best -- but that money, some of the profits were then run back to help the Contras. So when this becomes exposed, finally, in the fall of 1986 and the connection is discovered, it becomes known as the Iran-Contra affair. But what it really was was the assertion by President Reagan and Vice President Bush that they could do what they wanted, that the imperial presidency was back intact, that Article 2 superseded Article 1 of the US Constitution, that under the idea that when -- in the case of foreign policy or war, the president has all power. And that was then moved to a higher stage under George W. Bush. But as I say, you can trace that problem, again, back to the Reagan administration.
WILKERSON: And, incidentally, the man who wrote the dissenting opinion to the ultimate ruling on Iran-Contra, the Tower Commission report, the man who wrote the dissenting opinion in that was Dick Cheney.
PARRY: But that was to the congressional report, right?
WILKERSON: --it makes it so much easier for the president to go to war. And we have a Congress that's as pusillanimous as the day is long, that Nixon -- Nixon, not understanding what was happening, actually vetoed it, and they passed it over his veto. The War Powers Resolution, the public law that implements it now, is an abdication by Congress of its constitutional responsibility vis-a-vis war.
PARRY: But it became also very difficult for people to criticize US foreign policy. You were not just treated as some kind of an honest person trying to, you know, make your country better; you were treated as disloyal. There was the famous line from Jeane Kirkpatrick at the '84 convention in Dallas, where she says people who criticize the US government blame America first. And that became a refrain: you blame America first. So you weren't just someone saying, hold it, the US government makes mistakes, we do things wrong, we need to try to fix that; you were some kind -- almost a traitor. And so that demonization of people who were becoming critics of some aspects of the foreign policy of the United States were marginalized during this era, and that included people in journalism and in politics.
WILKERSON: So much so that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel became patriotism is the first refuge of a scoundrel.
PARRY: Well, I was working on that for the Associated Press, and mostly our focus was on the Contra side. We were looking at Oliver North and his secret operations, which were being lied about by the White House at the time. He was like--.
JAY: Start really quickly from the very beginning for people that don't know the story.
PARRY: Basically, the Congress of the United States, when it was actually showing a little bit more spine, said that the policy in Nicaragua was something that they could not stand for, which was the idea of overthrowing a government that was recognized by the United Nations and the international community, the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua.
JAY: And what year are we in?
PARRY: This was the early 1980s. The effort by the CIA was to support a group called the Contras who'd been actually organized by the Argentines, but the CIA took them over, in Honduras mostly. And they were starting to attack, engaging in acts considered terrorism by many people, violent attacks on civilians, as a way to sort of destabilize the Nicaraguan government.
JAY: Which was a left-wing government, the Sandinistas.
PARRY: Which was a left-wing government. Right. And which had alliances with Moscow. They were trying to get aid from Moscow. So the US -- so the Reagan administration intervened there. Congress said, you can't do it that way; you can't try to use violence in supporting an insurgent military force in that way. So they basically banned US assistance to the Contras, military assistance.
JAY: And said, we ain't going to pay for this.
PARRY: Right. Then Reagan -- and this is the beginning also of the return of the imperial presidency, which we saw a lot of under George W. Bush, the idea that the president cannot be constrained by Congress, that his foreign policy can be whatever he wants it to be. What Reagan did is he signed the law saying, okay, we won't give any aid to the Contras, and then just ignored them. He set up this secret sub rosa operation run by one of his aides, Oliver North from the National Security Council, and they worked with people in the CIA and elsewhere to bring weapons to the Contras fighting the Sandinistas. Now, that paralleled an operation that was also going on in secret, where Reagan was negotiating with the Islamic regime in Iran, providing them weapons for their war with Iraq, supposedly to get them to help out with some American hostages in Lebanon. And some of the profits from those sales, which were mostly going through Israel -- not to make this too complicated, but they did their best -- but that money, some of the profits were then run back to help the Contras. So when this becomes exposed, finally, in the fall of 1986 and the connection is discovered, it becomes known as the Iran-Contra affair. But what it really was was the assertion by President Reagan and Vice President Bush that they could do what they wanted, that the imperial presidency was back intact, that Article 2 superseded Article 1 of the US Constitution, that under the idea that when -- in the case of foreign policy or war, the president has all power. And that was then moved to a higher stage under George W. Bush. But as I say, you can trace that problem, again, back to the Reagan administration.
WILKERSON: And, incidentally, the man who wrote the dissenting opinion to the ultimate ruling on Iran-Contra, the Tower Commission report, the man who wrote the dissenting opinion in that was Dick Cheney.
PARRY: But that was to the congressional report, right?
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