Reagan sold missiles to Iran for hostages — then denied it | WHEN ISRAEL ARMED IRAN Part 3

History Onion · Part 3 · 2:57

In July 1985, Ronald Reagan's Secretary of State and his Secretary of Defense both told him the same thing: do not trade weapons to Iran for American hostages. He approved it anyway. Seven Americans were being held in Lebanon — one of them a CIA officer who was being tortured, and who was already dead by the time the trading began. The offer came from Israel, out of a pipeline that had been running for five years. What followed is one of the strangest sequences in modern statecraft. Five hundred and four missiles went to Tehran; one hostage came home. Eighty Hawk missiles left Israel and eighteen arrived — the wrong model, in crates still stamped with a Star of David. Iran test-fired one and sent the rest back. Washington then cut Israel out and sold to Tehran directly at nearly three times what it paid, routing the profit to rebels in Nicaragua. A former National Security Advisor flew into Tehran on a forged passport carrying missile parts, an Israeli officer posing as an American, and a chocolate cake. Nobody with real power would meet him. Three hostages were freed. Three more were taken. George Shultz called it a hostage bazaar.