Tower Commission
The Tower Commission was established by President Ronald Reagan in November 1986 to investigate the Iran-Contra affair, a political scandal involving the covert sale of arms to Iran and the diversion of proceeds to support Contra guerrillas in Nicaragua. This three-member commission, led by former Senator John Tower and including former Secretary of State Edmund Muskie and retired Air Force Lieutenant General Brent Scowcroft, aimed to understand the actions of the National Security Council (NSC) amidst growing controversy over U.S. foreign policy in the 1980s. The commission's work included interviewing over fifty individuals, including key figures in the scandal and former presidents, and reviewing the NSC's operational conduct dating back to Harry S. Truman’s presidency.
The Tower Commission's report, released in February 1987, detailed the arms transactions with Iran and raised concerns about the NSC's independence and professionalism. It concluded that the NSC staff had overstepped its traditional roles, while also highlighting that the arms-for-hostages deal contradicted U.S. policy against negotiating with terrorists. Importantly, the commission's findings set the stage for subsequent congressional and criminal investigations into the affair, ultimately shaping the political landscape of the late 1980s. The Iran-Contra scandal had significant implications for Reagan's presidency and American politics, echoing earlier controversies like Watergate.
Tower Commission
Identification The board appointed by U.S. president Ronald Reagan to investigate the Iran-Contra affair
As the first official inquiry into the Iran-Contra affair, the Tower Commission uncovered the basic facts of the arms sales to Iran and the diversion of proceeds to the Nicaraguan Contras and reported these facts candidly to Reagan and the American public.
U.S. foreign policy in the 1980’s faced twin threats from civil wars in Central America and growing terrorism in the Middle East. In June, 1986, media reports began to appear about allegations of U.S. aid to the right-wing Contra guerrillas operating in Nicaragua against the left-wing Sandinista government. In October, 1986, attention focused in particular on an American crew member who was captured by the Sandinistas after his plane was shot down during a supply mission to the Contras. This incident in turn touched off a crisis for the Ronald Reagan administration because of the possibility that the U.S. government had been providing aid to the Contras in contravention of the Boland Amendment passed by Congress to ban such assistance. Aides of Attorney General Edwin Meese III visited the offices of the National Security Council (NSC) and discovered a memorandum that confirmed that there had been arms sales to Iran and that some of the proceeds had been diverted to the Contras.
On October 26, 1986, Meese informed President Reagan of the diversion. Not knowing the full extent of the actions taken by his NSC staff, and under pressure to furnish answers to Congress and the media, Reagan appointed on November 26, 1986, a three-member commission chaired by former senator John Tower and including former secretary of state Edmund Muskie and retired Air Force lieutenant general Brent Scowcroft. Initially given a mandate to complete its work in just sixty days, the commission assembled a staff of twenty-three employees and began searching for evidence.
In addition to investigating the Iran-Contra affair, the commission recruited outside experts to conduct twelve studies of how the NSC had performed in crises dating back to the presidency of Harry S. Truman. With the notable exceptions of the president’s national security adviser, Navy vice admiral John Poindexter, and his assistant, Marine lieutenant colonel Oliver North, both of whom faced possible prosecution, the commission completed interviews of more than fifty individuals, including principals in the Iran-Contra operation, the three living former presidents, various past presidential advisers, President Reagan, and Vice President George H. W. Bush. Two weeks before its mandate was to expire, the commission made the important discovery that hundreds of backup copies of deleted electronic messages remained in the NSC’s computer system, and these “PROF notes” allowed the commission to solidify and add credibility to its conclusions. After receiving two time extensions, the commission presented its report to Reagan and the public on February 26, 1987.
The Commission’s Findings
The Tower Commission’s report presented a detailed account of the six arms deliveries that the United States made to Iran, for which Iran paid $48 million, and traced how some of the proceeds, along with money raised from donors in the United States and foreign countries, was used to fund and supply the Contras in Nicaragua. The commission drew the conclusion that the structure of the NSC was sound but that members of its staff had been allowed to function too independently and to usurp the role normally served by the Central Intelligence Agency in conducting covert operations. Finding that the motive for arms sales to Iran was to gain release of several Americans being held hostage in Lebanon, the commission concluded that a strategic opening to Iran was a worthwhile objective, but that the U.S. government should not have engaged in an arms-for-hostages deal when it ran against its own policy of refusing to deal with terrorists and because its actions might serve as an incentive for further kidnappings.
Concerning aid to the Contras, the commission was undecided as to whether the congressional ban applied to the NSC staff, but it questioned the aid on the grounds that, if disclosed, it could jeopardize the Reagan administration’s pro-Contra position. The commission criticized the NSC staff members responsible for the Iran-Contra affair for running a highly unprofessional operation and also cast an unfavorable light on Reagan, who, while he had not been involved in any effort to cover up the facts, had failed to exercise sufficient care in overseeing the implementation of U.S. foreign policy.
Impact
The Iran-Contra affair was the crowning government scandal of the 1980’s and, for a time, appeared to threaten Reagan’s political future. Had he been forced from the presidency, or even remained under a lingering cloud of suspicion, especially just a decade after President Richard M. Nixon’s resignation in the wake of the Watergate scandal, the American political scene could have faced a very uncertain future. The Tower Commission accomplished the difficult feat of conducting both a speedy and evenhanded investigation that, while shedding an unflattering light on Reagan’s administrative style, pinpointed the principals behind the Iran-Contra affair at the staff level of the National Security Council. The commission built a solid foundation for the lengthier congressional and criminal investigations that followed it and that produced a fuller and more detailed picture of the Iran-Contra affair.
Bibliography
Draper, Theodore. A Very Thin Line: The Iran-Contra Affairs. New York: Hill & Wang, 1991. One of the most detailed and comprehensive histories of the Iran-Contra affair.
Tower, John. Consequences: A Personal and Political Memoir. Boston: Little, Brown, 1991. Includes a chapter on the author’s experiences as chair of the Tower Commission.
Tower, John G., Edmund S. Muskie, and Brent Scowcroft. The Tower Commission Report: The Full Text of the President’s Special Review Board. New York: Bantam Books, 1987. The report of the Tower Commission as released to the public.
Walsh, Lawrence. Firewall: The Iran-Contra Conspiracy and Cover-Up. New York: W. W. Norton, 1997. The story of Iran-Contra from the point of view of the independent counsel who conducted the criminal investigation from 1986 to 1993.