The New York Times obituary for Ledeen subtly whitewashes his actions as an agent of disinformation:
Some of the theories that Mr. Ledeen espoused in his books and articles were later discredited, among them that Iraq had sought to purchase yellowcake uranium powder from Niger as part of a nuclear arms program; that the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II in 1981 in Vatican City was orchestrated by Moscow; and that President Jimmy Carter’s brother, Billy, had influenced the president on behalf of Libya.
This account makes no mention of the role of SISMI in forging this disinformation and suggests that Ledeen was only guilty of sloppiness in having “theories” that were “discredited.” In reality, Ledeen was an active participant in propaganda campaigns based on forgeries created by a sinister spy agency.
The Washington Post obituary for Ledeen was similarly inclined to whitewashing. The headline for the Post obituary read “Reagan adviser in early Iran-contra outreach, dies at 83.” It’s strange to use the word “outreach” to describe Iran-contra (which was in fact a criminal enterprise and a constitutional crisis). In the body of the text, the obituary was more honest, describing Ledeen as “a Reagan-era adviser [who] helped open channels for the illegal covert arms deals known as Iran-contra.”
Neither the Times nor the Post confront the fact that Ledeen was an authoritarian who can fairly be characterized as a fascist.
Ledeen’s role as an instigator of Iran-contra clarifies his hostility to democracy. The whole scheme originated in an attempt by the Reagan administration to circumvent a congressional ban on funding the contra guerrillas in Nicaragua, at the time instruments in an American proxy war. Under the Constitution, one of the major checks on presidential power is the control Congress has over the purse strings. The heart of the scandal was the attempt by the Reagan administration to covertly violate that constitutional provision by raising money through a secret arms deal. According to a 2017 Senate report, Ledeen “appears to have played a key role in the initial contacts between the U.S. and Israel vis-à-vis Iran.” Unlike other players in the scandal, Ledeen was cagey enough to get out of the loop after his original instigation, so he avoided any criminal charges.
In contrast to neoconservatives such as David Frum and William Kristol, Ledeen didn’t balk at the rise of Donald Trump. Instead, Ledeen, along with his second wife, Barbara, embraced Trumpism and became active allies of figures such as Michael Flynn and Steve Bannon. In 2019, Ledeen and Flynn cowrote The Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and its Allies. The book advocates Ledeen’s major political obsession of recent decades, regime change in Iran.