After Reagan handily won reelection in 1984, the administration decided, over the objection of some of the staff, to try to enlist Iran to help negotiate the release of American hostages in Lebanon (which didn’t work) by selling them Israeli castoff weapons which they could use to win their war with Iraq (which also didn’t work)—even though the official administration policy was never negotiate with hostage-takers. The proceeds from the arms sales were used to keep funding the Contras. Once the story broke internationally in November of 1986, North and his secretary Fawn Hall had what was later described as a “shredding party” to eliminate incriminating documents. When North was forced to testify the following July, he claimed that he’d been granted approval from his superiors for everything and that, as far as he was concerned, selling arms to Iran for American hostages and illegally arming Nicaraguan militias was “a neat idea.”
Watching North’s testimony now that we’ve gotten used to the idea of politics as the natural next step for actors and celebrities, it’s clear he treated his appearance before Congress as a star turn. North arriving at the hearing of a joint congressional investigative committee in uniform with all of his medals pinned to his chest is like a varsity quarterback donning his letterman jacket when called into the principal’s office. Unfortunately, there were plenty of members of Congress who were cowed by North’s studly glamor and took the opportunity to praise North’s combat experience in Vietnam in front of the cameras, even defending his previous lies to Congress, conveniently eliding the rule of law that all that conspicuous patriotism is supposed to be dedicated to upholding in the first place.
One Hollywood executive told the Washington Post at the time that North was “the best actor I’ve seen on television.” North had a knack for reassembling his boyish features to assume whatever expression would help him get through the next question: one minute he presented himself as an aw-shucks good-old-boy type whose only real fault was in trying just too darn hard to do the right thing by his beloved country, and the next he was a tough SOB who wouldn’t take any guff from those lily-livered bigwigs. As if on cue, North got misty-eyed about his patriotic intentions, he cracked jokes and even suggested that he’d like to beat up one of his Iranian contacts if he ever got the chance. Like Trump’s perpetual campaigning, the performative bluster and outrage works best if the audience is already willing to buy into it. If not, it’s unbelievably galling to have to sit through.