Big thing of the day was 2 hour meeting in the Situation Room on the Iran affair. George S. is still stubborn that we shouldn't have sold the arms to Iran - I gave him an argument. All in all we got everything out on the table. After meeting Ed M. & Don R. told me of a smoking gun. On one of the arms shipments the Iranians paid Israel a higher purchase price than we were getting. The Israelis put the different in a secret ban account. Then our Col. North (NSC) gave the money to the "Contras". This was a violation of the law against giving the Contras money without an authorization by Congress. North didn't tell me about this. Worst of all John Poindexter found out about it & didn't tell me. This may call for resignations.
Reagan Diaries, 11/24/86
Judging a president by how he runs the executive branch & personal opinions on the level of power he exerts is one of the main issues people had with determining whether Reagan was a good president. The Iran-Contra Affair is probably the largest divisive event under his administration - while he enjoyed high approval ratings for most of his presidency, he did suffer under the consequences of this affair that emerged in November 1986. Not to worry - he rebounded in March of 1987 with a speech where he famously did not apologize for his office's actions despite recognizing that it was illegal. Nice, Reagan.
The clip I attached is a skit in which Phil Hartman plays Reagan as a 'political mastermind' (the name of the sketch - I know, I'm original). I found this really enjoyable (mostly because I'm openly a political nerd) because of the difficulty determining not only how involved Reagan was in his presidential affairs, but also how much of his political persona as an affable witty-but-kinda-doddering grandpa figure (remind you of anyone?) was real.
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