Episode notes
Host Leon Neyfakh transports listeners into the day-to-day reality of our country’s most pivotal historical events, bringing to life the forgotten twists and turns of the past while shedding light on the present. Fiasco: Iran-Contra tells the story of a secret war, a secret deal, and a foreign policy scandal that threatened to destroy Ronald Reagan’s presidency — until it didn’t. For a list of books, documentaries and resources we used to research this season visit: bit.ly/fiascopolitics Subscribe to Pushkin+ to hear the entire season of Fiasco: Iran Contra, ad-free,…
Transcript
Read the transcript · about 960 words, follows along as you listen
Speaker 1:Pushkin. Hey everyone, it's Leon Nafok. Before we get into the show, I wanted to say a few introductory words about the Iran Contra scandal and about this season of Fiasco, which originally came out five years ago. It was February of twenty twenty, the final year of the first Trump administration. It was also right before COVID hit, and once it did, I remember thinking that the events of Iran Contra felt a little remote the Cold War, Ronald Reagan, the Ayatola Homani in the midst of a pandemic. It felt like a dispatch from a different universe, and it just didn't hit the same as say, a podcast about Watergate released of the height of the Mower investigation. I hadn't read listen to this season since we turned it in, and when I started working with Pushkin on this new edition, I was a little nervous to revisit it. But then I did, and to my surprise, what I heard made so much more sense to me in twenty twenty five than it did the first time around. Now, if you've listened to any of my other history podcasts, you know I don't like to lay it on super thick when it comes to pointing out the echoes between then and now.
Speaker 1:It's usually unnecessary, at least if you're doing it right. But after going back and listening to these eight episodes earlier this year, I was moved to try and sound out what it is that makes this story feel so deeply familiar in this moment. One thing is that the events that make up Iran Contra moved both incredibly fast and slow. The whole thing unfolded over the course of more than a decade. It wasn't fully put to bed until nineteen ninety three, a long time, but I think you'll agree as you make your way through this season that the daisy chain of cause and effect that got the Reagan administration from point A to point B involved a lot of quick cuts. It was one thing after another.
Speaker 1:It was hard to keep up. Even people who lived through it are often fuzzy on the details. If you're one of those people, or if you're younger and you've heard of Iran Contra but you've never really known who did what and why, this is the podcast for you. At the same time, I think there's a lot here for the history junkies too, in part because we interviewed so many of the actual people who hatched the Iran Contra plot and carried it out. John Poindexter, Bud McFarlane, Richard Secord, George Schultz, all of whom except Poindexter died in the years since we spoke to them. All those names will mean something to you soon if they don't already.
Speaker 1:And I will warn you there are a lot of names in this one, and a lot of different countries and several government agencies with three letter acronyms. I'll just say you don't have to remember every name. There's no other way to put this as a story. Iran Contra is kind of a bitch. In fact, we made a whole episode, it's the one called Ollywood, about the rush to try and make a movie out of the scandal after it first broke. The problem was no one could really explain the scandal simply enough for audiences to follow it, which is why there was no all the President's men about Iran Contra. I don't mind telling you someone tried to make a TV show out of this podcast, but spoiler alert, it didn't make it past a couple pilot scripts.
Speaker 1:Iran Contra was a relay race of ideas and money turning into action at the hands of so many different government officials, so many middlemen, so many random private citizens. It's that last category of characters that really jumped out at me when I re listened to this show. You meet one right off the bat in episode one, Kevin, a department store maintenance guy from Long Island who got politically activated by the Cold War and kind of enlisted himself along with a bunch of friends in the cause of anti communism. Kevin Katke was just a guy that he wanted to defend America and to be involved in its foreign policy. And what's crazy is he got pretty far. Again.
Speaker 1:I don't want to lay it on too thick, but we're living through a time now when extremely motivated, politically engaged eccentrics have had amazing success penetrating the halls of power. I remember when this season first came out, even before COVID, we struggled a little bit to articulate what it told us about the moment we were living through. We thought maybe it was an interesting corollary to Trump's Ukraine scandal because they both involved let's say, foreign policy shenanigans and the sale of weapons. But five years later we are in a different moment. That Ukraine Scane, even though it got Trump impeached, feels almost quaint. I think you'll agree that Iran Contra doesn't. As you hear, the stakes were unmistakably high, and the decisions being made had consequences around the world more than anything. That's what makes Iran Contra feel particularly resonant in twenty twenty five. It's a story about a bunch of guys moving the levers of history in a way that seems like it really shouldn't be allowed, but apparently it is. Binge the entire season of Fiasco Iran Contra ad free by subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Sign
Speaker 1:up on the Fiasco show page on Apple Podcasts, or at pushkin dot fm, slash Plus. Pushkin Plus subscribers can access ad free episodes, full audiobooks exclude of Bing's and bonus content for all Pushkin podcasts
Transcript supplied by the publisher with the episode.
Fiasco
by Pushkin Industries · English · News
Host Leon Neyfakh transports listeners into the day-to-day reality of our country's most pivotal historical events, bringing to life the forgotten twists and turns of the past while shedding light on the present. Benghazi unpacks the 2012 attack in Libya that left four Americans dead, including A
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