The Iran-Contra affair survives as one of the most dramatic political scandals in American history. About a decade after Watergate, the Iran-Contra scandal both shocked and captivated public opinion. The case began in Beirut in 1984 when Hezbollah, an Islamic militant group sympathetic to the Iranian government, kidnapped three American citizens. Four more hostages were taken in 1985. The conservative Reagan administration moved quickly to seek freedom for Americans. Despite a 1979 trade embargo banning arms sales between the United States and Iran, members of Ronald Reagan's team entered into an arms-for-hostages deal with Iran in an effort to free the American hostages in Lebanon. Meanwhile, in the Americas, Reagan pursued an aggressive foreign policy in response to the Cold War. The Reagan administration was doing its best to curb communist influence in Central and Latin America. In Nicaragua, Reagan wanted to support the Democratic Contra rebels against the Marxist Sandinista regime, despite legislation passed in the early 1980s, the Boland Amendment, which made federal aid to the Contras illegal. In 1985, National Security Council member Oliver North devised a plan to divert excess funds from arms sales with Iran to the Contra cause in Nicaragua, thereby violating the Boland Amendment. Following the public revelation of the scandal, Oliver North and many other Reagan staffers were put on trial; however, none of them were punished appropriately. Each person involved was pardoned, given immunity or had their convictions overturned. The Iran-Contra scandal and its aftermath revealed both the executive branch's lack of accountability to the American people and other branches of government... middle of paper ...... in the cover-up; several people shredded documents, lied under oath and obstructed justice. At least, if the participants in the scandal had been effectively punished, it might have reduced some of the power held by the executive branch. But the lack of consequences sends a dangerous message: If members of the executive branch are capable of accomplishing so much behind America's back and are not held accountable for their actions, pardoned by the president, who is part of the executive branch itself, then the executive This branch is much more powerful than Americans think. What the government tells us it is doing may not be true, and at the end of the day, there is no one to enforce the laws on those in the executive branch. In this regard, the Iran-Contra affair revealed the true, implacable power of the executive branch – and how little we know about it..