The Legacy of the 1970s

Democracy was published in 1984, but the major part of the narrative focuses on the previous decade. An important political theme-the existence of individual wheeler-dealers brokering deals WIth the connivance of government, and sometimes at the government's bequest-touches upon one of the major political stories of the 1980s: the Iran Contra crisis. The scandal was first revealed in 1986, when a secret CIA operative was shot down over Nicaragua His cargo was a load of weapons intended for the Contras, a group of anticommunist rebels. Further investigation into the matter revealed that this illegal shipment had been funded by secret sales of arms to Iran -a country under an arms embargo since hostages were seized at the U.S. embassy in Iran in 1979. High-ranking members of President Ronald Reagan's administration were later implicated in the scandal, but most received pardons or were granted immunity for...