Reagan's Cold War Strategy, Iran-Contra, and "Plausible Deniability" Essay

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Iran-Contra Outline

Oliver North, Ronald Reagan, and "Plausible Deniability."

This paper will attempt to contextualize Oliver North and the Iran-Contra Affair within a larger discussion of Cold War strategy.

The introduction will present the paper as having 3 basic sections. The first will discuss the idea of "plausible deniability" -- invoked by North during his 1987 testimony -- and show how it fit into Cold War strategy in the 1950s. The second section will discuss Reagan's own Cold War strategy, and his reversal of the 1970s policy of detente -- this will also necessarily entail Reagan's interest in supporting the Nicaraguan Contras, and Reagan's first-term standoff with Congress over funding the Contras (leading to the passage of the Boland Amendment for three consecutive years, 1982-1984). The third section will show how North revived the notion of "plausible deniability" after it had been disavowed in the 1970s, and will demonstrate that this was consistent with Reagan's larger policy of raising the stakes of the Cold War after the detente period.

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The paper hopes to demonstrate Reagan's overall culpability for Iran-Contra due to the status of "plausible deniability" as an outlawed strategy, but one which Reagan's administration deliberately endorsed.

SECTION 1: "Plausible Deniability." The first overall section of the paper will focus on the actual phrase used by Oliver North, and the history of this phrase and concept in the Cold War generally.

1A. CIA Covert Actions in the 1950s -- 1960s. This will provide a broad overview of what the concept of "plausible deniability" actually entails. The paper will describe certain CIA activities -- particularly in terms of Kennedy-era Cuba policy. However it will also look at Endicott's case study of use of bio-weapons ("germ warfare") in Korea in the early….....

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"Reagan's Cold War Strategy Iran-Contra And Plausible Deniability ", 26 March 2014, Accessed.29 April. 2025,
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