International Center for Development Policy

Last updated
International Center for Development Policy
AbbreviationCDP, ICDP
TypePublic Policy Think Tank
Location

The International Center for Development Policy (ICDP) was a non-profit public policy research and advocacy think tank with offices in Washington, D.C. Its President in the early 1980s was Raul Manglapus, and subsequently Robert White, former US Ambassador to Paraguay and El Salvador.

In the mid-1980s ICDP housed the Commission on U.S.-Central American Relations, which the New York Times described in 1986 as "an arm of the International Center for Development Policy that has become known in recent years as a well-informed source on the Administration's activities in Central America." [1] In late November 1986 the Commission's offices were targeted by a burglary seeking Iran-Contra affair-related documents. ICDP investigator Jack Terrell said one document stolen was a hand-written document from Southern Air Transport, documenting an April 1983 flight supplying the Nicaraguan Contras with small arms. Terrell had given the Times a copy of the document some weeks earlier. [1] Terrell's claims played a significant role in Senator John Kerry's early investigations of Iran-Contra. [2] [3] In responses to requests from two Congressmen, the Justice Department launched an investigation of the burglary in January 1987. [4]

In March 1984 it was reported that ICDP had promised to pay a Salvadoran military figure $50,000 to come to the US to provide evidence on Salvadoran death squads. [5]

In November 1985 most of an ICDP-sponsored delegation to South Africa, including ICDP President White, were refused visas. [6]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Contras</span> 1979–1990 U.S.-supported anti-Marxist rebels of Nicaragua

The Contras were the various U.S.-backed and funded right-wing rebel groups that were active from 1979 to 1990 in opposition to the Marxist Sandinista Junta of National Reconstruction Government in Nicaragua, which came to power in 1979 following the Nicaraguan Revolution. Among the separate contra groups, the Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN) emerged as the largest by far. In 1987, virtually all Contra organizations were united, at least nominally, into the Nicaraguan Resistance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Iran–Contra affair</span> 1985–1987 political scandal in the U.S.

The Iran–Contra affair, often referred to as the Iran–Contra scandal, the McFarlane affair, or simply Iran–Contra, was a political scandal in the United States that occurred during the second term of the Reagan administration. Between 1981 and 1986, senior administration officials secretly facilitated the sale of arms to Iran, which was the subject of an arms embargo. The administration hoped to use the proceeds of the arms sale to fund the Contras, a right-wing rebel group, in Nicaragua. Under the Boland Amendment, further funding of the Contras by the government had been prohibited by Congress.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William J. Casey</span> American politician (1913-1987)

William Joseph Casey was the Director of Central Intelligence from 1981 to 1987. In this capacity he oversaw the entire United States Intelligence Community and personally directed the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elliott Abrams</span> American diplomat and lawyer

Elliott Abrams is an American politician and lawyer, who has served in foreign policy positions for presidents Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump. Abrams is considered to be a neoconservative. He is currently a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He served as the U.S. Special Representative for Venezuela from 2019 to 2021 and as the U.S. Special Representative for Iran from 2020 to 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Tower</span> Former United States Senator from Texas

John Goodwin Tower was an American politician, serving as a Republican United States Senator from Texas from 1961 to 1985. He was the first Republican Senator elected from Texas since Reconstruction. Tower also led the Tower Commission, which investigated the Iran-Contra Affair, and was an unsuccessful nominee for U.S. Secretary of Defense in 1989.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nicaraguan Revolution</span> 1978–1990 anti-Somoza revolution and Sandinista rule

The Nicaraguan Revolution encompassed the rising opposition to the Somoza dictatorship in the 1960s and 1970s, the campaign led by the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) to oust the dictatorship in 1978–79, the subsequent efforts of the FSLN to govern Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990, and the Contra War, which was waged between the FSLN-led government of Nicaragua and the United States–backed Contras from 1981 to 1990. The revolution marked a significant period in the history of Nicaragua and revealed the country as one of the major proxy war battlegrounds of the Cold War, attracting much international attention.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roberto D'Aubuisson</span> Salvadoran politician

Roberto D'Aubuisson Arrieta was a neo-fascist Salvadoran soldier, politician and death squad leader. In 1981, he co-founded and became the first leader of the far-right Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) and served as President of El Salvador's Constituent Assembly from 1982 to 1983. He was a candidate for President in 1984, losing in the second round to former President of the Junta José Napoleón Duarte. After ARENA's loss in the 1985 legislative elections, he stepped down in favor of Alfredo Cristiani and was awarded the honorary post of party president for life. He was named by the UN-created Truth Commission for El Salvador as having ordered the assassination of then-Archbishop Óscar Romero in 1980.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Otto Reich</span> American diplomat and lobbyist

Otto Juan Reich is an American diplomat and lobbyist who worked in the administrations of Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush. Reich was born in Cuba; his family moved to North Carolina when he was fifteen. He graduated from University of North Carolina in 1966, and after a brief stint in the US Army, received a master's degree from Georgetown University in 1973. After graduating, Reich worked for the state and federal governments in Florida and Washington, D.C.

Robert Earle Parry was an American investigative journalist. He was known for his role in covering the Iran–Contra affair for the Associated Press (AP) and Newsweek, including breaking the Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare and the CIA involvement in Contra cocaine trafficking in the U.S. scandal in 1985.

Manucher Ghorbanifar is an expatriate Iranian arms dealer and former SAVAK agent.

The Tower Commission was a United States presidential commission established on December 1, 1986, by President Ronald Reagan in response to the Iran–Contra affair. The commission, composed of former Senator John Tower of Texas, former Secretary of State Edmund Muskie, and former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, was tasked with reviewing the proper role of the National Security Council staff in national security operations generally, and in the arms transfers to Iran specifically.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Salvadoran Civil War</span> 1979–1992 conflict in El Salvador

The Salvadoran Civil War was a twelve year period of civil war in El Salvador that was fought between the government of El Salvador and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), a coalition or "umbrella organization" of left-wing groups. A coup on 15 October 1979 followed by government killings of anti-coup protesters is widely seen as the start of civil war. The war did not formally end until 16 January 1992 with the signing of the Chapultepec Peace Accords in Mexico City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Foreign policy of the Ronald Reagan administration</span>

The main goal of the US foreign policy during the presidency of Ronald Reagan (1981–1989) was winning the Cold War and the rollback of communism—which was achieved in the Revolutions of 1989 in Eastern Europe during 1989; in the German reunification in 1990; and in the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Historians debate whom to credit, and how much. They agree that victory in the Cold War made the U.S. the world's only superpower, one with good relations with former communist regimes in Russia and Eastern Europe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CIA activities in Nicaragua</span> Overview about the CIA activities in Nicaragua

CIA activities in Nicaragua have been ongoing since the 1980s. The increasing influence gained by the Sandinista National Liberation Front, a left-wing and anti-imperialist political party in Nicaragua, led to a sharp decrease in Nicaragua–United States relations, particularly after the Nicaraguan Revolution. In 1981, President Ronald Reagan authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to support the Contras, a right-wing Nicaraguan political group to combat the influence held by the Sandinistas in the Nicaraguan government. Various anti-government rebels in Nicaragua were organized into the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, the first Contra group, at the behest of the CIA. The CIA also supplied the Contras with training and equipment, including materials related to torture and assassination. There have also been allegations that the CIA engaged in drug trafficking in Nicaragua.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cyrus Hashemi</span> Iranian arms trader

Cyrus Hashemi was an Iranian arms dealer linked to the Iran-Contra affair, Brokers of Death arms case, and October Surprise conspiracy theory. Robert Dreyfuss claimed Hashemi was a CIA and Mossad agent; Hashemi sued Dreyfuss and Lyndon LaRouche, whose Executive Intelligence Review had accused Hashemi of being linked to the alleged "funding of Iranian terrorism in the United States," with the case dismissed in June 1983 due to Hashemi's failure to respond to legal documents. Hashemi died from acute myeloblastic leukemia July 1986 in London.

The congressional committees investigating the Iran–Contra affair were committees of the United States House of Representatives and of the United States Senate formed in January 1987 to investigate the Iran–Contra affair. The committees held joint hearings and issued a joint report. The hearings ran from 5 May 1987 to 6 August 1987, and the report was published in November, with a dissenting Minority Report signed by six Republican Congressmen and two Republican Senators.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amiram Nir</span>

Amiram Nir was an Israeli journalist. He had also been a terrorism advisor to two Israeli prime ministers, and played a role in the Iran-Contra Affair. He married Judy Shalom Nir-Mozes in 1982.

The 'Brokers of Death' arms case was a US trial in the 1980s relating to the attempted shipment of $2.5bn worth of US-made arms to Iran; it was described by the Los Angeles Times in 1986 as "the largest arms conspiracy prosecution ever brought by the Justice Department". The case was dropped in January 1989 after the prosecution said it could not prove the defendants did not believe their dealings were officially sanctioned. The planned deals were being arranged at the same time as the White House was secretly seeking to arrange arms sales to Iran, in what became known as the Iran-Contra affair; some evidence indicated that defendants were aware of these efforts.

The Iran–Contra affair was a political scandal in the United States that came to light in November 1986. During the Reagan administration, senior administration officials secretly facilitated the sale of arms to Iran, the subject of an arms embargo. Some U.S. officials also hoped that the arms sales would secure the release of hostages and allow U.S. intelligence agencies to fund the Nicaraguan Contras. Under the Boland Amendment, further funding of the Contras by the government had been prohibited by Congress.

Robert William Jackson is a US Navy veteran who served as a second class petty officer on the USS Kitty Hawk and became a whistleblower. In the eighties, Jackson denounced the use of the USS Kitty Hawk to sell F-14 parts and missiles to Iran illegally. Later, it was discovered that this ring of smugglers was part of a wider operation involving three different US Navy carriers, and an essential part of a more significant conspiracy, later referred to as the Iran–Contra affair.

References