Out of Control: The Story of the Reagan Administration's Secret War in Nicaragua, the Illegal Arms Pipeline & the Contra Drug Connection

For two years the author had been investigating the secret funding of the Contras by the White House. Here, she identifies the network of National Security Council staff (led by Colonel Oliver North), CIA operatives & ex-agents who set up this illegal support system, after the passage of the Boland Amendment in 10/1984 which made it illegal for the US government to give direct or indirect aid to the Contras. There is a detailed account of how mercenaries were recruited from all over the world & sent to CIA-run training bases in Costa Rica; how money was obtained thru various means, ranging from the Iran arms deal to an arrangement with cocaine smugglers bringing drugs into Florida in return for quarterly payments into Contra bank accounts; how guns were procured, flown to US-controlled military bases in Central America & then delivered into the hands of the Contras. The author, a British journalist, worked for CBS News beginning in 1978.