The 1987 death of William Casey somehow comes to mind

[struggle4progress]

... in autumn of 1986, the lid was blown off the entire operation. In October, a helicopter carrying supplies to the Contras was shot down in Nicaragua. The lone survivor, an American named Eugene Hasenfus, told the Sandinistas that he was a CIA operative, which Casey denied. Then, in November, a Lebanese magazine reported the arms shipments to Iran. The Reagan Administration initially refuted the allegations, promising an investigation. Later the same month, Attorney General Edwin Meese confirmed not only that the arms shipments had indeed occurred, but also that proceeds from the arms sales had been diverted to the Contras in Nicaragua.

The spotlight turned squarely on Casey and the CIA. He was called to testify before Congress in December; however, the morning before he would have testified, Casey suffered a seizure at CIA headquarters. Taken to the hospital, he suffered a second seizure the same day. He was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor, and three days later he had surgery to remove the tumor. Casey would never recover his health, and resigned as CIA Director in January of 1987.

As the Iran-Contra affair unfolded in spring of 1987, several current and former members of the Reagan Administration were called to testify before Congress, but Casey was never able to do so. Most of the American public speculated that Casey was the one person who knew the entire story. On May 5, a former Air Force officer and CIA operative named Richard Secord testified that he organized weapons deliveries to the Contras, under direction of Casey and Oliver North. The next day, Bill Casey passed away ...

[enough]

1. Oh man those were the days. NT

[Backseat Driver]

4. Tis the 28th anniversary of the death of the

freelance writer compiling the workings of "The Octopus," suicided Danny Casolaro.

[PandoraAwakened]

2. +1000 for History

Isn't it amazing how so much of the Rethuglicans' actions today come right out of despicable Reagan's playbook?

It's no coincidence that the very man most instrumental in later covering up the Reagan/Bush Iran-Contra affair---William Barr---has again been assigned clean-up duty.

[struggle4progress]

3. !

[Backseat Driver]

6. Tentacles of The Octopus still reaching long and twisting two decades into the New Century mark

[Grasswire2]

5. William Colby, CIA died in a bizarre canoe episode.

DCI under Nixon, Ford, and GHW Bush.

[link:http://On April 27, 1996, Colby set out from his weekend home in Rock Point, Maryland on a solo canoe trip.[15] His canoe was found the following day on a sandbar in the Wicomico River, a tributary of the Potomac, approximately a quarter mile from his home.[16] On May 6, Colby's body was found in a marshy riverbank lying facedown not far from where his canoe was found.[15][17] After an autopsy, Maryland's Chief Medical Examiner John E. Smialek ruled his death to be accidental.[17] Smialek's report noted that Colby was predisposed to having a heart attack or stroke due to "severe calcified atherosclerosis" and that Colby likely "suffered a complication of this atherosclerosis which precipitated him into the cold water in a debilitated state and he succumbed to the effects of hypothermia and drowned".[18][19] Colby's death triggered conspiracy theories that his death was due to foul play.[20][21] In his 2011 documentary The Man Nobody Knew, Colby's son Carl suggested that his father suffered from guilt due to his actions in the CIA and committed suicide.[20][21] Carl's step-mother and siblings, as well as Colby's biographer Randall Woods, criticized Carl's portrayal of William Colby, and rejected the allegation that the former CIA director killed himself citing it as being inconsistent with his character.[20][21] |