Miami Herald journalist Alfonso Chardi, whose Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting helped expose the Iran-Contra affair, captivated a televised listening to in Congress concerning the Reagan administration’s assist for Nicaraguan rebels. secret community, died on April ninth at a hospital in Miami. He was 72 years outdated.
His spouse, Siobhan Morrissey, stated the trigger was a coronary heart assault.
In a profession spanning greater than 40 years, Mr. Chady lined the Middle East because the Herald’s Jerusalem bureau chief from 1989 to 1990 and was a part of three different Pulitzer Prize-winning groups for the paper, together with It additionally included an interview with Elian, a Cuban boy. González returned to the island in 2000 after an immigration raid in Miami and a months-long authorized battle that examined US asylum guidelines.
Assigned to comply with Latin American affairs in Washington in 1982, Chardy constructed a repute as a tenacious chronicler of U.S. policymaking in a area locked in Cold War proxy wars. In Nicaragua, the place left-wing Sandinista guerrillas seized energy in 1979, Washington’s cash and assist flowed to anti-Sandinista rebels often known as the Contras.
Congress then restricted navy help and imposed a hold-up on the finish of 1984. Hints of secret workarounds started to succeed in Chardy. His final title was Chadi, however an editor in his native Mexico misspelled it and used it in his byline. Mr. Chardy started stealing intelligence sources from Washington and the opposition.
In 1985, then-little-known National Security Council advisor Lt. Col. Oliver North reported that President Ronald Reagan had promised by no means to desert the Contras. Around the identical time, Beirut’s newspaper al-Sirah revealed an article a couple of back-channel US arms sale to Iran, which was then embroiled in a battle with Iraq, as a way to free hostages held by an Iranian-allied group in Lebanon.
Mr. Chadi’s sources stated North was concerned in arms shipments reaching Iran. “The second I noticed Oliver North’s title come up in reference to arms gross sales, I believed, ‘This goes to result in the Contras,'” he wrote in Karen Rothmeyer’s 1991 ebook, Pulitzer Victory. wrote in his essay. .
Chardy and the Herald group started placing collectively a daring and unlawful U.S. plan. In violation of the arms embargo, they secretly bought missiles and different weapons to Iran by means of oblique sources, funneling many of the proceeds to the Contras.
On October 28, 1986, Chardy’s byline appeared on the entrance web page of the Herald. “With President Reagan’s blessing,” Chardy wrote, “in keeping with the administration, U.S. officers have spent the previous three years constructing a worldwide assist community from South Korea to Saudi Arabia, and Congress has curtailed assist for the Contras.” “Kept the Nicaraguan rebels alive even after banning them,” and insurgent officers. ”
The story sparked a scramble among the many Washington press corps for extra particulars. Then, a bombshell was made. Attorney General Edwin Meese III introduced in November 1986 that $28 million from arms gross sales to Iran ended up going to the Contras. Shortly thereafter, Mr. North was fired from the NSC.
On December 11, 1986, Mr. Chardy and his Herald colleague Sam Dillon wrote a couple of Boeing 707 cargo airplane that transported arms to the Middle East certain for Iran after which returned to Central America. It was loaded with manufactured weapons.” ”
Chardy’s report revealed hyperlinks between North and different unnamed officers concerned in supporting the contras, together with Robert Owen, an NSC marketing consultant who served as an middleman between North and the rebels.
A February 1987 report by the Tower Commission (an investigative committee established by Reagan and headed by former Texas Sen. He criticized the naivety of the director who allowed the challenge to go forward. Intermediaries in Iranian arms gross sales, together with Saudi arms supplier Adnan Khashoggi.
In a nationally televised handle on March 4, 1987, President Reagan admitted that he was conscious of the hostage arms deal, however denied realizing concerning the diversion of funds to the Contras earlier than the Mies revelations. The following month, the Miami Herald received a Pulitzer Prize for nationwide reporting. (The New York Times additionally received the Pulitzer Prize for nationwide reporting for its protection of the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger explosion.)
The aftermath of Iran-Contra was not but over. Joint hearings by House and Senate choose committees started in May 1987, yielding additional revelations about Iran-Contra throughout three months of live-streamed questioning.
In early July 1987 testimony, North admitted that he had lied to Congress throughout an earlier interrogation concerning the Iran-Contra community, and that he had lied to senior officers, together with National Security Advisor Lt. Gen. John M. Poindexter. He stated he gained data and diverted funds to insurgent teams. Mr. North’s secretary, Fawn Hall, was granted immunity from prosecution in change for testimony about his doc shredding and different actions.
“You additionally admitted that you simply altered a few of the paperwork that clearly spelled out your position,” North requested House Republican Deputy General Counsel George Van Cleve.
“Can you guarantee this committee that you’re not right here mendacity to guard the commander in chief?” Van Cleve requested later in his testimony.
“I’m not mendacity to guard anybody, lawyer. I’m right here to inform you the reality,” North replied. “I stated I used to be going to inform you all the things, the great, the unhealthy and the ugly. Some of it was ugly to me.”
North was convicted in 1989 of obstructing an investigation and destroying proof. This conviction was overturned on attraction in 1991. Poindexter was convicted of conspiracy, perjury and different expenses, however was acquitted on attraction. Dozens of different officers, together with Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams, had been indicted in reference to Iran-Contra, however nearly all of them had been indicted in 1992 by President George H.W. Bush, who was vp within the Reagan administration. was pardoned.
Alfonso Nieto Chardi was born on April 14, 1951 in Mexico City. His father was an accountant, and his mom took care of the home.
He realized English by taking programs and listening to the radio. He served within the military for six months after which labored as a proofreader and translator for the English model of the Mexico City News, the place the editor as soon as wrote his title as Chadi. He attributed his curiosity in journalism to the 1968 pupil protests in Mexico and the Mexico City Olympics that 12 months, when he noticed overseas reporters flocking to the Mexican capital.
He joined the Associated Press in Mexico City in 1974 and later served as an AP correspondent in Buenos Aires and Bogotá. He then labored as a freelancer in Central America, together with for United Press International, and visited Nicaragua through the celebrations after Sandinista forces overthrew President Anastasio Somoza.
Chardy joined the Miami Herald in 1980 and first lined the Mariel boatlift from Cuba, which evacuated greater than 120,000 individuals by sea to Florida. He carried out public service along with his protection of Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and was a part of the group that received the Pulitzer Prize in 1993. Investigative reporting on voter fraud that helped flip the 1999 Miami mayoral election. And in 2001, with breaking information on the Elian González case.
He retired in 2017 after a number of years at El Nuevo Herald, the Herald’s Spanish-language sister publication. He lived in Key Biscayne along with his spouse, a journalist whom he married in 1994. Other survivors embody 5 nephews and two nieces.
Mr. Chardi reviewed the Iran-Contra protection intimately and stated that the Contras had been important to bridging the hole.
“They uncovered Oliver North. They uncovered Rob Owen,” he wrote. “They uncovered all the important thing gamers.”