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Edward P. Boland was the Massachusetts congressman who sponsored the Boland Amendments prohibiting U.S. military aid to the Contras. | 1911-10-01 | 2001-11-04 | Springfield, Massachusetts |
Edward P. Boland was the Massachusetts Democratic congressman who sponsored the Boland Amendment, the series of congressional provisions that prohibited the use of taxpayer funds for covert military operations against Nicaragua. The amendments, passed between 1982 and 1986, were named after Boland as chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.1
The Boland Amendments
The amendments sought to rein in the Reagan administration's covert war by restricting military aid to the Contras. The 1982 provision applied to the Central Intelligence Agency and the Department of Defense; the provisions of 1983 to 1986 extended to "any other agency or entity of the United States involved in intelligence activities," language the Iran-Contra committees' majority read to cover the National Security Council staff and the minority read not to.2 The legislation directly led to Oliver North's illegal efforts to fund the Contras through alternative sources, including Iran arms sales proceeds, Saudi contributions, and Cocaine trafficking profits. The Boland Amendments exposed the tension between congressional oversight and executive branch determination to pursue the Contra war by any means necessary.3
On December 8, 1982, Boland offered a substitute to Tom Harkin's amendment to the fiscal 1983 defense appropriations bill, telling the House that it was substantively identical to the restriction in the classified annex to the earlier intelligence authorization act and that the Administration had accepted it: "They do not like it, but it is agreeable to them." The House adopted his substitute 411 to 0 after rejecting Harkin's substitute, and the provision took effect on December 21, 1982.4 The House Intelligence Committee, of which he was chairman, reported the Boland-Zablocki bill in May 1983; the House passed it 228 to 195 on July 28, 1983, and the Senate never considered it.5 After the conference of December 1983 Boland described the fiscal 1984 compromise as "a $24 million cap on funding from whatever source." On October 10, 1984, he told the House that the provision then before it "clearly ends United States support for the war in Nicaragua," that "there are no exceptions to the prohibition," and that it "clearly prohibits any expenditure, including those from accounts for salaries and all support costs."6
Footnotes
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Webb, Gary. Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion. Seven Stories Press, 1998. Glossary. ↩︎
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Public Law 97-377, sec. 793; Public Law 98-215, sec. 108, 97 Stat. 1473, 1475; Public Law 98-473, sec. 101 (sec. 8066(a)), 98 Stat. 1935; Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair, H. Rept. 100-433 and S. Rept. 100-216 (1987), majority views, ch. 26, p. 399, and minority views, ch. 6, pp. 491-497. ↩︎
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Webb, Gary. Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion. Seven Stories Press, 1998. Ch. 16. ↩︎
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Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair, H. Rept. 100-433 and S. Rept. 100-216 (1987), majority views, ch. 26, p. 396; Public Law 97-377, sec. 793, 96 Stat. 1865 (Dec. 21, 1982). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-96/pdf/STATUTE-96-Pg1830.pdf ↩︎
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Iran-Contra report, ch. 2, p. 34 and nn. 34-36. ↩︎
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Iran-Contra report, majority views, ch. 26, pp. 397-398 (citing 130 Cong. Rec. H11974 and H11980, daily ed. Oct. 10, 1984); Walsh, Final Report, vol. I, part III, n. 47. https://irp.fas.org/offdocs/walsh/part_iii.htm ↩︎