a couple years ago wrote a book about john poindexter's a we have a chance to talk about a lot of this which was great. two questions, one contra and one iran. i am sure you will say something in the book, where do you come down on whether reagan knew about this diversion and authorized it? the key question that links iran and contra together and how do you think the obama administration which is grappling with the issue of negotiating for terrorists and there seemed to be a lot of gray areas whether ransoms being paid maybe not by the u.s. but others, what lessons do you think they should be drawing from how the reagan administration handled it and what pitfalls they hope to avoid? >> the diversion question was the watergate question of the iran-contra scandal. i have argued and others argued that that was a mistake. to consider is that the central question that was put out to be. several of us including oliver north agree that it was basically a really clever idea to divert everybody down the wrong path. the diversion was a diversion. because in the course of his investigation -- it

shortly after that happens there is a meeting of its starts off with john poindexter saying we have anurgent request to help in these various ways it is time to step up to do something. with that genius to add to and jews together. that was the case even more explicitly in where bush is committed to cut the same deal. >> you also described in the book pitcher in the vice president and is raising and you alluded to this before but as i read the scandal the idea of arms to hostages. but never would have stood in washington without the israelis this book is now really foreign policy but i would do characterize to move the united states in this direction? one of the most respected figures that they had. >> no question they play the key role. not only as a said earlier but doing courage it. it was not just completely one side because there were others that were uncomfortable and george bush was another who were skittish about too much of the israeli role and one of schulz's criticisms with his discussions with charlie hill was when we do this kind of thing and opens the door for israel and

it was led by people in the national security counsel, including john poindexter, the national securityadviser to the president. key officials of both the national security counsel and the cia, all of whom were pardoned later by george h.w. bush in the last month or two of his in office but clearly this was reagan ignoring the laws of the land. in the first case, selling arms first out of israeli inventories and then our inventories to iran. a state that was involved with acts of terrorism. which was violation of law. and then using the profits from those sales to provide money to the contras which was a violation of the bolin amendment. so when you think about impeachment, particularly based on not following the law of the land, there were clear grounds for impeachment and i think if the country hadn't gone through the nightmare of the nixon process, there may have been some people who would have considered impeachment but reagan was much too popular for that and the country didn't want to live through that kind of experience so soon again. reagan was also responsible for appointing th

it was led by people in the national security counsel, including john poindexter, the national securityr to the president. key officials of both the national security counsel and the cia, all of whom were pardoned later by george h.w. bush in the last month or two of his in office but clearly this was reagan ignoring the laws of the land. in the first case, selling arms first out of israeli inventories and then our inventories to iran. a state that was involved with acts of terrorism. which was violation of law. and then using the profits from those sales to provide money to the contras which was a violation of the bolin amendment. so when you think about impeachment, particularly based on not following the law of the land, there were clear grounds for impeachment and i think if the country hadn't gone through the nightmare of the nixon process, there may have been some people who would have considered impeachment but reagan was much too popular for that and the country didn't want to live through that kind of experience so soon again. reagan was also responsible for appointing the most