. >> with regard to oliver north and john poindexter, is that still your feeling? yes, i think they will live under a cloud of guilt for the rest of their lives. you criticized president carter about his inability to do anything to get the hostages home. , 52 you were sworn in hostages came home. do you feel you were too harsh on carter during the campaign and do you now have perhaps an appreciation of some of the limits of power as to what an american president can with these situations third world terrorist nations? two very facing different situations. one, people in an embassy, knowledge of where they were, kidnapped by that country. this is one where some terrorist group has kidnapped several individuals. we don't know where they are. we know that any overt attempt at rescue, even if we did have a hint or a clue, would run the of their assassination or execution before we could get them out. and there has not been a moment that this isn't on our minds and that we haven't then ask loring wyatt lee and privately, as you must in this -- haven't been exploring qui

reporter: you said that you felt the judicial process with regard to oliver north and john poindexter -- is that still your feeling? president reagan: yes, i think this is going to leave them under a cloud of guilt for the rest of their lives. reporter: in 1980 you criticized president carter for the inability to do anything about getting the hostages home. eight years later, eight years tomorrow, mr. president, when you were sworn in, the 52 hostages did come home. do you feel perhaps you were too harsh on carter during the campaign, and do you now, after eight years, have perhaps an appreciation of some of the limits of power as to what an american president can do with these situations with third-world terrorist nations? president reagan: we are facing two very different ituations. one, more than 50 people in an embassy, kidnapped by the government of that country. this is another one in which some terrorist group has kidnapped several individuals. we don't know where they are. we know any overt attempt at rescue, even if we did have a hint or a clue, would run the risk of their ex

. >> vice admiral john poindexter asked to be relieved of his assignment for national security affairs>> at the time, i thought this was another watergate. felt that way. >> when the iran contra story broke, it seemed to play into various strains of the narrative about reagan. here's this hollywood actor who doesn't know what's being done in his name. or that he was clearly lying to the american people about this. >> one of the more poignant things is the president's letter of february 20th of this year. he says, i have no personal notes or records to help my recollection on this matter. try as i might, i cannot recall anything whatsoever about whether i approved and the simple truth is, i don't remember. period. >> very early in the iran contra story, a riff off of a watergate line showed up, what did the president know and when did he forget it? >> it was very serious. his political opponents and the american people saw something they didn't approve of. and we could see his numbers were dropping. and the whole presidency was at risk. >> tomorrow morning, the iran contra congressional

there was heavy security at the courthouse, to which the judge and lawyers in the john poindexter case had come from washington. reagan was permitted to give video testimony. reagan waived as he entered the courtroom where technicians from the justice department and fbi had installed cameras and videotape machines. >> reagans lawyers fought that executive privilege fight. they tried to put up that fight, but they lost. i mean, famously, richard nixon before him fought to keep the white house tapes and other evidence from scrutiny from the judiciary and famously nixon lost that fight, too. he lost that fight hugely at the supreme court. that, of course, led to a bad end in the watergate scandal for president richard nixon. it went the same way with reagan. reagan briefly tried that same fight back in iran-contra, but he lost that, too, and we definitely don't remember iran-contra in this country as vividly as we remember watergate, but just as watergate had a bad end, iran-contra had a bad end, too, a bad end of a very different sort. >> good evening. it began more than seven years ago,