The story of one of the most famous breaches of American presidential authority since Watergate. The Iran-Contra conspiracy gave rise to a constitutional confrontation that pitted the executive, legislative and judicial branches of US government against one another. The conflict reached into the White House itself and two presidents were involved in illegal activities. This story begins in 1984 and follows the conspiracy and then the cover-up for ten years, examining the actions of high-officials, secret Swiss bank accounts and shredded documents. This book aims to place the responsibility for the scandal and its concealment where it belongs, and argues that honourable men who pretended to be out of the loop were actually caught in a web of deception for which they had only themselves to blame.