That historical context will help you read and understand the documents. For the assignment, you are going to be asked to read and demonstrate understanding of the following sources:
Excerpts from the Tower Commission Report, February 27, 1987
“Address to the Nation on Iran-Contra,” Ronald Reagan, March 4, 1987
You can click on View Transcript to read the speech if you would rather do that.
“The Iran Contra Affair 20 Years On: Documents Spotlight Role of Reagan, Top Aides,” National Security Archive, November 24, 2006.
This is a journalistic site that reflects back on the Iran-Contra affair. Thus, it is a secondary source. However, the second half of it is a selection of primary sources from the early- to mid-1980s, which you can use in evaluating the overall question.
Kornbluh, Peter. “The Iran-Contra Scandal: A Postmortem.” World Policy Journal, vol. 5, no. 1, 1987, pp. 129–50.
As this is a JSTOR article, you can access it in two ways. If you are on campus, you can use the direct link: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40209076. If you are off campus, you can use the remote access link: https://libproxy.wc.edu/login?url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40209076
Parry, Robert, and Peter Kornbluh. “Iran-Contra’s Untold Story.” Foreign Policy, no. 72, 1988, pp. 3–30.
As this is a JSTOR article, you can access it in two ways. If you are on campus, you can use the direct link: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1148818. If you are off campus, you can use the remote access link: https://libproxy.wc.edu/login?url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1148818
Hicks, D. Bruce. “Presidential Foreign Policy Prerogative after the Iran-Contra Affair: A Review Essay.” Presidential Studies Quarterly, vol. 26, no. 4, 1996, pp. 962–77.
As this is a JSTOR article, you can access it in two ways. If you are on campus, you can use the direct link: https://www.jstor.org/stable/27551664. If you are off campus, you can use the remote access link: https://libproxy.wc.edu/login?url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27551664
Heclo, Hugh. “The Mixed Legacies of Ronald Reagan.” Presidential Studies Quarterly, vol. 38, no. 4, 2008, pp. 555–74.
As this is a JSTOR article, you can access it in two ways. If you are on campus, you can use the direct link: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41219701. If you are off campus, you can use the remote access link: https://libproxy.wc.edu/login?url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41219701
Then, you are going to be asked to complete the following assignment using these documents:
The Assignment
The assignment for HIST 1302 Common Assignment – Part 4 is to use the given documents to write a short essay about a historical period of time using historical documents. In this case, we are using the 7 given documents as well as the resources for historical context from Section 1 to explore the Iran-Contra Affair, its implications on the Reagan presidency, and how it affected American foreign policy. You will need to read and understand the sources that you are given here. The resources above, as well as your feedback from HIST 1302 Common Assignment – Parts 2 and 3 are essential in completing this step. You are not asked here to demonstrate your understanding of the documents as you were in Part 2, and you do not need to write out the arguments as you did in Part 3. You will instead be using those skills to now write a short essay.
Your assignment is to use these sources, combined with any relevant classroom resources, to write a short essay (at least 750 – 1000 words, about 3-4 pages) about explore the Iran-Contra Affair, its implications on the Reagan presidency, and how it affected American foreign policy.
Unlike in the previous Parts of the HIST 1302 Common Assignment, we are not asking you to lay out either what the sources mean or what the main arguments they contain are. However, you are going to have to do both of those things to be able to assess the documents. There is no one correct answer about the effects of the Iran-Contra Affair, and the different sources given here provide you with multiple points of view and arguments that you can use. The debate over Reagan’s legacy is still debated today, and the question of how the Iran-Contra Affair affects American foreign policy in Central America and the Middle East is ongoing today. In looking at this broad topic, your essay should look at a combination of these sources, as the primary sources are there to provide evidence from the time to support the topic. You will also find resources in your classroom, from any material supplied by your professor either in class or online.
In the essay, you are looking the Iran-Contra Affair, its implications on the Reagan presidency, and how it affected American foreign policy. You can approach this in multiple ways.
You can write an informative essay, examining the Iran-Contra Affair and some aspect of what happened and how it was viewed then and now.
You can write an argumentative essay, where you look at the Iran-Contra Affair and argue about its effects on Reagan’s legacy and/or American foreign policy.
You can write a historical essay, where you put the Iran-Contra affair in the context of the broader American involvement in the twentieth century in Central America and the Middle East. In this case, you will be drawing on classroom resources, such as the textbook and lectures to see what came before and after the Iran-Contra Affair and how this incident fits in the longer American involvement in these areas.
You are not limited to these options, but they are the most obvious ones from the resources you have been given. Either way, a historical essay relies on a base of evidence to support your argument, and thus you should bring in multiple sources from the assignment to give support to your main points.
The technical requirements of the essay are:
You must explore a topic of the Iran-Contra Affair, its implications on the Reagan presidency, and how it affected American foreign policy. As noted above, you have wide latitude as to how you take this topic on, but that is the general topic you are writing on in this essay.
You must use at least 3 sources directly in the essay. These 3 sources must come from the 7 sources given to you above, the textbook, and any other resources given to you in your classroom (lectures, additional documents, etc.)
You are not allowed to use any sources outside of those given to you here in the HIST 1302 Common Assignment – Part 3 or in your classroom. Use of sources outside of those permitted will result in a 10-point penalty on the assignment.
You need to provide documentation for any use of sources, whether you use direct quotations, paraphrasing, or just ideas from those sources. There is not a required format for this, but MLA formatting is generally the easiest to use. You may use whatever documentation format you choose for this assignment, as long as you do it correctly. You are encouraged to use the Purdue OWL to help you with your citations — https://owl.purdue.edu/
You are not required to have a Works Cited, as you are limited to sources that have been given to you. However, a Works Cited is encouraged for any writing assignment using sources, and you can find more information on completing a Works Cited at https://owl.purdue.edu/
