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The release of Iran-Contra: The Final Report' provided yet another analysis of the complex and largely secretive foreign policy venture of the Reagan administration for public screening. With the culmination of Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh's sevenyear legal investigation, his report now joins other detailed official reports filed by the Tower Commission,2 the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence,3 and the joint report of the House and Senate Select Committees4 investigating the Iran-Contra affair.
The Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair placed the affair in the context of a dispute over the constitutional allocation of foreign policy powers. Reacting to the conclusion reached by a majority of the members of the House and Senate select committees that the Ronald Reagan administration had acted "in violation of the Constitution and of applicable laws and regulations"5 eight Republican members filed a Minority Report. The Minority Report challenged the conclusions reached by a majority of the members of the two committees and countered that "much of what President Reagan did in his actions toward Nicaragua and Iran were constitutionally protected exercises of inherent Presidential power."6
While partisan bickering may have accounted for some of the differences in the congressional assessment of the conduct of the Reagan administration, the undeniable larger principle involved was a continuing disagreement over constitutional interpretation. Of course, the constitutional foundation for the dispersal of foreign affairs powers to the president and Congress has long been a point of contention, prompting one prominent constitutional scholar to write that the Framers "virtually elevated inefficiency and controversy to the plane of principle, especially in foreign affairs"7
Hence, it was not altogether surprising to see revealed in the ensuing scholarly debate over the Iran-Contra affair a fundamental split over the meaning of the allocation of foreign policy powers to the president and to Congress. On one side are those who view Congress as a co-equal partner with the president and, consequently, view foreign policy making as a shared responsibility. On the other side are the advocates of presidential foreign policy prerogative, the authority of the executive to act unilaterally, and even on occasion, in defiance of congressional mandates.
The Shared Powers Perspective For many critics of the Iran-Contra affair, especially those who viewed the actions of some...