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After several more arms shipments, another hostage was released. By this time, Poindexter had delegated much of the maneuvering to his gung-ho assistant, Marine Lieut. Colonel Oliver North, who was also cooperating with the CIA in supplying arms to the Nicaraguan rebels, even though Congress had formally forbidden any such action. Somehow there emerged what North later called a "neat idea"--using money that the Iranians paid for illegal arms to buy more illegal arms for the Nicaraguan rebels.
When all this official smuggling and dissembling came to light shortly after the summer of 1986, it was a cruelly self-inflicted wound to the whole Reagan Administration. North was fired; Poindexter resigned. McFarlane, after attempting suicide, pleaded guilty to charges of withholding information from Congress. On the eve of his scheduled appearance before a Senate investigative committee, CIA Chief Casey suffered a seizure and was rushed to the hospital; he died five months later. But politically, the chief victim was Reagan, who kept saying he had broken no laws and negotiated with no terrorists. Polls showed that most Americans didn't believe him.
At the height of the Iran-contra scandal, there was some anxiety in the White House that Reagan might actually be impeached, and yet many Americans seemed to forgive him as easily as he forgave himself. When he left office just a year later, his approval rating with the public stood at 63%.
If anything, the public's admiration for him grew in the years after he left office--not least because of a fervent effort on the part of his admirers to exalt him. His disciples, having already lobbied for Washington's airport and a major office building and aircraft carrier to be named for him, are at work having a public building in his honor in all U.S. counties, and perhaps his face on the $10 bill. Popular affection and admiration ultimately mixed with sympathy once he revealed his battle with Alzheimer's in 1994. "At the moment I feel just fine," he wrote in a letter revealing his condition. "I intend to live the remainder of the years God gives me on this Earth doing the things I have always done. I will continue to share life's journey with my beloved Nancy and my family ... When the Lord calls me home, whenever that day may be, I will leave with the greatest love for this country of ours, and eternal optimism for its future."
That journey would last another decade, in which Nancy was fierce in her protection of his privacy and dignity. Hers was said to be the last face he recognized. The excellent health that had served him well through his life had the effect of prolonging his death: a mind fading while a body pushed on, full of energy and health it no longer needed. He would rake the leaves out of the pool for hours, Morris wrote, not knowing that his Secret Service agents would quietly replace them. Had he been a less vigorous man, the doctors said, he would have died much sooner.
What history will finally make of Ronald Reagan remains, for the time being, history's secret. Surveys have found him ranked high on lists of both the most underrated and overrated Presidents, and yet in recent years there had come a reconsideration of the man and his legacy.