Former national security adviser Robert McFarlane dies at 84

FILE - Former national security adviser Robert C. McFarlane gestures while testifying before the House-Senate panel investigating the Iran-Contra affair on Capitol Hill in Washington, May 13, 1987. McFarlane, a top aide to President Ronald Reagan who pleaded guilty to charges for his role in an illegal arms-for-hostages deal known as the Iran-Contra affair, died Thursday, May 12, 2022. He was 84. (AP Photo/Lana Harris, File)

Former White House national security adviser Robert C. McFarlane, a top aide to President Ronald Reagan who pleaded guilty to charges for his role in an illegal arms-for-hostages deal known as the Iran-Contra affair, has died. He was 84.

McFarlane, who lived in Washington, died Thursday from complications of a previous lung condition at a hospital in Michigan, where he was visiting family, according to The Washington Post and The New York Times.

McFarlane, a former Marine lieutenant colonel and Vietnam combat veteran, resigned his White House post in December 1985. He was later pressed into service by the administration as part of secret — and illegal — plan to sell arms to Iran in exchange for the freedom of Western hostages in the Middle East and pass along the proceeds to the contra rebels in Nicaragua for their fight against the Marxist Sandinista government.

He played a major role in the affair, leading the secret delegation to Tehran, then as now a U.S. adversary, to open contact with so-called moderate Iranians who were thought to hold influence with kidnappers of American hostages. He brought with him a cake and a Bible signed by Reagan.

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