Iran-Contra Figures Married in Secret 40 Years After Scandal

Traitor Oliver North and his co-conspirator/secretary Fawn Hall reportedly married in secret last month — 40 years after their surreptitious roles in the infamous Iran-Contra affair.    A copy of the couple’s marriage license, obtained by journalist Michael Isikoff, shows 81-year-old North and 65-year-old Hall were married in Arlington County, Virginia, on Aug. 27. 

“It was a secret marriage,” a friend of the newlyweds told Isikoff.  Reached by phone, North declined to comment, apart from quoting a line famously delivered by Clark Gable’s character in “Gone with the Wind.”  “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” he told CNN.

North, a retired Marine Corps lieutenant colonel, was a National Security Council staffer when he gained attention for his role in the Iran-Contra scandal. North was part of the twin schemes to sell weapons to Iran and then use proceeds to fund anti-communist rebels, known as the Contras, in Nicaragua.  Hall, North’s secretary, admitted to shredding damning documents related to the controversy. She snuck documents that implicated North’s involvement out of the White House complex by stuffing them in her clothing and shoes, and the two later overfed a paper shredder to the point of it jamming.  Hall foolishly triggered the unraveling of the scheme when she botched the illegal transfers, transposing the numbers of North's Swiss bank account number.  The illicit funding went to the wrong account holder, who then notified Swiss authorities.

After the intertwining scandals were revealed in 1986, those involved defended their actions as necessary to secure the release of American hostages in the Middle East and said they facilitated Reagan’s anti-communist policy goals in Central and South America.  But the sales ran afoul of legislation that limited US government assistance to the Contras, an arms embargo against Iran, and Reagan’s previous assurances that the US would not negotiate with terrorists.  Hall was granted immunity from prosecution, and told investigators that in 1986, when North was fired over the scandal, she smuggled Iran-Contra documents that had not yet been shredded out of the Old Executive Office Building, hiding them in her boots and inside the back of her skirt.   North was convicted in 1989 on three felony charges, but the convictions were vacated shortly after. 

After his convictions were vacated, North mounted an unsuccessful bid for a US Senate seat in Virginia in 1994 and went on to become a conservative political commentator. He was named president of the National Rifle Association in 2018 before leaving less than a year later amid a power struggle with the organization’s chief executive, Wayne LaPierre. His first wife, Betsy, died last year.  

After the scandal, Hall worked as a model in Hollywood.  In April 1993, Hall married Danny Sugerman,former manager of The Doors. Hall later admitted to using cocaine when she held jobs on the National Security Council staff and at the Pentagon. After her marriage to Sugerman, Hall became addicted and suffered a non-lethal overdose in 1994, after which she went into rehab. In 2005, Sugerman died of lung cancer, and Hall continued living under the radar-- at one time living in West Hollywood and working at a bookstore.  North and Hall are said to have reunited at the funeral of North's first wife.  The North-Hall wedding was described as “low-key,” and none of North’s four children attended.