John Poindexter

John Poindexter (born August 12, 1936) is a retired American naval officer and Department of Defense official.

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He was Deputy National Security Adviser and National Security Adviser under the Reagan administration and was one of the major players in the Iran-Contra affair, for which he was convicted in April 1990 of multiple felonies. However, those convictions were later overturned on a technicality in a 2-1 decision.[1] Essentially, the judges held that witnesses had been influenced by Poindexter's testimony before Congress[2] and since he had been granted immunity for that testimony, the guilty verdict was overturned.

More recently, he served a brief stint as the director of the DARPA's Information Awareness Office under the George W. Bush administration.

See also
  • Oliver North

References
  1. Incidentally, both judges who voted to overturn were Reagan appointees while the dissenting judge was a Carter holdover. (Poindexter Wins Iran-Contra Case in Appeals Court, New York Times, November 16, 1991, by David Johnston)
  2. Note that Poindexter himself declared his congressional testimony to be true: "I stand by every word that I said and when I said the buck stopped with me with regard to the matters under discussion at the time, that was correct." (Poindexter Wins Iran-Contra Case in Appeals Court, NYT, November 16, 1991)
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