On November 23, 1981, President Ronald Reagan put his signature on a document known as the National Security Decision Directive 17 (NSDD-17), a top-secret document that gave the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) power to support the Contras. The Contras were a group of individuals in the country of Nicaragua who fought against the left-wing Sandinista government. The term “Contra” comes from the Spanish word “contra”, which means “against” in English. Some of the items on the agenda of the Sandinista regime were to promote equality amongst men and women, to provide a significant amount of government resources to health care, and to establish a policy that would mandate mass literacy in Nicaragua.

The top-secret NSDD-17 gave the CIA the power and budget to support a large force of rebels in Nicaragua for purposes of conducting covert actions against the Sandinista regime. The Sandinista regime was believed to be behind the flow of weapons from Nicaragua to the country of El Salvador. It was believed by the United States that this was somehow tied to the Soviet Union in one way or another, which caused concern for the national security of the United States and safety of the American people.

In addition to preventing the continuous flow of weapons from Nicaragua to El Salvador, the CIA also conducted spy missions and operated in a military fashion within the borders of Nicaragua. The CIA secured support from forces in Honduras and Argentina in order to provide both training bases and actual training to new Contras.

When NSDD-17 was signed by President Reagan, it was a very clear indicator that the United States was supporting the Contras in their counter-revolution against the Sandinista regime. In 1982, news of the top-secret document became public, and the support of the United States was a largely-debated topic amongst the American people. Eventually, the 1986 Iran-Contra Affair was as a result of the execution of the NSDD-17 document.