Parry was a finalist for the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting and received the George Polk Award for National Reporting in 1984 for his work with the Associated Press on Iran-Contra , where he broke the story that the Central Intelligence Agency had provided an assassination manual to the Nicaraguan Contras ( Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare ) . In mid-1985 he wrote the first article on Oliver North 's involvement in the affair , and , together with Brian Barger , in late 1985 he broke the CIA and Contras cocaine trafficking in the US scandal , helping to spark Senator John Kerry 's interest in investigating Iran-Contra . The Associated Press had refused to publish the drug trafficking story , and only relented when its Spanish-language newswire service accidentally published a translation . Barger and Parry continued to press their investigation of North even as most of the media declined to follow it up , eventually publishing a story in mid-1986 , based on 24 sources , which led to a Congressional committee asking questions of North . After North denied the allegations , Barger was pushed out of the Associated Press , and Parry was unable to publish any further follow-ups to the story until after Eugene Hasenfus ' plane ( Corporate Air Services HPF821 ) was shot down in Nicaragua in October 1986 . After finding out that his boss had been " conferring with Oliver North on a regular basis " , Parry left AP in 1987 to join '' Newsweek '' , which he left in 1990
Corporate Air Services HPF821
Corporate Air Services HPF821
Robert Parry (journalist)