" The record is clear that Bush was aware that the United States, in contravention of its own stated policy, was trading arms for hostages as part of an initiative to reach out to moderate elements in Iran. “I’m one of the few people that know fully the details, and there is a lot of flack and misinformation out there,” Bush told his diary on Wednesday, November 5, 1986. “It is not a subject we can talk about. "

― Jon Meacham , Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush