Boland, Author of Ban on Contra Aid, to Retire

Rep. Edward P. Boland (D-Mass.), author of the amendments that barred U.S. military aid to the Contras in Nicaragua, is retiring at the end of his term after 36 years in Congress.

“I’ve decided to call it a day,” the 76-year-old Democrat said Thursday at a news conference attended by several dozen members of his sandlot baseball league--now retired judges, mayors, district attorneys, and city and county officials--who helped launch his career 54 years ago.

“The parades are all over. The give-and-take of the campaign trail no longer beckons and the time has come when the bell tolls on a career that has been for me an exhilarating and fulfilling experience,” Boland said.

He had never lost an election since gaining the state House of Representatives at age 22.

Boland was chairman of the U.S. House Intelligence Committee from 1977 to 1985. He was a member of the Iran-Contra Committee, whose hearings produced “some of the longest days and in some ways some of the most unpleasant of my life.”

The Reagan Administration’s frustration with the Boland Amendments inspired the diversion of profits from arms sales to support the Contras. That operation became a focus of the Iran-Contra investigation and the recent indictment of former Marine Lt. Col. Oliver L. North and others.

Boland came to Washington with the man who would later become the Speaker of the House, Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill Jr., in 1952. For more than 20 years, the two roomed together in an arrangement they described as a real-life “Odd Couple.” Boland was the neat and tidy half of the pair.

Boland did not endorse a potential successor.