A Miami Herald correspondent, he powered a team that won a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting and helped snare three other Pulitzers for the paper.

Alfonso Chardy, whose methodical reporting ushered The Miami Herald to a Pulitzer Prize for exposing the Iran-contra scandal in 1986 and contributed to three other Pulitzers that the newspaper won, died on April 9 in a Miami hospital. He was 72.

The cause was a heart attack, said his wife, Siobhan T. Morrisey.

Mr. Chardy was instrumental in uncovering a link between the illegal sale of weapons to Iran orchestrated by senior Reagan administration officials to facilitate the release of Western hostages, and the covert diversion of proceeds from that sale to support right-wing rebels in Nicaragua known as the contras.

He wrote more than half of the 10 articles that won the Pulitzer for national reporting in 1987 and revealed the role of Marine Lt. Col. Oliver L.

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