October Surprise of 1980 is no rumor!

[Tennessee Gal]

Consortium News has several articles on this: http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/xfile.html

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD

By Gary Sick

~snip~

Then two years ago, I began collecting documentation for a book on the Reagan Administration's policies toward Iran. That effort grew into a massive computerized data base, the equivalent of many thousands of pages. As I sifted through this mass of material, I began to recognize a curious pattern in the events surrounding the 1980 election. Increasingly, I began to focus on that period, and interviewed a wide range of sources. I benefited greatly from the help of many interested, talented investigative journalists.

In the course of hundreds of interviews, in the U.S., Europe and the Middle East, I have been told repeatedly that individuals associated with the Reagan-Bush campaign of 1980 met secretly with Iranian officials to delay the release of the American hostages until after the Presidential election. For this favor, Iran was rewarded with a substantial supply of arms from Israel.

~snip~

From Oct. 15 to Oct. 20, events came to a head in a series of meetings in several hotels in Paris, involving members of the Reagan-Bush campaign and high-level Iranian and Israeli representatives. Accounts of these meetings and the exact number of participants vary considerably among the more than 15 sources who claim direct or indirect knowledge of some aspect of them. There is, however, widespread agreement on three points: William Casey was a key participant: the Iranian representatives agreed that the hostages would not be released prior to the Presidential election on Nov. 4; in return, Israel would serve as a conduit for arms and spare parts to Iran.

At least five of the sources who say they were in Paris in connection with these meetings insist that George Bush was present for at least one meeting. Three of the sources say that they saw him there.

Immediately after the Paris meetings, things began to happen. On Oct. 21, Iran publicly shifted its position in the negotiations with the Carter Administration, disclaiming any further interest in receiving military equipment. From my position at the N.S.C., I learned that Cyrus Hashemi and another Iranian arms dealer secretly had reported to State Department officials that Iran had decided to hold the hostages until after the elections.

Between Oct. 21 and Oct. 23, Israel sent a planeload of F-4 fighter aircraft tires to Iran in contravention of the U.S. boycott and without informing Washington. Cyrus Hashemi, using his own contacts began privately organizing military shipments to Iran. On Oct. 22, the hostages were suddenly dispersed to different locations. And a series of delaying tactics in late October by the Iranian Parliament stymied all attempts by the Carter Administration to act on the hostage question until only hours before Election Day.

After the election, the lame-duck Carter Administration resumed hostage negotiations through Algerian intermediaries, but the talks stalled. On Jan. 15, Iran did an about-face, offering a series of startling concessions that reignited the talks and resulted in a final agreement in the last few hours of Jimmy Carter's Presidency. The hostages were released on Jan. 21, 1981, minutes after Ronald Reagan was sworn in as President.

Almost immediately thereafter, according to Israeli and American former officials, arms began to flow to Iran in substantial quantities. A former senior official in the Israeli Ministry of Defense told me that the shipments by air and sea involved hundreds of millions of dollars worth of equipment and that detailed lists of each shipment were provided to senior officials in the Reagan Administration. Moshe Arens, the Israeli Ambassador to Washington in 1982, told The Boston Globe in October 1982 that Israeli's arms shipments to Iran at this time were coordinated with the U.S. Government `at almost the highest of levels.'

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1992_cr/h920205-october-clips.htm

[UL_Approved]

1. The Iran-Contra scandal

Isn't this the Iran-Contra scandal? If it isn't, this is really a treasure. It just amazes me how people can go along with this stuff, and even more so when the hearings came out before the 1984 election. I am beginning to seriously wonder if Reagan didn't just perform a coup in his second term, and completely fabricated the election victory. When will people in the United States learn to tell the difference between a military threat and a hoax?

[Octafish]

2. The DEM Lee Hamilton helped KILL the investigation...

... the same Hamilton who helped BURY the 9-11 Commission.

Us old folks with a working brain see a pattern.

BTW: It wasn't Reagan who was in charge of the White House. Pruneface's handler and the nation's chimp executive was veep George Herbert Walker Bush. The same Poppy who's name appears in just about every nefarious thing since 22 Nov 1963.

[Tennessee Gal]

3. A prelude to Iran Contra

GHWB was always dirty!

[many a good man]

4. NOT Iran-Contra

The October surprise of 1980 had to do with Republican operatives thwarting Carter's attempts to release the hostages in the days BEFORE the election. The quid pro quo was about direct shipments of arms and spare parts to the Ayatollah in exchange for holding on to the hostages until after the election.

After the election, arming Iran continued at a faster and faster pace. The proceeds were growing and only much later were cycled into arms for the Contras.

I almost blew a gasket last week when MSNBC did a little piece on October surprises of years past. They stated that Carter trying to free the hostages was the THE October surprise of that election. Talk about half-truth!

[Octafish]

5. Yes, Tennessee, there is a BFEE.

The backbone of the Secret Government are the wretches who subvert the Constitution to keep the majority in check. Who do they work for? The monied class who bankrolled the NAZIs before World War 2 and have done all they can to keep the world in poverty and at war since.

Excellent topic, Tennessee Gal! Robert Parry and Consortiumnews have done a great service to our country and planet. Here's another excellent recap:


Reprise of the October Surprise: Is the Worst Surprise Still to Come?

By Richard H. Curtiss

"Congress will not formally investigate charges that the Reagan campaign stole the election in 1980, in large part because Israel's supporters on Capitol Hill do not want to put the spotlight on Israel's role, which during that period sold weapons to Iran in blatant disregard of President Carter."

—Prediction by Newsweek correspondent Eleanor Clift, on the NBC television talk show The McLaughlin Group, May 12, 1991

EXCERPT...

The Story Begins

It is here that the story of illegal dealings with Khomeini intermediaries by Reagan campaign officials begins. Bob Woodward and Walter Pincus of The Washington Post were the first to report that one such meeting took place in Washington, DC. It was held Oct. 2 at the L'Enfant Plaza Hotel. Reagan campaign participants were Richard Allen, subsequently the Reagan administration's first national security adviser; Marine Lt. Col. Robert (Bud) McFarlane, then an aide to Senator John Tower but subsequently also a Reagan administration national security adviser; and Allen aide Lawrence Silberman, who apparently set up the meeting and who presently is a judge on the Federal Court of Appeals in the national capital. A shadowy Iranian Jewish arms dealer, Hushang Lavie, says he was the Iranian principal. Allen says he was not, but that he has forgotten the name of the Iranian they met. Silberman and McFarlane wouldn't discuss the matter with the "Frontline" producers. All three Americans maintain, however, that they have lost any notes they made during or after the meeting.

Sick and the "Frontline" producers say that long before the meeting in the L'Enfant Plaza Hotel there were others, starting in early March of 1980, involving Reagan campaign manager William Casey, a former OSS operative and, subsequently, Reagan's first director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Casey's first meeting was in Washington, DC's Mayflower Hotel with two Iranian arms dealers, Cyrus and Jamshid Hashemi. The brothers, who also were involved in the Iranian dealings with the Carter administration, said Casey made it clear he wanted to prevent Carter from gaining political advantage from freeing the hostages.

Cyrus Hashemi subsequently reported some of this to the CIA before his sudden death in 1986, three months after cooperating with US Customs agents in a sting operation in which Israelis, Europeans and Americans were arrested on charges of conspiring to sell arms illegally. Jamshid Hashemi told Sick and the "Frontline" producers, however, that, after the Mayflower meeting, Casey and an unnamed US intelligence officer met Mehdi Karrubi, now speaker of the Iranian parliament, in Madrid in late July 1980, promising arms and to unfreeze Iranian assets if release of the hostages were delayed until after the election. The same threesome, Jamshid Hasherni said, met again in Madrid several weeks later, and at that meeting Karrubi agreed to cooperate with the Reagan campaign about the timing of the hostage release.

A Third Set of Meetings

There have been many reports about a third set of meetings, between Oct. 15 and Oct. 20, in various Paris hotels. Because literally dozens of witnesses claim knowledge of these meetings, details as to the participants vary. Most agree, however, that Casey was involved. Some claim involvement by CIA agent Donald Gregg, then a Carter administration national security aide and subsequently Vice President George Bush's chief of staff. Gregg, now US ambassador to Korea, says he was on vacation at a Delaware beach throughout the time period involved. He refused to be interviewed by the "Frontline" producers.

A few witnesses also claim to have seen George Bush in Paris, or to have heard from others that he was in Paris at the time of the meetings. These reports have so often and so vehemently been denied that they seem to have no substance. In fact, it is probably the persistence of some investigators like Barbara Honegger in advancing the reports of Bush's involvement that has cast a shadow over the credibility of the entire story, even as verifiable new details of the "October Surprise" continue to surface.

CONTINUED...

http://www.wrmea.com/backissues/0591/9105011.htm


And for your reading pleasure:

Ex-Reagan-Bush White House staffer Barbara Honneger wrote the original eye-witness skinny, "October Surprise."

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0944276466/ref=pd_sim_books_5/104-9929227-0153562?v=glance&s=books


Capt. Gary Sick, a member of the National Security Council staff for Carter, Reagan and Bush, wrote the insider's perspective in "October Surprise: America’s Hostages in Iran and the Election of Ronald Reagan."

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0812919890/ref=pd_sim_books_3/104-9929227-0153562?v=glance&s=books


Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, Speaker of Parliament? of Iran, wrote the Iranian perspective, "My Turn to Speak."

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0080405630/qid%3D1043119215/sr%3D11-1/ref%3Dsr%5F11%5F1/104-9929227-0153562#product-details


And, of course, Robert Parry's excellent "Trick or Treason."

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/187982308X/qid=1099142063/sr=1-26/ref=sr_1_26/104-9108995-8408716?v=glance&s=books