Always An October Surprise

Manipulation of Elections Is An American Tradition

U.S. Embassy Hostages Paraded After Their Capture In 1979

The current Presidential campaign reveals openly aggressive divisiveness between powerful forces. Misleading stratagems and cutthroat schemes to win at any cost are readily perceived. In past elections, political rivals more often concealed their dirty tricks, employing hidden means in attempts to attain victory. Whether applied in full view or covertly, fraud and deceit became standard electoral tactics decades ago in determining the future of the United States.

Installed in a coup to protect foreign oil interests, the Shah of Iran was overthrown by a revolution in 1979 and escaped the country. By April of that year, a national referendum had embraced an Islamic republic, whose leader Ayatollah Khomeini declared that America “is the great Satan, the wounded snake.”

This sentiment was partially in response to the United States giving refuge to the despised monarch, though largely due to years of foreign support one of the most repressive regimes in the Middle East. The hostility intensified on 4 November 1979, when Iranian students, supported by government forces, stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, seizing the Americans who worked there.

The enduring unrest of the Iran hostage crisis led to incumbent President Carter losing the 1980 election. Reagan defeated him soundly; Carter’s inability to bring the hostages home was viewed by many as an intolerable weakness.

After over a year of captivity, they were released on 20 January 1981. It was also Reagan’s inauguration day, and the concurrence of these events was attributed to Iran’s submission to the new president’s hostile threats during his campaign.

The world was asked to accept that the Iranian government despised Carter, but was daunted by Reagan and feared what he might do to end the crisis. For those who understood recent Iranian history, this explanation didn’t fly; the revolutionary government was incapable of cowering to any U.S. intimidation. 

Questions about the strange and unlikely timing of the release of the hostages were overshadowed by relief that they were finally home. As President Carter stated, they were “alive, free, and well.”

By 1987, ongoing events in the Middle East further eclipsed most interest in unraveling the Iran hostage crisis, including a long, brutal war between Iran and Iraq. However, a growing scandal in the U.S. began a new inquiry leading back to the 1980 Presidential election.

During the Iran-Contra hearings, questions emerged about the crux of U.S.-Iran relations. The Reagan administration had been engaged in an array of illegal covert activities that trailed back to the early 1980s.

A secret intelligence group in the White House funded the Nicaraguan Contras by selling weapons to Iran, including ground-to-air missiles. The arming of the Contras was a stunning discovery; the Administration’s secret sales defied a direct congressional prohibition. More importantly, it raised the glaring question of how the Reagan administration’s covert relationship with Iran evolved to supplying them with sophisticated weapons. 

Reagan had appeared increasingly hostile to Iran throughout his Presidency. The revelation that his administration had armed one of its greatest enemies was startling and duplicitous. Further investigation showed that the U.S. tolerated weapons sales to Iran by Israel and private companies since the early 1980s. 

The mystery deepened as more details of the Iran-Contra Affair came to light. In the hearings, a witness testified that Reagan had secretly sent a birthday cake and a personally inscribed bible to Ayatollah Khomeini, a leader who continued to frame the U.S. as the great satan.

Unbiased researchers and reporters recognized that the dispatch of special gifts was the gesture of an old friend. Growing circumstantial evidence indicated that the Reagan-Khomeini relationship started during the U.S. presidential election of 1980. The Republican campaign appeared to have negotiated a delayed release of the hostages, furthering their suffering and risking their lives, solely for political gain. 

President Carter’s administration had been diligently working to bring the hostages home. From the Republican standpoint, their return before the vote in November would have been an October Surprise, strengthening Carter’s chance of re-election.

If the charges were true, the Republican candidates and campaign staff alleged to be involved in treasonous activities were all private citizens at the time. They had no authority to engage in any way with a hostile foreign government, particularly to influence the results of the U.S. presidential election.

An Impossible Allegation

Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, the first president of the Islamic Republic of Iran after the 1979 revolution, forced to flee in 1981, has consistently stated that he knew of the deal between Reagan and Khomeini. His interviews and statements over decades have been marginalized.

Gary Sick, a retired U.S. Navy captain and a Middle East scholar who served on the National Security Council under Presidents Ford and Carter, was the most influential proponent of further investigation. He wrote an op-ed for the New York Times in 1991 (and shortly after, a book, October Surprise) that gave serious credence to the possibility of a successful effort by the Republican campaign to delay the release of the hostages. The allegation was taken more seriously because of his excellent credentials and detailed research. For his efforts, he became the subject of repeated abuse and attacks for daring to present a case for the reexamination of the alleged criminal activity. 

The Shakespearean adage could not have been better applied; the critics protested too much. The deniers’ vehemence only added incentive for investigators — who continued to find reports, witnesses, and circumstantial evidence that a deal had been made. Yet anyone who approached the topic with an open mind was deemed a liar, a profiteer, or a conspiracist.

Despite efforts to dismiss the allegations as a conspiracy theory, a huge problem emerged for those who sought to marginalize and scorn researchers. Some of the former U.S. embassy hostages believed that foul play was a strong possibility and that they had been political pawns. As no one dared disparage those who had survived the ordeal, their request to Congress in 1992 for an inquiry was honored and a formal investigation by a joint Congressional Task Force was initiated. 

Unwelcome Questions

The White House was on the defensive during the months of closed testimony and information gathering. If proven that the Reagan-Bush campaign had executed a coup in a deal with Iran to secure the Presidency, it would be a severe blow to Washington and the intelligence community. The sitting President and former CIA director, George H.W. Bush, was a subject of the probe. 

Washington’s powerful legislators, including the Democratic majority leading the investigation, had a difficult choice. An affirmative finding could further undermine any faith in the electoral process for years. 

Another path proved less threatening: going through the motions of a thorough investigation with no intention of finding the truth, would allow the press and the public to believe the allegation had no merit. 

Even with this approach, it was necessary to fend off growing evidence of what appeared to be a successful, secret coup.

The qualifications for proof were increased. Washington had already created an elevated standard for political lawlessness, higher than necessary for a murder conviction; if there was no smoking gun, there was no crime. 

Thus facts and truth had little weight in this inquiry. By its conclusion, the Washington establishment concurred there was no substance to the allegation that a deal had been made. Along with denying that a heinous crime was committed by ruthless political forces, a more complex conspiracy was seeded by the establishment.

It was necessary to ensure there were no serious challenges to the Congressional investigation; thus, those who had dared to follow the evidence and raise unanswered questions were scorned and alienated by the mainstream press. Devious fabricators were blamed for creating a dangerous myth. 

The details reported outside of the official inquiry added to public doubt about the integrity of President George H.W. Bush, who lost to Bill Clinton in the 1992 election. However, the Congressional investigation served its purpose at the time, assuring the public that the U.S. had not suffered a disastrous coup. The lack of political will and the numerous omissions are not apparent within the 250-page Joint Report.

If not for one person’s efforts, it would have stood unchallenged. Due to the resolve and relentless diligence of investigative reporter Robert Parry, including his review of unpublished Task Force files after the report was released, we now know that many pieces of evidence were ignored or omitted. 

While he worked to reveal the weakness of the inquiry, Parry also tracked how most editors, reporters, and news outlets blindly debunked the story,

Smoking Guns

A central focus of the investigation, followed by the press, was whether William Casey, Reagan’s campaign manager, and later his CIA director, had attended a key meeting with Iranians in Madrid in September of 1980. A weak alibi for Casey’s whereabouts was accepted, leading to a determination that he couldn't have been in Spain at the time of any meeting. This was presented as a key revelation serving to blunt the inquiry.

Almost 20 years after the report was issued, Robert Parry located a 1991 Bush White House memo confirming Casey’s Madrid trip; it had been withheld from the Task Force. The document would have had an explosive effect during the investigation but was virtually ignored when revealed in 2011. 

Parry, a noble and brilliant award-winning reporter, was marginalized and relentlessly attacked. His sin was fearlessly doubting conventional wisdom, particularly the objectivity of the Joint Report. 

Parry’s challenge of the established version of the events of 1980 yielded a trove of details strongly supporting the allegations.

The Agenda Endures

One of the greatest crimes in U.S. political history had been committed, and the perpetrators were highly motivated to prevent any inquiry from revealing the truth. 

The cover-up set a precedent for additional electoral crimes.

By the time of the October Surprise investigation, those accused of a conspiracy held the most powerful positions in the U.S. government, including the presidency and leadership in the intelligence community. There was an alleged cabal in the CIA that gave direct support to the coup. All of these forces had immense clout and influence over Congress and the press. 

The conspirators used everything in their power to ensure that their lawlessness was never exposed. The successful secret deal made with Iran emboldened those involved in the crime and empowered them to continue underhanded political operations.

No great leap in logic is needed to presume that after witnessing a successful, secret coup in 1980, some of Washington’s neo-conservative politicians, both Republicans and Democrats, would continue to expand their outrageous behavior.

The degradation of respect for constitutional law in the United States today can be viewed as securing its foundation in the villainy of 1980.

A Recurring Pattern

A Winning-at-all-costs methodology and manipulating international events is an effective electoral tactic. Delaying the release of hostages in 1980 is symptomatic of a self-serving criminal ideology where neither the ends nor the means are justifiable.

Misguiding or intimidating voters or using the courts to gain electoral advantage have become standard procedures for Republicans and Democrats. 

In this election year, both major political parties are pointing fingers at each other with claims of felonious schemes and illicit interference. Breaking the rules has become an entrenched methodology applied to obtaining office and power, justified by self-righteousness.

The ongoing repercussions of unethical and illegal activities surrounding Presidential politics are grave symptoms of democracy’s demise in the United States. It is a chronic and perverse condition that began decades ago — and will only be cured by a revival of unquestionable standards that produce unequivocal results.

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