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The October Surprise
by Other America's Radio
An abridged transcript of a radio documentary program by "The
Other Americas Radio" and broadcast on public radio stations
across the nation. Supplemented by information presented in the
documentary movie "COVERUP, Behind the Iran Contra Affair,"
currently showing at independent movie theaters across the nation,
and "An Election Held Hostage," from the October 1988 issue of
Playboy. Editorial elaboration is in []'s.
[ed. This program does not purport to prove the allegations
presented in it, that is for a court of law. What it does do is make a
compelling case for furthur investigation.]
Narrator: November 1979: 52 americans were taken hostage in Iran.
The American public was held in suspense while the Carter
administration worked to bring the hostages home, first in the
failed 'Desert 1' rescue attempt, and then through negotiations with
the revolutionary Iranian government. In October of 1980 an
agreement was reached to unfreeze Iran's monetary assets for the
safe return of the hostages. For some reason, the hostages were not
released until January 20, 1981, the day Ronald Reagan was
inaugurated as president. In the dawn of the Reagan era, many, in
momentary blindness, neglected to seriously question the
implications of such an event. It is now charged that in the few
months before the 1980 presidential election, the tremors of a
covert action against America, by Americans, was shaking the
nation.
Narrator: In this special program we will examine the allegations
that members of the Reagan/Bush campaign cut a secret deal with
the revolutionary government in Iran before the 1980 election. We
will also explore what may have been the deliberate failure of
President Carter's 'Desert 1' hostage rescue mission.
Narrator: Barbara Honegger was a researcher and policy analyst
with the Reagan/Bush campaign in 1980. Subsequently she spent
two years in the white house as a policy advisor to President
Reagan. Honegger's investigation into this issue has revealed a
disturbing story of treason, blackmail, and sabotage.
Honegger: The very possibility that Carter could bring the hostages
home was close to certain to wreck a Reagan bid for the presidency.
So the Reagan campaign took phenomenal secret measures to
ensure that the Carter white house was not successful. Reagan's
1980 campaign manager, William Casey, was knowledgable, before
the fact, of the upcoming Carter Desert 1 rescue attempt of April,
1980. Now that is a phenomenal fact, because many of even the
highest level officers in Carter's own CIA were kept in the dark
about that very operation.
Narrator: Historian and author Donald Fried suggests links
between the Reagan campaign and the failed rescue operation.
Fried: Precisely the people in the intelligence community
commissioned to develop some kind of rescue for the hostages,
were clearly those elements of CIA who were close to Bush and
Casey, and demonstrably hostile to Carter.
Narrator: Was the CIA loyal to President Carter, or to candidate
Reagan? Johnathan Marshall is an investigative journalist and co-
author, along with Professor Peter Scott of UC at Berkeley, of the
book "The Iran Contra Connection". Like Fried, Marshall views
with suspicion some circumstances surrounding Carter's rescue
attempt.
Marshall: Brian Copeland, who had had some CIA connections in
the past, ran in the Washington Star, a hypothetical hostage rescue
piece, how he would do it, and it is so remarkably close to the
actual mission, and came only a few days before the mission took
place, that there is legitimate room to at least question whether it
was some kind of leak that came out in the form of fiction to
protect him from charges of sabotaging it. He printed a scenario for
a rescue in the desert, and that story was broadcast on radio Iraq &
Iran, and it was certainly heard in Iran. So the administration's most
closely guarded secret was in effect foreshadowed by this published
scenario.
Narrator: Several years after leaving the white house, Barbara
Honegger's research showed some startling links between the
players of the 1980 hostage rescue operation, and the main players
in the Iran-Contra scandal.
Honegger: ... and then of course we have Richard Secord, Oliver
North and Albert Hakim. Richard Secord was one of the chief
planners for the so- called failed Desert 1 rescue attempt, North
was involved in that rescue attempt, in the mother ship, which was
on the Turkish border awaiting the cue from Secord to fly in and
rescue the hostages, and Albert Hakim was in charge of the ground
operations of the rescue attempt, in particular, obtaining the trucks
and other vehicles which were going to be needed. Hakim skipped
town, left Tehran 24 hours before the rescue was to take place, and
the reason for that, as detailed in my research documentation, was
that Secord, North and Hakim had no intention of seeing Desert 1
carry through, and so sabotaged the operation. Narrator: The
hostage rescue team consisted of 8 helicopters, 6 C130 transport
planes and 93 delta force commandos. But delta force never made it
to Tehran. Only 5 of the 8 helicopters reached the site of Desert 1
in operable condition. According to General Samuel Wilson, who
investigated the many failures of the rescue mission, the pentagon's
review panel found negligence on a level surprising even to those
hardened to military incompetence. This is only one of many
strange facts surrounding the rescue mission. Honegger takes us
back to Tehran during the rescue attempt:
Honegger: There were a number of interesting incidences which
occurred in Tehran that night. The 53'rd hostage, Cynthia Dwyer,
who was in Iran and who had not yet been taken hostage, told
Reverend Moore, an american minister who was there and
interviewing her at the time by phone, that the CIA had sabotaged
the rescue attempt. She told him that immediately after the so-
called aborted failure. And we also know from Rev. Moore that a
Mullah who was at a prayer meeting heard a siren that went off in
Tehran that night, and stood up and said, 'God is great, God is
good, your helicopters have just crashed in the desert.' There are a
number of other reasons and independent sources we have for a
sabotage, but it was definitely sabotage and there was advance,
multiple failure planning.
Narrator: The failed rescue mission left 8 men dead and 3
helicopters in the desert filled with classified documents which fell
into the Iranian's hands.
Narrator: The possibility of Carter's success in bringing the 52
hostages home sent tremors through the Reagan/Bush campaign
headquarters. Honegger was working for the campaign at the time:
Honegger: Richard Wirthland, who was the campaign's pollster,
had determined that an 'october surprise', which was a successful
attempt by Carter to release the hostages and bring them home
before the election, would be the death knell to a Reagan/Bush
presidency. That was determined by Reagan and Bush's pollster in
march of 1980, which, not coincidentally, was one month before
the sabotaged Desert 1 rescue mission. Marshall: The Reagan
people were extremely concerned about what they termed 'The
October Surprise', and Reagan's campaign manager, William Casey,
later to become the head of the CIA, was running what he termed an
'intelligence operation' against the Carter camp. This first came out
when David Stockman revealed that Reagan had prepared for his
TV debates with Carter using a stolen briefing book. We know now
that the espionage operation was much broader than just stealing
briefing books. It included former military officers, CIA people,
FBI agents and the like, who tapped into the Carter camp, into the
intelligence bureaucracy, to find out whether this october surprise
would actually happen, because if it did, it would have cost Reagan
the election.
Narrator: Was the CIA loyal to Carter, or to Casey? In the wake of
the Watergate scandal and the findings of CIA abuses by the
Church committee in the mid '70s, Carter's new CIA chief,
Stansfield Turner, removed around 600 people from their jobs in
covert operations. This made for a very demoralised intelligence
network. Congressional investigations have since revealed that
active duty CIA officers were working with the Reagan/Bush
campaign. Peter Scott, co-author of "The Iran Contra Connection:"
Scott: When all these covert operators were fired in the 1970's, they
didn't just start opening restaraunts or working in bookstores. They
were people who were very skilled in covert manipulation of
political processes, and they essentially ganged up to find and elect
a candidate who would put them back in the covert operations
business, and Reagan and Bush were only too eager to be that kind
of candidate.
[ From the Playboy article: Shortly after the Shah was deposed,
Carter chewed out the CIA for misinterpreting the unrest in Iran. He
chastised the Director of CIA, Stansfield Turner, and reorganized
or fired much of the Middle East division. Relations between the
white house and CIA grew increasingly hostile. "There was no
doubt that the CIA was more Republican and didn't like
Democrats," says admiral Turner. "And I'm certain that many hoped
a Republican would return to the white house." "The Carter
administration had made a serious mistake," noted Charlie
Beckwith, the colonel in charge of the Desert 1 rescue team. "A lot
of the old whores -- guys with lots of street sense and experience --
left the agency." (and went to work for the Reagan campaign, the
article alleges) ]
Narrator: In october of 1980, Casey decided to create the october
surprise working group.
Honegger: Richard Allen was head of the october surprise working
group. It met every morning to try to come up with ways to try to
prevent Carter from bringing the hostages home. We do know from
published accounts, in the Knight Ridder papers across the country,
that Richard Allen met with Robert McFarlane and an alleged
emmissary from Khomeni's regime in Washington in early october
of 1980 to discuss a deal to delay the release of the hostages until
after the 1980 election. There is no question that that meeting
happened, Allen and McFarlane have acknowledged that it did.
Narrator: McFarlane told reporters that the Iranian that approached
him was referred to the Reagan/Bush campaign, but was later
judged to be a fraud and dismissed. According to Allen, allegations
of a secret deal are absolute baloney. Honegger: Allen and
McFarlane deny that any deal was cut, but the bulk of the evidence
shows that that's not the case. For instance, Allen, in late november
of 1986 on the Mcneil-Leherer news hour, referred to a deal
between Reagan and Iran. He was being interviewed at the time,
and he was referring to the very first day that Reagan was president.
Allen recalled for the audience that he had told Reagan that there
was a 53'rd hostage, Cynthia Dwyer, who had not been released,
and Reagan responded, 'You get the Iranians on the phone for me,
and I'm going to tell them that our deal is off unless she is released.'
Well, you would have expected the interviewer to have jumped up
and said, 'Just a minute, sir, what deal was that?' Now the reason
that that had to have been, in my studied opinion, a deal between
Reagan and Khomeni, made before Reagan was president, is
because at the time that Reagan made that phone call to the
Iranians, all of Carter's deals with Khomeni had been consumated.
So, when Reagan referred to a deal with the Iranians, he had to
have been referring to a separate deal.
Narrator: Because Iran's arsenal was comprised of US supplied
weapons, they were dependent on US spare parts and ammunition
to fight their war with Iraq. On October 22, during lengthy
negotiations between the Carter white house and Iran, the Iranian's
persistent demand for US weapons was suddenly dropped. The
Iranians no longer linked the release of the hostages to obtaining
military spare parts from the US. Iran's president at the time, Bani-
Sadr, explains why, although facing war with Iraq, Iranian
negotiators no longer demanded these essential military supplies:
(voice of Bani-Sadr, translator over-dubbed:) It is now very clear
that there were two separate agreements, one the official agreement
with Carter in Algeria, the other, a secret agreement with another
party, which, it is now apparent, was Reagan. They made a deal
with Reagan that the hostages should not be released until after
Reagan became president. So, then in return, Reagan would give
them arms. We have published documents which show that US
arms were shipped, via Israel, in March, about 2 months after
Reagan became president.
Narrator: During this interview in Paris, the former Iranian
president gave copies of the weapons contracts to the Other
Americas Radio. Bani- Sadr then went on to charge, that former
CIA men, including Casey and Gorbanifar, had collaborated in
engineering this treasonous deal.
Narrator: Shortly after being deposed, while in exile in Paris, the
former president of Iran said he received military intelligence
reports which noted that George Bush and Richard Allen were
among those who had met with Iranian representatives at the hotel
Raphael in Paris, to finalize the deal. Honegger: One of the
founders of Hezbollah, the pro-Iran terrorist organization which has
blown up our marine barracks, and also our emassies in Kuwait and
Beruit, sent a representative to the paris meeting before the 1980
election, to meet with Richard Allen [Reagan's first national
security advisor], George Bush, Donald Gregg [at the time, Carter's
CIA liaison, later to become Bush's national security advisor, a
position he still holds], [Manucher Gorbanifar and Albert Hakim,
who were and are active in the CIA and international arms trade,
and who were central figures in the Iran Contra investigation, were
also present] and other officials of the CIA to cut the secret deal
with the Reagan campaign to delay the release of our hostages in
exchange for arms, which began being shipped to Iran in 1981.
[COVERUP claims that this meeting was originally arranged
between Iran and representatives of the Carter administration. It
seems that Iran, after suffering heavy losses in it's war with Iraq,
was anxious to get it's hands on military spare parts and
ammunition, and was proposing a hostage release in exchange.
Officially, Donald Gregg was there in his capacity as a
representative of the Carter white house, but in fact his loyalties lay
with his former CIA boss, George Bush. Thus, instead of arranging
for a pre-election hostage release, they arranged that the hostages
not be released until after Reagan was in the white house. Carter
has kept silent on this issue, although he was recently confronted
by Larry King on his talk show, and acknowledged that he did have
reports during the campaign that there was a deal between the
Iranians and the Reagan campaign.]
[The authors of the Playboy article wrote former President Carter
regarding these allegations. The text of Carter's reply follows:
"We have had reports since late summer of 1980 about Reagan
campaign officials dealing with Iranians concerning delayed release
of the american hostages. I chose to ignore the reports. Later, as
you know, former Iranian president Bani-Sadr gave several
interviews stating that such an agreement was made involving Bud
McFarlane, George Bush and perhaps Bill Casey. By this time, the
elections were over and the results could not be changed. I have
never tried to obtain any evidence about these allegations but have
trusted that investigations and historical records would someday let
the truth be known." ]
Narrator: Bani-Sadr said this meeting took place sometime during
the last two weeks of October 1980. We checked the New York
Times computer, Nexus, which revealed no mention of any public
appearances by George Bush from October 21 to the 27, just one
week before the 1980 election. Barbara Honegger recalls an
incident that occurred during the same time period of October 21 to
27, when she was working at the Reagan Campaign headquarters in
Arlington, Virginia: Honegger: In late october, as part of my job on
the writing staff of the national campaign headquarters, I was
required every night to cover the news. I went in to the operations
center, which was the nerve center, the communications center for
the Reagan campaign, to cover the 11 oclock news. As I did so, I
was amazed to see a complete 180 degree shift in the mood, from
what it had been over the previous week or two. Because of the
worry about the october surprise, the mood had been one of anxiety
and tension, and suddenly there was a party atmosphere. I walked
up to a woman who worked for the man who was in charge of the
operations center, and asked what was going on, and she said "Oh,
haven't you heard? We don't have to worry about the october
surprise. Dick cut a deal." She was standing next to a heavy set
gentleman whom I didn't recognize, and I said "Dick? You mean
Dick Allen?" and she then got jabbed in the ribs by the man and
just said, "Let it go .. Dick cut a deal."
Narrator: A deal with Khomeni? Investigative journalist John
Marshall shares some doubt:
Marshall: There is one logical problem that has to be addressed. It
doesn't rule the theory out, but to have made a bargain with the
Iranians, to delay the hostage release until after the election, would
have given the Iranians on a silver platter the biggest blackmail card
imaginable. If we think of the arms for hostages deal, that alone
caused one of the biggest scandals in recent american history. That
at least was for what you might call a good cause: to release the
hostages early. To delay the release of hostages for domestic
political gain, in return for arms, would have led to not only to
impeachment, but the drawing and quartering of everyone involved.
Honegger: In fact we do know, that the Khomeni regime, and
Hezbollah in particular, has been blackmailing the Reagan
administration ever since 1981. We know from Oliver North's own
notes, that profits from the Iranian arms sale were going to
Hezbollah right from the beginning. Millions of dollars worth of
profits, and because American hostages were not released as a
result of those payments, it is clear that in fact those were hush
money payments, because Hezbollah and the Iranians have been
blackmailing the Reagan administration, because of what they
know about the treasonous 1980 deal.
Narrator: Mansur Rafizadeh is a former chief of Savak, the Shah of
Iran's secret police. He was also a covert agent for the CIA, and was
in communication with factions in both the US and Iranian
governments during the hostage crisis:
Raf: The CIA asked me to get in touch with a powerful source
inside of Iran, so I took the liberty, before consulting with the CIA,
I demand, american government wants the hostages to be released,
that's the first step. The answer came back in a few days. You are
wrong. American government doesn't want the hostages to be
released, or possibly there's a government inside of the government,
or they're lying to us, or they're lying to you. That's not the demand.
What else do they want?
Narrator: George Bush had been director of the CIA during the
Ford administration, and still had many friends in the agency.
Former Savak chief Rafizadeh told The Other Americas Radio that
secret negotiations between Khomeni and CIA elements loyal to the
Reagan Bush campaign had arranged a deal to keep the hostages in
Iran until Reagan was in the white house.
Raf: ....and after the election was done, Khomeni was going to
release the hostages. Why Khomeni was going to release the
hostages, because he doesn't understand the system of government,
he thinks Reagan is in the white house tonight, he's going to put
Carter and his family in jail tomorrow morning, and, here we go.
But as soon as they told him, no no, still Carter is president, then,
the deal was made to release the hostages exactly, the moment
Ronald Reagan was president. (questioner: Did this have anything
to do with promises the Reagan campaign had made?) It was
promised for the arms. At the time the deal was that the hostages
would be released as soon as Reagan is in the office, and then they
will ship them arms. (questioner: And who made that agreement?)
CIA. And we learned about that agreement also, ahead of time.
General Louasi learned that they are going to send arms to
Khomeni, the deal is made, he told me that. I believe that, as much
involvement as William Casey had, and Richard Allen had, George
Bush has too. George Bush is intelligent, he's smart, he knows the
business. (questioner: he was apparently very popular in the CIA ..)
Yes, he was very popular in CIA, so I don't believe George Bush
was not involved in it, no he was involved. The other thing,
Khomeni did all the damage to Carter, he didn't do any bad thing to
Reagan. He released the hostages the moment Reagan was
president. The hostages were sitting in a plane, there's a
documentary film from CBS or NBC, anyone can watch it, the
guards were standing by with a radio. The moment Ronald Reagan
was president, they signaled the plane, they took off. Why they
didn't send them 2 days before? Why they didn't wait to the next
day to do it? And after, the shipment of arms starts from Tel-Aviv.
(questioner: and this is in 1981?) 1981, we are talking, not 1985.
And if anyone is going to tell me that the government of Israel
shipped arms to Iran without the knowledge or permission of the
american government, I don't believe it.
Narrator: On July 18, 1981, an Argentine cargo plane crashed on
the Turkish-Soviet border. It was loaded with weapons in transit
from Israel to Iran. High level Israeli officials have said that the
Reagan administration knew and approved of the arms dealings the
crash exposed. The cargo of spare parts and ammunition were all
american made. From reports in the New York Times and Wall
Street Journal, we know of two separate groups of shipments in
1981. The first, as we have already heard, was shipped through
Israel, with authorization from Reagan administration officials. The
second group of arms was shipped by an Iranian born arms
merchant, Cyrus Hashemi. Hashemi had worked for the CIA,
beginning in 1975. He died suddenly of a rare form of acute
leukemia in 1986. Congressional investigators noted that the CIA
has chemical injections and sprays that can cause such symptoms.
One informant said he was told by US customs officials that
Hashemi had been 'bumped off' by government agents.
Honegger: Cyrus Hashemi was murdered by government agents
because of his knowledge of the 1981 links. And Mr. Hashemi,
before he was murdered, which was in July 1986 in London
England, Hashemi had told collegues and associates that the
original 1981 shipments were part of necessary arrangements and
deals to accomplish the delay of the release of the original 52
hostages.
Narrator: Is it a coincidence that other key witnesses to this entire
affair have died under similarly questionable circumstances? The
scandal may be bigger than anyone imagines. The alleged deal to
prevent Carter's re-election in 1980 may be at the root of the
contragate scandal. According to an Athens newspaper account of
tapes made of Robert McFarlane, the US had shipped 1.3 billion
dollars worth of military equipment to Iran by 1986, and a total 5
billion dollars worth was promised. As we have heard from former
US operative and Savak agent Rafizadeh, these shipments began in
1981, when there were no more US hostages left in Iran.
Raf: They are making remarks all the time that we will disclose the
secret tapes, the secret information. And I believe that the Reagan
administration is blackmailed by Khomeni, because they have so
much dirt going on between them.
Narrator: Congressman John Conyers has wondered why the
Reagan administration approved weapons shipments to Iran in early
1981. Conyers is probing contacts between Iran and the 1980
Reagan-Bush campaign. The charge leveled in this program of
unlawful activity by Richard Allen, George Bush and others, is one
of treason. It requires further investigation. Honegger: These
individuals have had an arrogant contempt for the will of the
american people as expressed through the congress of the US and
the laws of the US. I know, having been in this white house, and
from my research since, that this contempt for the rule of law in this
country, comes because these people have an erroneous belief that
they are serving a higher law.
[COVERUP states that this "higher law" is the fight against
communism.]
[From COVERUP:
Peter Scott: I think the real issue was that both the administration
and most of the people in the congressional committees were
frightened that the real scandals, the contra-drug scandal, for
instance, would really threaten any future conduct of covert
operations that had been handled in the past, and so they were
trying, very deliberately, to limit the damage, this was damage
control, look only at the Iran arms sales, and the diversion to the
contras.
Honegger: The bottom line is that the Iran Contra committee, and
the Walsh investigation, because their mandates only took them
back to 1984, were in and of themselves a coverup. ]
[ COVERUP claims that even this scandal is really just the tip of
the iceberg. Oliver North testified during the senate hearings that
Casey wanted an 'Off the shelf, self financing, independent covert
operations capability' outside the checks and balances of executive
and congressional oversight, for the purpose of fighting world
communism. This independent entity has existed for some time, it
is claimed, finances itself by international arms and drug running,
and has it's own cold war agenda and business interests. Many of
the key players, such as Hakim, Gorbanifar and Secord, have strong
ties to the US and international intelligence communities, which
greatly facilitates their smuggling operations, enabling them to
bypass airport customs with ease. The well publicised contacts
between contra gun runners and the underworld probably facilitates
the internal distribution and sale of drugs in the US.
The international arms trade and international drug trade amounts
to hundreds of billions of dollars annually. These people are in a
unique position to ease the passage of contraband across
international borders, and the few tens of millions they skim off the
top is easily borne by the market. The real price is paid in the
steady erosion of our constitution. ]
Narrator: The October Surprise was produced by Eric Schwartz,
Carolyn Soular, and Dale Lewis of The Other Americas Radio. The
Other Americas Radio is a non- profit, independent broadcast
group based in Santa Barbara California. For a free catalog of our
taped programs please write to: The Other Americas Radio P.O
Box 85 Santa Barbara, CA 93102
[COVERUP was produced by The Empowerment Project, a non
profit group based in California]
["An Election Held Hostage", by Abbie Hoffman and Johnathan
Silvers, was published in the October 1988 issue of Playboy]
[Also see the PBS special, "The Secret Government," hosted by Bill
Moyers, which explores the "Off the shelf, self financing,
independent covert operations" entity mentioned by North, and
traces it back to its cold war beginnings. This movie won an Emmy
for best documentary film. It's quite chilling.]
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