October Surprise - 52 U.S. Hostages bargain

January 20, 1981, New York Times
Reagan Takes Oath as 40th President;
Promises an 'era of national renewal'
Minutes later, 52 U.S. Hostages in Iran
Fly to Freedom after 444 Day Ordeal

New York Times - March 5, 1987
Reagan Concedes 'Mistake'
In Arms-For-Hostage Policy;
Takes Blame, Vows Change

Los Angeles Times; April 18, 1991
Written by Alexander Cockburn

The central premise, surely correct, is that back in the fall of 1980 an overriding fear of Ronald Reagan's campaign strategists was that President Jimmy Carter would win the release of U.S. hostages held in Iran in time to get them home before the November election and thus triumph in the polls.

Against this possilibity of an "October Surprise," so the theory goes, such Reagan operatives as the late William J. Casey, campaign boss and subsequent head of the CIA, held secret parleys with the Iranians in which a deal was hatched: The hostages would be held till after the election, and in return the new administration would send arms to Tehran.

Behind the Iran-Contra Affair
This film uncovers the web of lies and deceit that TV could not tell. Among the substantiated charges: in 1980 George Bush sold arms to the Iranians; and, a secret society of modern-day pirates wages wars around the world profiting from sales of weapons, drugs and assassinations.

October Surprise
America's Hostages in Iran and the Election of Ronald Reagan: Oliver North, Israel's Mossad, Ayaotallah Khomeini, and an indepth look into the secret government, with evidence and shocking detail.

"Ronald Reagan cut a deal with Iran before the 1980 election to send arms in exchange for Iran’s agreeing to delay the release of our 52 hostages." - Barbara Honegar, former White House Policy Analyst under Reagan and a member of Bush’s 1980 election campaign staff

Ayatollah Khomeini arrives in Iran
delivered on French Military plane February 1, 1979

Congressional Record during Iran-contra hearings:

Chief Counsel, House of Representatives, John Nields, Jr. - Even [Manocher] Ghaboniffer knew that you were supporting the Contras?
Lieutenant Col. Oliver North - Yes he did, Usbesji knew it, the name had been in the papers in Moscow, it had been all over the Daniel Ortega news cast, Radio Havana was broadcasting, it was in ever newspaper in the land.
Nields - All of our enemies knew it, and you wanted to conceal it to the United States Congress?
North - We wanted to be able to deny a covert operation.

George Bush and Oliver North worked on FEMA early 80s, created to deal with domestic terrorism Federal Emergency Management Agency

Representative Jack Brooks (Texas) - Colonel North, in your work at the NSC, were you not assigned at one time to work on plans for the continuity of government in the event of a major disaster?
Senator Daniel Inouye - I believe that touches upon highly sensitive and classified area, so may I request that you not touch upon that please.
Representative Jack Brooks (Texas) - I was particularly concerned because I have read in the Miami papers and several others that there had been a plan developed by that same agency, a contingency plan in the event of an emergency that would suspend the American Constitution.
Senator Daniel Inouye - May I request that that matter not be touched upon.

Representative Jack Brooks (Texas) - Instead of operating within rules and law, we have been supplying lethal weapons to terrorist nations, trading arms for hostages, involving the U.S. government in military activity in direct contravention of the law, diverting public funds into private pockets and secret unofficial activities, selling access to the President for thousands of dollars, dispensing cash and foreign money orders out of a White House safe, accepting gifts and falsifying papers to cover it up, altering and shredding national security documents, lying the Congress. Now, I believe that the American people understand that democracy cannot withstand that kind of abuse.

Interview with Rep Jack Brooks:

"When you got back to examining what they had done, they systematically destroyed and shredded all of the documentation, as much as they can get, hours of shredding, altering some of the documents that have remained, stole what they couldn't shred; now this gives you an indication that there maybe a few things that they didn't want the public to know."

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