Part I: The Original October Surprise

Bush 1 Bush 2, they have always been liars and thugs, even if it meant keeping their own Nationals prisoners for longer, so that they could be elected. DEJA VU? American Hostages, Iran 1980

USA never retaliated this action of terror.

In fact the hostage taking helped Ronald Reagan administration to take advantage of situation. The hostages released only when Republican win the election and 52 American hostages were released simultaneously when Jimmy Carter is welcoming hostages in Germany and Reagan is entering White House!

By Robert ParryOctober 25, 2006

Editor’s Note: As the United States heads toward a pivotal election on Nov. 7, both Republicans and Democrats are worried about the prospect of an “October Surprise” that could alter the political dynamic in the next two weeks.

Though last-minute campaign surprises are probably as old as democracy itself, the phrase in its modern usage dates back just over a quarter century to 1980 when President Jimmy Carter was seeking the freedom of 52 American hostages in Iran. Then-vice presidential candidate George H.W. Bush fretted publicly that a hostage release might be an “October Surprise” that would catapult Carter to reelection.

Ironically, however, the 1980 “October Surprise” controversy came to refer to an alleged dirty trick by Bush and other Republicans that thwarted Carter from gaining the hostages’ freedom. Carter’s failure propelled Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr. to a landslide victory.

Arguably, the “October Surprise” of 1980 ushered in the modern era of GOP dominance, with the 12 years of the Reagan-Bush administrations. Arguably, too, the Democrats’ failure in December 1992 to get the truth out about the Republican chicanery set the stage for the Right’s congressional resurgence in 1994 and for today’s George W. Bush Era.

So, given the importance of the 1980 election in shaping today’s political terrain – and given the current interest in what might happen in the days ahead – we are publishing a series about the original October Surprise adapted from Robert Parry’s Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq:

History turned in December 1992 when the truth about what happened in the pivotal 1980 presidential election might finally have been revealed to the American people. Just a month after Bill Clinton defeated George H.W. Bush, the dam that had held back the 12-year-old secrets finally gave way.

An investigative House Task Force was putting the finishing touches on a report intended to debunk the longstanding October Surprise allegations of Republican interference with the Iranian hostage crisis in 1980. The bipartisan Task Force planned to treat the story as a conspiracy theory run wild.

But suddenly the Task Force found itself inundated by a flood of new evidence going the other way, indicating that the long-whispered suspicions of a grotesque Republican dirty trick a dozen years earlier were true. >>>CONT

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Robert Parry Part II: The Original October Surprise

By Robert ParryOctober 27, 2006

Editor’s Note: Part 2 of our series about the "Original October Surprise" of 1980 focuses on the role of banker David Rockefeller and his collaboration with Republicans during the Iranian hostage crisis, which doomed Jimmy Carter's presidency and helped open the door to the modern era of GOP dominance.

To read the first part of the series, dealing with the inept investigative work of Indiana Democrat Lee Hamilton, click here.

The series is adapted from Robert Parry’s Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq:

On March 23, 1979, late on a Friday afternoon, Chase Manhattan Bank Chairman David Rockefeller and his longtime aide Joseph Verner Reed arrived at a town house in the exclusive Beekham Place neighborhood on New York’s East Side. They were met inside by a small, intense and deeply worried woman who had seen her life turned upside down in the last two months.

Iran’s Princess Ashraf, the strong-willed twin sister of the Iran’s long-time ruler, had gone from wielding immense behind-the-scenes clout in the ancient nation of Persia to living in exile – albeit a luxurious one. With hostile Islamic fundamentalists running her homeland, Ashraf also was troubled by the plight of her ailing brother, the ousted Shah of Iran, who had fled into exile, first to Egypt and then Morocco.

Now, she was turning for help to the man who ran one of the leading U.S. banks, one which had made a fortune serving as the Shah’s banker for a quarter century and handling billions of dollars in Iran’s assets. Ashraf’s message was straightforward. She wanted Rockefeller to intercede with Jimmy Carter and ask the President to relent on his decision against granting the Shah refuge in the United States.

A distressed Ashraf said her brother had been given a one-week deadline to leave his current place of refuge, Morocco. “My brother has nowhere to go,” Ashraf pleaded, “and no one else to turn to.” [See David Rockefeller, Memoirs]

Spurned Appeals

Carter had been resisting appeals to let the Shah enter the United States, fearing that admitting him would endanger the personnel at the U.S. Embassy in Teheran and other U.S. interests. In mid-February 1979, Iranian radicals had overrun the embassy and briefly held the staff hostage before the Iranian government intervened to secure release of the Americans.

Carter feared a repeat of the crisis. Already the United States was deeply unpopular with the Islamic revolution because of the CIA’s history of meddling in Iranian affairs. The U.S. spy agency had helped organize the overthrow of an elected nationalist government in 1953 and arranged the restoration of the Shah and the Pahlavi family to the Peacock Throne.

In the quarter century that followed, the Shah kept his opponents at bay through the coercive powers of his secret police, known as the SAVAK. >>>cont

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LOST HISTORY REVISITED:
The Bushes & the Truth About Iran -->