October Surprise

October Surprise is the allegation (as well as the title of a 1991 book on the subject by Gary Sick) that representatives of the 1980 Ronald Reagan presidential campaign arranged the Iran-Contra deal well in advance of the 1980 election in which Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter.

Details

Proponents of the theory, such as Barbara Honegger, a researcher and policy analyst with the 1980 Reagan/Bush campaign (interviewed in link), allege that William Casey and other representatives of the Reagan presidential campaign made a deal at two sets of meetings in July and August at the Ritz Hotel in Madrid with Iranians to delay the release of Americans held hostage in Iran until after the November 1980 presidential elections. The idea was that Reagan's opponent, the incumbent President Jimmy Carter, whose team had been negotiating, wouldn't gain a popularity boost (an 'October Surprise') before election day. The allegations included a date-specific allegation that William Casey met with an Iranian cleric in Madrid, Spain, and much of the tardy investigations have centered on whether, at the weekend in question he was actually at a Bohemian Grove retreat in California. Though William Casey was probably in London following the alleged meetings, critical pages of his daybook diary were unaccountably missing when the investigators came to look for them over a decade later.

Related Topics:
William Casey - Bohemian Grove

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Carter was at the time dealing with the Iran hostage crisis and the hostile regime of the Ayatollah Khomeini. Those who assert that a deal was made allege that certain Republicans with CIA connections, including George H. W. Bush, arranged to have the hostages held through October, until Reagan could defeat Carter in early November, and then be released. The hostages were in fact released on the very day of Reagan's inauguration, twenty minutes after his inaugural address.

Related Topics:
Iran hostage crisis - Ayatollah Khomeini - CIA - George H. W. Bush

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Two months earlier, in a campaigning interview, Ronald Reagan had said that he had a "secret plan" involving the hostages. "My ideas require quiet diplomacy," he had responded when pressed, "where you don't have to say what it is you're thinking of doing."

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A 1981 Congressional probe into the Reagan campaign's theft of White House briefing books on the eve of a presidential debate (see Debategate) disclosed that Reagan campaign manager William Casey (later appointed as Director of Central Intelligence in the Reagan administration) was receiving highly classified reports on closely-held Carter administration intelligence on the Carter campaign and the Democratic president's efforts to liberate the hostages.

Related Topics:
White House - Debategate - William Casey - Director of Central Intelligence

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Chronology

• Sep. 22 (1980): Iraq invades Iran.
• Oct. 15–20: Meetings are held in Paris between emissaries of the Reagan-Bush campaign, with Mr. Casey as "key participant," and "high-level Iranian and Israeli representatives."
• Oct. 21: Iran, for reasons not explained, abruptly shifts its position in secret negotiations with the Carter administration and disclaims "further interest in receiving military equipment."
• Oct. 21–23: Israel secretly ships F-4 fighter-aircraft tires to Iran, in violation of the U.S. arms embargo, and Iran disperses the hostages to different locations.