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.

See also

• George Bush family conspiracy theory
• Iran-Contra
• Iran hostage crisis

The issue of an October Surprise first came to light during an investigation by a House of Representatives Subcommittee into how the 1980 Reagan Campaign obtained debate briefing materials of then President Carter. During the investigation, the Subcommittee on Human Resources of the House Post Office and Civil Service Committee obtained access to Reagan Campaign documents and discovered numerous instances of documents and memorandum referencing a monitoring effort for any such October Surprise. The Subcommittee, Chaired by former U.S. Rep. Donald Albosta (D–MI) issued a comprehensive report in 1984 describing each type of information that was detected and its possible source. There is a section in the report dedicated to the October Surprise issue.

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