Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
Subject: The OCTOBER SURPRISE -- A Quick Introduction (Part 2)
Followup-to: alt.activism,misc.headlines,talk.politics.misc,alt.activism.d


    "The October Surprise theory not only explains why the 52 hostages
    were released the very afternoon Ronald Reagan took his oath as
    President in January 1981 [...] The Congressional hearings into
    the scandal failed to examine why U.S. arms flowed into Iran three
    years before there were either Western hostages [..] or moderates
    in Teheran. [...]  That U.S. arms were made available to Iran in
    the early 1980s in violation of American law is well documented...


    Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh has documented
    that Richard Allen was involved in a similar conspiracy during the
    1968 American presidential election [...]

               =======================================
               T H E   O C T O B E R   S U R P R I S E
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               By John Carnduff and Edward C. Corrigan
                        Z magazine, June, 1991
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Z is an independent, progressive monthly magazine of critical thinking
on political, cultural, social, and economic life in the United
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of personal life as fundamental to understanding and improving
contemporary circumstances; and it aims to assist activist efforts to
attain a better future.
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                     [ C o n t i n u e d . . . ]


Mansour Farhang, who served as Iran's ambassador to the United Nations
during 1980 argued strenuously for the early release of the hostages
and believed a deal was imminent. However, Farhang reports that there
was an extraordinary change in the attitude of the ruling mullahs in
Teheran and that from October 1980 they were no longer afraid of a
Reagan election victory. Farhang at the time wondered what new element
could have changed the stance of the mullahs on a release of the
hostages to Carter.

Abolhasan Bani-Sadr, president of Iran at the time of the hostage
crisis, and who worked towards an early release, also charges that a
secret deal was made over the fate of the hostages that undercut both
his authority and that of President Carter.

John Anderson, who ran as an independent in the 1980 U.S. presidential
election said he was approached by Iranians offering to release the
hostages to him as president in exchange for munitions. Anderson
reported these overtures to the Carter State Department who encouraged
him to keep in contact and report back.

Richard Allen also has admitted to meeting Iranians in Washington in
the first two weeks of October 1980. Allen was offered an arms for
hostage deal but claims to have forgotten with whom it was he met, the
specifics of the conversation and the notes he made. Allen did not
report this meeting to the State Department.

President Carter has also stated that his Administration had received
"reports since late summer 1980 about Reagan campaign officials
dealing with Iranians concerning delayed release of the American
hostages."

Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh has documented that
Richard Allen was involved in a similar conspiracy during the 1968
American presidential election. At the time President Johnson was
desperately trying to get peace talks underway to end the Vietnam War
and thereby improve the election chances of the Democratic
presidential candidate Hubert Humphrey. According to Hersh, Allen and
the Nixon campaign team promised the Thieu regime in Saigon a better
deal if they killed the peace talks and sabotaged the Democratic
campaign. Thieu withdrew from the talks.

The October Surprise theory not only explains why the 52 hostages were
released the very afternoon Ronald Reagan took his oath as President in
January 1981 but also addresses many questions left lingering from the
Iran/Contra scandal and the testimony of Oliver North. The
Congressional hearings into the scandal failed to examine why U.S.
arms flowed into Iran three years before there were either Western
hostages held by Shiite militias in Lebanon or moderates in Teheran
with whom the Reagan administration could expect to improve relations.

That U.S. arms were made available to Iran in the early 1980s in
violation of American law is well documented.  An Argentine turbo-prop
plane crashed along the Turkish-Soviet frontier on July 18, 1981,
laden with American arms en route from Israel to Iran.

Ariel Sharon, then Israeli defense minister, disclosed to the
Washington Post in 1982, that, with the knowledge of senior American
administration officials, Israel had shipped arms to Teheran. Moshe
Arens, then Israeli ambassador to the United States has confirmed
these statements. It was also reported in the Washington Post at the
start of the Iran/Contra scandal in November 1986 that Secretary of
State Alexander Haig had approved the sale of $10 to $15 milliion
worth of arms to Iran via Israel in early 1981.

Given the importance of the allegations surrounding the October
Surprise and the implications for the U.S. political system and the
American judiciary and the fact that the information comes from a wide
range of sources, the silence on this explosive issue raises
disturbing questions. This failure says as much about the North
American media and U.S. legal system as it does about the men who
control the levers of power in Washington.  (Z)