News Release

Did the Reagan Campaign Defeat Carter by Colluding with Iran to Hold on to the Hostages?

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The New York Times recently published a lengthy piece about the “October Surprise” allegations: “A Four-Decade Secret: One Man’s Story of Sabotaging Carter’s Re-election.” The piece makes brief mention of the work of Robert Parry, the journalist who uncovered a massive number of documents about the charge that supporters of Ronald Reagan conspired with the Iranian government to keep the U.S. hostages from being free until after the 1980 election, ensuring Carter’s defeat.

NAT PARRY, ndtparry@gmail.com, @natparry

Parry is the editor of American Dispatches: A Robert Parry Reader. He said today: “Decades after allegations initially surfaced of a secret mission by the Reagan campaign to derail Jimmy Carter’s 1980 re-election bid by sabotaging his efforts to free 52 American hostages being held in Iran, the New York Times is finally giving the story the attention it deserves with its report on Ben Barnes’ new claims. While we should welcome the new opportunity to examine the allegations, unfortunately the Times is continuing to perpetuate certain myths about the case, including its claim that ‘congressional investigations debunked previous theories of what happened.’

“In fact, the earlier congressional investigations were geared towards whitewashing the story and used false alibis in its attempt to disprove the October Surprise allegations. These debunking attempts were themselves debunked by my father Robert Parry when in early 1993 he uncovered troves of documents from the 1992 congressional investigation — documents that were never meant to see the light of day.

“These documents included a secret report from the Russian government, which corroborated allegations that the Reagan campaign interfered with Carter’s Iran-hostage negotiations in 1980. He also debunked the alibi of Reagan’s campaign director and later CIA Director, William Casey, who was supposedly at the Bohemian Grove in California when a key meeting was allegedly taking place with Iranians in Madrid.

“No matter how much evidence was produced that poked holes in the official story, the establishment media refused to re-examine the case, and in fact it was largely due to the media’s disinterest in covering this story honestly that my dad launched his independent media project in 1995, including a website [ConsortiumNews.com], newsletter and magazine. The Times’ newfound interest in the story is welcome, but it shouldn’t be forgotten how the media failed the American people at the moment that it mattered most.”

American Dispatches also features a forward by Diane Duston, Robert Parry’s wife, who is also a journalist. Robert Parry’s books include Trick or Treason: The October Surprise Mystery and America’s Stolen Narrative.