Reply #50: October Surprise52 U.S. Hostages bargain

[seemslikeadream]

Los Angeles Times; April 18, 1991
Written by Alexander Cockburn
The central premise, surely correct, is that back in the fall of 1980 an overriding fear of Ronald Reagan's campaign strategists was that President Jimmy Carter would win the release of U.S. hostages held in Iran in time to get them home before the November election and thus triumph in the polls.

Against this possilibity of an "October Surprise," so the theory goes, such Reagan operatives as the late William J. Casey, campaign boss and subsequent head of the CIA, held secret parleys with the Iranians in which a deal was hatched: The hostages would be held till after the election, and in return the new administration would send arms to Tehran.
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=&imgrefurl=http://www.welfarestate.com/irancontra/&h=484&w=600&sz=83&tbnid=Xpg68NZtZuIJ:&tbnh=107&tbnw=132&start=7&prev=/images%3Fq%3DOctober%2BSurprise%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26sa%3DG