“Yes, there have been appeasers in the past, and the president is exactly right, and one of them is Neville Chamberlain,'’ Mr. McCain told reporters on his campaign bus after a speech in Columbus, Ohio. “I believe that it’s not an accident that our hostages came home from Iran when President Reagan was president of the United States. He didn’t sit down in a negotiation with the religious extremists in Iran, he made it very clear that those hostages were coming home.'’
In 1980, Saint Ronnie sent George H. W. Bush to arrange a deal with the Iranians to keep the hostages until after the November elections. We knew about this at the time, because the president of Iran told the world about it shortly after he went into exile.
The hostages were formally released into United States custody on January 20, 1981, just minutes after Saint Ronnie was sworn in.