moldyoldy wrote:
The real crime was Reagan making a deal to keep the hostages until after the election.
The October Surprise conspiracy theory was a fabrication.
The investigative journalism TV series Frontline produced a 1991 documentary which "investigated startling new evidence about how both the Carter and Reagan camps may have tried to forge secret deals for the Iranian hostages during the 1980 presidential campaign.
Gary Sick wrote an editorial for The New York Times in April 1991, and a book (October Surprise: America's Hostages in Iran and the Election of Ronald Reagan), published in November 1991, on the subject. Sick's credibility was boosted by the fact that he was a retired naval captain, served on Ford's, Carter's, and Reagan's National Security Council. Sick admitted that "The story is tangled and murky, and it may never be fully unraveled." He was unable to prove his claims.
In August 1991, freelance writer Danny Casolaro (among others) claimed to be almost ready to expose the alleged October surprise conspiracy. Casolaro committed suicide before he published anything.
Newsweek magazine conducted an investigation, reporting in November 1991 that most, if not all, of the charges made were groundless.
Steven Emerson and Jesse Furman of The New Republic also looked into the allegations and reported, in November 1991, that "the conspiracy as currently postulated is a total fabrication". They were unable to verify any of the evidence presented by Sick and supporters, finding them to be inconsistent and contradictory in nature. They also pointed out that nearly every witness of Sick's had either been indicted or was under investigation by the Department of Justice. Like the Newsweek investigation, they had also debunked the claims of Reagan election campaign officials being in Paris during the time frame that Sick specified, contradicting Sick's sources.
Retired CIA analyst and counter-intelligence officer Frank Snepp of The Village Voice reviewed Sick's allegations, publishing an article in February 1992. Snepp alleged that Sick had only interviewed half of the sources used in his book, and supposedly relied on hearsay from unreliable sources for large amounts of critical material. Snepp also discovered that Sick had sold the rights to his book to Oliver Stone in 1989. After going through evidence presented by Richard Brenneke, Snepp asserted that Brenneke's credit card receipts showed him to be in Portland, Oregon, during the time he claimed to be in Paris observing the secret meeting.
The US Senate's investigation in November 1992 concluded that "by any standard, the credible evidence now known falls far short of supporting the allegation of an agreement between the Reagan campaign and Iran to delay the release of the hostages."
The House of Representatives' January 1993 report concluded "there is no credible evidence supporting any attempt by the Reagan presidential campaign—or persons associated with the campaign—to delay the release of the American hostages in Iran". The task force Chairman Lee H. Hamilton also added that the vast majority of the sources and material reviewed by the committee were "wholesale fabricators or were impeached by documentary evidence". The report also expressed the belief that several witnesses had committed perjury during their sworn statements to the committee, among them Richard Brenneke, who claimed to be a CIA agent.