Reed Irvine - Editor
New evidence that the so-called "October Surprise" is utter nonsense has surfaced since the August 6 announcement that the Senate and House would conduct separate investigations of the charge that the 1980 Reagan campaign struck a deal with Iran to delay the release of the American hostages until after the 1980 election. Accuracy in Media has obtained documents that show that William J. Casey, Edwin Meese III, Richard V. Allen and other top officials of the 1980 Reagan campaign had no knowledge of any secret deal with Iran to delay the release of the hostages.
Mrs. William J. Casey gave us copies of documents written during the last weeks of the 1980 presidential campaign and in the transition period between Reagan's election and inauguration that show clearly that there was no effort on the part of the Reagan team to interfere in the on-going official negotiations for the release of the hostages and certainly no deal to delay the release. Sophia Casey is justifiably tired of the He's being told about her husband, who can no longer defend himself. These Reagan campaign and transition team documents show that immediately before the 1980 election and for weeks thereafter William Casey and other top Reagan aides were deeply concerned about what might be done to get the hostages freed. None of these documents, including one marked "sensitive/ secret," gives the slightest hint that these officials had any understanding with Iranian officials to delay the release of the hostages until after the election. Nor was there any sign that they believed, either before or after the election, that the early release of the hostages was a foregone conclusion, although they reflect deep suspicion that Jimmy Carter himself would try to strike a deal to get the hostages freed in late October in an effort to sway the voters.
One important paper makes it clear that the campaign officials felt that President Carter alone was in a position to negotiate on the hostages and that Reagan was making clear to Iran that it would not get better terms from a Reagan administration.
Mrs. Casey's release of these documents came as the Village Voice, a New York weekly that has been a proponent of the October Surprise theory, demolished the credibility of Richard Brenneke, one of the main sources of the claim that top Reagan campaign officials, including George Bush and William J. Casey, had met with Iranian negotiators in Europe prior to the 1980 election. Brenneke, a Portland, Oregon businessman, had claimed to have been a participant in some of these meetings and to have personal knowledge of the presence of Bush, Casey and Donald Gregg at a meeting in Paris on October 19-20, 1980. The Village Voice, which had done a long cover-story on Brenneke in July titled "October Surprise Mystery Man," was forced by documentary evidence that had been brought to its attention to admit that Brenneke was an imaginative liar, a Walter Mitty type who excelled at spinning fantastic, detailed stories of an adventurous life that was in sharp contrast with the reality of his prosaic existence in Portland, Oregon.
A third blow to the October Surprise case came in an op- ed article in The New York Times on August 28 by Manucher Ghorbanifar, the Iranian arms dealer who achieved notoriety for his role in the Reagan administration's secret sale of arms to Iran. Ghorbanifar revealed that Mehdi Karrubi, the Iranian who Gary Sick thinks negotiated the delay in the hostage release with William Casey in meetings in Madrid and Paris, told the Iranian news agency on July 28 that he had never been outside of Iran before 1982. Ghorbanifar pointed out that Karrubi held a very low position in the Shiite hierarchy in 1980, that he held "fanatical anti-Western, anti- American beliefs," and would never have been entrusted with such a delicate mission as the hostage negotiations. Bezhad Nabavi, who headed the Iranian team that negotiated the hostage release, had told the Iranian press last April that Karrubi had nothing to do with the negotiations and that they had bogged down prior to the election because the Carter administration feared the terms of the settlement would become an election issue.
The New York Times, which had carried a prominent news story about Gary Sick's column pushing the October Surprise, did not run a news story about Ghorbanifar's column refuting Sick. Nor did it report Nabavi's denial of Karrubi's involvement in the negotiations and his explanation of why they got bogged down. The Associated Press distributed the Nabavi story. Nor has the Times run a word about the Casey papers or the debunking of Richard Brenneke. This is difficult to excuse, especially in view of the important role the Times played in promoting the charges, which these stories refute.
One of the Reagan campaign memos released by Mrs. Casey notes that on four earlier occasions in 1980, during the Democrat primaries in Iowa, Maine, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin, Carter had dropped dramatic hints of hostage developments. As the memo noted, "The night before the [Wisconsin] primary, Carter personally called every network anchorman to give them an advance notice of a statement he would issue the very morning of the primary" that the radicals who had seized the hostages were turning them over to the Iranian government. Carter went on the air at 7:00 a.m. on primary morning. As the campaign memo noted, "The hostages remained captive but Jimmy Carter hyped his vote some 10 points to defeat Teddy Kennedy."
With the Carter campaign foundering in October 1980, Reagan's people expected another cynical ploy. The memo noted, "For weeks the press and public have been teased mercilessly with news breakthroughs and curious 'leaks.' The negotiations for the hostages' release was being done 'in public' not through 'quiet diplomacy.' The see-saw news has been coincidental to Carter's gradual recovery in the polls."
A confidential staff memo written to Ed Meese, dated October 19, 1980, shows that the Reagan team was expecting Carter to reach an agreement for the release of the hostages any day. This was the day that George Bush, William Casey and others were supposed to have met with the Iranians in Paris to put the finishing touches on the deal to delay the hostage release. The memo said, "The negotiations will conclude when the Iranians feel they have reached the point at which the cost of further delay is greater than the benefits to be expected from additional concessions. This will depend upon: (1) the events in the Iran-Iraq War, as they relate to Iran's ability to continue fighting; (2) the perceived firmness of Carter's negotiating posture; and (3) the prospect of Reagan's election." It predicted that the Iranians would try to get written commitments on nine demands, or as many as Carter would agree to, in order "to bind whoever is elected after November 4th." The memo recommended that Reagan should "note that there are increasing signs that the hostages' release may be imminent" and that he "greet this news cautiously but favorably." It also said that he should "insist that the U.S. not complete any deals or trades until all our people are home and the conditions are made public."
A memo to Reagan from Casey dated November 2, two days before the election, discussed what Carter could do to meet Iranian demands for freeing their frozen assets here and abroad. The memo pointed out how costly it could be for the U.S. government because of the legal liability for satisfying billions of dollars of private claims against Iran. Casey noted, "in short, such a deal would amount to the deferred payment of ransom of an undetermined amount which would certainly run into several billions." He said the political cost would be enormous and concluded, "I therefore expect Carter to project a show of strength and protect the dignity and honor of the United States by rejecting these demands as outrageous." While Casey viewed the Iranian demands as unacceptable and hoped Carter would feel the same way, the secretary who was working with him on Sunday, November 2, says Casey was so nervous that she asked one of his advisers, F. Clifton White, to come in and "hold his hand."
These documents make it clear that Casey and other top Reagan campaign officials understood the complexity of the hostage negotiations and the impropriety and danger of their interfering prior to Reagan's assuming office. They also show that the Reagan transition team was prepared to back up Carter if he could get Iran to accept a reasonable offer. They also wanted the Iranians to know that they could not expect better terms from Reagan.
A draft by Casey of a letter dated October 27, evidently intended to be sent by Reagan to some unnamed person in the Carter administration, said that "the responsibility to take the steps necessary to achieve that [the hostages' release] belongs to the President. Nobody else can be sure he has the information and the means which that task requires, nor can anyone else be sure [that] what he might do or suggest might not be counterproductive and interfere with the proper application of our national resources to that task." It added, "In order to be supportive of your efforts I have stated publicly that if I find the proposal which came from Iran several weeks ago acceptable, I would implement any commitment you made with respect to those proposals and make it clear to the Iranians that it would not be advantageous to them to defer the release of the hostages in the hope of getting better terms from a new administration."
This draft letter outlined several very tough measures that should be taken if the hostages were not released before the election, including a possible naval blockade.
It concluded, "I want to make it clear that I believe it should be possible to secure the release of the hostages through the diplomatic and economic means but we should never release the Iranian leaders of anxiety that more forceful steps could become necessary."
During the transition period between the election and the inauguration the hostage question continued to be of deep concern to the Reagan staff. The emphasis was still on getting the hostages released as quickly as possible and doing nothing that would undercut the ongoing negotiations between the Carter officials and the Iranians.
On January 6, 1981, a "sensitive/secret" staff memo to Richard V. Allen, Reagan's foreign affairs adviser, tackled the question of what should be done if the hostages were not freed prior to Reagan's inauguration. It suggested warning the Iranians that the last offer made by the Carter administration was a non- negotiable final offer that would expire in 30 days or telling them that the offer had already expired. It noted that the options available included tightening the economic embargo on Iran, declaring a state of belligerency and attempting another rescue mission.
Our official negotiators finally reached an agreement on January 19, the day before Reagan's inauguration. The Iranians settled for less than they could have obtained prior to the election, probably because they had gotten the message that Reagan would be tougher than Carter.
Mrs. Casey's release of the documents came at the same time the Village Voice, a left-wing weekly that has pushed the October Surprise story, had to admit that one of the principal sources for the charges was a real-life Walter Mitty, a spinner of tall tales. In its September 10 issue, the Voice ran a four-page story demolishing the credibility of Richard Brenneke, a Portland, Oregon realtor who had held himself out to be a first-hand witness of many October Surprise meetings. Most crucially, Brenneke claimed to have attended meetings in Paris on October 19-20, 1980 when, he claimed, George Bush, William Casey, and Donald Gregg (then a CIA official, now ambassador to Korea) all met with Iranian negotiators to wrap up the deal to keep the hostages until after the election.
Brenneke was indicted for perjury for making those claims in a Denver court proceeding. When cross- examined during his trial, to the amazement of his own attorney, Brenneke said he hadn't believed those statements when he made them. A confused jury nevertheless acquitted him -- a verdict that October Surprise supporters, including Gary Sick, thereafter cited as evidence of his credibility. Although Brenneke wasn't cited by name in the now-infamous Gary Sick article, he appeared as a key interviewee on a companion PBS "October Surprise" documentary that aired the next evening. And when Sick was interviewed by Dick Caver on CNBC on April 27, he said he had been struck by the fact that Brenneke had been tried for perjury for saying that he had seen George Bush and Donald Gregg at the meetings in Paris, and, he said, "The government could not prove to the satisfaction of 12 ordinary Americans that George Bush was not in Paris, that Casey was not in Paris and that Don Gregg was not in Paris." He added, "I'd like to see the campaign records opened up."
Exploiting his celebrity, Brenneke hired Peggy Adler Robohm to help him research and write a book. She started off thinking Brenneke was telling the truth and was a great patriot. He gave her a lengthy chronology of his reputed October Surprise involvement, and a box of papers, which contained his credit card charges, a personal calendar and a "Day timer" diary. When Robohm began checking the chronology against the other records, according to the Voice, she found howling inconsistencies. When she brought these to Brenneke's attention, he fired her. She took the material to Frank Snepp, who wrote a cover story for the Village Voice headlined, "BRENNEKE EXPOSED."
According to Brenneke's own records, his account of his activities during the election summer of 1980 is a concoction. Here are his claims, and what Snepp and Robohm discovered to be the truth:
July 28-August 6: Brenneke claims to have been in Madrid for meetings at the Plaza Hotel with Casey, CIA officer Robert Gates and others, to discuss the hostages. [Gates has now been nominated as director of central intelligence.] Brenneke also says he later went to Marbella, Spain for other talks. The Voice reveals that Brenneke's American Express records show he charged restaurant meals in the Portland area on July 28 and 29 and August 4. He used his Master Card for other dinners around Portland on August 3 and 5 and for a gasoline purchase. His Daytime entries show him doing real estate business in Portland "on virtually every day of this period," Snepp wrote.
August 17-23: Brenneke claims to have been in Hamburg meeting with Iranian, German and Swiss representatives to discuss using NATO depots to get arms for Iran. But as Snepp reports, he used his credit card for 12 purchases in the Portland area those days. A bill shows him receiving physical therapy for a bad back on August 21, an appointment verified by his Day timer and desk diary.
August 30-31: Brenneke claims to have been in Zurich to arrange financing for the hostage release deal; because of the "oppressive heat" the meeting adjourned to "beautiful Lake Luzern." Brenneke's Master Card records show him buying meals in the Portland area on both days; his diary notes a 3.2-mile bike ride for exercise.
October 19: Brenneke claims to have been in Paris for the climactic meeting in the Hotel Florida where the hostage-release-delay deal was finalized. He says he "hosted" a meeting for Casey, Donald Gregg, and representatives of Iran, the Palestine Liberation Organization, Saudi Arabia, Israel, France and Germany.
Brenneke's records show that he was in Seattle beginning Oct. 17 for a judo tournament. He used his American Express card to check out of the Century House Motor Motel the morning of October 19 and Master Card later for a $5.50 car wash near the hotel. The same day credit cards bought him lunch in Olympia, Washington and dinner in Portland.
Summarizing this paper trail of deceit, Snepp wrote, "The bursting of Brenneke's bubble not only casts a pall over one of the most controversial characters in the October Surprise pantheon, a man who has constantly regaled the press, congressional staffers, and the courts with tales of gunrunning and derring-do. It also raises serious questions about aspects of the October Surprise scenario itself, since Brenneke has been a fertile source of allegations about how Bush, Gregg and Reagan campaign chief William Casey secretly bargained with the Iranians in mid-1980 to head off an early hostage release that might have reassured Jimmy Carter's reelection."
Frank Snepp, a former CIA officer, worked on special assignments for ABC News in 1988. He interviewed Brenneke and found him credible. He called him "the closest thing we had to Deep Throat in the Iran-contra affair." Snepp's work resulted in two World News Tonight segments on April 7 and May 16 in which Brenneke claimed to have been smuggling drugs into the U.S. as part of an arms supply deal for the Nicaraguan resistance. Brenneke, who claimed to be working under Donald Gregg, who was then the national security adviser to Vice President Bush, said he told Gregg about the drug smuggling. He said Gregg replied, "Never mind. You are not to worry about or concern yourself with the movement of drugs. That's not your business...."
Frank Snepp now admits that Brenneke deceived him in those interviews. He says the new information about Brenneke "inevitably undercut the credibility of everything he touched." Snepp continues: "Nor can anyone who helped him onto the public soapbox pretend that it was all a painless, cost-free mistake. Donald Gregg has indicated that the ABC broadcasts probably helped sink his own prospects of becoming CIA director. Certainly Brenneke's continued finger wagging has kept Gregg in the forefront of October Surprise speculation."
ABC News owes an apology to Donald Gregg, who is now our ambassador to Korea. AIM fought hard to get ABC to retract its slander of Gregg in 1988 and 1989. Two different ABC News "ombudsmen," Robert Siegenthaler and Walter Porges, ignored our evidence that Brenneke was a liar. Siegenthaler wrote, "We have found the evidence he provided us over the past several months to be generally accurate and verifiable." Walter Porges, Siegenthaler's successor, said the fact that Brenneke had lied to others didn't mean that he had lied to ABC News. Thomas Murphy, the chairman of CapCities/ABC, chose to stand by his staff. They didn't deserve the confidence he placed in them.
Some other journalists who were gulled by Brenneke's lies should also reexamine their work. Reporter Pete Brewton of the Houston Post used Brenneke as a named source in a multi-part series in which he claimed that the CIA was behind the savings and loan collapse. Brenneke is also a darling of two radical journalists who are pushing the October Surprise theory in interviews and at conferences: Joel Bleifuss of In These Times and Christopher Hitchens of The Nation. We'll be curious to see if any of these reporters are honest enough to inform their readers that they've been fed massive doses of disinformation in past years. (More likely, they will now switch gears and claim that Brenneke is a "CIA plant" who gave bum information to help cover up the truth.)
While the House and Senate prepare to spend a million dollars or more to investigate the October Surprise charges, most of the media, including The New York Times, which dragged the October Surprise out of the bogs of leftist political paranoia with its Gary Sick article, have failed to give the public the facts presented in this report. There is nothing unusual about Congress wasting our money. We don't like it, but this would not be happening if those in the media who have done the most to push the October Surprise smear, especially ABC News, PBS and The New York Times, would give the facts that expose the smear as much attention as they gave the lies.
Send the enclosed post cards or your own letters to Daniel Burke, CEO of Capital Cities/ABC; Max Frankel, executive editor of The New York Times; and Robert MacNeil of the PBS MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour.
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AIM Report, NOTES FROM THE EDITOR'S CUFF By Reed Irvine, September-B 1991
HOUSE SPEAKER TOM FOLEY IS STILL DEFENDING HIS NAMING RON DELLUMS AND David Bonior, two of the far left Democrats in the House, to the House Intelligence Committee. In a letter to AIM member John Hed dated September 5, Foley denies that Dellums and Bonior are security risks. He says of Dellums, "There has never been a complaint about his ability to keep secrets during...his 18 years on the (Armed Services) Committee." He adds, "Similarly David Bonior has served in the Democratic leadership for years as the Chief Deputy Whip, a post that has brought him access to both classified information and sensitive briefings. He has always composed himself in the most responsible fashion in protecting what he learned thereby."
THE NEW YORK TIMES REPORTED ON SEFTEMBER 15 THAT MONITORING OF PHONE calls and meetings of Sandinista officials by our intelligence agencies in the 1980s turned up communications between the Sandinistas and members of Congress and discussions by the Sandinistas of their contacts with Congressmen and their aides. The Times said, "Intelligence officers who supported the Administration's policies considered the conversations with the Sandinistas to be damaging breaches of national security, if not treasonous." "At one point," it said, "some Administration officials proposed that members of Congress or their aides be prosecuted." The Times story said that intelligence reports had been collected on the activities of David Bonior, "a vocal leader in opposition to contra aid." It said these included meetings that Bonior had with Nicaraguan ambassador Carlos Tunnerman. Bonior told the Times that he had met with Tunnerman several times, usually at the Nicaraguan embassy in Washington. He said that he suspected at times that his conversations might be overheard, but he was never told that the calls or meetings had been monitored. The Times said that our intelligence agencies might have monitored not only calls, but also conversations inside the Nicaraguan embassy. As for Ron Dellums, captured documents in Grenada showed that he had sent a draft of a report prepared for his Armed Forces subcommittee to Grenada to be edited and approved by the communist Bishop government prior to submission to the committee.
DAVID BONIOR IS NOW NOT ONLY ON THE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE, BUT HE IS ALSO the Democratic Chief Whip. I suggest that you write to Speaker Foley and point out that in view of the revelations by The New York Times, it would be wise to get from the intelligence agencies the transcripts of the monitored conversations Bonior had with Ambassador Tunnerman to see if it is true that Bonior "always comported himself in the most responsible fashion." The address is Thomas S. Foley, U.S. House of Representatives, and Washington, D.C. 20515.
PERHAPS WE HAVE GIVEN MORE ATTENTION TO THE SO-CALLED "OCTOBER SURPRISE" allegation that top officials of the 1980 Reagan campaign delayed the release of the hostages--than most people outside the Washington Beltway think it deserves. But the story persists, mainly because our Big Media won't report the facts. Ted Koppel's big effort to show that there could be truth to the charge that William J. Casey was in Madrid on July 27-29, 1980 negotiating the hostage non-release with an Iranian named Mehdi Karmbi left him with egg on his face when it turned out that Casey was in London attending a conference on the history of World War IL But Ted's friends in the media spared him the embarrassment of giving that wide publicity. In this issue we cite several other revelations that should have been reported that have been mostly, if not completely, ignored by Big Media.
THE WASHINGTON INQUIRER, THE WEEKLY PUBLISHED BY OUR SISTER ORGANIZATION, the Council for the Defense of Freedom, was the first to break the story of the Reagan campaign documents that we discuss in this issue. The Washington Times ran a good front-page story the next day. An AP reporter, who saw the Inquirer story, examined the documents in our office and made copies of most of them. She was personally interested, but the AP has not moved a story. The Village Voice expose of Richard Brenneke's massive lying is a great news story. Brenneke conned ABC News, Newsweek, the Village Voice and many other leftist publications plus 12 jurors in Portland, Oregon who found him not guilty of perjury last year. The con was exposed when Brenneke finally let someone see his records, which proved he was in Portland or Seattle on the dates that he had claimed he was meeting with William J. Casey in Paris. A disillusioned Frank Snepp, who three years ago was so impressed with Brenneke's lies that he got him on ABC's "World News Tonight" twice, wrote the article. Sad to say, Snepp's expose hasn't received much attention from other media.
PHIL STANFORD, A COLUMNIST FOR THE PORTLAND OREGONIAN, HAS BEEN A LONG- time supporter of Brenneke. During the perjury trial he wrote an article ridiculing Donald Gregg, George Bush's former national security adviser who was defamed by Brenneke. He accused Gregg of lacking credibility. But now even Stanford has turned on Brenneke; in a September 6 column he suggested he might be "hit for another perjury rap." Stanford thought that wouldn't be a bad idea, but Brenneke apparently will go unpunished for his many years of lying to the press, the public, and even the courts. Thomas O'Rourke, the assistant U.S. attorney who unsuccessfully prosecuted Brenneke last year, would not comment on using the Snepp revelations to indict Brenneke again. Sources at the Justice Department say a repeat prosecution is unlikely because it would look "too political." If the media won't make it clear that Brenneke has been discredited and the government won't prosecute him, the conspiracy theory kooks will probably continue to cite his acquittal last year as proof of his credibility for years to come.
MEA CULPA OF THE MONTH: CARL BLOICE, MOSCOW CORRESPONDENT FOR THE People's Weekly World, in the September 7 issue: "I have lived and worked in Moscow for over four years. The one thing I think I did most poorly was to convey the practical aspects of the existing situation. I've written a lot about the lacks in applying up-to-date achievements in science and technology, but not enough about how that translates into the reality of everyday life.... I could have been clearer about the resentment and cynicism when things did not improve."
I HAVE HEARD FROM SOME OF YOU WHO SAW ME ON THE RON REAGAN SHOW ON THE Fox Network on September 9 with five other panelists Van Gordon Sauter, Sarah McClendon, Daniel Ellsberg, Max Hugel and Donald Segretti. I found the format frustrating, because every time I wanted to rebut something said by Sarah McClendon or Daniel Ellsberg (of Pentagon Papers infamy) we had to break for a commercial. However, the feedback has been favorable. I was able to discuss liberal domination of the media, the refusal of journalists to expose the lies told by Bob Woodward of The Washington Post, the exaggeration of the number of Iraqi civilians killed during the war and the role of Peter Arnett and the harm done by media reporting of the Vietnam War.
ELLSBERG AND I CLASHED IN THE MAKEUP TRAILER BEFORE THE SHOW. I ASKED HIM if he had been demonstrating lately, saying, tongue in cheek, that I thought maybe he would have been helping out over in Moscow. He said he had demonstrated there a couple of years ago. I asked him what causes he demonstrated for, and he said for freedom anywhere. I observed that he hadn't shown much interest in the freedom of the Vietnamese. At that, he flared up, saying that he was interested in freedom for the Vietnamese and that he despised communism. When I suggested that he had given the communists aid and comfort during the war, he went ballistic. In the presence of several women and a young girl, he erupted with unprintable language, denouncing Accuracy in Media and me personally. He said he had never given the enemy any aid and comfort and that to say that he had was to call him a traitor. He said that I better have a smile on my face when I called him a traitor. I mugged a grin for him, and the Reagan staff hustled him away. During the show, Ellsberg proudly told how he and the media exposed lies told by our government about Vietnam, thus helping bring the war to an end. He didn't add that this also helped the communists impose their brutal rule on all of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. I pointed out that lies and bad reporting by the media helped bring about that result.
ANOTHER CBS "60 MINUTES" SCARE HAS CRASHED IN FLAMES. LAST DECEMBER 16 "60 Minutes" did a segment charging that dental amalgam fillings, which have been used for a century, are unsafe, even poisonous, because of their mercury content. The producer had been told his theory was bosh, that less than 50 adverse reactions, all minor, had been traced to amalgams although billions of such fillings have been made. On August 28, a National Institutes of Health panel reported, "there is no scientific information" that amalgams "have significant adverse effect on health." We await a correction from "60 Minutes"-- the same folks who did the bogus Alar story.