House OKs Panel to Investigate ‘October Surprise’

The House voted Wednesday to create a special task force to investigate charges that officials of Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign secretly conspired with Iran to delay the release of American hostages to ensure the defeat of Jimmy Carter.

The 217-192 vote, largely along party lines, climaxed months of bitter wrangling--and a rancorous debate on Wednesday--in which each side accused the other of using the emotion-charged issue to play election-year partisan politics.

Approval came after the House defeated, 249 to 158, a GOP proposal that would have broadened the probe to include Carter’s dealings with Iran in an effort to free the hostages and limited the task force to spending no more than six months and $300,000 on the case.

Democrats argued that the restrictions would have hobbled the panel even before the inquiry began. Once approved, the inquiry will be conducted by a 13-member bipartisan task force headed by Rep. Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.), former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

The allegations, which had been circulating for years but never were substantiated, were given new life last April when Gary Sick, a former Carter Administration national security official, said that his personal investigation had convinced him that there was need for a formal inquiry.

Last month, former Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher, who was the Carter Administration’s chief negotiator with Iran on the hostage issue, added his voice to those calling for an investigation.

The core of the charge is an account by a self-described Iranian arms-dealer named Jamshid Hashemi that William J. Casey, then chairman of the Reagan campaign, met twice in Madrid with Iranian officials during the summer of 1980 and struck a deal on the hostage issue.

According to the allegations, the arrangement called for Iran to delay releasing the 52 American hostages taken at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in exchange for a promise that Reagan, as President, would sell Iran the U.S.-made military spare parts it needed to wage its war with Iraq.

The case is widely known as the “October Surprise” because key Reagan campaign aides were said to have feared that Carter might be able to win freedom for the hostages in the month before the November elections and ensure his own reelection.

Casey’s widow, other Casey associates and spokesmen for Reagan all have denied that any such meetings occurred.

Times staff writer Doyle McManus contributed to this article.