Still They Can Find Nothing : Now a House panel says it cannot substantiate the alleged ‘October surprise’ of 1980

The allegation that members of Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign organization conspired with Iran to delay the release of 52 American embassy hostages until after the November election has been found by a House panel to be without credible supporting evidence. This rejection of the so-called October surprise itself comes as no surprise. Last year a Senate committee similarly concluded there was no credible evidence to indicate that the Reagan campaign had tried to get Tehran to stall on freeing the hostages to gain electoral advantage.

And so once again millions of dollars in public money and hundreds of hours of congressional time have been spent to examine a conspiracy theory that, from the very beginning, was based on little more than imaginative speculations and woolly suspicions, buttressed in some cases by the claims of a number of self-styled insiders who were found subsequently to have lied on major points.

The theory, which originated not long after the hostages were released on Inauguration Day in 1981, gained prominence two years ago when it was raised anew by Gary Sick, a former member of President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Council.

In essence it suggested that Reagan campaign representatives cut a deal with Iran, the gist of which was that Tehran could expect favorable future treatment from Washington if it held off on the hostage release until after the election. William J. Casey, later Reagan’s director of Central Intelligence, was supposed to have been the chief go-between. But House investigators, after examining hundreds of relevant phone records, hotel bills, credit card receipts and intelligence reports could find no evidence to support a key claim that Casey had been in a certain place at a certain time where he could have had an opportunity to collude with Iranian representatives. Moreover, an Israeli who was the source for many of the allegations and who said he was present at crucial meetings was found not to have told the truth.

Will the two congressional reports bury once and for all the October surprise allegations? The nature of conspiracy theories is that although they can be put to rest, they never really die, because there will always be those who have motives for resurrecting them. And, to be sure, documented revelations about actual government improprieties over the last 30 years or so have undoubtedly helped foster a climate where even the wildest speculations can gain adherents. Had it actually occurred, the October surprise would have been “little short of treachery,” in the words of the House panel. But exhaustive investigations have found no evidence that it did occur. That is what deserves to be remembered most about this allegation.