The Original October Surprise
Former AP and Newsweek reporter Robert Parry with a series adapted from his recent book Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq.
To the shock of the Task Force, the six-page Russian report stated, as fact, that Casey, Bush, CIA officials and other Republicans had met secretly with Iranian officials in Europe during the 1980 presidential campaign.The Russians depicted the hostage negotiations that year as a two-way competition between the Carter White House and the Reagan-Bush campaign to outbid one another for Iran's cooperation on the hostages.
The Russians asserted that the Reagan-Bush team indeed had disrupted Carter's hostage negotiations, the exact opposite of the Task Force's conclusion.