#OctoberSurprise
20 entries tagged OctoberSurprise.
People (15)
- Alexandre de Marenches Alexandre de Marenches (1921-1995) served as SDECE director from 1970 to 1981, organized the Safari Club anti-Soviet intelligence alliance, and whose co-author David Andelman testified that de Marenches had told him off the record of arranging an alleged October Surprise Paris meeting between William Casey and Iranian representatives.
- Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was a senior Iranian cleric and politician who served as Speaker of Parliament during the Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages negotiations, where he is identified as the principal Iranian official who publicly broke the story in November 1986; he later served as President of Iran 1989-1997 and is a central figure in the October Surprise and Iran-Contra subjects.
- Ari Ben-Menashe Ari Ben-Menashe is an Iranian-born Israeli-Canadian who describes himself as a former military-intelligence official and became a recurring source for claims about U.S.-Israeli arms dealing, the October Surprise, PROMIS, Robert Maxwell, and Jeffrey Epstein, claims repeatedly found uncorroborated and, by a congressional task force, not credible.
- Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was the Shia cleric who led Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, overthrew Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and served as the Islamic Republic's first Supreme Leader until his death in 1989; his government's hostage-taking and arms dealings made him a central figure in the Iran-Contra and October Surprise controversies.
- Barbara Honegger Barbara Honegger was a Reagan White House policy analyst who resigned in 1983 and subsequently published the 1989 book October Surprise, one of the first detailed published accounts alleging that the Reagan campaign secretly negotiated with Iran in 1980 to delay the release of American hostages.
- Ben Barnes Ben Barnes served as Texas Speaker of the House (1965-1969) and Lieutenant Governor (1969-1973) and in March 2023 publicly disclosed that he accompanied John Connally on a 1980 Middle East trip at which Connally urged Arab leaders to counsel Iran to delay the hostage release until after the election.
- Danny Casolaro Joseph Daniel Casolaro (1947-1991) was a freelance journalist whose investigation into the PROMIS software scandal expanded into a unified theory of an intelligence-criminal network he called 'The Octopus,' found dead in a Martinsburg, West Virginia hotel room on August 10, 1991, with both wrists slashed twelve times in a death officially ruled suicide.
- Donald Gregg Donald Gregg (1927-2021) was a CIA career officer who served as National Security Adviser to Vice President George H.W. Bush (1982-1989), was accused by Richard Brenneke of attending October Surprise Paris meetings (which he denied), and whose aide Felix Rodriguez ran Contra resupply from El Salvador.
- Earl Brian Earl Brian was a California physician, businessman, and Reagan cabinet official who served alongside Edwin Meese and was named by INSLAW, Michael Riconosciuto, and the House Judiciary Committee as the alleged central figure in the theft and international distribution of the PROMIS software.
- George H.W. Bush Vice President under Reagan and 41st U.S. President who dealt with Israel's nuclear program, the VELA incident, and sanctions discussions after Osirak bombing, while simultaneously overseeing anti-drug efforts as Contra-connected drug traffickers operated with impunity.
- Mehdi Karrubi Mehdi Karrubi was an Iranian cleric and senior political figure who served as Speaker of the Iranian Parliament (1989-1992, 2000-2004) and later claimed that he had knowledge of negotiations between the Reagan campaign and Iranian representatives in 1980 that delayed the hostage release; he was later placed under house arrest following the 2009 Green Movement.
- Richard Babayan Richard Babayan was a CIA contract operative and arms broker who received a reported $6 million from Earl Brian on behalf of Hadron, Inc. and who appeared in overlapping accounts of the PROMIS software scandal, October Surprise allegations, and Robert Maxwell's Australian operations.
- Richard Brenneke Portland-based arms dealer and self-described CIA contract agent who claimed to have attended the October 1980 October Surprise Paris meetings, was indicted for perjury in 1989 and acquitted in 1990, and served as a document source for Danny Casolaro’s Octopus investigation.
- Ronald Reagan 40th President of the United States who authorized CIA operations in Nicaragua, oversaw the Contra war and the secret drug-crimes reporting exemption, while simultaneously prosecuting the War on Drugs.
- William J. Casey William J. Casey was Reagan's 1980 campaign manager and CIA Director from 1981 to 1987 who, among other disputed roles, is alleged to have secretly negotiated with Iranian representatives in Madrid and Paris in 1980 to delay the release of American hostages past Election Day -- the core allegation of the October Surprise -- and who died of a brain tumor in May 1987 as the Iran-Contra scandal unfolded.
Events (3)
- Hashemi Sting The Hashemi Sting was a 1986 U.S. Customs undercover operation targeting illegal arms sales to Iran, prosecuted by U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani's Southern District of New York office, which resulted in indictments of arms dealers including former Israeli general Avraham Bar-Am; it intersected directly with the Iran-Contra network and the October Surprise investigations, and its key informant Cyrus Hashemi died in London under disputed circumstances shortly after the sting concluded.
- October Surprise The October Surprise allegation holds that William J. Casey and other figures in Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign secretly negotiated with Iranian representatives to delay the release of 52 American hostages past Election Day in exchange for promises of arms and release of frozen Iranian assets, with the hostages released minutes after Reagan was sworn in on January 20, 1981.
- PROMIS Software Scandal The INSLAW Affair was a protracted legal and political scandal arising from allegations that the U.S. Department of Justice stole the PROMIS case management software from its developer, drove the company into bankruptcy, and distributed the software internationally, with intelligence agencies reportedly embedding a surveillance backdoor.
Places (2)
- Paris Paris is the capital of France and a key geographic node in this vault: the claimed site of October Surprise meetings between Reagan campaign officials and Iranian representatives in 1980, a hub for Middle Eastern arms brokering and intelligence back-channels, and the city where Ayatollah Khomeini spent his final months of exile before the Iranian Revolution.
- Tehran Tehran is the capital of Iran and the site of the November 4, 1979 seizure of the U.S. Embassy, triggering the 444-day hostage crisis that anchors the October Surprise allegations, as well as the political center from which the Islamic Republic directed the arms-for-hostages negotiations that became the Iran-Contra affair.