October 29, 2006 at 08:57:08

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Original October Surprise (Part 3)

By Robert Parry (about the author)     Page 12 of 13 page(s)

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A French arms dealer, Nicholas Ignatiew, told me in 1990 that he had checked with his government contacts and was told that Republicans did meet with Iranians in Paris in mid-October 1980.

A well-connected French investigative reporter Claude Angeli said his sources inside the French secret service confirmed that the service provided "cover" for a meeting between Republicans and Iranians in France on the weekend of October 18-19. German journalist Martin Kilian had received a similar account from a top aide to the fiercely anti-communist chief of French intelligence, Alexandre deMarenches.

During the final weeks of the House Task Force investigation in 1992, another witness came forward: the biographer for deMarenches, the legendary leader of France's Service de Documentation Exterieure et de Contre-Espionage (SDECE).

The biographer, David Andelman, an ex-New York Times and CBS News correspondent, testified that while working with deMarenches on the book, the spymaster said he had helped the Reagan-Bush campaign arrange meetings with Iranians about the hostage issue in the summer and fall of 1980, with one meeting held in Paris in October.

Andelman said deMarenches ordered that the secret meetings be kept out of his memoirs because the story could otherwise damage the reputations of his friends, William Casey and George H.W. Bush.

DeMarenches "thought the world of Casey and Bush, and never wanted anything to come out that would hurt Bush's chances for reelection [in 1992] or Casey's legacy," Andelman told me in an interview.

Andelman said that when he again raised the issue of Bush's alleged participation in the Paris meetings during a 1992 book promotion tour, deMarenches refused to discuss it, responding: "I don't want to hurt my friend, George Bush."

The Weapons Flow

While the Republicans have long denied the claims of a Paris meeting and an October Surprise deal, there is no doubt that military hardware was soon heading to Iran and that some of the principals in the hostage intrigue were active in the shipments.

Back in New York, with the FBI listening in, Cyrus Hashemi began work with Republicans lining up arms shipments to Iran, including parts for helicopter gun ships and night-vision goggles for pilots.

The FBI wiretap summary also contained references to Cyrus Hashemi facing accusations at home that he had been duplicitous about the hostage issue. On Oct. 22, 1980, the FBI bugs caught Hashemi's wife, Houma, scolding her husband for his denials that he had discussed the hostages with a prominent Iranian. "It is not possible to be a double agent and have two faces," Houma warned Cyrus.

On Oct. 23, the FBI listened in on John Shaheen using one of the bugged phones in Hashemi's Manhattan office to brief a European associate, Dick Gaedecke, on the latest hostage developments.

On Oct. 24, an FBI agent wrote down another cryptic note from the wiretaps indicating that Cyrus Hashemi may have had ties to Ronald Reagan himself. Using Cyrus Hashemi's initials, the FBI's notation read: "CH-banking business about Reagan overseas corp."

Meanwhile, back in Europe, a French-Israeli arms shipment to Iran was under way. Iranian arms merchant Ahmed Heidari said he had approached deMarenches in September 1980 to seek help getting weapons for the Iranian military, which was then battling the Iraqi army in Khuzistan province.

Heidari said deMarenches put him in touch with a French middleman, Yves deLoreilhe, who facilitated the arms shipment. The flight left France on Oct. 23, stopped in Tel Aviv to load 250 tires for U.S.-built F-4 fighters, returned to France to add spare parts for M-60 tanks, before going to Teheran on Oct. 24. When Carter learned of the shipment, he protested to Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin.

On Nov. 4, 1980, one year to the day after the Iranian militants seized the U.S. Embassy in Teheran, Ronald Reagan routed Jimmy Carter in the U.S. presidential elections. Reagan carried 44 states for a total of 489 electoral votes, with Carter claiming only six states and the District of Columbia for 49 electoral votes.

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