The Jerusalem Post reported that Emerson has "close ties to Israeli intelligence." And "Victor Ostrovsky, who defected from Israel's Mossad intelligence agency and has written books disclosing its secrets, calls Emerson 'the horn' -- because he trumpets Mossad claims," Sugg reported.
Besides Emerson's cozy relationship with task force deputy counsel Zeldin, Zeldin's boss, chief counsel Lawrence Barcella, was a close personal friend of another influential neocon, Michael Ledeen, who was linked to the October Surprise mystery in the secret draft report prepared by Barcella's staff.
However, after speaking with Ledeen, Barcella deleted references to his friend from the final report, the one that was issued publicly. [See Consortiumnews.com's "October Surprise Crystal Ball."]
Barcella also was the person inside the task force who apparently decided to withhold the damning Russian report from task force chairman Lee Hamilton.
Conflicts
In other words, a key "journalist" who supposedly debunked the October Surprise investigation is now recognized as something of a Likud propagandist, and the two lead investigators for the task force allowed neoconservative friends to influence the course of the inquiry.
However, even as Likud operatives and allies worked to derail any serious investigation, one top Likud official was more forthcoming.
In 1993, I took part in an interview with former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir in Tel Aviv during which he said he had read Gary Sick's 1991 book, October Surprise, which made the case for believing that the Republicans had intervened in the 1980 hostage negotiations to disrupt Carter's reelection.
With the topic raised, one interviewer asked, "What do you think? Was there an October Surprise?"
"Of course, it was," Shamir responded without hesitation. "It was." Later in the interview, Shamir, who succeeded Begin as prime minister in the 1980s, seemed to regret his frankness and tried to backpedal on his answer, but his confirmation remained a startling moment.
The current knock on the October Surprise story is that it's now ancient history and that it's wrong to dig up unpleasant facts about the late President Ronald Reagan, who has become an icon on the Right and whose 100th birthday was lavishly celebrated in February with hagiographic documentaries and near-universal praise.
Further, Jimmy Carter is now held in disdain by many Washington insiders, considered a "failed president." In other words, the prevailing view is that things worked out just fine in replacing Carter with Reagan no matter how it was done and it makes no sense to rehash any of this unpleasantness.
However, there is another way to read the history: If Carter had freed the hostages and won a second term, the United States might have continued on a path toward alternative energy, the federal deficit would not have soared as it did under Reagan, and deregulation of corporations would not have opened the environment and the financial sector to such dangers.
Further, the United States might not have embarked on a massive military buildup or engaged in the aggressive intelligence operations that went with it. And, Israel might have been pushed into an equitable peace with its Palestinian neighbors three decades ago, rather than pursuing a settlement policy that now makes such an agreement close to impossible.
Possibly even more important, if the sabotaging of Carter's reelection in 1980 had failed or at least if it had been exposed in the 1990s, the United States might now enjoy a much healthier democracy -- based on hard truths, not comforting illusions.
A serious investigation also might have resolved Jimmy Carter's continuing doubts about how his presidency ended.
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